Florida Indian Tribe's Last Alligator Wrestler Bows

Damon credits Stallone for launching his career at NBR dinner THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 2016 39 Visitors walk through the China Ice and Snow World during the Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival in Harbin, northeast China’s Heilongjiang province on January 5, 2016. Over one million visitors are expected to attend the spectacular Harbin Ice Festival, where buildings of ice are bathed in ethereal lights and international ice sculptors compete for honors. — AFP he teeming Indian metropolis of Mumbai-home to The small mobile museum will open in February for Following the success of “Slumdog Millionaire”, the the neighborhood made famous by the film two months and display everything from pottery and slum has become a tourist attraction and guides offer T“Slumdog Millionaire”-is to get the world’s first textiles to recycled items, Rubio added. The organizers of tours of its hundreds of workshops. In 2010 Britain’s India’s Mumbai to get slum museum, organizers said yesterday. The museum ‘Design Museum Dharavi’ say they want to challenge Prince Charles cited Dharavi as a role model for sustain- will showcase some of the myriad of objects that are pro- people’s perceptions of slums by highlighting the cre- able living, praising its habit of recycling waste. Last year duced every year in Dharavi, one of Asia’s biggest slums ative talent that resides in them. More than a million the slum hosted its first art biennale. More than half of and the setting for Danny Boyle’s hit 2008 movie. “It people live in the maze of alleyways that make up Mumbai’s 20 million inhabitants live in slums, enduring ‘world’s first slum museum’ will be the first museum ever created in a slum,” Spanish Dharavi with many working in the area’s mini-factories, cramped conditions, poor ventilation and a lack of toi- artist Jorge Rubio, who is behind the initiative, told AFP. which produce every kind of goods imaginable. lets. — AFP Florida Indian tribe’s last alligator wrestler bows out n billboards across the Florida Everglades, a burly Native some 2,000 people, which shares a historical connection to the Far from a punch-out, smack-down event as the name “alli- American man pries open an alligator’s mouth, pressing Miccosukees. Those that remain “have decided to do it very gator wrestling” might imply, Jim became famous for pulling Ohis face dangerously close to the reptile’s 80 glinting deliberately, not for a tourist attraction as it once was, but as a wild, hissing alligators heavier than his own 278-pound (125- teeth. “Adventures Await,” the ads promise, as motorists whiz by. way of keeping traditional Seminole culture alive,” Weisman kilogram) frame out of the water by their tails, then tip-toeing Alligator wrestler Pharaoh Gayles wrestling an alligator at The man’s name is Rocky Jim, Jr, a 44-year-old Miccosukee said. around them, stroking them, tapping them, even getting close the Miccosukee Indian Village in Miami, Florida. Indian who has been wrestling alligators for 31 years, entertain- enough to touch his nose to the snouts of the most aggressive ing countless tourists from a sand pit and pond beneath a chic- ‘Read their body language’ among them. His secret? “We just respect them,” he said. When kee hut along the Tamiami Trail, a two-lane road linking Miami Jim was 13 when he learned to handle alligators from his he first saw Jim perform, Pharaoh Gayles, a 25-year-old wrestler to the port city of Tampa. father, Rocky Jim, Sr They would go out in the canals of the of Puerto Rican, African-American and Seminole descent, But on the final Sunday of 2015, the last remaining Everglades in search of turtles, and the elder would demon- “thought he was a little bit crazy.” But he watched, and learned. Miccosukee Indian in the century-old tradition of wrestling alli- strate how to move the creatures away without hurting them, “He just really knows what he is doing and he has an under- gators decided it was time to step down, leaving no successors or getting hurt. “Just see how they are moving and how they standing of the animal.” in sight among the tribe of around 600 people. The end came are going to react,” Jim recalled his father saying. “Just read their just minutes into the 1 o’clock show, when Jim coaxed the alli- body language.” Jim was in his 30s when the tribe asked him to An owl and a shadow gator’s mouth open by gently tapping its snout, then placed his perform at the Indian Village, a tourist stop that sells crafts, Recently, arthritis in his knee began to slow Jim down, and hand inside. The move is perilous only if something touches the offers airboat rides and hearty foods like pumpkin fry bread and he cut back to part time. But this winter, an annual festival beck- alligator’s palate-a drop of sweat, a grain of sand-causing the catfish. He agreed. oned. He performed five shows on the first day, as Gayles knelt jaw to reflexively snap shut. While pulling out his hand, he rotat- in the pit with him and narrated for the audiences. Driving ed it slightly and accidentally grazed a tooth. home that evening to his home in a Miami suburb, Jim saw a The feeling was like “a door slamming on your hand. With shadow of a man by the side of the road. A couple of yards later, sharp teeth,” Jim said in an interview later. But in the moment, an owl flew in front of him. “For us, an owl means somebody as he looked down at his palm and forearm encased in the alli- will pass, and a shadow is the same thing, so when they are gator’s jaw, he had only one thought: “Don’t shake.” “If it shakes, together it is a bad thing,” Jim said. The next day, the alligator my hand is going to go with it,” he told AFP, describing the bit him. On billboards across the Florida Everglades, a burly Native thrashing motion alligators use to slice up fresh meat, much the Fortunately, the animal did not thrash. Gayles helped open American man pries open an alligator’s mouth, pressing his same way as sharks. “Its natural instinct is to do that,” said Jim, its jaws, which left Jim with seven puncture wounds, and his face dangerously close to the reptile’s 80 glinting teeth. who had been bitten several times before. mind made up to retire. “I was just really waiting for the right time. I guess this was the right time,” he said. For Gus Batista, Native tradition who wrestles alligators on a Seminole reservation, Jim “has Alligator wrestling is considered a Native American tradition, been a big partaker in this beautiful art” and “has earned the first popularized in the early 1900s by a white man, Henry right to bow out honorably.” And while Jim’s absence leaves a Coppinger, Jr, the US-born son of Irish immigrants, according to void, he has already begun teaching his 13-year-old son to historian Patsy West. Coppinger himself wrestled alligators, and catch baby alligators-not necessarily to make it his trade, but to recruited natives-who lived alongside the reptiles and hunted keep a tribal tradition alive. — AFP them-to perform, too. Paying crowds flocked to see men climb on alligators’ backs, open their jaws and flip them over-with the effect of making them go limp for a few minutes. But today, the tradition is waning. Animal rights group have criticized the shows, casino revenue rather than alligator tourism often pro- vides cash flow for native tribes, and Indian youths are increas- ingly turning to careers in modern society. Rocky Jim, Jr, a 44-year-old Miccosukee “The skills are not as common as they once were,” said Indian who has been wrestling alligators Alligator wrestling is considered a Native American tradi- author and anthropologist Brent Weisman. Some native alliga- for 31 years, entertained countless tion, but animal rights group have criticized the shows. tor wrestlers still remain among the larger Seminole tribe of tourists. — AFP photos.

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