It was the teepee that got me in trouble. Three years ago, for the Cub Scout Arrow of Light ceremony, I built a 12 foot diameter teepee using bamboo poles and lumber-wrap paper. Since it was plastic-coated paper and water resistant, I had erected it on the shore of Crane’s Lake at that fateful spring campout. While we were standing around the campfire in a cold drizzle, Mr. John Tew, (the advisor for the newly formed OA Chapter- Goose Creek) asked me to be the advisor for the ceremonies team. Because my only son had just crossed over to the troop, and this was our first campout, I had no way of knowing what to expect. I could not have guessed that there was NO Ceremony Team, and there was NO regalia either.

It was many, many years since I was active in the Order of the Arrow, and because of that, I actually read the Advisors Book and other materials. Somewhere it was recommended that the OA regalia, ideally, should reflect the style of the region where you were living. I moved here from upstate New York, so I didn’t know what Native Americans here in Northern Virginia were like. I started to research the Powhatans while teaching Indian Lore Merit Badge during summer camp. I learned that it is inappropriate to use face paint, peace pipes, and invocations or prayers to the Great Spirit - all of these were included in the Arrow of Light pageant I designed as the culminating experience of my Cub Scout Den Leader career. That’s when I built the teepee. I had a lot to learn, but by then it was too late to get out, I was trapped. Fortunately, Leesburg has two incredible resources for research about Native Americans – The Thomas Balch Library is noted for its historic publications collection, and the Naturalist Center branch of the Smithsonian Institution, complete with numerous animal specimens and an excellent anthropological reference library. In these places I found the verbal and visual inspirations for the regalia that resulted.

In the Leesburg Library is a facsimile copy of the original book written by John Smith on his return to England. The chapter called “The Voyages and Discoveries of Captaine John Smith in Virginia”, describes the time he was a prisoner and he said of the “salvages” [original spellings and capitalizations],

A good time they continued this exercise [marching], and then cast themselues in a ring, dauncing in such severall Postures, and singing and yelling out such hellish notes and screeches; being strangely painted, every one his quiver of Arrows, and at his back a club; on his arme a Fox or Otters skinne, or some such matter for his vambrace [arm guard]; their heads and shoulders painted red, with Oyle [oil] and Pocones [Bloodroot] which Scarlet-like colour made an exceedingly handsome shew, his bow in his hand, and the skinne of a Bird with her wings abroad dryed, tied on his head, a peece of copper, a white shell, a long feather, with a small rattle growing at the tayles of their snaks [rattlesnake tails] tyed to it, or some such like toy.

An illustration of this style of regalia worn by the “Gyant Sasquesahanougs” decorates the upper right-hand corner of the Map of Virginia by John Smith, published in England in 1612. The engraver must have forgotten to reverse the drawing, because this shows a left-handed bowman. His arm guard or bracer is on his right wrist. The hair is usually worn long on one side of the head and shaved on the other side to avoid it getting tangled in the bowstring when shooting. It was recorded that the Indian longbow could drive an arrow through a shield that could not be penetrated by a flintlock rifle ball. Although not pictured here, some warriors carried a small thick bark shield high on their shoulder to protect that side when they were shooting arrows. Here we see the typical fringed deerskin apron, folded over the belt and the usual club weapon. Animal skins include a bear or lion cape with the paws and claws attached, a fur face necklace, and a quiver made from a full skin with head and legs still attached.

In our regalia, every warrior has an armguard bracer, and attached to it is the standard antler “flaker”. These tools were used by Virginia Indians to re-point an arrow tip when they became broken or to sharpen an edge on a stone knife or some other stone implement - their equivalent to our “leatherman”.

Each ceremony team member made his own eastern style pucker-toe footware, even though moccasins usually were worn only in cold weather. The Northern Virginia tribes were decimated by disease and were displaced to eventually be absorbed by the Delaware Nation, itself forced farther and farther west. We adopted Delaware type cloth leggings which would have been common in the northern climate. The brass turtle decoration on Allowat’s headdress suggests this merger with the Lenni Lenepe, as the turtle is their totem.

John Smith describes other clothing in his book. ”The better sort use large mantles of Deare skins, not much differing in fashion from the Irish mantels. Some imbrodered with white beads, some with Copper, others painted after their manner.” The white beads John Smith refers to are probably marginella shells, thousands of which decorate the famous “Powhatan’s Mantle”.

Made from the hides of seven white-tailed deer, the “Robe of the King of Virginia” measures eight feet, by five feet, and has been in England since before 1638. Later, it became part of the extensive collection in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The mantle on the Chief, Allowat Sakima, was designed on black wool felt and was made from strings of shells sold as hangings in Florida gift shops. Our werowance [chief] also has a bracer, but his is made of white rabbit fur and is only ceremonial. A matching fur quiver with a white fox face and tail holds the Chief’s ceremonial arrow, fletched with wild turkey feathers. In keeping with the totem of Amangamek-Wipit Lodge, his red war club has a fossil Giant Shark’s tooth resting on his arm and a row of modern shark teeth along the top edge, modeled after a Hawaiian club displayed at Sea World.

The Chief’s neckpiece is a gorget made from copper, because these Native Americans prized copper for its workability and shine. This value that the Powhatans placed on copper made it possible for English settlers to barter and easily obtain crucial winter food supplies. In April 1613, Captain Samuel Argall offered a Patawomeke werowance and his wife a copper kettle to bring Pocahontas aboard his ship, allowing him to kidnap her. The necklace medallions on our warriors have a different history. These are copper copies of what, in 1662, were silver badges used for passage, like a Photo ID is used today. Once contact was established with the native peoples, the English settlers needed a way to know which Indians had treaties and therefore were allowed safe conduct into the villages to do business. These individuals were issued medallions inscribed with their tribe name so peaceful natives could be easily identified. Other personal decorations are described by Smith….

They adorn themselves most with copper beads and paintings…In each eare commonly they haue 3 great holes, whereat they hang chaines, bracelets of copper. Some of the men weare in those holes, a small greene and yellow coloured snake, nearly halfe a yard in length, which crawling and lapping her selfe about his necke oftentimes familiarly would kiss his lips. Others weare a dead Rat tyed by the taile. Some on their heads weare the wing of a bird, or some large feather with a Rattell….Many haue the whole skinne of a Hawke or some strange foule, stuffed with the wings abroad. Others a broad peece of Copper, and some the hand of their enemy dryed. Their heads and shoulders are painted red with the roote Pocone brayed [ground] to a powder, mixed with oyle, this they hold in sommer to preserue them from the heate, and in winter from the cold. Many other formes of paintings they vse, but he is most gallant that is the most monstrous to behold.

A small figure in the corner of a print in an early book hints at the character of the Shaman, but these descriptions by John Smith pointed clearly at a direction for Meteau’s regalia.

…And presently came skipping in a great grim fellow, all painted over with coale, mingled with oyle; and many Snakes and Wesels skins stuffed with mosse, and all their tayles tyed together, so as they met on the crowne of his head in a tassell; and round about the tassell was as a Coronet of feathers, the skins hanging round about his head, backe, and shoulders, and in a manner covered his face; with a hellish voyce and a rattle in his hand.

Catlin, famous because of his paintings of Plains Indians in the 1830’s, drew two Blackfoot Medicine Men that I imagine resemble a Powhatan Shaman. Covered with bearskins, on the many fringes are tied frogs, squirrels, badgers, ducks, turtles and snakes. One spear is decorated with bear entrails. Our Meteau is refined in comparison, wearing only whole tanned minks, coyote and fox tails hanging from a skunk skin hat. The horns are intentionally not buffalo, (although the east did have woodland bison) but rather white-tailed deer spikehorns which was recorded as the emblem worn by early woodland chiefs. An assortment of random feathers adds to the intended wild impression.

In Goose Creek ChapterYear One, there was a two-hundred dollar allowance for regalia, and we had NOTHING. Not the cheapest ribbonshirt, not a single roach, not one breechclout, not even a blanket to make a single pair of leggings. No beads, belts, bells or leather. I took apart a feathered lance I had presented to my Cub Pack when my Den graduated to Boy Scouts and laced the feathers to a felt hat crown I bought at a rummage sale. I was not able to beg a wild turkey tail for the headdress. The next year, I bought one on eBay. Furry linings from old coats became bearskin wraps, and gradually people donated enough for me to piece together outfits. Others helped me by sewing, gluing and scrounging materials. Dedicated coaches worked with the teams so I could concentrate on the regalia.

But, as everyone knows, the most expensive items are headdresses. Our first warriors wore skullcaps with a single dyed deer tail down the middle and a feathered roachpin. Although this solution was very inexpensive, historically accurate and very powerful in the dark when seen only by torchlight, these were replaced as soon as possible by boy-made fake porky roaches. The first time a ceremony was held on a windy night, these roaches had to be attached - one to a feathered hat in the woodland style, and one mounted to a fake ocelot fur headband for Nutiket. A green shirt for Nutiket and a yellow sheepskin for Kichkinet were in keeping with the suggested colors in “The Drum” for these characters, without resorting to naugahide or chamois cloth. Boxes of donated scraps of leather, leftover from the production of heavy motorcycle chaps, became our eastern moccasins, authentic folded fringed aprons and the unique leather arm bracers with antler flakers. Pottery clay was molded into everything from turtle shells for rattles to sharks teeth. Scrap copper flashing was turned into tribal badges and boards, sticks and limbs were fashioned into war clubs. I don’t accept dead things anymore, unless they are clean snapping turtle shells, bear paws with claws, complete skulls of predatory cats or softly tanned buckskin.

We have progressed from a first partial team when some characters had to read the script pinned to a fake stretcher frame, to last week, when we entered our first Ceremony Competition in unique and authentic indigenous regalia. We have three complete teams now with several backup individuals. It takes two footlockers and three cases to move the regalia for just the four main characters to a site, but typically my truck also carries an eight foot longhouse frame (called by local Indians-yihawken) to use as the dressing area and a prop for the callout ceremony. Our Allowat Sakima/Powhatan has been carried by four porters in a sedan chair to a ceremony, and stood tall under a huge palm fan umbrella as water poured from an unkind sky during a horrific ordeal thunderstorm. It was raining so hard that all twelve kerosene firepots were drowned out. That night, our first Nutiket, without missing a beat, said “represented by these candles which Have Been extinguished” instead of “which I now extinguish.”

It has been an incredible journey, started very long ago, and culminating in my recent Vigil experience. As Goose Creek Chapter moves to a new advisor and the torch is passed, I am reminded that he has pointed out, on several occasions, there is only one “first.” Thank you, Mr. Tew, for choosing me to be Goose Creek Chapter’s FIRST Ceremony Team Advisor and inspiring me to live up to the phrase “cheerful service”.

Essay by

William Seebeck
Sakima Gischihan - “Chief Who Creates”

March 15, 2001