I find the recent craze in paddle boarding fascinating and symbolic. The culmination of this craze locally occurred this past weekend with “Paddlefest 2014,” organized by Mike Flaugh and Cam Collins. Hundreds of young people and adults were able able to get on the water, many for the very first time, to make a personal connection with the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon.
As we navigate our waters today, we must keep in mind the history of other Florida people’s who used a similar, handmade, “standing,” basically flat board, hundreds of years before us. Most notably, here in Stuart, the Ais Indians and later the Seminoles.
The Ais lived prior to the mid 1700s roughly from Stuart to Titusville, before their population was decimated by the Spanish; the Seminoles came to Florida from the Southeastern United States to avoid capture, and they too used dugout canoes, very similar to today’s paddle boards to move through the waterways and swamps.
I think the fighting and earth protecting spirit of the Indians is coming back with each person who takes up paddle boarding. In the 1600s, Jonathan Dickinson and others documented the Ais as the most warlike of all Florida tribes never succumbing to their captors, the remaining few left for Cuba. And the Seminoles? We know that story, they outsmarted the US Government, retreating to the interior of the Everglades, and never surrendered.
With a blessing and a plea for forgiveness, for our Native Peoples’ exterminated by prior generations before us, may their spirt protect and inspire us, in our modern fight against our US and State Government, and in many ways ourselves, to save the beautiful, the sacred, the Indian River Lagoon.
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Ais Indians: (http://www.ancientnative.org/ais.php)
Ais Indians Genealogy/History : (http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/ais-tribe-of-florida.htm)
Seminole Tribe of Florida: (http://www.semtribe.com)
Coastal Paddleboarding, Stuart, Florida (http://coastalpaddleboarding.com)
A poignant observation and comparison. I can’t even imagine what an Ais or Seminole Indian would have said if they could have seen these modern day SUP’s in their time period!
I love how you’ve tied together two generations far removed in terms of time but connected so deeply by the rivers that have become such an integral part of our shared human existence.
When you think about “indians in canoes” from grade school textbooks, you often think of them as the type that you sit or kneel in. Your photo of the Seminole man in full regalia “standing” on a shall draft dugout canoe is very poignant and draws a great parallel to today’s modern day stand-up paddleboards.
Thank you Cam!!!
Facebook: Thank you Friends
Rebecca Russell McFee, Thomas Campenni, Sarah Gerring Feeney and 13 others like this.
Robert Pilla I like that both the Monach and Julia butterflies are represented here; along with the Bald Eagle.
12 hours ago · Unlike · 1
Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch it is a beautiful and well thought out art piece. (:
11 hours ago · Like
Robert Pilla This seems to be cropped, yes?
11 hours ago · Unlike · 1
Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch I am not sure. This is how my mother shared it with me years ago. Not that I know but it does look like it could belong to a bigger piece.
11 hours ago · Like
Robert Pilla I don’t see a signature so i suspect it’s a crop from a larger piece. It could just be unsigned. The composition does follow the “rule of thirds” so maybe this is the entire painting.
11 hours ago · Unlike · 1
Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch ill ask my mom –you know a lot!
11 hours ago · Like
Robert Pilla I have been a slave to photography and image composition ever since I left high School. I wish i could live in Stuart but small towns drive me insane. I need a big city to feel alive. I always hated to see the lagoon being tortured with runoff from the Lake. I also did not like to see the “bath tub” opened up with that giant parking lot.
11 hours ago · Unlike · 1
Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch it is all very depressing. Miami must be cool
11 hours ago · Like
Robert Pilla It’s an unbelievable place. I moved here in the mid 80’s just after the last big influx of Cubans. It was a depressing city with massive amounts of poverty and derelict structures. It has grown so much in the past 20 years to be a true metropolitan community and a gateway for South America. The County has taken great strides to protect what is left of the hardwood hammocks and open pinelands.
11 hours ago · Like
Kristen Geer Repetti Redeemer Lutheran 6th grade took a field teip to The Elliott Museum today to learn about them.
3 hours ago · Unlike · 1