Shamana Kathryn Hutsell

Shamana Kathryn Hutsell passed peacefully in her home early Wednesday February 28, 2024. She was born in The Dalles Oregon, November 23, 1946. After graduating high school, she travelled to Yellowstone where she lived and worked for a season, a part of her heart stayed in the wilds there. She then moved to Seattle where she met David Hutsell. She married him on December 11, 1966. After having her first two children, they moved to a farm in Oregon. There she began developing her natural skills.

Her keen inquisitive nature and gentle way with living beings led her to raising goats, chickens, and donkeys along with her children and husband and exploring herbal medicine and natural childbirth. In 1974, she birthed her 3rd child at home. In 1975, eight months pregnant with her 4th, they travelled back up to Washington with the kids and animals to family land at Trails End Lake; dubbed Wit's End by her father-in-law.

She spent the remaining 49 years protecting and cultivating this space and the people around her. She birthed her last two children in a small cabin there and, when her time came, she was in her home, roots firmly planted, surrounded with love by souls she nurtured over the years.

Shamana had a knack for language, writing columns for both the Huckleberry Herald and the Belfair Herald. She kept meticulous journals, wrote poetry and songs, capturing beauty and sharing her unique view of the world. She worked as a volunteer firefighter, EMT and a 911 dispatcher for a decade. Her gentle, calm nature provided support for many lives in times of crisis. After retiring from 911, she launched her business "Whatever Hemp". She saw the potential of hemp to provide alternative fiber, oils and building materials and began selling a wide variety of products long before the mainstream acceptance of this unique plant with its myriad of environmentally friendly uses. She was a gifted musician, played dulcimer, auto harp, and zither. She could find and sing harmony to anything by ear. She loved music and dancing, participating in a thriving online music scene where she inspired others with her style and grace. She knew plants and nature at a depth rarely understood, cultivating herbs and flowers in exquisite gardens that incorporate native plants, following the flow of the natural landscape. Her gardens provide habitats for all kinds of birds. A central Hawthorn tree shelters generations of flocks as they migrate year after year while also providing an herbal tincture she took to heal her heart. An accomplished crocheter, she crafted the finest potholders ever, sharing little bits of useful beauty with everyone she knew. Her artistic eye and keen sense of community captured decades of family gatherings and seasons unfolding all around her; hundreds of photographs chronicling the vibrant life and love around her.

Shamana was an amazing woman with a gentle spirit and kind heart. She was our Mother Tree, our Life Force, and her Legacy lives on in all the roots and branches of her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and all the members of our tribe and community. Blessed Be Shamana!

She was preceded in death by her parents, Walter Stone and Lavilla Grant, her brother, Alan Morrison and eldest son, Kyle Hutsell. She is survived by her husband, David Hutsell, daughter Hannah Hutsell, daughter Phoebe (husband Brian), son, Obadiah Hutsell (wife Faye), daughter Dora Harris, daughter-in-law, April Jones, 13 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

Shamana's Celebration of Life will be on at 3 p.m. on April 6th, 2024 at The Hub in Belfair - 111 NE Old Belfair Hwy, Belfair, WA 98528

If you wish to support the family with donations towards memorial expenses, that can be done via Venmo @HannahBananakafe, CashApp$HannahHutsell or you can contact any of the daughters (Hannah, Phoebe, Dora) directly.