About Johnny Moses, from an article published in Shaman's Drum 1991

Johnny Moses is a master storyteller, traditional healer, and respected spiritual leader who carries the medicine teachings of his Northwest Coast ancestors. Born in 1961 at Ohiat, a remote Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka) village on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Moses has a multi-tribal ancestry, which includes the Nuu-chah-nulth, Saanich, Snohomish, Duwamish, and Chehamus peoples. He was raised until age nine by his maternal grandparents, who first began to train him in northern Nuu-chah-nulth and Saanich traditions.

At age thirteen, after being healed of cancer, Moses was called to carry on his family's medicine traditions and given his great-grandfather's name, Whis.stem.men.knee (Walking Medicine Robe). In addition to training under seven traditional medicine teachers and serving as a minister in the Indian Shaker Church, Moses also acquired an academic education and graduated at age eighteen from the University of Victoria with a B.A. in Education.

Fluent in seven Native languages as well as English, Moses has become a roving ambassador for his Northwest cultures, sharing the traditional stories, songs, and dances in both the United States and Canada. Working with the permission and encouragement of his elders, he shares the Si.si.wiss medicine teachings and healing ceremonies of his people through an informal organization known as the Red Cedar Circle.

This is a talk given at the Red Cedar Circle in Edwardsville, Illinois in June 2018 (The audio was not very good, so there are blank spaces, and also blank spaces for native words).

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I am so thankful to be able to share with you. I'm going to share a little bit about me. In our area, the northwest coast there, where there are our people. How I came into this medicine way. I was raised with it. I was raised by my grandmother and grandfather and that was the only mother and father I knew was my grandparents. And I'm very grateful to be here with you.

I stayed with this medicine because of the healing of my body. At one time I suffered from cancer. I have one lung and half a stomach and half of my intestines, so I am truly a half-breed. That's what I always tell people. My grandmother and grandfather didn't think that was funny because they had to be stressed out that I was suffering.

I'm one of the last generation of my people to go to the government boarding school where they tried to eliminate the culture. My grandparents were raised in the old culture. So I never lost my culture. When I went to the boarding school, my grandparents told me to look at the stars. When you look at the stars or the moon or the sun, we're looking at you, we're with you. We love you so much, our love is that strong. That's not really the star, or that's not really the sun, or the shining moon, that's our soul. We love you so much. As a child, I would look at the shining of the moon and the star or the sun, I used to go outside and look and I knew my grandmother and grandfather loved me so much. You know as children, when you teach them whatever you believe in love, it stays with them for the rest of their life. So that's what we used to survive in the boarding school in Canada. I never had processed foods before until I went to boarding school. My grandparents were the first generation of Indian people, they were the first ones to experience sugar and salt. Then their bodies were built strong, so the sugar and salt didn't affect them like a lot of people today. But we had to eat the processed foods.

When I was at boarding school I got sick. It was mainly a combination of anger and they forced you to do something you don't want to do and the torture and abuse that we went through. In our culture, sometimes you don't want to let anybody suffer through our abuse, so we ------------ suffering more than you are. So sometimes my grandma used to say, don't let nobody suffer when you are suffering. Sometimes you internalize that. So I internalized it and it got bigger and bigger, anger. Anger and hatred turn into cancer. That's what happened to me. Finally when I asked God to please help me and asked for God's love. And I opened my heart. It's up to us, we have to open our heart. And when I opened my heart, and that's when I received healing. They had sent me home from the boarding school to die. In Canada, there was no such thing as any kind of treatment or help for poor children. So I was sent home to die because of not enough money.

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So as I was sent home to die, my grandparents were my parents, they took over. Started to use the natural healing, the medicine healing. When I went back to see the doctor a year later, they said, you're supposed to be dead. So they didn't believe in our Native medicine. When I was growing up, it was against the law to practice drumming, singing, ---------- you would never see purple ------------- you'd be sent to prison. So it was against the law. So people had to practice it secretly. Everything was ----------- part of that world you know. But my grandparents endured and always encouraged me to always love people. You know, we are not here for ourselves, we are here for each other to help each other. And we're here to learn from each other. And so always remember that. And that's the only reason why they sent me to school, to boarding school. They hid me from the government agents. In Canada, at the age of 3, you are taken away from your parents, taken away to assimilate with the English culture. In Canada, ---------. To assimilate you, they thought that speaking your language, your native language was a bad thing, negative, unfortunately.

But anyway, I am so grateful for the healing I received from God's love. My grandparents had said that I had made a promise. They feel that I made a promise to God, that I would encourage people. This voice, I heard a voice and the voice said to me, to ------- my language, my native words, (Native word) which means you need to encourage if you want to live. And I agreed. I said yes, I agree and I will help. And I was a child, I thought, why do you have to encourage people because children don't know. So you know, that's how I became active. And when I said that, that's when my healing started, started to get healing. So grateful to spirit, God's love is so simple, God loves everyone of you. It's beyond our mind. Our mind, sometimes we have faction lines in our mind, divide. Oh this character, try to put them in a box. And in the Native culture, it's a great sin to convict someone, to judge someone. To say, oh you're this, and you're not. And so in our old ways, that's the worst thing you could say. Don't judge, don't assume. Be respectful. Respect, acknowledge, learn. Learn the wonderful gift that God gave you. Everyone one of you has a gift that is waiting to be used to help somebody. You might not think it's a gift. In my culture, (native word), even laughter is a gift, or even crying. You might cry and cause someone else to cry, but I had a hard time crying. But then they're healed, and then they feel kind of bad, because they're supposed to be encouraging you. It's a gift that you have, that cry that is helping you. So it's that simple. So we don't know sometimes what our gifts are. It takes a whole lifetime, and still sometimes, we're not really sure.

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But my grandparents say, always believe and be happy to be alive. Do the best that you can. I know its true, one of the healings I received. I'm not only a half-breed, I'm multicultural because I received so many blood transfusions. So I belong to all cultures. Some of my people say, how dare you leave us, you traitor. Leave my culture. I say, I can't help it. I belong to everybody now, spiritually, mentally and physically. God's love, we all have the same, we all love. We all have a lot of ----------- That's how we know we are all brothers and sisters. In Chief Seattle's speech, if you ever read that speech, there's a part where in the ending, he tells the white man, after all we've seen, he explains all the horrible things, the changes. Even after all those things, we will see each other. The only thing that was translated was that we are brothers after all. But the translation, some of it that wasn't put in there was, when you look into each other's hearts, you know that you know how to love. You know how to suffer the same way. That's what he was saying in the words of my language. You know how to love, suffer the same way. And in my culture we believe, they are all teachings, and the types of pain, types of suffering, types of love, joy.

Sometimes you need, the joy that you have, when you accept the joy that you have, use that joy to work on the suffering, and if you have suffering, you use that suffering to work on the joy. I thought that was an interesting way my grandparents used to look at their gifts. They're gifts that God has given us. Some portion of suffering, we don't always think of it as a gift. Oh why in the hell do I have to go through that. Get rid of this thing. It is a gift. It takes a lot of strength. A lot of you have known people who have held onto suffering, rather than to share it. And it's so much easier, to just let it go, share the pain.

In one way, when you share suffering, you are teaching people how to carry that suffering with your joy, by the part of you that's not suffering, that you kind of ----- exploit it. So it always amazes me, that simple teaching, so simple. But it is our mind. We start to say, oh I can't do anything, --------- learn from other people. There's nothing impossible. We're all part of God's creation. We are part of God. Everyone of us. Sometimes we have to all come together like this to help each other. The prayers are answered.

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It might be like those spindly little toothpicks. You can break one of them, but when they are together, it is harder to break them. We're all strong together. No matter how weak we are, we bring our weakness together and it becomes strength. Such a wonderful medicine.

I always try to encourage. Those are the words of my grandmother and grandfather. Please share with someone and you might help somebody. We might get discouraged, ---------- When you get discouraged, someone doesn't like that teaching, and some other, they respond to it, it's touched them. They heard that teaching. How come they don't like it, why. God's love is so powerful. Just a little touch of God's love in our heart, it might be all dark, but you touch that teaching. It's opening an area. We might not even see it there. It might be so ugly and black and dark, and sickness --------- we can't see ----------- My grandma would say, there is a little spark of God's love. That's what my grandma used to tell me as a child. We didn't understand that as kids. We heard that teaching already, why do we have to hear that again. I don't want to hear that again. We used to get kind of tired of our mom and dad talking. Oh those old-fashioned people. My grandparents were like my parents. My grandfather used to share prophecies. This is a true prophecy. In your generation, you'll know why we have to repeat these old stories. And it's Alzheimers now. -------- before, but why is it so much more now in so many places. Sickness sometimes become the powers to bring the families together. Sometimes the sickness is the black sheep of the family. I used to be really scared of that when my grandmother used to tell me about the sickness, it's the black sheep. What a strange story. Therefore she'd tell me that over and over again. I don't want to hear that one.

I'm so grateful for each and every one. And my grandmother and grandfather ----------- They always used to tell us all the time, I share these stories with you because I love you. Every night, if it was at grandma's, grandpa's, --------- We used to have lots of old aunts and uncles, the old people in our village. They would babysit my parents. They would say come over and --------- your grandson. Because in our village, all the old people are grandmas. We had lots of grandmas and grandpas. Isn't that wonderful, there was spiritual common society. You can choose which one you like, and of course, ----------- that's my favorite grandma or grandpa. It was so wonderful to know, that we were so rich and all the children in the village were our brothers and sisters. ---------- It was such a wonderful way of growing up. But the way I grew up is to always treat everyone the way you want to be treated.

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Treat everybody the same way, respect and acknowledgement. Learn from each other. Always start with yourself. You can't help learning about yourself because all the elders are telling you about all the wrong things you did. You're doing this wrong, you're doing this wrong. Or they're also telling you good things. The strength of the elders, the old people, how they loved their children so much. So I encourage you to continue to encourage yourself first. The parts of yourself, maybe you feel, I didn't have nobody. No one knows I exist. Or sometimes there's too many people that know that I exist. Sometimes we have to learn, we ask the loving spirit, always remember to ask the loving, healing spirits to help you. A lot of people ask, "Oh God help me", but you know words have power. Who's going to be your God. My God could be anybody. So make sure, in your heart, you want the loving, you're sick of the supposedly gods that are helping. You need to ask the loving god, the loving gift of god that god gave you in your heart to help you.

My grandmother used to always remind us, don't forget that, say your prayers, when you wake up in the morning, you say thank god I'm alive. Also thank you so much for my life. You know, that's why people don't, I think a lot of people don't know themselves, because they don't thank themselves. And then you have people who always thank themselves, because they already know who they are. So spiritually, the ancient grandmothers, you always learn ----- tree of life. Many of you are grandparents. Some of you are aunties and uncles, some of you are looked upon as aunties and uncles, grandmas and grandpas, from other people maybe who don't have anybody. So ask the tree of life to grow.

You'll be amazed. When I wake up in the morning, I just think about it. What I used to pray was, Oh God, I'm alive again, why me. Why do I have to live one more day. Why do I have to suffer. The creator knows how much time, time that you're going to live, and knows that you will come to your senses. Even if it might be the last second of your life. My grandmother used to say, well why wait till the last second of your life, start now. Be frivolous and be yourself. Don't worry about what people think of you. Don't wait till you get really old, and give yourself permission now. Start now, be yourself. Of course those teachings didn't go over well at the English boarding school.

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But I'm so thankful to be taught by many people that, even if people think that they're not successful in the society. I learned how to do bead work from a blind woman, my aunt and she was born blind, and we lived with her, we didn't even know she was blind. Everything was through feeling, touch. She could feel colors. Light colors sometimes were like white, yellow and as it got darker, they were kind of thick feelings. They were good heavy feelings. Being warm in a nice warm sweater. That's what my grandmother's older sister would explain to us, and that's how I learned to be with people, feel.

When I learned beading, I poked myself a lot of times, and she said, you know what, you're a pretty good beader for someone who can see more than me. I didn't know what she was talking about. I was just a kid you know. I said what do you mean grandma? She said I never knew how to see colors. I don't know what they look like. I only know them by feelings and we were shocked.

My first English words, I learned how to cuss, and I said Shit no! My grand aunt was a socialite. My grandma said how did you respond to your grand aunt, because she was a high class woman, I said Oh shit no. You said that! You know all the English words now. But my grand aunt was such a wonderful person. And so that is how I learned how to do beadwork. And she was a very successful healer. She healed with color. She would tell people to wear their favorite colors if they wanted healing for themselves. If there was someone that they didn't like, she would tell them, you wear the colors of the person that you see them wear all the time, you wear those colors, and when she would touch that part of the body, she would feel, she would say, oooohhh, you want them dead by tomorrow. That's extra, you know you better leave a tip. She was a gray shaman. She wasn't a black shaman or a witch, she was like a Catholic shaman. Many people would confess their sins and then you can do it again.

She said, I'm blind anyway, I'm a gray shaman, but she always encouraged them, she said, you know, the people that don't like you, they are using their energy to kill you. Now you can use their energy to heal them, to heal yourself. To let them know, ha ha, I tricked you. I thought that was a wonderful, amazing way how people dealt with tolerating each other, and color and being so sensitive how people were very sensitive. You know at one time, wherever you went in this country, the Native country, any tribe you went, the first thing they would warn you about is the plants, wherever there's poisonous plants or whatever, or animals. And we do that because they were the first people. The plants, the tree of life, the cedar tree, the ferns, the plant medicine, the flowers. And the animals came, and became teachers to people. You know, we're the last people to ever be created on this earth. Every creation story you go, even the word of God, and what they call the Bible, and even if you read it, it shares that. The people are not first. So my grandparents used to say, wherever you go in every tribe, they will let you know, the plants, so you wouldn't get poisoned. And I used to always wonder about this because when we would go to eastern Washington, there is dry country, desert. If you're in Washington state and so that's the coast, but there's the other side that is over the mountains, it's dry and deserty.

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And we'd go visit my grandparents over that side. Stay away from those relatives. They're just a bunch of snakes. But they were talking about their in-laws. They're pretty tricky, those snake people, they were just joking around. But to our people, that connection. It's like the internet I guess or the cellular phone. You always want to check something that you are familiar with or want to be connected. And so that's how people stayed connected, not through this kind of energy, of the rock let's say, the crystals. Because a lot of the energy is from crystals and rock, earth. Our people they used the spirit of the moose, energy from the plants and flowers, and trees.

That's messages. The animals are the balance of night and day. The teachings of night and day. The animals live those teachings. And so we share the different songs of night and daytime, and that energy is a message. And the people as they learned to use the words or language, all the language is from plants, animals, the earth. Rock is the oldest medicine.

My grandmother used to carry a big rock in her purse. Back in the 50s, 60s generation, they had the big rock, crystals, big huge. My grandmother had a big huge purse and she carried a rock in there. She hit someone one time. There was a racist guy. In Canada, Indian woman was segregated from black and white. This bus driver said we don't allow dirty, filthy pigs to ride with us. She said, what did you say to me. She said come out here and tell me that, out of the bus. My grandma was big strong woman. So he came out there and called her a dirty word. She took her big huge purse and went bam, and she screamed rape, rape. She took my hand and said, come on grandson, let's go. I'm running with grandma. She said, I hit the guy and he fell over. We stopped after a while, after running for a while, and she said you know, remember this grandson, the rock medicine is the oldest medicine, and she took it out of her purse, and it still works. So that was my grandma. We had strong foundation, the rock. She was a tough old lady.

My grandfather was always joking around, so proud. Because my grandma was a big heavyset woman. She was half Hawaiian and half Indian. She had big bones. And my grandfather always used to joke, because on the northwest coast, if you have a big wife, that's wealth, royalty. He said, oh I'm so honored, I have shade in the summer, and warmth in the winter. My grandfather was always joking. He was a very interesting man. He told us that it is so important, in your life, to always be thankful. The first thing you should always say thank you, even the daylight, you welcome the daylight. The daylight can ------------ your life. When you welcome daylight, it's your soul, you're thinking about yourself. In our culture, in the western culture, we do think of our self. But we forget about our soul, we forget about our mind even. And so many people who grew up so lonely because they don't welcome daylight. And where does all life, how does it live. Daylight. That's how we know we're all related. We cannot live without daylight. So the first thing you do when you wake up is say, thank you daylight. Even if you're not really thankful, thank you daylight. But keep saying it, get your healing started.

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My grandma used to say, (native word) thank you. I used to hear many of my relatives, old people, even the old elders, some of them, they will not speak their language unless they have to because they were so frightened that they would be beaten. But they could still say, thank you daylight. I would go, what does daylight look like?, and the old people would say, it's so beautiful, it's all around you. Its daylight. I think that's a wonderful response. It's all around you. That's daylight. People are attracted to the beautiful. What you feel, in your heart is beautiful, that's daylight.

About the Indian Shaker Religion by Johnny Moses

In our Native language, we really don't have a word for religion. It's just we call it, Way of Life in our language. And so that's from the old people, before Christianity came here. And Christianity came, things changed. But we also practice our Indian Shaker religion, called _______ which is really silly Indian religion because none of our people back then in the 1880s could read or write. And so a new religion came to our people through a death of a man named John Slocum in Squaxin Island near Olympia Washington. And he just happened to be married to my great, great, great grandmother who is Mary Slocum who brought the shake. And so it's not the same as the, many of you, a lot of you are educated now. You read a lot. There's the Mother Ann Lee Shakers in the east coast. They originally started in England, but they developed in the east coast. They're a different kind of Shakers. It's not the same religion because we're not celibate. The Ann Lee Shakers were celibate, and that's why we still have a lot of Shakers here. There's a mixture of the Christian, the Protestant, Catholic and the Indian religion or spirituality. And it's of love. The old Shakers believed you could talk to God directly. You don't need an antique book to talk to God, that's with the old people. But we do have bible Shakers now who are educated Shakers.

So it's quite a history. It's quite amazing. Even the sign of the cross is an ancient symbol in every religion, every culture. The cross among our people was here before Christianity. Some asked me what does it mean to ________ (native word). I just tell people this way, that way, over here and over there. Because we love God.

Johnny Moses at a Red Cedar Circle in Southwest Illinois, Edwardsville and Red Cedar Circle Altar

   

Link to: Johnny Moses website

Link to: Shaker Religion of Puget Sound by T.T. Waterman, 1924, Oregon State University, 14 pages

Link to: The Red Cedar Circle of Southwest Illinois

Johnny Moses Excerpt from Medicine Path: Healing Songs and Stories of the Northwest Native Americans, Audible Audiobook, Johnny Moses, 1999 (I cannot find this audiobook any longer on Amazon or through Audible)

Transcript from the audiobook:

_______ wrong or something you know that, they said you were supposed to be dead and so I went back to the hospital after 4 months and the doctor looked and said what are you doing here, you're supposed to be dead. I thought I would hear congratulations or something you know. And they said, well you must just be in remission or something and this went on and on, and after 1 year, I was able to walk. Then my grandparents would have me come with them to ceremonies and part of my job was to sing for them in healing ceremonies, doctoring ceremonies, as part of my training. At that time, I did not know I was in training, but they said, you're going to help us and you just have to go along with them, can't disagree with the elders.

So I would help them sing and I remembered the promise that I made to this voice, Spirit, and I said I would encourage people, help people, and then after a while, years down the road, I started doing more and more work, whether it was storytelling, sharing medicine stories, or whether it was doctoring ceremonies. I thought to myself, gee, we're getting calls all hours of the night, sometimes at 2 in the morning or at midnight, to go somewhere, travel 50 or 100 miles. This is just too much work, I think I made the wrong decision. I should have chose death, it would have been easier. I couldn't believe this and it took a while, after a while and then I began to understand, and I began to enjoy the work, and I was meeting so many people who were dying and who were actually living a more full life than some people who are healthy.

And it was interesting to travel with my grandparents and learn about healing ways. And see how my grandparents looked at healing, that healing is not just curing a body, healing has a lot to do with your soul, and how happy you are in your soul and you could be really suffering in your body, but your spirit can be very happy. When you dream of things you want to do in this life and you know that's right, it's what your supposed to be doing. There's no explanation for it. You can't explain it to other people, but it's just something you have to do.

So that was my experience, and just recovering from the cancer. My grandmother used to say to me that she was very happy that I got cancer. Because I lost one lung. I only had one lung. She said, my gosh, if you had both of your lungs, we'd be hard of hearing because you're such a bucket-mouth as it is, you're so loud. You're voice would be even louder. So there were some advantages to having cancer I hear.

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