Katsi Cook, interview by Joyce Follet, transcript and video excerpt, October 27, 2005

Katsi Cook, interview by Joyce Follet, transcript and video excerpt, October 27, 2005

Cook, Katsi, 1952-

Environmental health -- United States

Indians of North America -- Health and hygiene

Indian women -- United States -- Biography

Reproductive health -- United States -- History

Complete oral history transcript (138 pages) and video excerpt (3 mins). In this oral history, Cook traces her family roots to the encounters among African, indigenous, and European peoples in the colonial era. She describes her early formal and informal education and her decision in the 1970s to "bail out" of the assimilation track and embrace indigenous culture and political struggle. She details the development of the Mothers' Milk Project and its community-based research. Midwifery is the persistent theme of the interview as Cook recalls her attraction to the work, recounts the Mohawk origins story and its application to her own practice, and offers examples of births in which she integrates biomedical protocols with traditional customs including dreams, Mayan methods, and peyote. The oral history is a passionate statement by a leader of a transitional generation who practices midwifery as a process of restoring cultural integrity and achieving environmental justice through the empowerment of women.

Cook, Katsi

Follet, Joyce

Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College (Northampton, MA)

2005

Sophia Smith Collection (sponsor)

Copyright Sophia Smith Collection

Forms part of Voices of Feminism oral History Project

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