Thursday, October 25, 2007

Arrow of Light


We had a really neat experience with Brandon this past week. We had a pack meeting where he received his Arrow of Light. I guess they hire these people to come and do the ceremony. We walked in and it was all decorated, there were trees and all types of Indian stuff (Me, being the good Bear leader that I am, have no idea what any of it is called.) and a bridge, etc. This "tribe" gets all dressed up as Indians (which, by the way, scared the crap out of Nathan) and they hooted and hollered. All the kids loved it. They had a man and woman playing some Indian drums REALLY LOUD. Nathan had his hands over his ears the whole time. I wanted to do it too, but thought it might seem rude. They told stories, and had (fake) fire. They called the boys all up, had the parents take off their Webelos scarves and put them in a basket, and then we all went outside. They said that if the boys were pure in heart, and looked into the fire, the scarf would not burn. They proceeded to set a scarf on fire, it burned for a little while, then an Indian guy grabbed it out of the fire, and it didn't burn. He said all the boys were pure in heart. We went back inside and the parents had to stay up with the boys. They gave us little gifts and then presented each of the boys with their Arrow of Light. They painted the boys face, and then their parents - fun. They then had the boys with their parents walk over the bridge. (there was even "smoke" that came out from under the bridge) Which represented bridging from Cub scouts into Boy scouts.



This is Brandon, Sean, and Corey with their new fearless leader!


It was an awesome ceremony and a huge production. Nathan was really afraid of the main Indian guy. But while we were up with Brandon, the "big Indian" came over and talked to Nathan and gave him some little stones. Nathan said, "He gave me something special for the dark. They are to make you see." Of course these special little night vision rocks were lost within 5 minutes tops. It was a really special evening and we are so proud of Brandon!


Unfortunately, we didn't take our pictures fast enough. Not only was this group really talented, but man, are they fast at clean up. We got the pictures during the clean up, bummer.

4 comments:

Paige said...

Costumes and make-up? Now that's what I call a party! Too bad you couldn't keep those Indians around for the ward Halloween party.

Celia Fae said...

We don't do anything that cool in our ward. We are getting ripped off. I'm calling Salt Lake.

Jessica said...

It was a big hit with my kids too...I'm so glad they had something to do while I went shopping. Thanks Indian guys.

Ilene said...

Dan didn't tell me that there were hired Indians! Growing up it was always the scout leaders pretending to be Indians at these ceremonies. Well, la-di-da for our scouts.

I knew Liberty Lake was the "it" place.