The Tiki hut went up today at Paradise Palms. It’s going to serve as a rest area and wet bar for visitors to our gardens when we open later this year.

Structures like these have been built by the Seminole Indians in Florida since the 16th century – simple shelters that could easily be put up and taken down as the tribes were forced (first by the Spanish colonists and later by the US government) to move from place to place. They called them “Chickees,” their word for “house.” At some point, people began to refer to them as Tiki huts, because they look so much like the thatch-roofed open-sided structures found all over the South Pacific. (“Tiki,” in Polynesian mythology, was the first man created by the gods. Every traditional Tiki hut houses the spirit of one of the gods, usually in the form of a wood or stone sculpture or carving.)

I was eager to meet the crew boss after we settled on the installation date. I had never met a Seminole Indian before. As it turned out, he was not a native Indian. Nor was he a he. The crew boss was a 30-something white woman. And the crew was from Central America.

Notwithstanding the cultural misappropriation, the structure was built quickly and solidly. And after we get a deck on the ground and a bar and some tables and chairs on top of it, we’ll be open for business, if only for ourselves.