"Its natural instinct is to do that," said Jim, who had been bitten several times before.Īlligator wrestling is considered a Native American tradition, first popularized in the early 1900s by a white man, Henry Coppinger, Jr, the US-born son of Irish immigrants, according to historian Patsy West.Ĭoppinger himself wrestled alligators, and recruited natives - who lived alongside the reptiles and hunted them - to perform, too. "If it shakes, my hand is going to go with it," he told AFP, describing the thrashing motion alligators use to slice up fresh meat, much the same way as sharks. With sharp teeth," Jim said in an interview later.īut in the moment, as he looked down at his palm and forearm encased in the alligator's jaw, he had only one thought: "Don't shake." The feeling was like "a door slamming on your hand. While pulling out his hand, he rotated it slightly and accidentally grazed a tooth. The move is perilous only if something touches the alligator's palate - a drop of sweat, a grain of sand - causing the jaw to reflexively snap shut. The end came just minutes into the 1 o'clock show, when Jim coaxed the alligator's mouth open by gently tapping its snout, then placed his hand inside. The man's name is Rocky Jim, Jr., a 44-year-old Miccosukee Indian who has been wrestling alligators for 31 years, entertaining countless tourists from a sand pit and pond beneath a chickee hut along the Tamiami Trail, a two-lane road linking Miami to the port city of Tampa.īut on the final Sunday of 2015, the last remaining Miccosukee Indian in the century-old tradition of wrestling alligators decided it was time to step down, leaving no successors in sight among the tribe of around 600 people. "Adventures Await," the ads promise, as motorists whiz by. On billboards across the Florida Everglades, a burly Native American man pries open an alligator's mouth, pressing his face dangerously close to the reptile's 80 glinting teeth.
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