Celebrating Indian Day in Big Cypress

By Janice Billie

BIG CYPRESS — Native pride and community spirit dominated the heat and humidity on Indian Day 2005.

All the familiar faces were up and out as Nancy Billie started the cooking fire and Mike Cypress cranked up his barbecue grill. Among many others from the community there was Louise Billie with a whole lot of family with her. The always colorful George Billie wore his western style Indian headdress complimenting his Seminole jacket. It was a bright display of cultural blending.

The beautiful faces of all the children were the ones to see. As they lined up for the traditional clothing exhibition one could see the proud and vibrant future generation of Seminoles.

The Big Cypress community had a wide variety of activities to take part in this year. There was an Indian Day golf tournament kicking off the day at 7 a.m., a little early for some but not for hardcore players that showed up.

The pool tournament started at noon and went on into the late evening. Billed as the First Annual Indian Day pool tournament, the turnout exceeded all expectations.

The mid-afternoon horseshoe tournament took place at the ball field and went into early evening. Facilitated by Mary Jumper, the horseshoe competition had a take-no-prisoners atmosphere resulting in some hard won victories.

The cultural village, located behind the Family Investment Center, was the main site for all the other Indian Day events. It started out with the clothing contests, with categories ranging from super seniors, ages 65 and older, to infants less than a year old.

In the cooking chickee, the fry bread makers withstood the heat of the open fire without skipping a beat. A crew of Seminole women, along with Mike Cypress and Juan Sanchez, cooked a huge, traditional meal at lunch time. The Iron Chef has nothing on these cooks. The community had a special treat of fresh roasted corn provided by Nery Mejicano and his traveling corn roaster.

Children and adults all participated in the sack races, foot races and archery contests. Other competitions included axe throwing and log peeling.

As the afternoon settled into evening, the pool tournament was still going on and the horseshoe games were winding down

Next on the schedule of events was a comedy show at the Youth Center. The show was produced by a Native American group known as Emergence Productions from Albuquerque, N.M. Although billed as a “comedy show” the production was much more. The artistic blending of Native American storytelling, music and cultural expression produced entertaining as well as empowering experience.

Several of the skits featured Coyote, a character well known in Native legends. The talented troupe of entertainers spent most of the day with the Big Cypress community before performing that evening. The show was a fitting conclusion to a day that was filled with revelry and unity while honoring Native Americans everywhere.