2016 – Contributed by James A. Matthews

At least insofar as Malvern Troop 7 and Camp Horseshoe are concerned, The Royal Order of Siam (“ROS”; within the troop, we universally referred to it simply as “Siam”) was the creation of Troop 7 Scoutmaster Kenneth E. Yeager.  I was first exposed to it in 1967 as a first-year Troop 7 camper.  All I know about any aspect of the ROS prior to 1967 is that it had to have been in place for at least three years, because in 1967 there were youth members in the fourth degree.  That would take it back to at least 1964. 

Beyond that, I know that Yeager moved to Malvern and became involved with Troop 7 sometime in the early 1960s.  He had previously been active with a troop in what was then the Philadelphia Council and had camped with that troop at Treasure Island (his Ordeal and Brotherhood were from Unami Lodge; his Vigil was from Octoraro Lodge).  What I don’t know (or recall if I ever knew) is whether the ROS is something that Yeager brought with him from Philadelphia or created out of whole cloth once he got to Malvern.  My sense is that it was probably the former, but I just don’t know.  I will continue to look for those older than I who might know.

As far as I know, during the entire time that the ROS was active, Malvern 7 was at Camp Horseshoe during the third week of camp and used what was then the Shawana campsite.¹  As I have mentioned to several people who have asked more recently, the word “Shawana” was not part of the name of the “organization.”  Shawana was simply where the event happened.  I believe that the misunderstanding comes from a plaque in the Dining Hall which says “Royal Order of Siam” across the top and “Shawana” at the bottom.  That dates to my time and I can say with certainty that the “Shawana” referred only to the location and was not intended as part of the name.

Finally, before getting into any of the substance, one must understand that none of it makes any real sense except in Yeager’s own mind.  Where some purpose can be discerned (or, in some cases, articulated by Yeager whether you followed him or not), I will mention it in the course of discussion.

2016 – Contributed by James A. Matthews

The ROS had five “degrees”:  Sudra (soo-dra), Vaisya (vah-sha), Kshatriya (sha-tree-ah), Priest (I don’t think there was a ritual name for that, but I may be wrong) and Brahmin.  All participants proceeded through the first three degrees, one year at a time.  Non-Troop 7 members stopped at Kshatriya.  Fourth-year and above Troop 7 members (youth and adult) were the only ones who could be priests.  Yeager was the one and only Brahmin.

All of the degree names relate to Hindu castes.  They have nothing to do with Siam (i.e., Thailand).  I have no idea where they came from other than that.  There was a symbol for each degree which was on the respective neckerchief given to participants.  Attached are scans of my Vaisya and Kshatriya neckerchiefs (I can’t find the others).  The Sudra symbol had the same bottom semi-circle with only the single squiggly line in the center.  The fourth-year symbol was the same as Kshatriya, with another, upside down semi-circle above the squiggly lines.  Yeager, as I recall, may have had the word “Brahmin” on his.  Other than that there were one, two and three of them on the respective first, second and third degrees, I don’t know (and don’t think I ever knew) what, if anything, the squiggly lines or any other aspect of the symbols meant (if, indeed, they meant anything).  I heard someone (outside the Troop) once offer the view that the squiggly lines referred to the “worm” which was part of the Sudra degree.  I at least know that that is incorrect. 

The event itself was held in the Shawana campfire area on Thursday night after Taps.  For this purpose, the campfire circle was renamed the “Tulpetit” (tull-peteet) Ceremonial Grounds.  At least in Yeager’s mind, “Tulpetit” was French for “Little Turtle.” Aside from the fact that he didn’t speak any more French than he did Thai (which is to say, none),² what the French language or turtles had to do with Siam, Hindu castes or any other aspect of the whole thing was, and continues to be, a mystery to me³.  As to the ceremony itself, more below.

In addition to the Malvern 7 campers, there were newly-invited guests each year.  These included the Scoutmaster and Senior Patrol Leader of the other third-week troops (if either or both were already members, they could bring another adult or youth as a new member) and selected members of the camp staff.  The latter would be invited publicly during the Dining Hall Procession (as to which, again, more below).  When I was younger, the number of invited camp staff members was pretty small and it was something of a big deal to be invited.  Later on, it wasn’t so exclusive.  Also attending would be all other existing members, whether from other troops or the camp staff.

The actual ceremony was then followed by a party – “reception” sounds way too formal – in the Shawana campsite.  This was consistent with another Yeager principle, which was that one never held any sort of event of any kind that didn’t involve food.  For the time we were in camp, he would have a one- or two-Coleman stove kitchen set up in front of the Adirondack and would cook like a fiend.  Also, the adult leaders who weren’t in camp, and the wives of most of the leaders whether in camp or not, all came down and brought food.  This could be done with little interruption of normal camp life because you could get into and out of Shawana by way of the old camp road without coming anywhere near the central camp area.  By the time all this was done, it was well past midnight.  That was a major pain in the neck for the Malvern 7 campers, because campsite reville, which was normally 6:30 AM (Malvern 7’s camp routine is another story by itself), was moved up to 6:00 AM so that Yeager was sure that everything was cleaned up before daily camp inspection⁴. 

2016 – Contributed by James A. Matthews

During lunch on Wednesday, the Malvern 7 leaders and fourth-year and up campers would slip out and change into their Siam finery (described below in connection with the ceremony).  The whole group would then come parading into the Dining Hall ringing bells, banging cymbals and so forth.  Yeager would then say something (including the invitation to existing members and the representatives of other troops) and one of the youth would then unroll a scroll and read the names of the camp staff members who were being invited.  As I said, early on that was a bigger deal than it later became and there was much hooting and hollering as each name was read.  The procession would then reverse itself.

I’m not sure he always did this, but I can remember a number of times that Heegard would then dismiss from lunch by ROS degrees.

2016 – Contributed by James A. Matthews

Once everyone was assembled in Shawana after Taps,⁵ all but the Priests and Yeager processed back to the circle.  I’m pretty sure that all of the first-, second- and third-year participants stood in line together, but I can’t remember whether they (or maybe just the first years) came back separately from the rest.  Everyone was seated (at least those who could be) and waited while the rest got dressed in the campsite.  There was a campfire laid on the “altar”, but it wasn’t yet lit.

The basic “Priest” costume was a long, cloth robe in some sort of bright yellow, orange, pink or blue color.  Some of the people wore rubber skin heads.  Continuing the theme of total substantive discontinuity, everyone was trying to look, more than anything else, like a Buddhist monk.  I suppose that has more connection to Siam than Hindu castes, but whatever.  Various people also had bells and cymbals and others carried the necessary supplies for the ceremony.  Everyone but Yeager then entered the circle and stood at the front.  Yeager had a more elaborate robe and some kind of headpiece, the details of which I can’t remember.  He also had, and this is key, a live blacksnake around his neck.  He stayed up on top of the rocks (with, I kid you not, a completely undecorated lawn chair to sit it; I never could understand why he never threw something over it to make it look even barely “ceremonial,” but, as I have said, none of this made sense to anyone but him anyway).

Yeager started with some introductory remarks (I really can’t remember any of that).  Then there was some mystical way to get the fire started.  Most commonly, it was done electrically.  Other times, it was done chemically.⁶

Then it’s first-year time.  They line up across the front.  Each in turn is presented with a tray (or maybe it was a bowl, I forget) of earthworms.  The test is to bite the worm in half (yes, I’m serious).  At least within the troop, we used to spread the rumor among the first-year kids that they had to eat it, but the truth was just bite it in half and spit it out.  If you got caught pulling it apart rather than biting it, you had to start over.  Yeager used to explain that there was a point to this exercise, but I can’t remember what it was.  After the person bit the worm, he would be approached by two priests with the “potion.”  The potion was at all times I can recall the most vile-tasting cough syrup Yeager could find.  Early on, it was something called “creo-terpin” or “terpin-hydrate” or something like that and actually contained codeine.  Then you couldn’t get the codeine version without a prescription and it changed to something else.  I know that it kept changing over time, but other than assuming it was to something less-objectionable, I’m not sure to what.  The potion itself was in a pump bottle of some kind and the guy holding that would squirt it into a goblet held by the other guy.  Then the participant would drink from the goblet.  Your basic first-year camper got one, or maybe two, squirts.  The older and/or more well-known the person was, the more they got.  When dealing with a camp staff member, the number of squirts was often left to the judgment of the crowd.  Thus endeth the Sudra degree.

Then the second-year people would line up. This was a typical “blood brother” routine like the OA Brotherhood ceremony (or, at least, like it used to be if it has changed).  In my, pre-HIV, time, it was an actual blood exchange.  When I was really young, the implement was a thumbtack in a cube of aluminum foil.  By the time I was on staff, it had moved on to individual, sterile lancets.  I don’t know where it went from there.  As with the first degree, there was then a round of potion.  Thus endeth the Vaisya degree.

Then the third-year people lined up.  The deal here was that Yeager came down off his throne and would approach each participant, who would then have to open his mouth while Yeager stuck the blacksnake’s (remember him) head into the guy’s mouth.  I do remember Yeager always saying something about this teaching you not to be afraid of something-or-other, but I don’t remember the details.  And then another round of potion.  Thus endeth the Kshatriya degree.

Yeager then gave some kind of closing remarks and he and the rest of the team processed back to the campsite.  Everyone was asked to keep their seats to give the team time to change and then everyone went back to the site for the food.

During the food, people were given their neckerchiefs.  Non-Troop 7 people who moved up a degree were asked to swap their existing neckerchief for a new one, but that didn’t always happen.  I don’t think the same was true of the Malvern 7 people, but it may have been and that’s why I don’t have my Sudra one.

I last attended the ROS while on the camp staff during the summer of 1973.  I think I spent at least one night with the troop in camp each following summer through 1980 or so.  I never visited on a Thursday night, but my general recollection is that the ROS was still alive and well during that period.  Malvern 7 was never a large troop (maybe 25 to 30 patrol-level scouts), but began to decline seriously in numbers and activity level in the mid-1980s.  Various people have various explanations for that, all of which are likely true to one extent or another.  During and following the same period, Shawana was abandoned, Malvern 7 began camping at Timberline later in the summer, sponsorship of the troop changed from the Malvern Fire Company to St. Patrick’s Church and new leadership succeeded Ken Yeager.  I’m not entirely clear on the precise order of those events, but I would be surprised if the ROS survived the abandonment of Shawana.  Whether it had gone extinct prior to that, I don’t know.  The current Troop 7 Scoutmaster, Jim Rapp, was a young scout in the troop when I was on camp staff.  I spoke to him at camp a few summers ago and he told me that he wasn’t sure when the ROS stopped, but that those like him who still knew about it didn’t think that resurrecting it was at all likely given their current sponsor and other current sensibilities.