As a collective, we are able to advance cultural birthing practices, collaborate and learn from one another, and professionalize our essential roles as birth workers in the health care systems. Together, we can become more known to one another and our own community. Together, our contribution to family wellness is more visible and acknowledged.

Dv-laa-ha~, Hii Ruby Tuttle. Hii Dvtlh-mush dee-ni’, Karuk ara, Yuki and Concow Maidu dee-ni’ nii~-li~. Hii ch’ee-see-ne’ da’-ye’-yu’ wee-ni Taa-laa-wa wee-ya’ na'-‘a, Taa-laa-wa waa-tr’valh-‘a~ ne’sr-dash hii-chu wee naa-dvtlh-nvsh.
Ruby Tuttle is indigenous and comes from the Yurok, Karuk, Yuki, and Concow Maidu people. She is a mother of 4 currently living here on unceded Wiyot land. She started her journey to birth work in 2007, supporting birthing people as a doula. She entered birthwork witnessing the loss of a baby, and because of this, she has fought to bring light and dignity to birthing mothers for the last 17 years. She has been practicing as a Herbalist for the past 19 years, and She has a deep connection to the land not only through her ancestors but also through the plants. One of her greatest joys is creating plant medicine to help her community and her family. Ruby has had a deep longing to grow the local Indigenous birth worker community and to create opportunities for them to learn, grow, and support birthing families. One doula can make an impact, but a group of doulas can make real change; this is how Aunties on the River was born from the desire and need to provide more families with wrap-around doula services and the opportunity to be surrounded by compassion.She has a BA in the Hutchins Social Justice Bachelor's program, focusing on social and environmental justice (2012). She has been certified in Birthing From Within ChildBirth Education, Postpartum Healing Lodge, Intro to Midwifery and Doula Care- Laura Doyle, Dandelion Herbal Center- Clinical Herbalist, and completed Heart and Hands Intro to Midwifery (Introduction and Advanced). She also has been working towards getting her California midwifery license for the past four years. Even with these certifications, the most meaningful teachers she has are her community, guiding her to be a compassionate, caring, and mindful teacher to the families she tends to.

Ruby Tuttle

That’ía (hello)
Danielle Reed is a birth justice advocate and full spectrum doula, with an academic and professional background in infant-family early childhood mental health. Her work coordinating various local projects has incorporated this focus through community partnerships, strengthening family connections, and most importantly prioritizing culturally affirming care. She is passionate about birth work, and has dedicated the majority of her personal and professional adult life to advocacy for improvement of systems and spaces that serve Native babies, young children and their families. Her contributions to local projects aiming to improve the birthing experiences of local Native families, her own motherhood journey, and personal connection to community led her to Aunties On The River. As the director of operations her work aims to honor local needs through advocacy while supporting the collective of Aunties through coordination of opportunities for training, cultural sharing, and professional pathways. Her offerings to birthing families as a doula include full spectrum doula care (support through pregnancy, birth, and postpartum), postpartum meals, infant massage, Infant-Family Early Childhood Mental Health (IFECMH) Consultation, and community resource referral.
Danielle is a Ponca woman, and mother of two Hupa, Karuk, and Yurok children whom she and her husband are raising on the unceded territory and current homelands of the Wiyot People. They are committed to raising their children to be proud and connected to who they are as Native people, with a deep sense of gratitude to their family and ancestors for all it’s taken to make this possible. She believes wholeheartedly that the health of our communities is rooted in how we care for our birthing people, and takes her role as an Auntie very seriously. When she’s not wearing her baby while chasing her preschooler around you can find her cooking a meal for a new mom or family & friends, blasting music and dancing, binging reality tv, or Facetiming her grandma.

Danielle Reed

Nshong Nshong, Aiy-ye-kwee’. Cassandra May is a 30 year old Yurok and Wailaki woman living on the coast in Humboldt county. She grew up in the Bay Area and came home late 2019. She works at the Rou Dalagurr Food Sovereignty Lab and TEK Institute at Cal Poly Humboldt. She is group member of the Nutritious School Lunch Initiative serving KTJUSD and a board member of the Eel River Wailaki. She also volunteers often with Potawot Community Food Garden. She spends most of her free time (and at her job) working with traditional foods, plants, medicines. Cassandra started on her journey of entering birthwork Fall 2023 and participated in an Indigenous Doula training early 2024. While she has an appreciation for the many aspects and stages of birthwork, her primary area of interest is postpartum birthwork. She is at the very beginning of her journey with birthwork and looks forward to learning more and serving our community in this way.

Cassandra May

Taushona (Hoopa Valley Tribe) is a Full-Spectrum Indigenous Doula and Certified Breastfeeding Peer Counselor. She has been working with prenatal and postnatal families in and around the Hoopa Valley since 2022. Her calm demeanor produces a peaceful ambiance. She is a Hoopa tribal member residing on the Trinity River in Hoopa, CA. She has 2 young children of her own and weaves her mother’s intuition with learned knowledge gathered from the many trainings she has attended. She is a student of her culture through language, art, and wellness to better her practice for her birthing families.

Taushona Moon

Ayukîi
Ty’ithreeha Allen Colegrove is Karuk and Yurok and currently residing on Wiyot land. She is a mother of two and developed a passion for working with birthing people and their families after becoming a mother herself. She has completed two indigenous doula trainings and started serving families this past year (2024). She believes that pregnancy, birth and postpartum are transformative times in one's life and she looks forward to supporting families throughout these stages.

Ty Allen-Colegrove

Darla Marshall is a member of the Yurok Tribe and a descendent of the Chippewa Tribe from Turtle Lake.She is an Indigenous doula, a certified breast-feeding peer counselor, a car-seat tech, and has been working with prenatal and post-natal families for about thirty years. Darla is a third generation Doula in her service area, and is dedicated to supporting families in the Hoopa Valley. She and her husband, Emil Marshall, have six boys and one daughter together, twenty-four grandchildren, and seven great grandchildren. Darla supports birthing people through culture, and holds a deep compassion and commitment to families. She cares for the families she serves as if they are her own.

Darla Marshall

Harlee is Hupa and Karuk, and was born and raised on the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation, from the village of TakimiLdin. She graduated from Hoopa High School in 2014, then attended UC Davis where she majored in Psychology, obtaining her Bachelor’s of Science in 2018. She moved home to the valley and has been working and growing her family ever since.

Harlee’s journey into birthwork started when she got pregnant with her first son in 2020. Having a baby during the pandemic made her explore alternatives to giving birth in a traditional hospital setting. From then on, she started becoming more interested in learning about her own community’s traditional ways of birthing and how we can reclaim that knowledge. In 2023, she attended Zaagi’idiwin Full Spectrum Indigenous Doula Training. In 2024, she participated in and completed an additional doula training held through the Center for Indigenous Midwifery in collaboration with the Better Birthing Project.

She is excited to begin this journey as a doula/indigenous birthworker in hopes to better serve birthing people in Hoopa and the surrounding communities. She hopes to actively incorporate lessons and values from our traditional ceremonies and lifeways into her work. Of course she is still learning as she goes, but looks forward to helping provide support where it is needed for her community.

She recently welcomed her second son into the world in June, 2024 which has shifted her birthwork journey (in the best way possible). Currently Harlee is tending to her growing family, while participating as a valued member of the Collective. For now, her focus is to help support folks during their pregnancy, and also during postpartum in whatever ways she can. In the future—when her babies are a little bit older— she hopes to also be able to attend births.

Harlee Grant

Aiy-yu-kwee’
Angel Goodman is a Yurok tribal member who is passionate about helping indigenous birthing peoples to have the best care while going through pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. For the last 5 years she has been working in the healthcare field and has found her passion for helping people. Over the last 3 years she has been working as a medical assistant seeing a lot of pregnant clients, postpartum clients, and babies every day. This is where she found her passion for birth work. After participating in the Center for Indigenous Midwifery Doula training, she found herself even more passionate about making a difference in our indigenous birthing community. Angel prides herself on providing a warm, welcoming, safe environment for birthing families and making sure that every birthing person has the access to the resources they need. She is very excited and grateful to be a part of the Aunties On The River doula collective and cannot wait to begin providing services to our community!

Angel Goodman

Frankie Tripp

Ayukii! Nanithvuuyti Frankie Tripp.

Frankie is Karuk, with Mescalero Apache on her mother’s side. She also has a Yurok partner and Karuk/Yurok children. Frankie is a mother of 3, auntie to 21+ and cousin to many! She works hard to learn more about traditional foods and medicines as well as learning Karuk language. She acknowledges that she is still very early on this journey of knowledge and is always open to teaching what she knows, and learning what she doesn't know yet. The biggest reason she has wanted to step onto this doula journey is seeing how unsupported mothers can be by community as well as seeing the cases of those who are supported and the difference it can make. She currently lives in Panamniik(Orleans area) is able to travel to downriver and into Hoopa/Willow Creek area or into the Happy Camp area if need be.

Ayukîi
Hope Kibby is a Karuk, Yurok, Chetco, and Klamath woman who currently lives in Arcata CA. She attends College of the Redwoods and devotes herself to learning the Karuk language. Growing up, Hope was blessed with many little cousins, she would proudly take responsibility to care and show nothing but love and support towards them. She gained interest in aiding birthing families after supporting her sister in her birth and wishing she knew more to help. Hope attended a doula training in 2024 through the Center for Indigenous Midwifery in collaboration with the Better Birthing Project and continues to learn from the other experienced Aunties on the River doulas. Her passion is to nurture and support families as they experience their birthing journey.

Hope Kibby

Rosie Williams

Ayukîi
Rosie is Karuk/Pit River/Wiyot/Paiute-Shoshone and resides in Orleans, Ca. She started her birth work journey with the Zaagi’idiwin Full Spectrum Indigenou Doula Training in 2023 and has continued down the path of learning more since then. She participated in additional doula training in 2024 through the Center for Indigenous Midwifery in collaboration with the Better Birthing Project. She is currently working to obtain her credential for Perinatal Nutrition+Infant Nutrition with The Professional Perinatal Nutrition Program. Rosie has a passion for traditional foods and plant medicines which she hopes to actively incorporate into her practice. She wants to help as an Indigenous full spectrum doula for mothers as they welcome a new baby.