The Miccosukee Concept of Marriage and Family

When assigned to the Miccosukee (Mikasuki) tribe living in South Florida after finishing our task among the Chácobo of the Amazonian Rainforest (1955-1980), I was confronted with a missiological problem that remains to this day, the Miccosukee definition of marriage and family. Both definitions, were shaped by SOCIAL EXISTENCE in South Florida and "belonged to the people."

 

At some point in their history Miccosukee rearranged the structure of the nuclear family, created a new family type, and redefined the meaning of marriage.

 

First, the type of "family" the Miccosukee created is called the "matrilineal clan."  Lest one commit the sin of incest, the Rule of Exogamy says: "One must marry someone who is not a clan member!"  But more importantly, marrying someone from another clan reveals that the Miccosukee had replaced the nuclear family with a new family type, the matrilineal clan family.

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Secondly, when they restructured the nuclear family, they refined the meaning of marriage. It went something like this: In exchange for conjugal right to your daughter, all my offspring will become members of your "family," i.e., the matrilineal clan, not mine.

 

Assuming that the Miccosukee definitions of marriage and family were the same as his, Scandinavian-American Justin Johnson married Rebecca Sanders of the Miccosukee tribe. As a non-Miccosukee, Johnson had no idea what the consequences would be when his Miccosukee wife gave birth to their first child Ingrid. As reported in the local news in March, 2018.

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The above incident which occurred in March 18, 2018, occurred after a generation or two of Bible teaching in the Miccosukee Baptist Church.  Clearly, the members of the church had not been taught that the basic unit of society was the nuclear family, not the matrilineal clan, a family type protected by the Rule of Exogamy.  

 

Discovering the PART OF THE WHOLE Principle 

When I was analyzing the Miccosukee "possessive pronouns" system, I unexpectedly discovered that, like the Chácobo, they also had innate knowledge of the unitive "one-flesh" principle of husband-wife. 

If this unitive principle of husband and wife had reigned in the lives of Justin and Rebecca, the above clash as to whom Ingrid their daughter belonged would never have occurred.  

 

Miccosukee knowledge of the unitive "one-flesh" principle of husband-wife unexpectedly surfaced when I asked my language informant Daniel Tommy: "How do you say, 'My wife?'"  He replied saying, "cha halke," 'wife PART OF ME,' i.e., 'wife part of my flesh.'  When back-translated into English it was: "My wife, who is part of my flesh."   I was dumbfounded.

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The unlearned syntactic form PART OF THE WHOLE and its inherent meaning revealed the existence of a Universal Principle which had been woven into their psyche and expressed in language.  Every Miccosukee husband considered his wife to be PART OF his BEING. It was the same "one flesh" perspective that Johnson believed to be universal and his Miccosukee wife, his mother-in-law, his mother-in-law's sister, and the Miccosukee police rejected.  

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Amazingly, before the Puritans arrived on the continent, the Miccosukee of South Florida knew the unitive "one-flesh" principle of husband-wife. It was a meaning accepted by Miccosukee husbands but rejected by Miccosukee wives and their "family," the matrilineal clan of which no husband was a member.  

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After discovering that Miccosukee husbands innately knew the unitive "one-flesh" principle of husband-wife, I immediately followed up by asking what a wife says when asked: "How does one say, 'my husband?'" The answer was, "Am nakne," which, when back-translated into English literally meant: "A for-me (dative) exiting husband-thing."  Johnson failed to realize that he had been reduced to a mere "thing," a needed sperm donor.

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According to Miccosukee customary law, Justin's function as a husband was to serve as a sperm donor who produced children for his wife's "family," the matrilineal clan, not his. This meant, from a Miccosukee customary law-perspective, Johnson had no legal rights in his daughter Ingrid.  On the surfaced it appeared that EXISTENCE PRECEDED and RULED BEING.

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Sadly, even today, Miccosukee wives continue to reject the unitive "one flesh" principle of husband-wife. Choosing to go "their own way," they replaced the covenantal dyad of husband-wife with the biological dyad of sister-sister.  Wives and their brothers, not husbands of wives took control of the Miccosukee cultural operating system.   Miccosukee women covertly ruled.

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They not only replaced the husband-wife dyad with that of sister-sister, I discovered that their restructuring of the nuclear family was supported by a myth that declared: "Only two sisters [existed] at the beginning."

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In so doing, the Miccosukee are guilty of misrepresenting the universal. They replaced a positive meaning for family with a negative meaning, thereby creating a new family type, one which was in fundamental opposition husband-wife intimacy. In this case, it was grammatical analysis which uncovered the existence of a universal form common to all that had an inherent Divine meaning, a meaning Miccosukee husbands approved and subscribed to and which their wives and mother-in-law's, like Eve, rejected.

 

Unknown to Justin Johnson, the Miccosukee had, at some point in history, rearranged the internal structure of the nuclear family, replaced the husband-wife dyad with that of sister-sister, and replaced prayer with magic.  In the process they "multiplied sin [disorder]" (Romans 5:20) and increased cultural diversity.  

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Convictions:

1. The Miccosukee continue to use the rule of exogamy to protect that which is not a valid family.

2. If Justin Johnson had known what it meant to become a Miccosukee husband, he never would  have married Rebeca Sanders. For the Miccosukee, marriage for every husband  meant being reduced to  "A for-wife (dative) exiting husband-thing," aka a sperm donor.

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Gilbert Prost

June, 2019