1920s: Iñupiaq traditional healer becomes a midwife
Della Keats, an Iñupiaq from Kotzebue, Alaska, is a traditional healer, locally called a doctor. Born in 1907, she lives a traditional subsistence lifestyle, and educates herself in anatomy and traditional healing practices of the Iñupiaq. She treats Alaska Natives and whites and trains to be a midwife in the 1920s. She delivers babies for 30 years.
“I love to teach the people. I don’t want to keep something secret by myself. I want everybody to know,” said Della Keats, who believed that educating her patients about good health practices was a key part of helping them get well.
- Theme
- Medicine Ways
- Region
- Arctic
Midwife and healer Della Keats, Iñupiaq, cooks muktuk (whale skin and blubber), in a traditional manner, Sisualik, Alaska, 1952
Courtesy Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks
![Della Keats, daughter, and Jenny Mitchell, mother, preparing fish at [Sheshalik] Noatak camp 1952.](http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/assets/timeline/000/000/338/338_w_full.jpg "Della Keats, daughter, and Jenny Mitchell, mother, preparing fish at [Sheshalik] Noatak camp 1952.")
Midwife and healer, Della Keats, Iñupiaq, and her mother, Jenny Mitchell, preparing fish in a traditional manner at Sisualik Noatak camp, Alaska, 1952
Courtesy Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks