Seminole Palmetto Roofs

Some people in big cypress still live in family camps with a cooking shed and separate chikkees for sleeping and storage.

Seminole palmetto roofs. Troops needed fast disposable shelter while on the run. Nearly everything used to build a chickee came from the palmetto tree which was common in the southeastern united states. The chickee style of architecture palmetto thatch over a cypress log frame was born during the early 1800s when seminole indians pursued by u s. Troops needed fast disposable shelter while on the run.

The term chickee means an open sided wooden hut that has a thatched roof of palm or palmetto or other traditional materials and that does not incorporate any electrical plumbing. H chickees constructed by the miccosukee tribe of indians of florida or the seminole tribe of florida. A chickee was usually about nine feet wide and sixteen feet long with a wooden platform which served as the floor and a thatched roof. The chickee style of architecture palmetto thatch over a cypress log frame was born during the early 1800s when seminole indians pursued by u s.

I love the smell of a new chickee. Our example was woven by a seminole tribal member. The same fronds can also be used to thatch chickee roofs. The florida building code states.

As used in this paragraph the term chickee means an open sided wooden hut that has a thatched roof of palm or palmetto or other traditional materials and that does not incorporate any electrical plumbing or other nonwood features. A chickee was a house built on stilts usually about three or four feet above the ground. The chickee style of architecture palmetto thatch over a cypress log frame was born during the early 1800s as a quick and disposable dwelling while they were avoiding american troops.