OA’s pretendian core ceremonies celebrate racist oppression, mock tribes, must be blown up

The Order of the Arrow’s core ceremonies–the call outs and inductions–are pretendian parodies of American Indians and their culture.

The USA has a racist legacy of destroying American Indian tribes with forced Westernization. While that failed, OA’s core ceremonies celebrate the racist legacy’s goal: a dystopia with fully debased tribes, with nobody to own tribal customs.

If we want a useful OA, it must stop mocking American Indians, and it must stop celebrating our country’s cruel, racist sins.

A crucial step is eliminating all American Indian theming in the core ceremonies, just as national youth OA leadership asked.

(Technical note: This article is not about OA’s American Indian Activities (AIA), which are nominally authentic. Unlike the core ceremonies, AIA may have a path forward when it is done in collaboration with tribes.)

The core ceremonies are fake

In OA’s pretendian parodies, Scouts act out fake stories that were created by Westerners, done while employing a mishmash of language, themes, names, and clothing appropriated from American Indian tribes. Even worse, the ceremonies are often delivered with gross Western stereotypes of Indians: garbled with Tonto-talk pidgin, the phony stories are rich with noble-savage tropes.

The ceremonies celebrate the end game of racist oppression

Some defend OA’s pretendian parodies as “respect” or “honor”. In fact, these ceremonies validate our country’s horrible sins.

Our country has a legacy of racist oppression of American Indians. This includes Indian removal, boarding schools, and much, much more. Among the goals of this oppression was to “White”-wash all American Indians: Through forced Westernization, the USA tried to destroy tribes. Had this succeeded, an outcome would have been divorcing tribal customs from any sense of ownership.

If you can’t change them, absorb them until they simply disappear into the mainstream culture…. In Washington’s infinite wisdom, it was decided that tribes should no longer be tribes, never mind that they had been tribes for thousands of years.

Republican Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (source, emphasis added)

OA’s founding was in 1915. Then, the USA was still deep in its racist suppression of tribes. For example, re-education camps Indian boarding schools were still active. Oppressive official acts would continue decades longer, such as the Indian termination policy, which started in the 1940s, and the Indian Relocation Act of 1956.

In the time of OA’s founding, there was likely little moral qualm about treating tribal customs as if they are obsolete, public-domain artifacts.

A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one…

In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.

Richard H. Pratt, founder and superintendent of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School (source, emphasis added)

Thankfully, our country’s racist oppression failed. Tribes are now strengthening their communities, cultures, and identities through tribal self-determination, which started before the mid-20th century and become federal policy in the 1970s.

The ceremonies perpetuate racism

An OA interested in respect and honor would seek authenticity and support tribal self-determination. Instead, with its mocking and appropriation continuing even now, OA acts as if our country’s repudiated, racist agenda actually worked.

“Respect” and “honor” is the opposite of perpetuating a repudiated, racist past. It is the opposite of corrupting young minds, presenting pretendian parodies as if they were authentic.

If respect and honor were OA’s priorities, it would:

• Support tribal ownership of their own customs.
• Only share truth about American Indians and tribes.
• Not mock tribes.

An Order of the Arrow that respects and honors American Indians has no pretendian parodies!

It’s still going on

Racist or tribe-mocking practices remain normative in OA. In the context of pretendian parodies that are portrayed as authentic:

• They use brownface cosplay. In fact, their placement as the first suggestion in Approved Attire for Order of the Arrow Ceremonies shows that OA still encourages costumes that parody American Indians. By only constraining limitations with “should” statements, OA winks at those who wish to cling to appropriation.
• Ceremonialists play fictitious American Indian characters invented by Westerners, such as Allowat Sakima (Chief of the Fire) or Meteu (Medicine Man).
• The ceremonies mention fake characters as if they are historical, such as Chingachgook.
• A phony legend about a real tribe continues to be read. Adapted from the 1826 romance novel Last of the Mohicans, the legend is a fiction written about the Mohicans that OA assigned to the Lenape, a different tribe!
• They falsely convey that historical characters from different tribes, such as Uncas, who was Mohegan, are part of Lenape history.
• The ceremonies continue to use words appropriated from the Lenape tribe.
• The characters speak mostly noble-savage tropes garbled with Tonto-talk pidgin.

Further reinforcing its desire to cling to racist practices, OA will train for and host performances of its predendian parodies at its 2024 national conference at University of Colorado Boulder. Many sessions that perpetuate core ceremonies are in the conference program guide:

• Brotherhood Ceremony Evaluations (p. 40)
• Brotherhood: The Legend Continues (p. 40)
• Evaluating Ceremonies (p. 41)
• Exemplar Brotherhood Ceremony Viewing Session (p. 41)
• Exemplar pre-Ordeal Ceremony Viewing Session (p. 42)
• Exemplar Program (p. 42)
• Individual and Team Coaching (p. 43)
• Inductions Advising (p. 43)
• Inside the Ordeal Ceremony (p. 45)
• Inside the pre-Ordeal Ceremony (p. 45)
• Introduction to Ceremonial Skills Workshop (p. 45)
• Pre-Ordeal Ceremony Evaluations (p. 46)
• The Ceremonial Multiverse (p. 49)
• The Vigil Honor Experience: Beyond the Triangle (p. 50)
• Vigil Honor Ceremony Evaluations (p. 51)

What if we flipped the tables?

Let’s suppose that BSA was destroyed. Further suppose that soccer clubs, to given a sense of woo to their elite players, set up a secret society. The induction ceremony has performers dress up in tan shirts and campaign hats, wear our Eagle Scout and Arrow of Light symbols, and do a parody of a court of honor.

Would any sane person allege that honors BSA? Of course not. In the same sense, OA’s parodies of American Indians is neither honor nor respect.

Core ceremonies are irredeemable

Since I was a youth, OA swam in local allegations of American Indian endorsement of core ceremonies. I still hear it today. They typically invoke some random oral blessing from a mysterious American Indian from years prior.

These alleged endorsements cannot be differentiated from the “my Canadian girlfriend” trope. Why? Because they are probably phony. (I would be happy for someone to provide a link to a lodge website where it hosts a copy of an endorsement from a local tribe for its core ceremonies. Leave a comment if you know of one!)

Well, shouldn’t we try to get tribal endorsement of our core ceremonies? That would be inappropriate!

These ceremonies are amalgams of Western stereotypes and Western fictions, employing stories, characters, outfits, and traditions of multiple tribes.

As such, an endorsement would have to come from some group that represents over 2,000 tribes. Given the diversity of American Indians thought, practice, and belief, merely believing such an organization could exist would suggest foundational ignorance of American Indians.

OK, let’s suppose we inventoried every last part of our ceremonies and identify the tribe we stole each part from. The clothing, the language, the themes, etc. That is a herculean task that I doubt is feasible. But what if some amazing soul did it? We would have to approach each tribe and ask for their endorsement of their share of our Western parody that was built on theft. Simply asking that of a tribe is an insult!

Out of respect for the American Indian people and tribes, we must acknowledge racist parodies for what they are: irredeemable celebrations of tribal debasement.

It must stop

Racist and inauthentic, OA’s core ceremonies have no path to redemption. They have to stop.

Recent OA national youth leaders “wholeheartedly support ending the use of American Indian iconography and activities in our programs”.

Can they be reimagined? GIED to the rescue!

A major feature of the Order of the Arrow’s Ordeal experience is the elangomat system. The elangomat is a helpful guide to Scouts who are going through the Ordeal, a joining rite of Order of the Arrow.

I mention this to introduce Bill Hartman, who invented the elangomat system. Bill has a rich history with the Order of the Arrow, and his service continues: Bill leads the Guild of Inductions Experience Designers (GIED), a passion project where he and a team are reimagining Order of the Arrow’s core ceremonies. Among GIED’s goals are to remove cultural appropriation from the ceremonies.

GIED honors OA’s founder, E. Urner Goodman

In addition to disassociating OA from our country’s legacy racism, eliminating cultural appropriation honors a later-life admission of E. Urner Goodman, OA’s founder.

In 1970s living-room conversations with Urner, Bill Hartman recounts him lamenting his “biggest mistake” in founding the Order: utilizing fake legends in the context of naïve Scouts who mistakenly believe they are real history. (To be clear, Urner was only commenting on the factual legitimacy of the stories. Bill does not recall Urner otherwise commenting on the ceremonies’ ethics.)

In addition to providing OA a respectful exit from racism, the GIED’s work addresses E. Urner Goodman’s regret.

The National Order of the Arrow Committee could care less

I have documented several examples of cultural rot of BSA’s national organization. Prominent in the rot are arrogance, a bureaucratic culture of inertia and ineffectiveness, and hostility to outside views. OA’s national committee appears to be no different. In addition to its poor transparency, it’s hostile to outside views.

In a rational world, a long-tenured member who invented a crucial part of inductions would be a valued contributor. His group’s passion project would be given weight. That is the case for the GIED.

The National Order of the Arrow Committee is in a different world. When the GIED’s work was shared with a portion of this committee, a committee member write this to all committee members:

Living up to the cultural rot of the national organization, the committee is actively moating itself off from mere peasants. Of course, everything good that BSA has ever done has been invented from within by a gold looper, right? Of course that’s true. Peasants must know their place, which is to shut up and receive wisdom from wise elites who know better.

Additionally, this reveals that a team has spent two years secretly pondering the ceremonies. That is far too much time, so this committee is obviously engaged in bureaucratic stalling tactics to delay reform further.

Wait, there’s more! The ceremony revisions were finally published in December 2023. Sadly, all the problems with the Ordeal ceremony I identified above are from this revision. (The passwords on the ceremony docs are ahoalton, itisonlyright, and leadershipinservice. Secrets in Scouting are bad, you know?) If this is the result of over two years of work, it’s clear evidence that OA is unserious about fixing its cultural-appropriation issues.

GIED’s works should be considered. There may also be other proposals worthy of consideration. Whatever it does, OA must pivot from the national organization’s norms: Instead of acting elitist, it must stop moating itself off from the base.

Limited patience warranted

A key reason individuals become pretendians, like Elizabeth Warren, Iron Eyes Cody, and Johnny Depp, is “[p]ersonal gain and material advantage” (source, p. 15). OA’s pretendian parodies have given it gain and advantage: a shortcut to creating a uniting theme. This uniting theme substitutes for OA’s raison d’etre. Without the woo from the ceremonies, OA is just a collection of weakly related activities.

OA is facing an existential crisis. Discerning a raison d’etre is hard. Patience is needed while OA improves.

The patience must be limited. OA’s national leadership has only given us decades of stalling. Continued stalling isn’t the answer, but bureaucratic stalling tactics are the national organization’s preferred answer to nearly anything it faces.

Transparent improvement must start now. We need a clear-eyed, open acknowledgement of the inappropriateness of OA’s pretendian parodies. We also need a firm, time-boxed goal for OA to clean up its act.

So far, OA’s leadership has not differentiated itself from national’s cultural rot. For example, in the nine months between a major survey and the AIA announcement, it stonewalled the public, and it still has not shared the survey results.

Again, patience is limited. Should the culture of BSA’s national organization–stalling, hostility to outsiders, intransparency, low performance, and resistance to accountability–continue to be OA’s methods, that signals a lack of seriousness. A lack of seriousness will only lead to OA’s dissolution.

Appendix: Thanking hobbyists

I want to make a brief mention of the Indian hobbyist movement. The USA’s racist attempts to “White”-wash American Indians and destroy tribes succeeded to a degree, quashing some tribes, leaving nobody to carry on their customs.

In some cases, Whites took up the traditions and, to the best of their ability, kept them alive. That was the Indian hobbyist movement.

There was a time and place for the Indian hobbyist movement. Those who kept traditions alive deserve thanks. But that was a century ago. Tribes are strengthening, in some cases re-forming, and reasserting themselves through tribal self-determination.

Today, it is most sound when non-American Indians limit their American Indian performance art to that which is directly sanctioned through the tribe that owns the art. For BSA’s institutional purposes, that sanctioning needs to be explicit and transparent.

All that said, there is no ethical argument for perpetuation of pretendian parodies within an organization that claims to build character.