When OA Banned Native Events: Florida’s Final Powwow

The Last Drumbeat

National banned Native events above lodge level after December 31, 2025. Florida held its final Festival of Feathers (powwow) in November 2025. The very first OA Area Conference was created here in Florida in 1945. It had powwow-style Indian dancing and more. This year’s (now called Section) Conference for Florida was advertised as the last Section Conference Festival of Feathers (our name for a powwow) because National said no more AIA events above the lodge level after December 31, 2025.

The Florida Section held a Section Leadership Summit on the weekend of November 14, 2025. The last event before the ban. They advertised it would include a (small) Festival of Feathers. Resulting in about twice the usual attendance for the event.

In announcing the closing song, the Native leading the powwow announced that because of the ban, the final drumbeat would be heard for Florida OA. And, breaking tradition, said that anyone who wanted to could come join the drum (in the center of the circle). (It is an honor to be asked to stand or sit with the drum.) We pretty much all got up and crowded in together, almost intimately.

And they say there is no interest in Indian lore in the Order.