Oklahoma Seminoles

Mention the name Seminole and most Americans think of the Florida segment of the tribe - Indian men in colorful shirts poling dugouts through the black waters of the Everglades and women sewing patchwork in palmetto-thatched chickees. But another Seminole population, much larger in numbers, lives in the prairie and scrub oak hill country of Oklahoma. Studies of the Oklahoma segment of the tribe have been few, and James H. Howard's objective in writing this book has been to record the richness of Seminole culture in the West, presenting that culture as it is seen and interpreted by its more traditional members in Oklahoma today. Much of the Seminole culture is held in common, but many differences have grown up between the two groups since the ''Trail of Tears'' separated them in the 1830s. This does not necessarily mean greater acculturation to white ways by the Oklahoma Seminoles. In some instances the Oklahomans are the more traditional, in that they retain cultural forms mentioned