Pomo Shaman

Year Published: 1964

Creator: UC Berkeley

Complete Record: A Pomo Indian shaman participates in a healing ceremony during which she enters a trance and cures a patient with the aid of a spiritual instrument in the throat used to suck out illness. This film documents the second and final night of a Kashaya Pomo healing ceremony lead by Essie Parrish (1903-1979), a spiritual, cultural and political head of the Kashaya Pomo community and one of the only southwestern Pomo sucking doctor who still practiced this ancient form of doctoring. Along with her good friend, Cache Creek Pomo medicine woman and fellow basket weaver Mabel McKay, Parrish would be the last of the sucking doctors in California—and probably the last in the entire country. The ceremony took place June 1, 1963 in a ceremonial roundhouse of the Southwestern Pomo (now more commonly referred to as Kashaya or Kashaya Pomo) near Stewarts Point, California. During the ceremony (which is presented without narration), Parrish enters a trance and cures a patient with the aid of a spiritual instrument used to suck out the patient’s illness. Parrish only gave the film crew one chance to shoot the ceremony, with no equipment allowed inside the roundhouse where the ceremony took place. All cameras and lighting were setup to shoot through knot holes in the walls, which explains the films dark, high contrast appearance. Heick’s POMO SHAMAN grants us a rare chance to experience a ceremony generally off-limits to cameras. According to Essie’s son, Parrish only agreed to be filmed knowing that their traditions were going to be preserved on film for both their community as well as the outside world. To this day, the Kashaya watch this film before performing healing ceremonies since the film, according to Essie’s son, is “infused with her healing powers.” Music by Bernice Dollar, Bertha Antone, Julia Marrufo