About Us

The Ipany Longhouse is the local group which administers the aims of the YMCA Y-Indian Princesses program.  This is a program rich in history and values designed to foster the understanding and companionship of fathers and daughters.

Purpose
The purpose of the Y-Indian Princess Program is to foster understanding and companionship between father and daughter.

Slogan
"Friends Always"

The slogan "Friends Always" does not mean that father and daughter relate to each other as equals, such as two girls who are friends. Rather, it means that father and daughter have a close, enduring relationship in which there is communication, understanding and companionship. The Y-Indian Princess Program encourages such a relationship by providing a means for father and daughter to share enjoyable experiences, to observe and learn about one another and to develop mutual respect.

Aims
1. To be clean in body and pure in heart.
2. To be pals forever 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.

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."

Headband

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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.  

Longhouse Constitution

The Ipany Longhouse Officers adopted a Constitution in 2007 in order codify the many traditions of our group for use now and in the future. As Ipany Longhouse re-builds itself through the coming years,  the Constitution will be the guide for the Father's running the group.   The intent is also to make it a living document that can change as the group changes in order to meet the needs of the day.  

 

HISTORY OF THE Y-INDIAN PRINCESS PROGRAM

In the Beginning...
"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 that he must know, while the white man allows the mother to raise his son."  These chance remarks made in the early 1920s by Ojibway Indian hunting guide Joe Friday to Harold Keltner, a St. Louis YMCA director, struck a responsive chord.

Closing the Gap
In 1925 Keltner arranged for Friday to speak before boys and dads in the St. Louis area.  One evening after a talk given at a father and son banquet, Friday was so closely surrounded by fathers that the boys could not get near him.  This gave Keltner an idea.  Perhaps this strong mutual interest in the Indian could be put at the heart of a program aimed at closing the gap that he had seen widening between American fathers and their sons.

American Indian Culture and Life
Keltner designed a father-son program based on the qualities of American Indian culture and life:  Dignity, Patience, Endurance, Spirituality, Feeling for the earth, and Concern for the family.   From this, Y-Indian Guide programs were born.

Rapid Growth After WWII
In 1926, Keltner organized the first tribe of Y-Indian Guides in Richmond Heights, MO. with the help of Friday and William Hefelfinger, chief of that first tribe.  Although it grew slowly at first, the program eventually was recognized as a national YMCA program in 1935.  The popularity of Y-Indian Guides grew rapidly in the post-World War II period of 1942 to 1962, guided by John Ledie, national advisor.  Many new programs and organizational developments at the local and national levels also evolved during this time.

The Y-Indian Princess Program is Born
The rise of the family YMCA following World War II, the genuine need for supporting little girls in their personal growth, and the demonstrated success of the father-son program in turn nurtured the development of parent-daughter groups.  The mother-daughter program, now called Indian Maidens, was established in South Bend, IN, in 1951.  Three years later father-daughter groups, which are called Y-Indian Princesses, originated in the Fresno, CA, YMCA.  Y-Indian Braves, a program for mothers and sons, emerged during the late 1970s and was officially recognized by the National Executive Committee of the National Longhouse at Dearborn, MI, in 1980.

Since 1963, the swift expansion of the Y-Indian Princess Program has continued with all these programs, and with a corresponding group of programs for older children.  Currently, about 900 YMCAs sponsor 30,000 Y-Indian Guide groups.