Inside the Iron Arrow

“He recognized the nobility of the native people. So, his idea was [to] pattern the organization after the native people, which, down here, are the Everglades seminole…”

Johann Ali, unofficial Iron Arrow historian, on Dr. Bowman Foster Ashe’s vision for Iron Arrow

The rise and [possible] fall of the University of Miami’s original honor society

BY PATRICK MCCASLIN 

One month after the University of Miami opened in 1926, on a November afternoon, Dr. Bowman Foster Ashe approached UM’s first enrolled student, Francis Houghtaling, with his fledgling concept for an honor society. Houghtaling had recently proposed a fraternity with “an Indian ritual” to Ashe – the university’s first president – who had told Houghtaling to save the idea for a better purpose. Now, Ashe had that better purpose. He excitedly delivered his vision for the Iron Arrow honor society in the middle of Houghtaling’s physics lab, standing atop a lab stool. It would be a society for the school’s top scholars. Ashe asked Houghtaling to select the initial group of what would be a tapping society – where members are selected without applications – that would employ the traditions of Florida’s indigenous people.

Flash forward to 2022, when the UM Student Senate voted overwhelmingly (28-5 with seven abstentions) on a resolution asking the university to disaffiliate itself from Iron Arrow, the honor society that Ashe created.

In UM’s own words, Iron Arrow is “the highest honor attained” at the university, an organization comprising “those who excel in scholarship and leadership.” Its history is intertwined with the school’s, having been founded in the same disastrous year that UM endured the Great Miami Hurricane, later surviving several major campus evolutions, and all the while acting as an integral part of the university’s culture.

So, what motivated the student senate to call for its dissolution?

A 1953 photo of UM President Jay Pearson and the honor society’s members wearing the Miccosukee jackets while performing a tapping ceremony.

At issue is Iron Arrow’s complex relationship with the Native American Miccosukee tribe (formerly of the Seminole tribe before their split in 1959). The honor society’s members wear handmade Miccosukee jackets, bang drums, and perform a wordless tapping ceremony where inductees are grabbed and led to the center of campus, later to be initiated in an Everglades tradition shrouded in secrecy. All of this is done with the blessing of current and past leaders of the Miccosukee.

As described by Iron Arrow, the leaders of the Miccosukee Tribe, and the University of Miami, Iron Arrow “acknowledges, praises, and practices the traditions and culture of the Miccosukee.” That line comes from a memorandum of understanding issued by the three parties in 2018 to reaffirm Iron Arrow’s relationship with the tribe.

Indigenous peoples both on campus and throughout Florida are deeply wounded, alienated, offended, and angered by the practices of the iron arrow society…

Over the last decade, however, there has been a growing movement to end stereotypical characterizations of Native Americans, leading to the name change of the NFL team the Washington Redskins to the Washington Commanders, and removing references to the “Red Man” in everything from Peter Pan to Dr. Suess, for example.

As Krystle Young Bowers, a member of the Seminole Tribe of Florida and a University of Miami alum, sees it, “Indigenous peoples both on campus and throughout Florida are deeply wounded, alienated, offended, and angered by the practices of the Iron Arrow Society. The presence and actions of Iron Arrow affect not only life on campus but extend throughout Florida in everything the society does.” That language comes directly from a petition Bowers circulated in 2022, which obtained over 1,000 signatures from students and members of the Miccosukee. The petition concludes, “If Iron Arrow exists to be a vessel for cultural exchange as it claims, it has failed at its purpose and should be dissolved. The society does not understand nor observe the Seminole-Miccosukee culture, sovereignty, or religion as shown through their wildly inaccurate rituals.” The petition calls on UM to issue a public apology, sever its ties with Iron Arrow, and rectify the damage done by the society.

Can these views be reconciled? Iron Arrow leaders see the society as a symbol of utmost respect for the Miccosukee and tribe leaders have repeatedly affirmed their relationship with Iron Arrow. But critics see the honor society as another example of culturally insensitive misappropriation and patronizing. “It makes you a caricature,” Bowers said in an interview with Coral Gables Magazine. “Outsiders really don’t even care to know our history or know us, but they’ll protect these mascots.” To understand the controversy first requires a lesson in history.

1926: Iron Arrow is born alongside an infant university and city

In the fall of 1926, Dr. Bowman Foster Ashe opened the University of Miami as a labor of love. When the cataclysmic Great Miami Hurricane hit that September, delaying the university’s opening, Ashe relocated to an unfinished hotel (the Biltmore) using cardboard walls to partition the rooms. He lived full-time on-campus with his wife, sleeping in the dorms and eating with the students in the dining hall. When the university’s already immense debts worsened during the Great Depression, Ashe even borrowed upon his personal insurance policy to pay professors.

Embedded in Ashe’s passion for the University of Miami was his parallel desire to create an honor society like the elite institutions in the northeast, a tradition that UM could, too, wear like a crown. So, shortly after UM opened in that fateful year of 1926, when George Merrick’s dream of Coral Gables foundered on the hurricane-induced collapse of the Florida housing market, he pushed forward to create Iron Arrow, inspired by all the trappings of Florida’s Seminoles – their clothing, their musical instruments, their rituals, and their deep relationship with the Everglades.

Left: A 1966 photo of um President Henry King Stanford receiving a Miccosukee jacket and face paint at an iron arrow tapping ceremony. Right: A 1986 photo of UM President Tad Foote having his forehead painted by “Chief” Mark Cheskin. The daubing of face paint to indicate new members was discontinued after a vote in 2018.

“He recognized the nobility of the native people,” says Johann Ali, unofficial Iron Arrow historian. “So, his idea was [to] pattern the organization after the native people, which, down here, are the Everglades Seminole. It would be a testimony to [them].”

Florida’s indigenous people settled the southern half of the state 8,000 years ago, living atop mounds of earth heaped above Florida’s waterline. They slowly split into distinct cultures that were collectively labeled centuries later by the colonizer’s name, “cimarrones” which was anglicized to “Seminole.” The indigenous people used the colonial Seminole name grudgingly in their dealings with Americans, but later adopted it at the onset of the Seminole Wars in the early 1800s as a symbol of common resistance against the hostile U.S. colonists. Through the Seminole Wars and the Indian Removal Act (which included the infamous Trail of Tears), the Americans tried to uproot all Seminole people from their land, but several bands that refused to surrender remained in the Florida Everglades.

Ashe turned to these people, the Florida Seminoles, to finish envisioning Iron Arrow. Tony Tommie, an English-speaking Seminole, rose to the task. Tommie had completed two years of public school in Fort Lauderdale and attended boarding school for another four years, contributing to his fluency in English and his comfort in engaging with the white American. While in Fort Lauderdale, Tommie became the spokesperson for the Fort Lauderdale Seminoles. The press misunderstood his role and labeled him “Chief” of the tribe.

Ashe, Houghtaling, and the other founding members of Iron Arrow collaborated with Tommie in creating the society’s traditions, under the impression that Tommie was a bona fide leader of the tribe. With Tommie, they created an initiation tradition for new members of Iron Arrow that endures to this day, albeit somewhat modified.

During initiation, inductees are grabbed by the arms and silently taken to “The Rock” at the center of campus. For much of Iron Arrow’s history, that process was accompanied by the continuous beating of a drum which reached a crescendo at the point of the inductee’s “presentation” to the Iron Arrow Chair. The ceremony is patterned after a Miccosukee rite of passage, which was “gifted” by Tommie at the society’s inception. It later concludes deep in the Everglades with a secretive ceremony that, according to Ali, “is a time for very deep reflection and listening.”

A 2014 photo of Latin pop superstar Gloria Estefan at her tapping ceremony. It was 1985 when Iron Arrow finally allowed women to join the society. “They [Iron Arrow members] pride themselves on their sovereignty, and that nobody will ever tell them what they should and shouldn’t be doing,” says Johann Ali on the vote to let women be members.

Other traditions Tommie initiated have since been altered through a continuous process of feedback and guidance from Miccosukee leadership. Shortly after granting these “gifts” to Iron Arrow, Tommie became a pariah of the Florida Seminoles. The Seminole Tribune writes that Tommie swore Seminole allegiance to the United States without consulting with the tribe and participated in an event with Miamians where he symbolically gave Seminole land away to his “white brothers.” The issue became so pressing that the tribe’s Medicine Man wrote a letter angrily denouncing Tommie as “a fakir and traitor to his tribesmen,” and accusing him of seeking only publicity and financial gain for himself.

“The origin story of Iron Arrow is what it is. I can’t go back and change that,” says Adrian Nuñez, faculty advisor for Iron Arrow. “What I can control is the relationship that we have with the Miccosukee today. [It’s] a complicated origin story, sure, but certainly doesn’t take away from the merits of the organization as it is today, what it’s done for the university, what it’s done for South Florida, and the partnership that we have with the tribe.”

Even as Tommie’s actions during the founding of Iron Arrow remain questionable, multiple Miccosukee leaders following Tommie have affirmed their relationship with it. “We asked them, ‘How do we go about this to make sure that we’re keeping with the things that we’ve committed to and promised to do?’” historian Ali says. “If the Miccosukee leadership came to us tomorrow and said, ‘No more,’ we’d be like, ‘Okay, no more.’”

Nuñez says that is the reason Iron Arrow has a tribal liaison, a member of the tribe who acts as a go-between for the leaders of the Miccosukee and Iron Arrow. “There’s not always a reasoning or a justification behind [any ritual]. Our deference and respect to the tribe is, ‘Please take a look at this,’ and when we have a response, we go with it. We’re not here to question, or opine, or rationalize it, but move forward and adapt as they see fit.”

1943-1985: Tough times and a temporary divorce

Around the onset of World War II, Iron Arrow began to falter. The Depression and draft had hit the university hard, and administration even called into question whether UM would reopen in the fall of 1943. Yet the society persisted, spurred on by a 1944 editorial from The Miami Hurricane, UM’s student newspaper, titled, “We Need Iron Arrow” and a resurgence in alumni support. In 1950, shortly before Ashe’s death, the University of Miami granted a charter to Iron Arrow, confirming it as the “highest honor attained” at UM. The society thrived from that point forward, steadily overcoming financial obstacles and embedding itself as an ongoing UM tradition.

In May of 1973, however, criticisms of Iron Arrow reached the federal government in the form of a complaint that Iron Arrow discriminated against “Indians” and “females.” The first issue was resolved five months later.

“We do not find evidence to support a claim that the Society’s use of Indian ritual and appurtenances is, per se, demeaning of either Seminole or Mikasuki [sp] Indians or Indians in general,” read a letter summarizing the investigation to Dr. Henry Stanford, then president of UM. “Our investigating has included an analysis of the society’s constitution and ritual, as well as contacts with Indian persons knowledgeable about Seminole and Mikasuki tribal customs and Iron Arrow itself.”

Iron Arrow’s steadfast refusal to admit women to its society was another matter. The honor society was in violation of the 1972 Title IX civil rights law which prohibited sex-based discrimination. The federal government forced the University of Miami to disassociate from Iron Arrow in 1976 until the society allowed women to join. Iron Arrow sued the federal government, but President Foote, inaugurated in 1981, refused to reallow Iron Arrow unless they permitted women to join, regardless of the outcome of the lawsuit.

After six previous attempts, Iron Arrow finally voted to allow women in 1985 at a special meeting. Ali, the unofficial Iron Arrow historian, explains that the group in charge of Iron Arrow at the time was defiant due to their close relationship with the Miccosukee. “They pride themselves on their sovereignty, and that nobody will ever tell them what they should and shouldn’t be doing,” Ali says. The old guard of Iron Arrow refused to allow women to enter, but the new guard prevailed, finally winning the vote.

The controversy anew

Krystle Young Bowers first became aware of Iron Arrow during her freshman year in 2009. As a member of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, she had never heard of the society and was initially confused by the sound of drums and people wearing tribal jackets. “I didn’t really expect it to be something the school was supporting and putting on with non-tribal members,” Young Bowers says. “Then I got closer and saw it clearly wasn’t people from my tribe.” She learned later that part of the society’s requirements, at the time, included continuous banging on a hand drum. “That’s a weird cultural appropriation thing that I guess they think we do,” she says.

A 2018 photo of UM President Julio Frenk at the signing ceremony of a memorandum of understanding between the Miccosukee and Iron Arrow, which concluded with: “This joint declaration shall remain valid, in perpetuity, until otherwise decided by the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida or the Iron Arrow Honor Society, severally.”

Several years later, Young Bowers returned to UM as a master’s student, coinciding with a time of increased scrutiny of Iron Arrow and its practices. In 2018, Iron Arrow hosted a community-wide discussion forum with members of the Miccosukee tribe. “What came out of that conversation were some of the things that we ended up changing. We went into a period of very deep reflection and revision,” Ali said. “Wherever we could not identify positively where something came from, if it did not stem from the Miccosukee, we either eliminated it or figured out how to modify it.”

For example, the practice of using face paint as a way of indicating new members was discontinued. “We couldn’t positively identify where it came from, and so we eliminated it,” Ali said. Also in that time, Iron Arrow made a shift from providing charity to the Miccosukee to focusing on other resources. “They don’t need the money. What they need is [awareness] and they need resources to help them accomplish their goals,” Ali says.

What that looks like in practice is a partnership with the Miccosukee Indian School to host tours on UM’s campus and to hold roundtable discussions with representatives from the Miccosukee Indian School, health professionals, and some of the people that work in the environmental resilience space. Later in 2018, the tribal liaison, UM President Julio Frenk, and Nuñez signed the memorandum of understanding that enshrined the Miccosukee’s endorsement of Iron Arrow. It concludes, “This joint declaration shall remain valid, in perpetuity, until otherwise decided by the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida or the Iron Arrow Honor Society, severally.”

Despite the MOU, however, Young and other members of the Miccosukee and Seminole tribes believe further change is necessary.

“After seeing the ‘tapping ceremony,’ I thought to myself, if this is what we signed off on – to have a relationship with UM – can we renegotiate?” asks Amarys Huggins, a Miccosukee member of the Bird Clan. “I am a lifelong University of Miami fan, so it is a bit upsetting to see what used to be my dream school allow a group to mock Indigenous people.”

In 2020, Iron Arrow announced that it would discontinue using the leadership titles of Chief, Son of Chief, and Medicine Man; discontinue the folding of arms; and limit the drumming to a few beats instead of the entire ceremony. However, due to the pandemic, Iron Arrow didn’t vote on the matter until 2022 – by which time opposition against its practices had swelled.

That was the year Young Bowers created her petition, accruing over 1,000 signatures. An Instagram post from an indigenous student denouncing Iron Arrow for harming native students circulated campus, receiving over 2,500 likes. Protesters at Iron Arrow’s 2022 tapping ceremony held up signs saying, “Big nope to racial trope” and “We are NOT your tradition.”

“My understanding is that the demonstrators are in support of Native American heritage … and I think that’s absolutely warranted and welcomed,” Nuñez says. At the same time, the Miccosukee tribe’s official position has been to not intervene with anything on-campus. That position is set by the General Council, a group of elected officials in the Miccosukee tribe. Nonetheless, members of the Miccosukee Tribe, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and other UM students have repeatedly expressed their rejection of Iron Arrow.

“Although the General Council is made up of tribal members, not all views and beliefs are reflected in decisions made by [it]. Iron Arrow will always be mockery and not appreciation as long as they keep playing dress up [and] as long as they keep acting like they’re one of us,” Huggins says. “None of them have faced the hardships we have faced as Miccosukee people.”

In the end, the question remains: Is Iron Arrow cultural appropriation? The Seminole Tribe of Florida’s own standard for cultural appropriation is borrowed from Richard A. Rogers, an expert in communication at Northern Arizona University. It defines cultural appropriation as “the appropriation of elements of a subordinate culture without substantive reciprocity, permission, and/or compensation.”

Critics of Iron Arrow say that is precisely the case. “Wearing traditional jackets and learning about my people would be cultural appreciation. Once they start grabbing people, banging on hand drums, and stabbing arrows into the ground, it’s mockery,” says Huggins. Counters Nuñez: “I think there’s layers of context that will inform whether something is cultural appropriation or not,” he says. You need “context that provides intention, motivations, and that missing ‘why’ piece.”

The debate continues, but for now, the Iron Arrow honor society lives on.