by LIZETTE ALVAREZ
July 5, 2014

CHOKOLOSKEE ISLAND, Fla. — The Seminole medicine man climbed the steep wooden stairs to the Ted Smallwood Store and shuffled past the counter used to measure raccoon hides, past the Jeris Hair Tonic bottles, the Sloan’s Liniment for aches and Dr. Gunn’s mid-19th-century “Home Book of Health.”

The shaman’s visit was unbidden, but he got straight to work. He climbed back down the stairs, took out a cluster of herbs and sprinkled them outside the historic dry goods store, which is now a museum. Once inside again, he asked the owners to keep the herbs safe; they were placed in an old fruit can, then tucked away on a shelf.

“This is medicine to protect the store from bad things, and this is to drive the neighbors next door away,” the shaman told the owners, in a scene reminiscent of life here a century ago. Then, on that scorching day three months ago, he got in his vehicle and drove away from the Smallwood store, a place his ancestors had frequented by canoe to set up camp for a few days and start trading: hides for flour, egret plumes for sugar.

In the rearview mirror, the shaman left behind a tangled, three-year-old legal brawl. On paper, the fight is prosaic: It centers on four acres of waterfront property owned by a developer, Florida Georgia Grove; the company’s push to refurbish and build on the land next to the museum; and a pivotal dispute over the ownership of the road leading to Smallwood’s, which slices inconveniently through the middle of the developer’s property.  click here to read more…