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Nancy Wilson, traditional healer with herbal medicine bouquet; Dillingham, Alaska.
 © Roy Corral
www.roycorral.com
The contents of this website are provided for informational purposes only, and do not reflect the views of Creighton University or CU School of Medicine.
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by Kimberly Corral
Last Update
14 May 2007
TRADITIONAL HEALING
Alaska Native traditional healing practices
are rooted in a 10,000-year history, and are re-emerging today as an holistic healing
approach for individuals and communities. These methods are
often used in combination with western-based medical therapies for the purposes
of health promotion, disease prevention, pain reduction and enhancement of
psychological wellness.
Today, a variety of methods are used by Alaska Native tribal doctors,
traditional healers, and other practitioners of health, blending elements of
Alaska¹s Native cultural groups, as well as incorporating elements from Native
American tribes outside of Alaska.
This website is based on my first-hand experiences and independent research in
attempting to explore and describe contemporary traditional healing practices
within the Alaska Native community at-large.
Healing comes in many forms. Modern western, or allopathic medicine, focuses
primarily on either the acute or chronic treatment of specific disease, illness,
or injury entities, and has become increasingly specialized. Traditional
healing, on the other hand, encompasses a holistic approach to treatment by
focusing on the health of mind, body, and spirit in a way that is
culturally appropriate. The ideal is not to replace western medicine but to
partner with it in order to achieve total healing of individuals and
communities. Alaska Native traditional healing, then, embodies the
time-honored concepts of lifelong wellness and harmony with self, community, and
the natural environment.
Western medical therapies and practices are based upon an ever-growing
foundation of evidence-based medicine. Patient compliance, however, factors
greatly into the effectiveness of such practices. The concept of best practice
involves both treatment effectiveness combined with what works best for
individual patients in their journeys toward healing and health such that a
patient has to be "on board" with their prescribed treatment plan in order for
it to work. Best practice
then involves patients by combining traditional healing practices along with
western medical practices whenever appropriate for the patient.
ALASKA¹S FIRST PEOPLE
Eleven distinct Alaska Native groups, with
20 different languages, comprise Alaska's first people. These groups form the
foundation of Alaska's ever-growing and rich cultural diversity. These are
living cultures, adapted to specific geographic regions of the state. People
continue to carry forth many of the old ways with pride. Yet, today's
generations are defining for themselves what it means to be Alaska Native in the
21st Century, "walking in two worlds" as is commonly expressed, and
functioning successfully within two distinctly unique cultures and languages--that
which is
handed down by ancestors and the one of mainstream America where English is the
tongue of the land. Follow the link
below to learn more about Alaska's Native People at the Alaska Native Heritage Center located in Anchorage, Alaska.
Alaska's Native People
Eskimos of the Arctic Region & Bering
Sea Coast
•Cup'ik/Yup'ik
•Iñupiat
•St. Lawrence Island Yup'ik
Pribilof & Aleutian Island People
•Aleut (Unangan)
People of Kodiak Island, Alaska & Kenai
Peninsulas, and Prince William Sound
•Alutiiq (Sugpiat)
Indians of the Interior, Copper River
Delta & Southeast Panhandle
•Athabascan
•Eyak
•Haida
•Tlingit
•Tsimpshian
ALASKA NATIVE HEALTH CARE
SERVICES
"Alaska residents face some of the most
extreme barriers to obtain health care services in America, the greatest of
these barriers being isolation."
Tommy G. Thompson, Secretary, United
States Department of Health and Human Services, August 4, 2002.
Alaska Natives living in rural villages know well this isolation that Secretary
Thompson speaks about. Those living far from urban centers struggle to get basic
health care despite the availability of a comprehensive system of health care
services. Providers are scarce in rural areas. Transportation to regional care
centers is often difficult, weather dependent, and always expensive. Access is
the formidable barrier to health care for Alaska's rural residents, most of whom
are Alaska Native.
Western medical health care services are provided to Alaska Native/Native
American people primarily through Indian Health Service (IHS) as part of the
federal government¹s trust responsibility, and through a combination of other
organizations such as regional health corporations, village corporations, state
and local governments, and through private employer-sponsored health care plans.
Services are regionalized, with the greatest level of care provided in the
larger cities such as Anchorage, Juneau or Fairbanks. Remote village sites
receive physicians and dentists a few times each year, therefore, access to
available care is limited, with midlevel care located at sub-regional health
centers such as in the slightly larger communities of Kotzebue, Barrow,
Dillingham, Bethel, and Sitka. Community Health Aides or Community Health
Practitioners provide a unique solution to primary care in
remote Alaska villages. They often live and work in their home village, receive
training, and coordinate cooperative services with regionally-located physicians
via telehealth systems.
Since 1995, IHS has committed to strengthening its working partnership with
traditional healers in Alaska while incorporating traditional healing into its
overall mission to meet the medical needs of Alaska Native people in all regions
of the state. In the years following, various efforts led to the establishment
of Alaska¹s first IHS-supported Traditional Healing Program located in Anchorage
at the Alaska Native Medical Center in the Primary Care facility. This program,
sponsored by Southcentral Foundation, also inaugurated a credentialing procedure
for certifying and employing its first two Tribal Doctors. This credentialing
process is not yet uniformly applied to all traditional healing programs within
the State of Alaska.
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