OSCEOLA - A BIRD OF SUPERSTITION
How I Came to Hunt Osceolas
EDITOR'S
NOTE: Osceola - the very word rings with defiance. The
man who bore this name and blazed it into the history
of this nation was one of the greatest Indian chieftains
who ever lived. He led his Seminole people into battle
against one of America's finest generals, Andrew Jackson,
and handed Jackson his only defeat in the great Indian
wars of the 1800s. So powerful was the Seminole nation
that they never signed a peace treaty with the American
government but chose instead to retreat to the swamps
of Georgia and Florida. Chief Osceola was a guerilla
fighter who effectively used hit-and-run tactics to
defeat Jackson's army. Because Osceola and his men would
appear and just as quickly disappear, many soldiers
under Jackson attributed supernatural powers to Osceola.
Even today the turkey that bear his name, Meleagris
gallopavo osceola, also known as the Florida turkey,
the only place
where it's found, is believed by many of the Seminole
nation to be spirit-possessed.
I quickly accepted an invitation from Allen Jenkins
of Thomasville, Georgia, president of Lynch Call Company
to hunt these mystical gobblers some years ago. On this
hunt were several of Jenkins' friends and Marcelous
Osceola, a direct descendant of the legendary chieftain,
Osceola. This hunt was to be a special - a reintroduction
to the old way. Jenkins and I were to teach Osceola
how to call and harvest the wily Osceola gobbler as
his forefathers had. At that time on the Big Cypress
Swamp Indian Reservation near Miami, Florida, the Seminoles,
like native Americans
on most reservations, could take game throughout the
year in any numbers for subsistence. So over the years,
the harvesting of the gobblers and the hens primarily
had been a rifle sport practiced around large fields
and pastures on the reservation. But Osceola wanted
to learn the traditional way of bagging the gobblers
bearing his family's name.
TOMORROW: THE MYSTERY OF THE
SWAMP MAGICIAN
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