The purpose of the Indian Princess Program is to foster understanding and companionship between father and daughter.
One of the greatest gifts that a father can give a daughter is quality time spent together. The Indian Princess program is for dads with daughters ages five through twelve. The purpose is to develop the foundation for a life-long relationship. Indian Princesses provide opportunities for fathers and daughters to spend time together.
The Indian Princess Slogan
“Friends Always”
The slogan, “Friends Always”, means that father and daughter have a close, enduring relationship in which there is communication, understanding, and companionship. The Indian Princess program encourages such a relationship by providing a means for father and daughter to share enjoyable experiences and have fun together.
The Indian Princess Pledge
“We, father and daughter, through friendly service to each other, to our family, to this tribe, to our community, seek a world pleasing to the eye of the Great Spirit.”
Aims of the Indian Princesses
1. To be clean in body and pure in heart.
2. To be friends always with my father/daughter.
3. To love the sacred circle of my family.
4. To listen while others speak.
5. To love my neighbor as myself.
6. To seek and preserve the beauty of the Great Spirit’s work in forest, field and stream.
The History of Indian Guides & Princesses
The father and son YMCA Indian Guides program was developed in a deliberate way to support the father’s vital family role as teacher, counselor, and friend to his son. In 1926 Harold S. Keltner, St. Louis YMCA Director, initiated the program and organized the first tribe in Richmond Heights, Missouri, with the help of Joe Friday, an Ojibway Indian, and William H. Hefelfinger, Chief of the first YMCA Indian Guides tribe. The program of parent-child experiences that Harold Keltner initiated over 75 years ago now involves a half million children and adults.
Harold Kelter was initially inspired by his experiences with Joe Friday, Harold’s guide on fishing and hunting trips into Canada. While on a hunting trip, Joe Friday said to his white colleague, as they sat around a blazing campfire,“The Indian father raises his son. He teaches his son to hunt, to track, to fish, to walk softly and silently in the forest, to know the meaning and purpose of life and all he must know, while the white man allows the mother to raise his son.” These comments struck home, and Harold Keltner arranged for Joe Friday to work with him at the St. Louis YMCA.
The Ojibway Indian spoke before groups of YMCA boys and dads in St. Louis and Mr. Keltner discovered that fathers and sons shared an interest in the traditions and ways of American Indian. At the same time, being a great lover of the outdoors, Keltner conceived the idea of a father and son program based upon the strong qualities of American Indian culture and life-dignity, patience, endurance, spirituality, felling for the earth, and concern for the family. Thus, the YMCA Indian Guides program was born.
The YMCA Indian Princess expansion
The Indian Guides program grew rapidly with the post World War II baby boomer generation and it became clear that there was a need for a similar organization for girls. The success of the father-son program nurtured the development of parent-daughter groups. The mother-daughter program, now called Indian Maidens, was established in 1951 and three years later father-daughter Indian Princesses groups began. Since the early 1960’s, the swift expansion of these programs has continued along with a corresponding group of programs for older children. Currently, about 900 YMCA’s sponsor over 30,000 YMCA Indian groups in the United States.
The Indian Princesses Headband
The central theme of the headband is the sign of the eye of the Great Spirit with the crossed arrows of friendship on the left side and the circled heart of love on the right side. The symbols for father and daughter are next to the grouped tepees, which indicate happy work in the community, and a single teepee, which denotes happy work in the home. The trees, water, and grass exhort the wearer to see and preserve the Great Spirit’s beauty in forest, field and stream.