Church located about 5.5 miles east
of Little, Oklahoma on HWY 99A

Seminole Hitchitee Church It was a very special church Where Pastor Mike resides You feel the spirit in his heart As you follow him inside He explains some of the customs Such as the burial ways Ancient those customs are From back in the olden days And as you stroll around You sort of become a part Of those customs too For it certainly is a start The spirits Pastor Mike describes Makes sense as he explains Much like our very own For we do not pray in vain It was an experience all itself I’m sure you would agree The Seminole Hitchitee church Visit meant a lot to me! Marilyn Lott © 2008 - 355

Pastor Mike

Pastor Mike explaining Seminole Religious customs
Women and men sit on separate sides of Church
Some songs and prayers in Native Language

Pastor Mike’s friends
describing burial customs

Above ground houses
to provide shelter
for the spirits

John McCornack inspecting cemetery

Pastor Mike’s friends
explaining Seminole Native culture

The Hitchitee Indians The Hitchitee Indians were once a part of the Creek Confederacy. They inhabited the northern half of the Florida peninsula. This tribe was eventually absorbed into the Seminole tribes. Before the people who would later be called Seminoles migrated south from Alabama and Georgia, Florida was inhabited by the Timucua, the Ais, Apalachee and the Pensacola. In 1597, the Spanish Governor of Florida described the Ais people as the most populous tribe he had seen. They were gone by the 1740s. After the Ais died out, Seminole Indians of Creek ancestry populated this area, fighting three wars with the United States before most of them were forced to relocate to Oklahoma. Originally the Seminole weren't actually a tribe, but were a group of separate people from many tribes who occupied the same geographical area at the same time. A portion of this branch of Creek Indians retreated into the Florida swamplands to evade capture by the US Army, and eventually became the dominant native american society. The 1770s is when most Florida Indians collectively became known as Seminole, a name meaning "wild people" or "runaway." http://www.aaanativearts.com/article1406.html