Della Keats

Last updated
Della Keats
Putyuk
Della Keats, Inupiaq midwife.jpg
Della Keats in 1952
BornJanuary 15, 1907
Noatak River, Alaska
DiedMarch 11, 1986
Kotzebue, Alaska
Nationality Inupiaq

Della Keats (Putyuk) was an Inupiaq healer and midwife who grew up and came of age in the Northwest Arctic region of Alaska during the first half of the 20th century. Further inland from the coast, the region she inhabited is in the drainage areas of the Noatak, Kobuk, and Selawik Rivers as well as Sisualik. Her life in this region coincided with rapid changes as other peoples voyaged and then settled in alongside indigenous societies. Over the latter half of the 19th century, increased contact helped to spread disease; local people acquired firearms and alcohol; and some inhabitants abandoned their traditional territories by the turn of the century. Missions and schools were established in 1905-1915. During this time, families alternated between school and subsistence seasons. It was not until after the 1930s that Inupiat settled more permanently into villages. This was a time of rapid shifts, and Della Keats and her family lived a traditional subsistence lifestyle while gradually incorporating new materials and entering into trade with a cash economy. She was a tribal member of one of the ten communities in the Kotzebue region, Nautaaq (Noatak). [1]

Contents

Early life

Della Keats (Putyuk) was born January 15, 1907, along the upper Noatak River, in a place named Usulak, at a time before immigrant teachers arrived to the area. It was a treeless tundra, and her family lived in a sod house with ugruk skin windows and a door of brown bear hide. She began school at Point Hope at the age of six, learning her ABCs in English by writing with a flat rock on slates, not tablets. School was in session from October to April, starting in the morning 9-12 am, breaking for lunch, and continuing 1-3 pm each day. Her whole family resided in the village during the school season. Her father (Nunguqtuaq) was a handyman who was in charge of facilities, but he took time off for trapping and was a member of a whaling crew. Her mother was a housekeeper for the teacher. Young Della was one of six siblings, five surviving into adulthood. Her uncle was Mark Mitchell (Misigaq), her brother Marion (Aapaluk) died, her older brother was Gordon (Apayutnak), her oldest sister Isabella (Qaaqsi), her younger brother Clyde (Piniluq), and younger sister Maneta (Siniksaq). [1]

Growing up in a time of rapid cultural transformations, Della Keats witnessed the use of traditional materials and tools, and at the same time observed the increasing use of new materials and tools acquired through trade and adapted to hunting, fishing, housing, and travel. She lived in a sod house as well as a log house and spent time in tents during hunting and fishing season. She wore skin clothes and cotton under clothes. Her mother sewed with a machine discarded by the school, and Della continued to sew with it in adult life. Her bedding was caribou skins but also grass mats on wooden beds in the log house. Her father made a stove and pipe out of kerosene cans. The use of seal gut and sinew was being replaced by twine. Twine was used for fishing and ptarmigan nets, but Della knew about willow bark nets from her mother. Her father hunted with a rifle, but he knew and taught her brother to make and to hunt with a bow and arrow. They made kayaks (qayaq) and skin boats (qayagiaq) out of animals and wood. Paddles were made of caribou shoulder and a willow handle. Seal oil lamps were being replaced by kerosene lamps. And as she grew older, she began to use an inboard motor in a boat. [1]

Adapted to seasonal cycles, the family ate from the land and waters of the region: caribou, grayling, trout, sheefish, whitefish, ptarmigan, marmot, muskrat, ducks, beluga. Della Keats has an early memory of having a pet eagle. The family ate fresh and dried fish, and they fed some to their dogs, including meat that had been spoiled and then dried. Nothing was wasted. They traded for flour, molasses, cheese, beans, and mustard. Her mother learned to bake bread. After the school season ended in April, the family would travel by dog team to the coast to hunt seal, camping along Rabbit Creek in tents, with other people from the region. By this time of the year, families were running out of dried meat and seal oil. They hunted ptarmigan along the way. Whoever was successful would share meat with others, equitably, though there were no firm rules on how it would be distributed. They also hunted muskrat and ducks in April and May. They traveled to Kotzebue in July/August to trade seal skins for oil and ammunition and returned to the Noatak River in late August/September to fish for salmon with cotton twine seine nets. In late August, they cut wood for sleds and boat frames, which they would sell or trade for supplies. They spent the time before school started in October sewing winter clothes, mukluks and waders. [1]

Della Keats reported in her autobiography that she started making mukluks and mittens by age 8 and was making her father's mukluks by age 11. She also helped him make nets. She made ugruk bottoms (soles for footwear) with her own teeth by age 11, and was beginning to sell and trade some items in Kotzebue. [1]

One early memory she has is of an incident that involved her family saving a surveyor crew along the Kelly River. The U.S. Geological Survey Field Party in the summer and spring of 1925 [2] had not been able to hunt successfully, so Della Keats' family shared their food and helped the party to survive.

Adult Life and Healing Work

Della Keats' autobiography skips from her early years, 1907-1918, to her adult life, 1930s-1940s. [1] According to the editors of her autobiography, she had married a reindeer herder when she was 16 but was the sole parent and provider of three children in her 20s—Perry, Priscilla, and Sylvester—who ranged in age from 3-9 in 1943. She worked as the Postmaster at Noatak Village to support her children. She also made a living by selling things she sewed and by actively participating in subsistence harvesting with her larger family group. Her parents would travel up and down the Noatak River, and she eventually moved in to help them in 1945.

Della Keats exhibited an interest in anatomy, the circulatory system, and midwifery from a young age. One report writes that she learned human anatomy and circulation from a textbook when she was in seventh and eighth grade. [3] The anatomical nomenclature of the Inupiat language suggests that members of the culture shared a similar interest. Father Oleksa's brief portrait claims that she started healing people when she was 16, [3] although her autobiography says that she started practicing medicine in her mid 20s. [1] Residents of the Kotzebue Sound region recognized her as a general medical practitioner, and she served both white and Inupiat patients and delivered lectures and health education across cultures. She was in private practice in the Kotzebue Sound region through the late 1960s, but she began to travel more in the 1970s, with the support of Native corporations, to share her knowledge more widely.

What seems to be well known and emphasized is that Della Keats used her hands to heal. [3] [4] [5] The healing hands of the Inupiat people like Della Keats was not unique but characteristic of other Alaska Native groups. [6] Massage and cold and heat helped with diagnosis and treatment of a range of ailments—liver, stomach, constipation, sprains, dislocations, fractures—and could also be used to turn babies in utero or move an umbilical cord [4] [6] Due to a history of disease epidemics, the introduction of refined foods, and a lingering distrust from experimental procedures, it was a slow process to establish mutual respect and trust. Practitioners like Della Keats found a way to integrate traditional Alaska Native medicine (magico-religious) with Western medicine (empirico-rational) in complementary fashion. [6] [5] Her personality and character have been credited for her success in blending Inupiat tribal healing and Western medicine for the benefit and respect of all. [4]

Legacy

A member of the University of Alaska Nursing Faculty, Tina DeLapp, has written about the contributions of Della Keats in an article titled, "American Eskimos: The Yup’ik and Inupiat." [7]

Awards and honors

Maniilaq Health Center

The Maniilaq Health Center (the hospital based in Kotzebue that services the Northwest Arctic region) relies on the example of Della and other tribal healers to service the people of the region. While most of the doctors who work there undergo formal medical education, they still have a tribal doctor program where traditional healers can treat people and provide apprenticeships.

Della Keats Health Sciences Curriculum

Both a summer bridge program and a summer research program are named in honor of Della Keats for her long-standing commitment to the health of Native peoples and all people in Alaska.

Della Keats Healing Hands Award

The Della Keats Healing Hands Award is bestowed upon a tribal healer or health care provider and announced at the annual Alaska Federation of Natives that convenes in October each year.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eskimo</span> Exonym used to describe Indigenous people from the circumpolar region

Eskimo is an exonym that refers to two closely related Indigenous peoples: Inuit and the Yupik of eastern Siberia and Alaska. A related third group, the Aleut, who inhabit the Aleutian Islands, are generally excluded from the definition of Eskimo. The three groups share a relatively recent common ancestor, and speak related languages belonging to the Eskaleut language family.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anaktuvuk Pass, Alaska</span> City in Alaska, United States

Anaktuvuk Pass is a city in North Slope Borough, Alaska, United States. The population was 282 at the 2000 census and 324 as of the 2010 census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Utqiagvik, Alaska</span> City in Alaska, United States

Utqiagvik, formerly known as Barrow, is the borough seat and largest city of the North Slope Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. Located north of the Arctic Circle, it is one of the northernmost cities and towns in the world and the northernmost in the United States, with nearby Point Barrow, the country's northernmost point.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kiana, Alaska</span> City in Alaska, United States

Kiana is a city in Northwest Arctic Borough, Alaska, United States. At the 2010 census the population was 361, down from 388 in 2000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kotzebue, Alaska</span> City in Alaska, United States

Kotzebue or Qikiqtaġruk is a city in the Northwest Arctic Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. It is the borough's seat, by far its largest community and the economic and transportation hub of the subregion of Alaska encompassing the borough. The population of the city was 3,102 as of the 2020 census, down from 3,201 in 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Noatak, Alaska</span> Place in Alaska, United States

Noatak is a census-designated place (CDP) in the Northwest Arctic Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. The population was 570 at the 2020 census, up from 514 in 2010. It is served by Noatak Airport.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Noorvik, Alaska</span> City in Alaska, United States

Noorvik is an Iñupiat city in the Northwest Arctic Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 694, up from 668 in 2010. Located in the NANA Region Corp, Noorvik has close ties with the largest city in the region, Kotzebue. Residents speak a dialect of Iñupiaq known as Noorvik Inupiaq. Noorvik was the first town to be counted in the 2010 census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iñupiat</span> Ethnic group

The Iñupiat are a group of Indigenous Alaskans whose traditional territory roughly spans northeast from Norton Sound on the Bering Sea to the northernmost part of the Canada–United States border. Their current communities include 34 villages across Iñupiat Nunaat, including seven Alaskan villages in the North Slope Borough, affiliated with the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation; eleven villages in Northwest Arctic Borough; and sixteen villages affiliated with the Bering Straits Regional Corporation. They often claim to be the first people of the Kauwerak.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iñupiaq language</span> Group of dialects of the Inuit language

Iñupiaq or Inupiaq, also known as Iñupiat, Inupiat, Iñupiatun or Alaskan Inuit, is an Inuit language, or perhaps group of languages, spoken by the Iñupiat people in northern and northwestern Alaska, as well as a small adjacent part of the Northwest Territories of Canada. The Iñupiat language is a member of the Inuit-Yupik-Unangan language family, and is closely related and, to varying degrees, mutually intelligible with other Inuit languages of Canada and Greenland. There are roughly 2,000 speakers. Iñupiaq is considered to be a threatened language, with most speakers at or above the age of 40. Iñupiaq is an official language of the State of Alaska, along with several other indigenous languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cape Krusenstern National Monument</span> U.S. National Monument and National Historic Landmark

Cape Krusenstern National Monument and the colocated Cape Krusenstern Archeological District is a U.S. National Monument and a National Historic Landmark centered on Cape Krusenstern in northwestern Alaska. The national monument was one of fifteen new National Park Service units designated by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) of 1980. It was initially declared a national monument under the authority of the Antiquities Act by President Jimmy Carter on December 1, 1978.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iḷisaġvik College</span> Public tribal community college in Utqiaġvik, Alaska

Iḷisaġvik College is a public tribal land-grant community college in Utqiaġvik, Alaska. Operated by the North Slope Borough, a home rule government of the Iñupiat, it is the only tribally controlled college in Alaska, and it is the northernmost accredited community college in the United States. The college is located within the boundaries of the North Slope. It is an 89,000-square-mile (230,000 km2) region of Arctic tundra. It is connected to the 414-mile (666 km) Dalton Highway only during the winter, by an ice road for local residents. The community can also be reached by plane.

Maniiḷaq is a figure of Iñupiat legend and history. He lived in the 19th century before colonialists arrived in his area of northwest Alaska. He lived as a hunter and a healer in northwest Alaska. Various stories about him include that he heard voices predicting that people would come to Alaska, that he had prophetic visions of boats that were propelled by fire or that flew in the air, and that he heard voices from a higher power who he said identified as abba. Some also say that Maniiḷaq rested every seventh day. Other prophecies attributed to Maniiḷaq include the prophecy that the village of Ambler, Alaska would one day become a large metropolis, and that a whale would swim upriver and appear at Ambler. It is said that Maniiḷaq practiced traditional medicine, and also that he resisted the dominant cultural order of shamanism. He is an important figure in Northwest Alaska Christian communities. The most distant future event he predicted was a day that was split in two, which is probably a reference to the Solar eclipse of July 1, 2057.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yup'ik</span> Indigenous people of Alaska

The Yupʼik or Yupiaq and Yupiit or Yupiat (pl), also Central Alaskan Yupʼik, Central Yupʼik, Alaskan Yupʼik, are an Indigenous people of western and southwestern Alaska ranging from southern Norton Sound southwards along the coast of the Bering Sea on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta and along the northern coast of Bristol Bay as far east as Nushagak Bay and the northern Alaska Peninsula at Naknek River and Egegik Bay. They are also known as Cup'ik by the Chevak Cup'ik dialect-speaking people of Chevak and Cup'ig for the Nunivak Cup'ig dialect-speaking people of Nunivak Island.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nunamiut</span> Semi-nomadic inland Iñupiat

The Nunamiut or Nunatamiut are semi-nomadic inland Iñupiat located in the northern and northwestern Alaskan interior, mostly around Anaktuvuk Pass, Alaska.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Qargi</span> Traditional dwelling type of the Arctic

Qargi, Qasgi or Qasgiq, Qaygiq, Kashim, Kariyit, a traditional large semi-subterranean men's community house' of the Yup'ik and Inuit, also Deg Hit'an Athabaskans, was used for public and ceremonial occasions and as a men's residence. The Qargi was the place where men built their boats, repaired their equipment, took sweat baths, educated young boys, and hosted community dances. Here people learned their oral history, songs and chants. Young boys and men learned to make tools and weapons while they listened to the traditions of their forefathers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sinrock Mary</span>

Changunak Antisarlook Andrewuk was a Inupiaq businesswoman who became one of the richest women in Alaska due to her work in the reindeer industry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eskimo yo-yo</span> Traditional two-balled skill toy

An Eskimo yo-yo or Alaska yo-yo is a traditional two-balled skill toy played and performed by the Eskimo-speaking Alaska Natives, such as Inupiat, Siberian Yupik, and Yup'ik. It resembles fur-covered bolas and yo-yo. It is regarded as one of the most simple, yet most complex, cultural artifacts/toys in the world. The Eskimo yo-yo involves simultaneously swinging two sealskin balls suspended on caribou sinew strings in opposite directions with one hand. It is popular with Alaskans and tourists alike. This traditional toy is two unequal lengths of twine, joined together, with hand-made leather objects at the ends of the twine.

The Barrow Duck-In was a civil disobedience event that occurred in Utqiaġvik, Alaska, in the spring of 1961. During the Duck-in, the Iñupiat protested a federal hunting ban on ducks, which threatened their livelihood and rights to food security. The Alaskan North Slope is a remote and rural area, and many residents rely on seasonal bird hunts for sustenance. A series of attempts to regulate Iñupiat subsistence by federal and international entities led to the Duck-in, in which over one-hundred Iñupiaq residents of Utqiaġvik protested waterfowl regulations in the area. The Duck-in is considered a seminal protest, as it had significant influence over future subsistence regulation and Native claims laws in Alaska, such as the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brenda Itta</span> American politician (born 1943)

Brenda Tiggausina Itta is an Iñupiaq activist and former legislator in Alaska's House of Representatives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laura Bergt</span> Native American political activist (1940–1984)

Laura Mae Bergt was an Iñupiaq athlete, model, politician, and activist for the Iñupiat and other Indigenous Alaskans. Born in the Northwest Arctic Borough of Alaska to bi-racial parents, she grew up in Nome and Kotzebue before attending high school in Sitka. Involved in the Native Olympic movement, she was both a nine-times winner of the Arctic Circle blanket toss event and served as chair of the World Eskimo Indian Olympics in 1966. She worked as a promoter for the new state of Alaska attending trade shows and making marketing appearances as a spokeswoman and guest on radio and television programs. From the 1960s, she worked in various policy positions at the tribal, local, state, and national level to address issues like disability, education, employment opportunities, housing, and poverty, and promoting the rights of Indigenous people.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Lucier, Charles V.; VanStone, James W. (1987). "An Iñupiaq Autobiography". Études/Inuit/Studies. 11 (1): 149–172. ISSN   0701-1008. JSTOR   42869584.
  2. ↑ Smith, P. S., &, Mertie, J. B. (1930). "Geology and mineral resources of northwestern Alaska". US Government Printing Office. Bulletin 815. doi:10.3133/b815. hdl: 2027/uc1.32106020888381 .{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  3. 1 2 3 Oleksa, Michael (1991). Six Alaskan Native Women Leaders: Pre-Statehood. Juneau: Alaska State Department of Education. pp. 23–24.
  4. 1 2 3 Craig, Rachel (1998). "Traditional Healing among Alaska Natives" (PDF). International Journal of Circumpolar Health: 10–12.
  5. 1 2 Turner, Edith (1989). "From Shamans to Healers: The Survival of an Inupiaq Eskimo Skill". Anthropologica. 31 (1): 3–24. doi:10.2307/25605526. JSTOR   25605526.
  6. 1 2 3 Kramer, M. R. Traditional Healing Among Alaska Natives. Candidacy Essay (PDF). San Francisco, CA.: Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center.
  7. ↑ DeLapp, T. D. (2021). American Eskimos: The Yup’ik and Inupiat. Giger, J. M. & Haddad, L.G., Eds., T. D. (2021). Chapter 12 in Transcultural nursing: Assessment and intervention. Eds. Giger, Joyce Newman, Haddad, Linda (Eighth ed.). Amsterdam. pp. 280–308. ISBN   9780323695541. OCLC   1147854238.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

Additional Resources

  1. ↑ Mauer, Richard (March 13, 1986). "Death Stills Healing Hands Tribal Doctor's Skill". Anchorage Daily News (AK). p. B1.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.