Wako : Indian healer, ca. 1894

• Main Author: La Roche, Frank
• Other Authors: University of Washington Libraries
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Subjects: Wako (Coast Salish Indian); Coast Salish Indians > Structures; Coast Salish Indians > Domestic life; Healers > Washington (State) > Puget Sound Region; Indian; Yukon; Alaska
• Online Access: http://cdm16786.contentdm.oclc.org:80/cdm/ref/collection/loc/id/61; http://content.lib.washington.edu/cgi-bin/htmlview.exe?CISOROOT=/loc&CISOPTR=61

The photographer's caption indicates that this woman, named Wako, was a doctor or healer. In some Puget Sound Salish cultures, both men and women could become doctors. They obtained their powers through a vision in which a guardian spirit communicated their future occupation. The spirit then continued to aid them in healing illnesses. Indian doctors were both respected and feared in their societies. Caption on image: "Wako, the Indian doctress" After photographing many parts of the United States, Frank La Roche arrived in Seattle in 1889. He was active in Seattle and made around 100 trips to Alaska and the Yukon. La Roche retired in 1912 and died in Sedro-Wooley, Washington in the 1930s. (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Oct. 4, 1906; Carl Mautz, Biographies of Western Photographers, p. 500.)