Brotherhood: Be it, Live it, Believe it!
About Ma-Nu Lodge – Mission and History
This page provides information about the specific mission of the Ma-Nu Lodge. It also includes a brief history of the lodge, as well as a link to the lodge's online patch collection and online media archive. Finally, the history of the Bowstring Society is also included.
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Mission and History | |
| Awards and Recognitions | ||
| Lodge Officers and Advisers | ||
| Lodge Executive Committee | ||
| Lodge Rules and Regulations | ||
| Chapters |
The mission of the lodge is to achieve the purpose of the Order of the Arrow as an integral part of the Boy Scouts of America in the council through positive youth leadership under the guidance of selected, capable adults.
MaNu Lodge No. 133 was originally chartered to the Central Oklahoma Area Council, Region 9 on August 20, 1938. One year later the Central Oklahoma Area Council rechartered as Last Frontier Council. This makes MaNu Lodge one year older than Last Frontier Council. Over the next few decades there would be several mergers and reorganizations within the structure of both the Lodge and the Council.
As the area of the lodge expanded, the lodge began to need another form of organization. In 1963, MaNu lodge set up Chapters with borders corresponding to the districts established by the Council. In 1950, Canadian Valley Council merged with Last Frontier Council and Shawnee Lodge 192 became part of MaNu Lodge 133. Again in 1996 Black Beaver Council merged with Last Frontier Council and two years later Sekettummaqua Lodge 281 completed its merger with MaNu bringing the number of members to near 1700 and the total number of Chapters to ten.
Today, the lodge has experienced a myriad of growth and development and continues to tweak its organizational structure to better meet the demands of today's program. There are currently five Lodge Officers: The Lodge Chief; The Lodge Vice Chief for Committees; The Lodge Vice Chief for Chapter Operations; The Lodge Secretary and The Lodge Treasurer. There are also numerous Associate Lodge Advisers.
Meaning of Name: |
White Buffalo (in the Osage language)* |
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Location: |
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma |
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Lodge Totem: |
White Buffalo |
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Founding Date: |
August 20, 1938 |
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Members: |
1700 |
*Special Note: Although the literal translation of MaNu is White Buffalo, the Osage word for white also meant Spirit, so MaNu means Spirit Buffalo.
Patches of the Lodge
If you are interested in lodge flaps of MaNu Lodge, here are scanned images of some of the patches. May take a minute or two on a slower connection.
You can access copies of back issues of the Spirit of the Buffalo, videos and photographs of lodge activities, and minutes of past lodge meetings by clicking here.
History of the Bow String Society
The Bowstring Society is designed to recognize the Arrowmen in MaNu lodge who have gone above and beyond in the study and performance of the ceremonies in the Order of the Arrow. The Bowstring Society was a program that was thought up and designed by Mr. Richard E. Rea and Mr. Frank D Milledge on September 3rd 1986. While they were advisers for Will Rogers Chapter, they saw a need to recognize the young men who performed ceremonies for the chapter and lodge. Knowing that there was no program in the chapter, lodge, or National Order of the Arrow, they sat down and came up with some simple guidelines that could be used as a standard for obtaining this recognition.
Will Rogers District was partially included in the lands of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribe, commonly referred to as Concho, which in the 1800s were served by the agency at Darlington and protected by troops from Fort Reno. This connection to the Cheyenne led the search for a way to honor the ceremonial team members.
From the book Bear Men and Buffalo Women by Thomas E. Mails the advisers learned of a Cheyenne society known as the Bowstring. This society was organized without a chief; each warrior independent of the others but all the warriors dressed alike and always prepared to unite as one in war. The society members were required to be brave and strong, along with solemn and calm. For regalia each warrior carried a bow-lance about 8 feet long fashioned from a sound, straight, well seasoned stick in the shape of a bow. Originally a sharp 6 inch flint lance head was fitted to one end, later steel points were substituted. They rejoiced in the beauty of nature as the prime work of the Great Medicine, who created the rivers, the hills, the mountains, the heavenly bodies, and the clouds. They were the accepted philosophers among their people.
How more fitting than that a society of that name be associated with our Order? As Meteu says to the candidates for the Ordeal: “Soon you will be bound as brothers in this great and honored Order, but only if you are determined to fulfill its obligation out of love for one another. Till then, let silences, like a bowstring, bind you each to every other, closer when the bow is tested.”
Recalling the founding of the Order on Treasure Island Scout Camp in 1915, and the three tests of the Ordeal, plans were made to conduct the first induction into the Bowstring Society. As the lodge had not authorized or adopted the society the first Bowstring Ceremony was held as a Will Rodger Chapter recognition ceremony.
Serious consideration was given to what should be the qualifications for membership into the society. Finally it was decided that the recognition would be conferred only on youth members who, after sealing their ties in brotherhood, had: 1) Developed their own regalia appropriate to the ceremonies. 2) Could recite their lines and move appropriately around the ceremony ring as required by the character they assumed. 3) Participated with a speaking role (one of the four characters) in the three ceremonies (Pre-Ordeal, Ordeal, and Brotherhood). The members with their ceremony diversity would be of great value to the chapter and the lodge being able to fill in as necessary on ceremony teams ensuring that teams could be made when required for events. (The full, original guidelines and requirements for initial society membership are available here).
Invitations were sent to the initial group of honorees to become members of this new Society at the Fall Fellowship held in September 1986, at Slippery Falls Scout Ranch. They were notified to bring their personal regalia, be prepared to recite their memorized parts, and be prepared to spend approximately one and a half hours on Saturday night for the induction ceremony.
That evening, with Mr. Richard Rea and Mr. Frank Milledge representing the roles of Goodman and Edson, three brotherhood members of Will Rogers became the first members of the Bowstring Society within MaNu Lodge. These members were Clint Strong, Brandt Carter and Dayton Power.
Soon after the Bowstring Society was shared with the entire lodge with the assistance of Dr. Jim Reid of Norman when the ceremony team from Sooner Chapter was inducted. One stipulation was placed on this gift of the Bowstring Society; it was that the responsibility of being the Bowstring Society Adviser was to remain with the Will Rogers Chapter Adviser. Adult members of the Society, who had not been inducted as youth, were never anticipated as they would never have speaking roles within the ceremonies.
The chapter adviser position passed from Mr. Rea to Mr. Milledge and then onto others. In doing so, the role of adviser to the society also passed from the chapter and, as with all things, change came to the society in the membership eligibility.
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