Indian Guides
When we were kids, it was considered important to get in touch with the outdoor world, to learn about our relationship with nature. Back then, our pioneer past was just three or four generations before ours. It was good to connect with them through a shared experience with the earth and our surroundings. There were two organizations that a young boy could join to explore their wild side - the Boy Scouts and something called the Indian Guides.
The Boy Scouts had an oath they would have to recite about being true to God and your country, to be prepared at all times. The Indian Guides had an oath too, I’m sure, but nothing that we had to commit to memory. It probably went something like, “Do you lack the dedication and drive necessary to be a Boy Scout? Join us. We are the Indian Guides and we pledge to learn about nature and stuff and it’s not like it’s going to take up too much of your time or anything. Some of our rituals will be offensive to the culture we are trying to honor, but we won’t know that for years, so don’t worry about it.” By the way, the Indian Guides were way more laid back and cool than the Scouts. They wore nerdy uniforms with shorts and a sash of some kind. It was the opposite of cool. Our uniform was a headband with a feather or two and a vest worn in a casual manner over a flannel shirt or a turtleneck, maybe some bellbottom jeans to round out the look. Now, who would you rather hang out with?
It is worth noting that the Indian Guides have now become the Adventure Guides, with “circles” instead of “tribes”. What began as a way to tap into the Native American experience, ended up containing too many culturally insensitive practices. Although I believe the originators of this YMCA club had the best of intentions, there were too many broad, Hollywood portrayals still fresh in the general public’s mind. That, coupled with the overall cluelessness of the time, created a club that was considered reverent by the families involved, but offensive, although mildly, to the Native Americans. I fully support the name change but I also think the Boy Scouts should change their name because I feel their organization is offensive to boys.
Adventure Guides is a pretty cool name, to be honest. I would be totally fine with renaming all of the “Indian” themed sports teams this way. Wouldn’t the Washington, Cleveland, Atlanta, or Chicago Adventurers be a better fit in these more enlightened times? Let’s do it.
I think my parents wanted to get us involved in something other than just little league and this seemed to be a pretty cool organization. You got to wear the aforementioned, sweet, felt vest with your tribe emblazoned on the back and were even allowed to select your own Indian name. Being an intensely creative child, I chose “Straight Arrow”, my older brother was “Broken Arrow”, younger bro was “Moonchild”, and my dad was “Painted Arrow”. We made necklaces, wallets, and other projects that were sure to have involved dried macaroni noodles. We did make slot-car racers, so it wasn’t all lame. The gatherings seemed to occur about once a month in the homes of one of the dads. After the activity was over, the older tribal leaders would stay upstairs and talk and smoke a peace pipe or maybe some unfiltered Camels. The kids would all be downstairs engaging in crazy shit that I’m pretty sure they weren’t supposed to be doing. You never really knew what was acceptable in other people’s homes. Since these tribes seemed to be made up of insane or behaviorally challenged kids, my brother and I used to sequester ourselves in a corner and try not to get involved. Unfortunately, I’m pretty certain involvement is why my parents wanted us to be in this club in the first place.
The elders even organized a weekend retreat with games and competitions. I dreaded it for days. My dad told me that when the kids went to bed, about half the other dads drove off to a bar that was down the street. That sounds about right. What if one of these kids woke up and needed his dad? “I’m sorry, Steve…er, Little Bear, your dad is at a bar down the street hitting on a local.” Over the course of the weekend, there were games with opportunities to show your mettle. I am told that we earned patches, although I cannot for the life of me remember what they were. Based on the makeup of our tribe, I would suspect they would hand out patches commemorating things like “Making it Through the Day Without Incident” or “Sitting Still for, Like, Ten Straight Minutes.”
Like anything else in this world, if you don’t commit to getting involved, you are probably not going to get much out of it. We were sort of determined to not have a good time and it probably drove my Dad nuts. Maybe if our activities involved more bows and arrows or tomahawks, we would have jumped right in. I found out that we sold Christmas Trees during the holidays, which sounds pretty fun, yet maybe not something at a true Native American would be involved in. Perhaps this was part of the whole American experience - we started out as “savages”, which we have established that most of these kids were, and we were now having Christianity forced upon us.
