My Dear Brothers and Sisters,Yesterday, Wilma Mankiller, the FIRST WOMAN CHIEF of the Cherokee Nation crossed over from complications of cancer. She was Chief from 1985-1995 and during her presiding, the Western Band of the Cherokee Nation (Oklahoma based where she was born) and the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation (where my ancestors are from before the Trail of Tears took them to Oklahoma) were ceremonially reunited for the first time.
She was an activist for not only tribal rights and women's rights but provided a role model of grace, strength and spirit. Her near death experience in graduate school in San Francisco coupled with kidney cancer and neurological challenges not only did not keep her from rising to a position of leadership, they, as she herself told it, made her unflappable and strong and pure of heart.
As they say in today's terms:"You go Girl!!!"
Oddly and not coincidentally, there was a woman chief of the Northern Alabama Tribe of the Cherokees a few years back under whose guidance Sequoia Caverns began a process of being returned to the Cherokees. That hasn't happened yet and it seems that the Eastern Band wants to take it over and build a casino there like the massive Harrah's here in Cherokee, NC.
The role of women in tribal governance is symptomatic of the increasing role of women in all walks of life and government. Women of all colors and tribes are helping shape international policy and are bringing back a much needed and much missed balance of men and women in everything from our immediate families to our extended families to our global families.
Let us celebrate the crossing over of a Great Chief. Let us further resolve to live according to the standards and values that she epitomized.
Blessing All of Our Relations.
Franklin
PIXIE
Son of the Cherokee Nation
