The Mikasukis back up Lost Man’s Slough was maybe the last Indins in the U.S.A. that never signed no treaty with no Great White Father. Called ’em Cypress Indins cause they hollowed dugouts out of cypress logs. Never paddled hardly but stood up in the stern, used push poles, followed water paths that in the Seminole Wars was very hard to the white soldiers to see. Standin up like that, peerin through tall sawgrass, they most always seen you first, you were lucky to get a glimpse of ’em at all. Down in the rivers, Indin was watchin us most of the time. Watched us when we come into their country and watched us when we went away. Give you a funny feeling, being watched like that. Made you think the Earth was watching, too.

Passage above from Peter Matthiessen’s novel, Shadow Country.

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Painting by Nancy Mladenoff

Tags:Florida EvergladesNative AmericansPeter MatthiessenSeminol IndiansShadow Country