Name
yálʼ tawʼə́t qálʔ
Guides Through Rough Waters
Tribal Nation
Cowlitz Indian Tribe
A Salish-Sahaptian Tribe
of Southwest Washington
Lead
Rhonda Lee Grantham is an Indigenous midwife, herbalist, and cultural anthropologist who lives and serves families on her ancestral territories in Washington state. She is an enrolled member of the Cowlitz Nation, a Salish-Sahaptian tribe that translates to “Seeker of the Medicine Spirit.”
Indigenous midwives and healers have forever offered their hands in service throughout life’s journeys. Rhonda grew up being gently welcomed into birth work as she worked alongside her mother. She has attended approximately 2500 births while providing educational, ceremonial, and family support to thousands more. She has midwife’d families from rural reservations to urban birth centers. She is thankful to have worked alongside Indigenous midwives and healers in birth settings ranging from disaster relief zones to busy clinics and from mud huts to isolated island villages. These opportunities have allowed her to weave together her interests in culturally centered care, midwifery, wilderness emergency medicine, food sovereignty, and more.
Rhonda often spends her days harvesting and sharing plant medicines, storytelling, and teaching classes. She is especially dedicated to growing more Indigenous Birthkeepers and offering support as they share their stories, skills, and struggles. She is the founder and director of both the Center for Indigenous Midwifery and the Canoe Journey Herbalists project. While the two organizations go about their work differently, their roots are the same—healing generations with a connection to land, ceremony, and community.
Becoming a mother was life-changing, but the recent birth of her first granddaughter has awakened something entirely new. Welcoming the baby in a birth tub filled with rose petals, surrounded by love and ceremony, was one of the greatest joys of her life. From first breaths to first foods, Rhonda understands more and more daily the importance of planting seeds for the next generation.
