By focusing on a single therapy - surgical treatment of headache - this article defines the broad pattern of early white reactions to native healing in the North American Arctic. Many Europeans, particularly those with medical training, denied the value of indigenous surgery. Missionaries, to the contrary, recognized its success, and thought its suppression necessary: 'cutting' reinforced native religious concepts by providing an exit for illness-causing sprits. When they could not deny the efficacy of traditional therapy, Europeans resorted to naturalistic explanations. In practice, they realized, there was little difference between indigenous arctic and European surface surgery: both produced bleeding and counterirritation. Native healers, it followed were unwittingly applying contemporary European treatments; alternatively, they had learned effective procedures through contact with whites. Only very rarely did newcomers incorporate indigenous therapeutic concepts into their treatment of native patients. With few exceptions, Europeans failed to recognize inherent value in traditional northern healing.

ISSN 0823-2105

© 2012 Canadian Society for the History of Medicine/
    Société canadienne d'histoire de la médecine