Download or read book Birth & Rebirth on an Alaskan Island written by Joanne B. Mulcahy and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2001-01-01 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Birth and Rebirth on an Alaskan Island offers the fascinating story of Mary's life, from her experience growing up within the traditional society of Akhiok to her work as a teacher, a community health aide, a mother, a grandmother, and an Alutiiq midwife and healer. Through her story we discover a society that blended native Alutiiq culture with the Russian Orthodox teachings handed down from late-eighteenth- and nineteenth-century colonists; the mixed modern education and employment with a subsistence lifestyle; that sanctioned arranged marriages but upheld civil divorce laws; and, above all, that recovered its confidence in traditional healing - both of the body and of the community.".