death and burial ritual

By : Paula Caceres

Into the Seminole culture there is an important ceremony about the death, the information of this ceremony is reduced; in fact the ceremony varies in each case.

For example when john tiger, an important man in the tribe died, his burial ceremony consist in put the decease body in a casket and then in a canoe and taken to the everglades.
The tribe member in charge of the burial chewed bay leaves and spat and the men who carried the casket, for give them strength and to ward evil spirits.

When they arrived to a specific place, they leave the casket and spat against the bay leaved, but this time spat the casket. At this moment also put near the casket some possession of dead man and leaves the body approximately for thirty days. After this ceremony the body would be carried to the resting deep place.

John tiger’s family leaves their houses, and Mrs. Tiger went to the everglades for 6 weeks. Trough this ceremony the men and women were crying and their hair handing loose.
Other example of this ritual was the dead of a Seminole girl in the entrance of her husband store. The body still in the same place until it was ready for final disposal. The women and boys stay in the place and didn’t do any move, while a medicine man sat near the place and sang and sprinkled all the day.

In the burial ceremony, the Seminoles also put near the decease body food and drink in containers, during three consecutives days by three different people. Nevertheless, the possession and every item are broken before put in the coffin, because this tribe believed that the breaking of an abject sets the spirit free.


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