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Della Keats
Inupiaq Eskimo Traditional Healer
Della Keats, an Inupiaq Eskimo traditional healer, was born about 1907, near Kotzebue. She was always interested in medicine, in healing people, and while she learned a lot of traditional techniques from her parents, she began healing people at the age of 16, about 1923. She ever used any instruments, nor did she perform any surgery. She always insisted that when she could not cure the patient, they go to the hospital, consult with modern physicians. Her only healing talent lay in her hands.

Background
In the times before European/American medicine was available in Alaska, Native Alaskans had numerous traditional cure for various illnesses. Disease was often considered to be the result of spiritual imbalance, and for serious cases, the traditional healer was the shaman. 
In ancient times, Native Alaskans believed, there had been communication between the spirit world and human beings, and between the animals and human beings as well. But people had somehow lost their ability to understand what the animals were saying, and could no longer communicate with the spiritual world either. The shaman, however, was a person, a man or woman, whom, it was believed had recaptured this lost ability to speak to and understand the spirits. Because of this, he or she could deal effectively with them when something was wrong, when they had been offended, when something was out of balance. Most shamans had some kind of ceremony they enacted, usually with singing and drumming, in order to perform their prophetic or healing work. But we know there were shamans who did not use any particular equipment, nor did they perform and particular rites. Some teachers or missionaries met some shamans in the early 1800's, and encouraged them to continue healing people. 
In later years, especially after 1880, American officials discouraged and even persecuted shamans. In Southeast Alaska, where Tlingit shamans did not wash or cut their hair, government authorities had shaman's heads scrubbed, their hair cut. The practice of shamanism became a crime, for which Native healers could be imprisoned. Still, many Native Alaskans continued to rely on the wisdom of past centuries, and applied healing knowledge and techniques in their own lives. 

Della Keats
Della did use some ancient Inupiaq methods in her work. For example, she once saw her mother stitch a deep cut shut with a needle, disinfected by pouring hot water over it, and a human hair. She remembered traditional treatment for burns and frostbite, and she had the advantage of once having studied a human anatomy book, when she was in seventh and eight grade.
Della never took any money for healing anyone, saying, "I don't need money. I never

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