Principal Name Amendments - ?

[MikeS]

With the inclusion of female youth in the OA, I wonder if National has gone so far as to realize that if females choose to be on a ceremonies team, a few of the current names of Principals will need to be changed.

I also wonder if it will be left up to local custom and tradition as to what specific roles female youth could take on? In my neck of the woods (northern New England), you can have a female chief (though rather rare) and medicine woman, but not a guide or guard. In some traditions, only males may be chief (the Lenape have such a custom), many have medicine women, a few have guides, but I don't believe any would have female guards. 

In case you were wondering -

A chiefteness in Lenape (Northern Unami - the dialect the OA borrowed its terms from) is Sakimachque (saw-kee-MAWKH-kway). KH is like German 'ch'. 'kway' rhymes with 'day'.

A medicine woman is Metewechque  (m'-teh-WEKH-kway). 

The '-chque' ending is cognate to the Abenaki and Wampanoag ending -skwa. 'ch' in some Algonquian languages is 's' in others. Lenape '"chgook" is Abenaki "skog" - same word ('snake'). The -chque ending creates the female form, so to speak, of the word. It is not a word that can stand alone; it has to be attached to something. Despite this, the English took it to mean a generic word for "woman" and came up with what is now considered the pejorative stand alone term/word, "squaw".

OK - History lesson done 

 

[The Latin Scot]

 I think it would be imperative of National to make these changes in regards to proper pronoun gender. To ignore the differentiation between men and women as understood by these cultures would be disrespectful at the least, highly offensive at the worst. The language has to be changed if the OA's intention to respect and promote the traditions of native peoples is to be sincere.

Edited February 13, 2019 by The Latin Scot

[John-in-KC]

So, has anyone read the 2019 Guide to Ceremonies, or asked their Council Staff Adviser?

[MikeS]

I've only seen the revised ceremony scripts - they tweaked them a bit, but really not by much; you kind of have to 'look for' the changes.

[Armymutt]

I know this thread is old, but the language of the Order is masculine, for better or worse.  The second degree is called Brotherhood.  Everyone is called a brother, regardless of gender.  The only place I have seen any modifications to this is in The Drum, where Tischitanissohen (Jay Dunbar) has coined the term "akinship" as a substitute for brotherhood.  Changing the names of the principals to reflect would require changing part of WWW as well, for consistency.