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1 " A significant number of people believe tribal people still live and dress as they did 300 years ago. During my tenure as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, national news agencies requesting interviews sometimes asked if they could film a tribal dance or if I would wear traditional tribal clothing for the interview. I doubt they asked the president of the United States to dress like a pilgrim for an interview. "
― Wilma Mankiller
2 " In Iroquois society, leaders are encouraged to remember seven generations in the past and consider seven generations in the future when making decisions that affect the people. "
3 " Though many non-Native Americans have learned very little about us, over time we have had to learn everything about them. We watch their films, read their literature, worship in their churches, and attend their schools. Every third-grade student in the United States is presented with the concept of Europeans discovering America as a "New World" with fertile soil, abundant gifts of nature, and glorious mountains and rivers. Only the most enlightened teachers will explain that this world certainly wasn't new to the millions of indigenous people who already lived here when Columbus arrived. "
― Wilma Mankiller , Every Day Is a Good Day: Reflections by Contemporary Indigenous Women
4 " An Indian is an Indian regardless of the degree of Indian blood or which little government card they do or do not possess. "
5 " One of the things my parents taught me, and I'll always be grateful as a gift, is to not ever let anybody else define me; that for me to define myself . . . and I think that helped me a lot in assuming a leadership position. "
― Wilma Mankiller , Mankiller: A Chief and Her People
6 " The happiest people I've ever met, regardless of their profession, their social standing, or their economic status, are people that are fully engaged in the world around them. The most fulfilled people are the ones who get up every morning and stand for something larger than themselves. They are the people who care about others, who will extend a helping hand to someone in need or will speak up about an injustice when they see it. "
7 " I learned a long time ago that I can't control the challenges the creator sends my way, but I can control the way I think about them and deal with them "
8 " It is the women who are responsible for bringing along the next generation to carry the culture forward. "
9 " Women can help turn the world right side up. We bring a more collaborative approach to government. And if we do not participate, then decisions will be made without us. "
10 " During the long healing process, I fell back on my Cherokee ways and adopted what our elders call "a Cherokee approach" to life. They say it is "being of good mind." That means one has to think positively, to take what is handed out and turn it into a better path. "
11 " Women can help turn the world right side up. We bring a more collaborative approach to government. And if we do not participate, then decisions will be made without us. Wilma Mankiller, Denver, September 1984 "
12 " In our tribal stories, we have heard of a Woman's Council, which was headed by a very powerful woman, perhaps the Ghigau. This oral history is frequently discredited by Western historians as "merely myth." I have always found their repudiation fascinating. An entire body of knowledge can be dismissed because it was not written, while material written by obviously biased men is readily accepted as reality. "
13 " know what the misfortune of the tribes is. Their misfortune is not that they are red men; not that they are semi-civilized, not that they are a dwindling race. Their misfortune is that they hold great bodies of rich lands, which have aroused the cupidity of powerful corporations and of powerful individuals.… I greatly fear that the adoption of this provision to discontinue treaty-making is the beginning of the end in respect to Indian Lands. It is the first step in a great scheme of spoliation, in which the Indians will be plundered, corporations and individuals enriched, and the American name dishonored in history. California Senator Eugene Casserly, 1871 "
14 " Europeans brought with them the view that men were the absolute heads of households, and women were to be submissive to them. It was then that the role of women in Cherokee society began to decline. One of the new values European brought to the Cherokees was a lack of balance and harmony between men and women. It was what we today call sexism. "
15 " Despite everything, they tend to view economic poverty as a barrier and a challenge, not a state of being. "
