Dr. Oronhyatekha by Keith Jamieson

Author:Keith Jamieson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dundurn
Published: 2016-10-10T16:00:00+00:00

As a way to build a sense of belonging at mass initiations, the IOF issued souvenir coins and medals. This medal commemorated the joint initiation of 1,001 members at Massey Hall in Toronto.

Dr. Oronhyatekha pictured in his IOF uniform.

October 1888 that the court with the most new members recruited during the remainder of the year would receive a full set of officers’ sashes, valued at twenty dollars. The court in second place would be awarded a full set of officers’ badges, and the third place winner a framed copy of a picture of the Supreme Court officials. Other prizes included an IOF banquet lamp or souvenir spoon, morocco-bound copies of his History of the IOF, and even cash awards. Occasionally, he reduced initiation rates for specific periods of time, or allowed the fees to be paid in installments as an incentive. He also initiated large groups at one time. In 1902, he offered membership to all Torontonians without fees if they joined in January or February. On February 19, he inducted 505 new members at a large ceremony, and another 300 a few months later in April. The next year he initiated over 3,000 new members in only five cities, and in 1904 another 2,500 during three meetings.[57]

An obvious way to expand membership was to open the IOF to the wives and children of members. In 1888, Dr. Oronhyatekha established the first Juvenile Foresters court in London, but for years the Supreme Court resisted his emphatic belief that women should be able to join. Finally, in 1898, women-only Companion Courts were formally approved.[58] Tapping into the popularity of marching and drilling at that time, Dr. Oronhyatekha also created the Royal Foresters, a uniformed arm of the IOF that formed “encampments” rather than courts. To receive this advanced “Royal and Chivalric Degree,” initiates needed to be Foresters first. Entitled Sir Knight, a Royal Forester needed to possess honour, chivalry, courage, and self-sacrifice for the benefit of the weak, emulating the nobleman of the forest, like the legendary Robin Hood.[59]

The mystique of secret rituals, of course, drew in members. Interestingly, in 1868, Dr. Oronhyatekha proposed that the Good Templars abolish all degrees and rituals as “an unnecessary and troublesome encumbrance and a fruitful source of embarrassment.”[60] As IOF supreme chief ranger, however, he clearly saw the value of rituals, and rewrote them a number of times. These prescribed the proper protocols to be admitted to meetings, the order of business, initiation, installment, and other ceremonies, oaths and obligations of the officers, signs and salutes, and odes and prayers.

Like many other fraternal societies, the IOF drew inspiration for its rituals from the Old Testament, but it also turned to its legendary forestry-based past. For example, in its 1899 initiation ceremony, potential candidates were allegorically treated as strangers found wandering in a forest. The senior and junior woodwards blindfolded and bound the wrists of the applicant. The senior woodward then knocked on the meeting room door three times, to raise an “alarm,” answered by three more knocks by the senior beadle on the other side.

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