"Birds," he says,"have always been important to the Indian because they go where they wish, they light where they may, and they're free. We take these feathers from the birds. We use them in our ceremony because the feathers remind us of the Creator. The eagle flies the highest in the sky of all the birds and so he is nearest to the Creator, and his feather is the most sacred of all. He is the highest of the birds and so belongs to all the tribes, to all the peoples. And each tribe has a lesser bird of its own. For the Seminole, it's the heron."
- Buffalo Jim, Seminole
