Wilma Mankiller

                The video link provided is an excellent resource, giving us a look into who Wilma Mankiller was. Wilma Mankiller was the first female chief of the Cherokee nation. She devoted her life to tribal culture, values, politics, language and history.

                Something that stood out to me in this video was the way she spoke about tribal culture. Although Wilma answers many questions, I found a common factor throughout the video that I’d like to focus on; the loss and rebuilding of tribal culture.  Wilma shares, that with the loss of tribal elders; many stories and information is also lost. That’s why it is so important to preserve the knowledge and traditional values. In tribal culture, most information and knowledge is passed down through stories. With the loss of tribal language, traditions, and the elders than maintained those aspects, the knowledge can easily become forgotten.

                Wilma speaks about reciprocal relationships, in which the tribal community maintains responsibility for one another, through interdependency. This community responsibility promotes oneness, unity, harmony and balance. As the sense of community returns, tribal people begin to trust their own thinking again. Many projects are now in place to support the tribal communities’ interdependency. Many tribal communities are directing their own services now, for health needs, education needs, and community needs. As this interdependency is maintained, people being to filter information through their tribal values.

                The interesting thing is, these actions being taking to preserve the culture are happening at the same time as the loss of culture. As the elders are passing, tribal communities are strengthening to ensure that their culture isn’t lost. Through a sense of community, they are rebuilding and maintaining the responsibility to each other. This is interesting to me because community is something that I have already identified as a major difference between modern American culture and Native American culture. As I have written before, the sense of community that Native Americans share among each other is a sign of being able to see beyond oneself. Something that sadly, doesn’t seem all too common in modern American culture.

                Wilma Mankiller’s work and influence has helped to support the strengthening of not just the Cherokee nation, but all tribal communities. Her work continues to inspire natives and non natives to see the value of tradition and the importance of interdependency.