Naples Community Celebrates Their Culture and Heritage

By JUDY WEEKS
Freelance Reporter

NAPLES — Members of the Naples Community gathered at the residence of Doug and Sandy Osceola on Aug. 15 to celebrate their cultural heritage and provide their children with an opportunity to learn about their ancestors from their elders.

The day’s activities began with Tammy Billie cleaning, cutting up and preparing deer meat, supplied by Ingraham Billie Jr. and Tahama Osceola. The children watched intently as she instructed them in each step of the process of preparing the meat they would eat later that afternoon.

Pedro Zepeda employed the skills of his ancestors in teaching the youngsters the art of wood carving. Using a dry piece of cypress, Zepeda slowly transformed the piece of wood into an alligator. The finished product resembled those created many years ago by his forefathers as toys for the children and then souvenirs for the tourist trade.

A small crowd gathered around Tribal elder Ingraham Billie Jr. when he began to talk about his birthplace in Charlie Tigertail’s camp deep in the Everglades 79 years ago.

“My father, Ingraham Billie Sr., learned the ways of the medicine man and devoted his life to caring for his people, even after he adopted Christianity,” Ingraham Jr. said.

“I remember my family hunting and fishing for their meat,” he continued. “They planted gardens in the hammocks in the swamp and grew corn, sweet potatoes, bananas, pumpkins, beans, squash and sugar cane. We didn’t have refrigerators or freezers.

“During the growing season, my people raised and dried their vegetables in the sun and hung them in the top of the chickee or gathered them in palmetto baskets for storage. They made jerky out of the deer for the times when we had no fresh meat.”

Bringing the girls together around the cooking fire, the women worked to prepare the meal. Tammy Billie encouraged the youngsters to join her and learn how to make sofkee, bananas, corn on the cob, Indian stew and fry bread and fry sweet potatoes and venison. Up to their elbows in flour, they had a wonderful time and waited anxiously for their first pieces of fry bread to come out of the pan.

Meanwhile, Tahama Osceola started the pumpkin bread, which brought everyone together. As she worked, she talked about how she learned from her mother and her aunts the way to cook, sew and bead. She told the young girls that they must learn these things now, so that they will be able to carry their heritage to the future generations.

As the girls cooked, the boys joined Pedro Zepeda and he taught them the basics of archery. It didn’t take long before even the youngest hit their targets.

By the time that the meal concluded, nearly every member of the Naples Community spent the remainder of the afternoon recalling the past and sharing the elders’ experiences with their future generations.