Wilma Mankiller

 
                There are many things that I learned from the Wilma Mankiller Video. There are over 550 tribal governments in the United States who each have their own culture and languages. Every tribe selects their leaders a different way, the Cherokee and Navaho select them by popular vote. In Onondaga the women select their leaders, and only the women can remove their leaders. So even though all these leaders have a similar position they are all selected in different ways. These governments can range from control millions of acers of land to less than 25 acers of land. Some of these tribal governments have large groups and some have small groups such as less than 100. The Onondaga tribal government even issues their own valid passports for international travel. However Hawaiian Natives are having a battle to retain rights to some of the most coveted land in the western hemisphere.  In her Cherokee tribe they had a ceremony where they would rekindle relationships, request forgiveness for inappropriate actions that they committed the previous year, and to cleanse the mind of negative thoughts. Everyone who participates are forgiven for past offenses however once they left they could never speak of that offence again. Each family would put out their home fire and relit that home fire from a central ceremonial fire for a sign of unity. They are very big on getting rid of negative thoughts and forgiving people if you have had a feud with them. She made it very clear in her video that there is no sense in holding onto grudges that it is not good for the mind and takes away from what you are focusing on.