Customer Reviews

Not for Innocent Ears: Spiritual Traditions of a Desert Cahuilla Medicine Woman

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I am also a Cahuilla woman and I know this person personally, she was my grandmother, so I know that what she has put into this book is truth. She taught me many things and many of them are in this book. If you have a chance to read it - it comes very highly recommended by another Cahuilla Indian.

and its tale was told by a very daring and courageous woman, a Desert Cahuilla pul (medicine woman) in the deepest and truest sense.

Guy Mount, a professor of Native American studies, was a marvelous listener. He recorded Ruby Modesto's telling of her story with integrity and non-interference. He admired her greatly in the brief time they were to spend with one another.

This book allows the reader, unlike any work that I know, to gaze into a female pul's soul. The reader can only do this because Mrs. Modesto chooses to reveal her very inner being. One is left with a feeling of great tenderness for her, and personally it made me realize more than ever before that, as a woman and a human being, there is a part of myself that is undeveloped and partially missing. When D. H. Lawrence questioned in one of his poems as to whatever became of the American aborigines, he volleyed (and I hope I'm quoting him correctly) "Those people were some sort of a solution."

Mrs. Modesto states that she did not come into her full powers as a pul until the age of 40, when her mother died. Although she had many skills, and much knowledge (as Mr. Mount states, the Cahuilla Indians were a visionary people), she learned that her truest calling was "healing a person who is possessed by demons". And heal them she did.

There is so much beauty in this book that I really deem it to be a sacred work. It leaves one in as much awe as the study of the great world religions.

In the concluding chapter, Mr. Mount asks Ruby if she ever talks to the earth. She replies: "Well, of course I talk to the earth." He then asks her "What do you say?" This was her answer:

"Thank you mother earth
for holding me on your breast,
You always love me
no matter how old I get."

The book is brief, but it is very, very full.

What an excellent book! There aren't many elders left who have this kind of knowledge and it was an honor to read what this native woman was willing to share. The book was easy to read and fascinating. Everyone should read this book!