I am not surprised that you are having trouble finding information on
Seminole social structure. The Seminole are an offshoot of the Creek,
and their kinship/clan system has been treated as a variant of that of
the Creek. Moreover, the studies of change in their kinship system
are included in comparative analyses of change in the Creek, Choctaw,
and Cherokee kinship systems. The place to begin is an article by
Fred Eggan, "Historical Changes in the Choctaw Kinship System,"
_American Anthropologist_, vol. 37, 1937, pp. 34-52. Alexander Spoehr
tested Eggan's theory of change in Crow-type kinship systems by
interviewing Seminole in Florida and Creek, Seminole, Choctaw, and
Cherokee in Oklahoma. The results were published in _Changing Kinship
Systems: A Study in the Acculturation of the Creeks, Cherokee, and
Choctaw_, Anthropological Series, Vol. 33, No. 4, 1947, pp. 151-235,
Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History.
Spoehr did earlier studies of the clan system among the Seminole in
Florida. I don't have the references at hand, but you can find them
by looking in George Peter Murdock's _Ethnographic Bibliography of
North America_. There are five or more volumes in the latest (1975)
edition. Find the volume on the Southeast culture area. General
references on the culture area are listed first. Then references to
the specific cultures are listed under the names of those cultures,
arranged in alphabetical order. If there are more recent studies on
the Seminole clan system, I am unaware of them.
I hope this helps.
Grosvenor Pollard
via Elizabeth B. Pollard
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Elizabeth Pollard
Systems Librarian Internet: pollarde@email.uah.edu
University of Alabama in Huntsville Compuserve: 72457,1560
Huntsville, AL 35899 Phone: (205)895-6313
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