Della keats biography of william hill

Help us redesign the Project Jukebox website by taking a very short survey! In this interview, Della talks about how she learned to do traditional healing, her use of stinkweed and a poker for treating aliments, and the work of midwives in the villages. She also discusses the traditional practice of giving birth in a small hut separate from the house.

This recording was edited for sound quality and redundancy. A PDF of a more complete transcript of the original full recording is available. Before there were doctors, and how women had babies and tied the umbilical cord. Missionaries and teachers acting as doctors in the early days. Being careful to use traditional medicines and plants properly.

Traveling to villages as a traditional doctor, and teaching young people how to do traditional healing. Click play, then use Sections or Transcript to navigate the interview. While you won't be able to watch the video in your browser, we've provided a transcript of the entire video so you won't be missing out on any important information.

After clicking play, click a section of the transcript to navigate the audio or video clip.

Della keats biography of william hill

And she's agreed to talk with me about her life. Della, do you -- do you consider yourself a doctor or a healing person? Or how would you describe your role in the villages? And I'm always proud of the books, what I have when I'm in school, about a physical. And some parts that was interested to me, I put it in my mind. I never write it down. But the ones that's so interested that I really need, I put it in my mind.

And when it's happened to the people, the way what I read from the book, I try to help them. And help them. Make them good. And I start to help -- starting to help all the people just like me. Ever since, even when I was a child trying to follow the books, how to help them when -- whey they -- like, when they're really cut and losing blood on some things.

And these are the ones that I always work on the people right now. Just by my own experience, what I do it myself, what I help myself. And when people complain about it, they think that he's -- he's hurting, complain about it, what his della keats biography of william hill with him. And when he do the same way, what I did, like, I do this and get good myself.

Try to help him. JOANNE MULCAHY: Well, when you -- you say that you learned some things from books and remembered them even though you didn't write them down, was there another doctor in your community, in the village where you grew up, a healing woman like yourself that you learned from? I always ask my folks, my parents, not to somebody. But the numbers in Eskimo, I've learned them from another old man.

That's the only one I asked. One old man and learned the Eskimo numbers. What did your parents say about --? What did your mother say about how she was healed? Did she heal herself when something went wrong, if there was no doctor? There was nothing. And, you know, she never get really bad to get so ill in their family. But the way, when she start having baby, how do the -- I asked her how do they tie it with what they cut the cord, and which one they put the clothes on or van to the belly?

And what kind of string they tie on a cord of baby. How do you keep it warm? Things like that, I always ask. And it was she telling me the way when I was born. How to do -- how to help me. Like, how did you tie my belly? That's right. I opened my belly and show it to her. How did you open --? I mean, tied my belly? And she told me with sinew -- back sinew of caribou.

They fall along. She having her baby. I was born in a small hut, small hut. In the falltime, when she was pregnant, my daddy gathered all the moss around there when my mother going to have a baby so -- so he could make a little hut enough for her. A woman. And daddy made a little moss hut when she start having labor. She put on floor with willows.

Covered mud with willows and put a lot of -- two, three skins of caribou skins in it. Enough -- enough to make having a baby enough to sleep. It was not until after the s 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. Della Keats Putyuk was born January 15,along the upper Noatak Riverin 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 am, breaking for lunch, and continuing 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. 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. Adapted to seasonal cycles, the family ate from the land and waters of the region: caribougraylingtrout, sheefishwhitefish, ptarmiganmarmotmuskratducks, 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. Skip to main content. Della Keats. Date of Birth: Jan 15, Ethnobotany, Ethnomedicine and Traditional Healing. Job Opportunities. Partner Organizations. Our Work.

Our Policy Work. Our Technical Assistance Work. Alaska Curriculum.