IN MEMORY: Slow Turtle, Wampanoag Medicine Man, Speaks About Life

Slow Turtle was Massapowau for the People of the Morning Light

Oct 27, 2023

IN THIS POST: Slow Turtle (AKA ‘John Peters’, which he referred to as his ‘tax name’) passed October 27, 1997. In his memory, we read Bob Doyle’s poem of the sea burial of Slow Turtle’s ashes; the long interview of Slow Turtle by Steve McFadden; and links to a series of video interviews of Slow Turtle by a group of young filmmakers.

Bob Doyle wrote this poem about the ceremony dispersing Slow Turtle’s ashes at sea on November 1, 1997:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

 SLOW TURTLE
 (1930 - 1997)

There is a strong onshore wind, several knots; rain stings the face and the tide is running high.
Several hundred are bunched between the blacktop of the town beach parking lot, 
And the smoothly curling grey green water's edge. The lead singer starts the AIM song's chorus.

The long white aluminum birch bark canoe is breached by the first incoming wave. 
From somewhere, behind the singing crowd, a small blue styrofoam open beach kyak is produced.
The single paddler, helped by three others, pushes through the waves to float free, bobbing just beyond the surf.

Slow Turtle's son, holding the grey white clay vessel created by his sister, and in his turn, supported by two others against the surge of the sea,
Wades chest high into the frigid waters of the bay and with effort, passes their father's ashes, over the side 
Of the small boat into the waiting arms of the paddler, for their last journey.

To the sound of the heartbeat drums, and the continuing chorus this Medicine man, lover of the four directions, four seasons, the four colors, 
Heads seaward. The boat that carries him now fully visible, now behind the cold waves.
After bathing in sea waters by his companion in the boat, the clay shell -- and his ashes -- rejoin the sea.

by Robert Doyle, November 1, 1997 ©

“Massapowau for the People of the Morning Light”

HIGHLIGHTS:

“Americans have removed the spirit out of democracy, so it can never work right.”
“I don't know whether it will ever change in this country because we're going right back to the old European style. Every day I'm reminded of that. They've gone right back to the king days and dictator days here in this country.”
“When you remove love and try to replace it with monetary things, you've got nothing.”
“The whole thing is [to get the white man] to try to love himself again, and get him to understand that he has to love himself before he can love anything else.”

As executive director of the Massachusetts Commission on Indian Affairs (MCIA), John Peters is often called upon to wear a suit and tie, to sit behind a desk, and to negotiate with the governor and legislature. While he has a marked antipathy toward governments, taxes, and bureaucracies, he also recognizes that this is an important part of his medicine path in service to the Indian people.

However, the position of government official is only one of the roles he fills. He is also the supreme medicine man for the Wampanoag Nation—the People of the First Light. His title is Massapowau. In the Wampanoag language, massa means "big," as in Massachusetts; and powau designates the person who brings the people together. In recognition of this role, over his tie he wears a green soapstone carving of a turtle on a thong with seven beads. The beads signify the seven future generations of children who will be born on this land and his responsibility to think of them when he makes a decision.

In his role as Massapowau, which frequently blends with his governmental responsibilities, he counsels Indian people and presides over ceremonies. Though he shoulders many roles and responsibilities and is in constant demand, like the turtle, he is noted for his patience and careful deliberation.

When John Peters was about fourteen, in the mid-1940s, the elders of the Mashpee Wampanoag Nation decided that it was about time for him to get his Indian name. They made a ceremony and called him Slow Turtle. "They gave me that name," he explains, "because I was very slow responding when talking about things, and I moved slow. They thought that was a wise thing to do. At that point it was a description of me and the way I moved, and I guess you could say things had to be methodical for me. A turtle, well, he has a certain procedure before he even moves. He sticks his head out and checks everything out, and then he makes his move, so he has some attributes about him that you have to really look at.

"I'm the guy who gives those names out now, because I'm in that position, and that's how we name people. We sum up their characteristics and how they portray them out there in the world. So it's easier for me to remember that person by this name than by some Christian name that has no meaning whatsoever for us anyhow. The name to us is very special because each one of us has our individual name, like our own individual spirit."

Slow Turtle grew up in Mashpee, Massachusetts, where he studied with a medicine man named William James. They worked on a road crew together during the Second World War, when Slow Turtle was about fourteen or fifteen. James taught him about nature, plant life, preparing herbs, and also about people and the stories of creation.

Several years after completing the ninth grade, Slow Turtle became a police officer, a profession he remained with for ten years. After leaving the police force, he spent a year in Hawaii as a private investigator. While there, he saw a parallel in the campaigns the native Hawaiians and the Wampanoags were waging to control their lands.

Later, while working on the construction of an airport on the island of Nantucket off the coast of Massachusetts, he received a sign from Spirit to return to Mashpee and to his people. Eventually he began to do 'Indian work,' as he calls it, full time. He was appointed the executive director of the MCIA in 1979.

One of sixteen major New England tribes, the Mashpee Wampanoag Nation has some 1,300 members, although less than four hundred still live by the sea in Mashpee on Cape Cod.

Even Slow Turtle and his family, because of the demands of his work, have moved from Mashpee into Chelsea, a city tucked close to Boston in the heart of modern Massachusetts. Still though, through powwows and other tribal gatherings, they connect with their people and with Native Americans from as far away as the Southwest, Canada, and even Peru.

"To lose one's culture is a dangerous thing," Slow Turtle says. "The whole concept of the powwow is people coming together in a unity circle sharing with each other—sharing a spiritual feeling, recognition and respect for the Earth and each other."

"Most of my involvement is with the Indian people and their purpose in life. I think the intentions of my people are entirely different from what mainstream society promotes. We're not here for private gain, but to find a solution to preserve the Earth Mother for all generations to come."

Slow Turtle is married to a strong woman, Burne Stanley, who shares responsibilities with him at the Commission on Indian Affairs. Their youngest child, who arrived after eight children, twelve grandchildren, and one great-grandchild, was named Autaquway, an Algonquian word for "the end."

When the state government steadily cut back on the MCIA's already meager budget in 1989 and 1990, Slow Turtle and Burne, along with others, founded the Massachusetts Center for Native American Awareness, a not-for-profit charitable organization established to serve the cultural, social, and spiritual needs of the Native American people.

They've Removed the Spirit from Government

Slow Turtle has strong feelings about the way Native Americans are still caricatured with stereotypes. "I mean, hell, I was over in London, and I got off a boat over there, and I come into the terminal and there was a big cartoon sign up there, 'Come to America and see all the Indians dance.' There were cartoon Indians all doing a dance. I say America is no good. I mean, this is the attitude of the people in America. In this day and age, this Indian is still out there because the European people don't know any different, some of them, and they'll be coming here looking for this naked Indian with his loin cloth and a tomahawk, out there dancing. And, you know, that was an advertisement done by an American from America for an American company. It was the airlines that were going to bring these Europeans over to see these Indians out here dancing. That really hurt me to be away in London and see that. How far will they go with their rhetoric and their racist attitudes, their prejudice?

"I have an opportunity to speak to a lot of foreign students that come here to Boston and go to universities and colleges, and I look at them and I say, 'I want to explain to you about being an American.' And I say, 'The only way you can become an American is to get rid of your culture, because you can't bring your culture here and really use it. It's not allowed.' America has no culture, really. If you try and exercise some of your ancestor's ways, they'll shoot you down, because that's not the way of the system. We'll always end up in limbo in this country because they have no respect for my culture; there's no respect for any culture.

"You see, we had democracy here before the Europeans came, but we had spirituality in our democracy. We had respect for each other, respect for differences in other people's ways of life.

“They don't allow for that in this system. They have removed the spirit out of democracy, so it can never work right, because there's no respect.”

"In the native way, each one of us has our own spirit, so each one of us is different. With your democracy, you're talking about us all going down the same road, you know, reading the same prayer. When you go to your churches you all read the same prayer, someone else's prayer.

“In our way, in our spiritual way, you have to speak your own prayer; you have to make your own prayer. You don't use my prayer because that would be disrespecting me. It has to be your own words, your thoughts and feelings that are put into your prayer, not mine. We don't read each other's scriptures and say, 'Well, you know, this is what is said.' We understand in our way that every day is a new day. And life continues on. It doesn't stop.

"I don't know whether it will ever change in this country because we're going right back to the old European style. Every day I'm reminded of that. They've gone right back to the king days and dictator days here in this country. You've got a power structure here; you've got the pyramid type of government.

“The native people of this land, our form of government was always in a circle. There was never a hierarchy. And so we all considered each other equals. No one was ever greater or lesser than the other person. It didn't matter what kind of job you've got. It doesn't matter that I'm a medicine man—I'm no greater than anyone else, and I understand that. I just have a position.

“So we don't have that hierarchy situation, and for that reason we don't have the competition and the jealousies, and all that goes with it. And we don't have the fears, you know, that the rest of society has out there, and the anxieties, and all of those kinds of things where you have a few people at the top who have it all, and the rest are always wanting something that they don't have.”

"That's what's happened here. You've gone right back to the same old days of the king, where the royalty had everything. When the Europeans came here and looked around to see how we operated, a lot of people liked the system. In fact, the natives here taught the Europeans how to establish a township that no one person had control of, where everybody had a voice in the community. That's the way our people are. Everyone has a voice in the community, and what goes on there. Because of Europe, the newcomers didn't know anything about a township. They didn't own anything in Europe, and they didn't have control over anything, so when they got here they didn't know how to run a town.

"Passaconaway, a great chief, he sat them all down and said, 'If you want to come into this area, you have to abide by the regulation, and that's that there will be no one person who makes the decisions. All of you have to make the decisions about what goes on in the community.' And so I credit Passaconaway as one who started townships where everyone had a voice in their community. That was a new thing to the Europeans. They weren't accustomed to that."

People of the First Light

"It's very special to be one of the People of the First Light," Slow Turtle says, "because you are on the spiritual land, in the area where for thousands of years your people have been—land in the forest and near the ocean. And so you are really connected. You have a base, and you have a connection. You've got the elements, and you're proud of it. Your ancestors are there. They've acknowledged all the same things that you've acknowledged out there. So it's a carryover sort of thing that's continuous, because if it's there for me it will be there for my great-grandchildren. Those kinds of things leave a good feeling.

“But today there's a question in our minds whether those same things will be there for our great-grand children. We've seen a different kind of animal come in that doesn't have the same connection that we have, and so there's a question: Do we have the time to turn it around and get him to look at reality and look at what's happening?.

"I think this is it. This is the last go around. I used to kind of condemn my people for not taking the time to try and teach the white man about what's real out there, knowing he lives in a fantasy world and knowing the things that he holds dearest to him have no connection to reality.

“I mean, they are just a dream. His wealth is nothing, and amounts to nothing. The green paper's got no value, and he doesn't understand that. When you remove love and try to replace it with monetary things, you've got nothing. The whole thing is to try to love himself again, and get him to understand that he has to love himself before he can love anything else.”

"To turn the white man around and give him that kind of information is really difficult. But we took on the role. We do a great number of programs in prisons. We went after the best of your lot. We went into the prisons and we laid our program out to those in there and we told them that it's a spiritual program.

“We're not a religion, because religion is institutionalized and it's designed to control people, and that's not what we're about. And so we came in with a spiritual program and said, 'The first thing that we want you to understand is that spirit has no color or race to it. It doesn't matter whether your skin is white, black, red, Hispanic, whatever. No one out there is any better than you, and you are no better than any one else out there.' And they begin to look at that. That's something to think about."

Since about 1984, Slow Turtle has joined with two close friends, Medicine Story and Wildcat, to pay regular visits to prisons in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania. The visits are called the Native American Prison Program, but they are open to people of all races and religions. The programs often involve what are called Truth Circles, where the inmates sit in a circle and pass a talking stick, speaking what is in their hearts to the circle of men who have gathered.

This simple approach of sitting and speaking what is in the heart is highly effective, possibly because the tradition of truth is largely absent from mainstream culture. The men feel the respect of the equality and the moments of truth, and they open up.

Sometimes the prison program includes a sweatlodge ceremony for purification, and sometimes guests come in to talk about something like manufacturing, physical therapy, or counseling. "We try to show that everyone has a special gift given to them," Slow Turtle explains. "We try to open minds to the notion that there are many avenues in life to examine and explore. That way, when it's time to make a decision, they can tap into the other avenues of experience they have explored.

"Why do we go into the prisons? To hit them; to begin to get them to take a whole different outlook on life and what life's all about. And to develop a way to get them to promote love within themselves, to get them to understand and find out who they are. 'Cause the people out here don't know who they are. They have no idea of who they are.

“The average guy on the street, he has no idea of who he is. He doesn't know why he's here. He has no purpose for being here. I mean, he can't appreciate the Sun up, or the Moon, or anything, because he don't see dollars and cents on it. And he can't appreciate a tree or an animal talking to you or something, you know, because he's so far removed from that, and he's become a loner, you know, he's all by himself.

“He's become engrossed with himself, and generally with his own anger, and that has driven him into thinking that he's someone cute. They think they're smart and intelligent, you know, and that's what tickles me. They really think they're smart.”

"When I sit in prisons in a circle of men, I find that they are human beings. They are people that have been disregarded and trashed, but I find a lot of love and beauty in there, a lot of respect. I've seen people turn around from mean, real haters, to real loving people who are able to start communicating with people that they hated. And they don't know why they hated them, but now they're communicating with them and that's really something.

“When I see them start to interact with their families again, I know that they're on the road. They're really working on coming together. And the thing that happens is that most of these people who take this program and leave the prison and get on the outside try to start the same kind of circles out there in their communities, because they now have found out it's a whole different thing. It's a different way of looking at something and dealing with it—with life. And it's easy for them."

Just Speak the Truth

"It is a native tradition to sit in a circle and talk—to share what is in your heart. Often it would happen, but it wouldn't be in the same sense as in a workshop or in prison, you see, because the people in the tribal sense already know the thing that you're just learning here. They know how to be with themselves and each other. They would be able to present their problem and say it, and everyone would look at it from all sides and deal with that particular thing.

“When we sit in a circle in a workshop or in prison, we don't have the time to deal with anybody's real problems. But the people feel good for being able to get the problems out. So the circle really does something for them. We sit down and talk about their problem, and we all throw our views on it. This is what really makes a difference, when everybody puts their view on it, because I see something different than you see it, and so I can only talk about it the way I see it, and you can only talk about the way you see it.

"And you don't need to be adding on nothing. We don't want you to be stretching the story a little bit. Just speak the truth as you see it. It's difficult at first to be able to speak truth because we've been trained to deceive the other person, as if it were a weakness if you admit that you're grieving or that you're upset.

“We tell our men that it's alright to cry, and that there ain't nothing wrong with crying. If you were going to cry, I know that you love me because you're crying about me. There's nothing to be ashamed of. It's a natural function. And so why should you be ashamed of it?

"I had one of the guys that was the most feared inmate in prison down there in Connecticut, and he would stand up there and, in given moments, he would tell you some of his stories about what he had done. And he would stand there and cry, and say that he didn't know that he could ever be on a high like he's been in that program, and be able to feel the things that he feels, and know that he loves his wife and be able to tell her that. He said, 'I could never tell my wife that before.' He said, 'The only time I ever told anyone that before was when I was trying to get into their drawers or something.' And he said, 'That ain't the way it is today.' He said he was so glad to go back to prison, to find this program in prison. He said that because he had been out two or three times and nothing, no program had done anything for him. And he knew he would be coming right back to prison. But he won't be back there now. He say's he's got something to live for now. He's found a whole different way of life."

To Us, Everyone Is an Individual

One of Slow Turtle's duties as Massapowau is to act as a therapist for those who need support. He says many young people come to him. "I don't train them. I present them with a story as a way for them to learn. The story might not mean much to the outside world, but it does to them because I'm into their heads. I might see them looking at a white-skinned person in an angry way because they had been hurt by other white people. I can see that anger emerge, so I try to take their anger and do something positive with it.

"When I feel that I've been able to accomplish something, and help someone spiritually, that's my reward. I can do this job here and take care of my needs, you know, but not everybody is as fortunate as I am, in the same sense. But I can deal with a lot of people who need counseling, and I can be very effective because it doesn't cost them anything, so we don't have to go through a whole lot of charades, you know, about the pay.

"My philosophy has always been that if I can't help you in two times then I'm not doing my job. Then I can't help you. These people that are paid to counsel keep their clients coming two or three years; they become married to them, and the person's practically paying their mortgage. But I can't do it that way. You know, when you go to school and learn about counseling and psychiatry, and those kinds of things, you learn a pattern. We don't have any pattern.

“To us everybody's separate, everybody's individual, and they don't fall into one of four types, or one of ten types. And so it has to be kind of an on-hand thing. I mean, I've got to have you before me, so I can see you, and I learn from you because your body's going to tell me more than your mouth's going to tell me. And I can tell the transitions that you are going through and what's happening with you. So these are the kinds of things that make it kind of special. You don't have to worry about giving the guy a show because he's paying you or something. You know what I mean?

"To us, to become a medicine person, it's the people from your nation that make you that. You don't make yourself. You don't go around saying, 'I'm a medicine man,' because you learn about the pipe or something, or because you counsel a few people. This is what I hear all across this country, these self-made medicine people.

“A medicine person is one who is accepted by the people that he ministers to. They are the ones who can unmake you a medicine person, OK, and so there's nothing that's got you locked in there that says, 'Well, my grandfather was one, so I got to be one, or my father was one.' That isn't the case. It's a case where, when the people have respect for you, they give their permission. So I'm subject to being removed at any time."

"The thing that really strikes me as very funny and very sad at the same time is how people are led by a person that they feel is their superior. They're taking them down a path, on a ride, you know. And I don't understand that, why people are so naive.

"We've spent a lot of time trying to get in a position to educate people about the reality of what's happening around them, and I think it's beginning to work. I see many people this year who don't believe in Santa Claus anymore. And there'll be less people believing in the Easter Bunny this year than there were last year because they know, they finally figured out, that rabbits don't lay eggs. So I'm sure that we're progressing along. It's been a hard road.

“I think people are beginning to stagger under the onslaught of false information that's in the system and in the airways, and they're beginning to understand that their government isn't very truthful, because they can't drink the water any longer and they can't breathe the air. I mean, it's about time for them to wake up.”

"If people are going to get back into balance, one of the things they have to do is seek the truth. They have to start really speaking the truth themselves, and that's a difficult thing to do.

“The way it is now in the world, we don't mind lying. But that stuff doesn't go in our Truth Circles. When we start, we tell you right up front, 'Don't start telling one of those stories because everybody's gonna know you're lying; they're going to read you and your body ain't gonna lie. Your mouth is going to lie, but not your body. If they think that you're not truthful, they're not going to allow you to waste their time, their lives.' And so it may take sometimes months before they can feel comfortable and be able to sit down and talk without lying.

“That's what America has to do, is to be truthful with itself, start dealing with the truth. You know, you see a spade, call it a spade; don't call it a heart.

"People really need to begin trying to find out who they are. In our story of Creation we talk about each one of us having our own path to travel, and our own gift to give and to share. You see, what we say is that the Creator gave us all special gifts; each one of us is special. And each one of us is a special gift to each other, because we've got something to share.

“Our traditional form of government is always in that circle where everyone contributes. And when you contribute that way, then you become part of the whole. Being able to share that gift you have, whatever it might be—it might be that you can hook a fish or hunt better than the other guy—you are able to share that, and so it helps other people, helps every one.

“You know, when you go to an Indian social, all the women come in bringing their food. That's really important to bring their food because they've been able to cook that and to share themselves. Part of their life went into cooking that food to be able to give that to someone else. That's the important part. It isn't all the dancing, and the singing, and the drumming. It's people being able to share.

"Most people never really tried to be themselves. They haven't been allowed to be themselves. There's always someone trying to take control of you. Your parents give you away to the school and the church and all that stuff, and they all have a set of rules and regulations for you to live by, so you never have been able to be yourself. And you never do what feels good to you.

“Now sometimes you say society has wounded you, or has forced you into a control area where you just follow that and stay in line. But it takes a lot to get to know oneself and really say what feels good to me, you know.

“Do I like to get up early in the morning or don't I? To take the time to find out whether you want to get up early in the morning or whether you want to lie in bed—that's a challenge in itself, if you got the balls to do it. Because that little thing there, that watch, that runs in the night, and you watch that all day. And you do the hop and jump and you do what that thing is telling you to do. You eat when you're not hungry because when that thing says twelve o'clock, you eat—you know what I mean?

"People go to school and learn how to do nothing for the rest of their lives and to be happy with it. They say, 'Look, I'm making money, and I ain't doing nothing.' And they think they're happy? Well, I don't know. That can be suicidal because it has no substance. You take that money away from him and what has he got? Nothing.

“So basically, one really needs to start focusing on himself and his own path, and that's not selfish. It's what's really feeling good to you. You need to incorporate that, and to get yourself on the road to being a human being, something that is worth its weight up here—to affect other lives in a good way, to make things work in a good way.

“Not just to be here and exist, and sit here and shuffle papers and throw them in a trash bin somewhere. That doesn't make sense. How can you be satisfied with your life and do nothing for nothing, you know? It doesn't amount to nothing.

“And I find that if you don't do something to try and prevent harm from coming to somebody, or something that helps other people, you aren't going to feel like you're helping out, like you're part of something worthwhile. Sure, you can retire after so many years—you've got a pension, you know. Great. But have you got a life?"

Chapter 12 in Steven McFadden, Profiles in Wisdom : Native Elders Speak About the Earth (Santa Fe NM: Bear, 1991).

Interviews with Slow Turtle (by ancientlightsvideo)

A group of young filmmakers posted interviews with Slow Turtle asking him many questions about Native culture and philosophy. The interviews were conducted over a series of five sessions: