May 10, 2010 • 23 mins
Wilma Mankiller was the first female to be elected Chief of the Cherokee Nation. Molly and Cristen celebrate the life and accomplishments of Mankiller and discuss the role of feminism in American Indian communities in this episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stop? Mom? Never told you?
From House to works dot Com. Hey and welcome the podcast.
This is Molly and I'm Kristen Christine. Know. We try
(00:21):
to keep an eye on current events UM that relates
to our listeners, relate to women's issues, and so recently
something that made the headlines was the death of woman Mankiller.
She died in early April, and she was the first
female chief of the Cherokee Nation and you know, she
just because it was such a monumental achievement, she was
heralded quite a bit during that first week of you know,
(00:42):
her life, the loss of her to the nation, and
just what her legacy was within the American Indian community.
And we don't talk about we haven't really talked about
the American Indian community with on our podcasts, and so
we thought it would be really cool to get into
Mankiller's life and show exactly what she did. But eve right,
because her story is also UM a great segue into
(01:06):
what a lot of other women are doing UM among
other American Indian tribes right now, and also what is
going on with women in tribes, so we might not
be aware of right. I mean, I had never heard
of a woman man Killer, And the more I read
about her, the more I was like, why haven't I
heard about this? So let's let's talk about who she is,
because it's a pretty pretty cool story. So well, the
(01:27):
man Killer was born and grew up in an Oklahoma reservation.
Her family was quote unquote dirt poor, and the style
she described her her early life they according to a
Salon article by Andrew Nelson, the man Killers frequently eight
suppers with squirrel and other game. The house didn't have
any electricity, her parents use coal oil for light, and
(01:49):
basically things got so bad that finally her dad, Charlie Mankiller,
decided to move the family out to California as part
of a program that I believe was regulated through the
Bureau of Indian Affairs. And it was kind of a
sad story because it was just government plan to move
(02:09):
American Indians out of the reservations, get them into more
urbanized settings, and I guess sort of adjust them, if
you will, acclimate them to American modern day American society.
And it was a tough transition. I mean, the neighbors
had to teach them how to use the telephone. But
her father all along, you know, instilled pride and his
(02:30):
kids about their heritage. Um. She frequently went to an
Indian center in San Francisco. UM. She didn't really love
school obviously because she was going through this tough transition.
And she got married right after high school, had two children,
and uh, you know, it was kind of living this
weird life and that she had this heritage that didn't
probably fit in with the you know, crazy San Francisco scene.
(02:53):
But living in San Francisco allowed her to get her
first real touch of activism. So in nineteen sixty nine,
a group of I believe eighteen American Indians go out
to Alcatraz, the island prison which was since abandoned that
I think at the time had been bought by some
businessman who wanted to redevelop it as some kind of
(03:14):
tourist attraction. And the American Indians went out took over
Alcatraz and stationed themselves there to basically protests the Americans
taking their land away. Uh, you know, the founding of
the country. I think they brought out enough beads and
like it was something like twenty four glass beads and cloth.
(03:35):
It was whatever the price they paid for. Are the
white colonists paid to claim Manhattan? Right, So it was
just this big, you know, display of symbolism. Hey, you
took this lamb, We're going to claim this land for us.
And it went on for like several months, and at
first man Killer wasn't that interested. You know, her her
family was a little bit involved in the protest, and
(03:58):
you know, hundreds of people joined these eighteen or nineteen
uh Indians out on the island and it became this huge,
huge story. Celebrities got involved, per usual. So she writes
later when when Wilma Mankiller actually went out there for
the first time, it really did give her a sense
of pride. She had kind of always known about Native
(04:18):
American issues, but this was sort of the defining moment
she always talks about where she has this sense of
pride in her people, in her history, and she wants
to get more involved with this community. Yeah, this is
really a process of her reclaiming herself and and part
of that process involves her actually divorcing her husband because
she ended up in this marriage that was I mean
(04:39):
a pretty pretty cozy arrangement for her husband was you know,
it sounded like pretty well off. You know, she was
very much the typical sixties housewife. But at the same
time he seemed pretty controlling. He didn't want her to
have her own car, certainly didn't want her to be
working or being involved in in this American Indian activism.
So she divorced is her husband in then she finds
(05:02):
a job in Oakland as a social worker, and then
she makes very crucial decision seems like a wild gamble
at the time. She decides to return to her native Oklahoma,
back to the reservation. She has no money, the car's gone,
it's you know, like you said, it seems like a
huge gamble to have these kids and to be moving
back into you know, into her past and back into poverty.
(05:27):
She leaves California in you hall, with twenty dollars in
her pocket and basically just hoping that things are going
to work out. So she gets back to the Cherokee
tribe and she finds a position as a community coordinator,
And at this time, the tribe was trying to start
operating or distancing itself from the Bureau of Indian Affairs,
which is basically the government organization or government agency that
(05:51):
was responsible for allocating federal funds to the different reservations
and kind of saying what they can and can't do
with that money, right, so they were trying to, you know,
find better ways to operate, to get out from under
their thumb. And so now Wilman Man Killer has all
this background in social organization from her time in California.
She's gotten a degree at the University of Arkansas, so
(06:13):
she really kind of has, you know, both the history
and the experience to be part of this movement to
to reform the tribe. And then it's not until nineteen
seventy nine when she is involved in very serious car
crash that injures her and kills her friend who is
also in the car with her, that she really hits
this swall and kind of it seems like she kind
(06:35):
of goes through this existential crisis while she is recovering,
going through the guilt of losing her friend in the
car um and really deciding what what she's gonna do
with herself, how she's going to pick herself back up.
And then in nineteen eighties, she's diagnosed with a thermomuscular
disease UM and she has an operation to remove her
thymus secures her ever illness, and so she gets back
(06:58):
on the job in nineteen eighty one UM and she
starts getting involved with urban planning, and she oversees this
very successful project of laying a sixteen mile water pipeline
that actually gets two different tribes people involved. They each
person involved is actually responsible for laying a mile of
(07:20):
this groundwater that they can then um have freshwater piped
into the tribe, and it really starts to reinvigorate this
Cherokee reservation. I think they also had to do fundraising
for each segment themselves. So this kind of is one
of her hallmarks, and that if we're going to get
out from under the thumb of the b I A,
we're gonna solve our problems ourselves. And all this time
(07:41):
she's starting to catch the eye of a Cherokee chief
at the time, Ross Swimmer, and he wants man Killer
to run us his deputy in the next tribal election,
which she does and they win. They win, not that
it was an easy path for her. As soon as
he names her as the as the deputy, she starts
getting all these uh you know, awful threats to her life.
(08:03):
Swimmers criticized for it. You know, she thought that it
was because she was very liberal, because she did say,
we can solve our own problems, we don't need the government,
which was a very liberal stance to take within the
tribe at that point. And rather than attacking her on
our politics, as you might imagine, they attacked her for
purposes of being a woman. Now, then something else, very
important happens in September. Then President Ronald Reagan taps the
(08:29):
Cherokee Chief, Ross Swimmer to become head of the Bureau
of Indian Affairs. So that leaves Mankiller US and next
in line. So with her uh taking over the title,
she becomes the first woman chief of any American Indian tribe.
And she holds that position for the next ten years,
(08:50):
winning elections. It's not like she just had to sit there,
you know, unelected by the people. Some of the elections
in which she won she won by landslides with the
highest voter turnouts that have been seen. So not only
did she come in just you know, through good luck,
she really galvanized the people and presided over a ton
of accomplishments. For example, she oversaw the historic self Determination
(09:13):
Agreement so that the Cherokee Nation assumes responsibility for the
b i A funds and you know, takes on some
of their own leadership in that regard. Uh. She oversaw
budget more than seventy five million. She helped the tribe
publicize itself so that tripled enrollment, employment doubled under her reign.
She built new health centers, children's programs. She was known
for taking what are considered women's issues like healthcare, education
(09:36):
for the kids, etcetera, and really making them the forefront
of her administration. In fact, sometimes she's criticized for not
doing what they consider the stereotypical American Indian things and
like trying to build new casinos, gaming centers, getting the
getting the fast cash. She was really working on rehabilitating
the community within a try, because it's pretty well known
(09:56):
that UM American Indian communities have been racked with dire poverty,
problems with alcoholism, domestic abuse, poor education, and man killer.
Really left behind a legacy of making solid progress towards
pulling them out of that. And I think that we
should also note that while all of this is going on,
she starts to battle lymphoma, breast cancer, and another of
(10:20):
other health problems. Finally steps down, doesn't decides not to
seek reelection, and she starts to just teach at Dartmouth College.
But throughout all this she's she's constantly dealing with with
health issues. And when she died in April, she had
reached stage four metastic pancreatic cancer. Yeah. One um obituary
(10:43):
noted that not only was she such a prominent female leader,
but a prominent disabled leader as well, because she did
have so many health issues. Now, let's talk about the
name Kristen, because if you are sort of this token
woman who is leading your tribe, who's you're in the
prominent eye in your last name is man killer. You know,
that is, as she said herself, a lot of feminists
(11:05):
would like to have that name. Not that feminists want
to kill men, but she would. She had such a
great sense of humor about it. She you know, someone
would say, oh, is that your real last name, and
she'd be like, well, I earned it through reputation. Um,
So it actually is just an old Cherokee military title.
So it's it's it's it was just lucky stroke of fortune. Um.
(11:25):
But she has a lot of great quotes about how
you know, she was aware of her legacy. She knew
that there were lots of Cherokee girls that would have
never considered they could grow up and be chief, and
now they could because they had seen a woman do it.
They had seen a women do it successfully. And now
there are a lot of articles about how women are
taking more of a leadership role within tribal councils. They've
(11:47):
been giving a lot of educational opportunities in the last
years and their ranks are growing. So it's always sort
of attributed to the leadership of woman man killer. So
just to give you an idea of how women are
sort of rising through the ranks in the tribes. According
to the National Congress of Indians, by two thousand six,
the number of women leaders of tribes was a hundred
(12:09):
and thirty three among more than five hundred and sixty
recognized tribes. And that includes Vivian Juan Saunders, who became
the first woman to head the tojno O Autumn Nation
in Arizona in May two thousand three. We have Irma Visianor,
who was elected in June two thousand four as the
first woman to lead the White earth Band of the
Ojibway in Minnesota. And then we also have Cecilia fire Thunder,
(12:34):
who became the top leader of the Oglala Sioux tribe.
And fire Thunder is a good example of despite the
fact that we have all these women who are coming
through the ranks and that's fantastic, it is not without
some controversy. Right as soon as she took office, she
faced all this criticism about how she was handling the
(12:56):
massive death they've been handed to her by a long
reign of male leaders, and she was getting, you know,
all these personal attacks, and she there was a New
York Times argle where she was basically like, I don't
want to say it's because I'm a woman, but what
else could it be? You know, you're reading from an
Econo article that was like, oh, yeah, fire Thunder has
been elected. A year later, the New York Times comes
out and she's like, this has sucked. I'm paraphrasing. She
did not say that, but you know, I am under
(13:19):
constant attack that the previous leaders were not what else
could it be but the fact I'm a woman. And
she was very much like, I don't want it to
be because of that, but you know, that's the status
of women within this community. Well, I think it's also
interesting that instead of giving her the title of chief,
she was given the title, I believe, of congresswoman. And
so we have to talk a little bit about feminism
(13:41):
within the American Indian community. And it's gonna be much
briefer than it than it deserves, but hopefully it's something
we kind of lay a foundation for and come back
to later. Now, let's go back to the man killer.
She was in the Cherokee tribe, and you know, they're
talking about how she faced this very systemic viewpoint that
women couldn't lead, and it it goes back, of course
(14:03):
to the very long and sad history of how you know,
American Dymnians have been treated over time, because before they
were colonized. We found, uh from the North Carolina Museum
of History, a really great outline of how powerful they
were before old white man came and ruined everything. So
(14:23):
back in the day, relatives were charted, not through the
fathers as they are today, but actually through the mothers.
You were only related to each other through your maternal side,
and then the households were really overseen by the women,
not just in terms of women taking care of clothing
and cooking and all of that, but they were actually
(14:44):
the ones out in the fields gathering the foods because
the men would either be engaged in warfare and out
of the house, or they would go on extended hunting trips.
So it really was up to the women to keep
everything going while the men were out. And then, funnily enough,
if let's say a guy and a girl don't get
along too well, their marriage isn't working out, or their
union is not working out, the guy would just leave
(15:07):
and go back home and live with his mom. Yeah,
it was the woman's home. And if he did leave,
he lost basically all rights to the children, because, as
you said, it was a matrilineal kinship system. The children
weren't technically related to the father. They're related to the mother,
and the most important male in a in a child's life,
according to this Museum of History, was the wife's brother,
because that's how strong the female influence was within just
(15:30):
one given family. So I think that you could say
that in a way, this resurgence of women leaders in
American Indian tribes, it's really just getting back to the
way life was a little bit in a very small
way before white colonists came in and basically ruined everything.
(15:50):
And now you can probably tell that that's like an
uncomfortable thing to say. It's very hard, I think for
anyone discussing history to talk about maybe the own the
part that their own race played in it. You know,
Kristen and I weren't around, But the way the history goes,
the white people came in and made the Cherokee Indians
model their life after them, and that's when women lost
a good deal of power. And so that's why the
(16:13):
chairm of feminism has been very tricky within the American
Indian community because the way I became familiar with man
killers passing was there a lot of feminist blogs who
were saying, oh, look at this great woman leader who
who died, and let's celebrate her rightly. Um, But you know,
there is this problem of what feminism and what a
(16:35):
woman's role within these communities is. And when you go
back and look at this matrialneal society that Molly and
I talked about a second ago, it's understandable that this
concept of feminism might rub American Indian women the wrong
way because this seems like a construct that white women
in particular created in you know, the fifties and sixties
(16:58):
with second wave feminism, Betty for Dan, etcetera. Uh, and
they're saying, well, wait a second, No, you're simply having
to reconstruct what we enjoyed before you guys came along
and enforced patriarchy. So Chris Baker probably talked for days
about this issue of feminism for women of color. It's
a tricky issue, but we just wanted to acknowledge it
(17:19):
and say, you know, it's it is kind of weird
that we're sitting here discussing what feminism means for them,
but it's it's a tricky It's a tricky issue, right,
I think to the point that we have to acknowledge
that for for women of color, simply taking the label
of feminism might not be enough, because not only do
they have to deal with the issues of being a woman,
but also deal with the issues on top of that
(17:40):
with being a minority in society and building on that.
For American Indian women in particular, Molly and I did
not realize um one of the major issues even more
so they have to deal with than other, more than
black women, more than white women, other um racial groups
in the United States is the issue of sexual assault
(18:01):
and domestic violence right. According to New York Times, Indian
women suffered two and a half times more domestic violence
during a half times more sexual assaults. In sevent of
those women will be stocked. So UM disproportionate victimization in
in crimes. And you know, I don't want to turn this,
you know what we're trying to make a celebration of
a woman man Killer's life into a podcast about right,
(18:24):
but it's just something to be aware of in that
you know, women are in this situation and Mankiller has
been a really great voice for trying to left them
out of it well. And I think that the the
issue of sexual assault and how it is handled is
also another example of UM just the tricky politics of
life on the reservation. Because if a woman is raped
(18:48):
by a man who is not part of the tribe, UM,
she cannot take that case to tribal government. They can't
be tried. But then if she goes to say the
municipal police out side of the reservation and says, hey,
this this white guy or whoever raped me, UM, they
also don't want the police don't want to come into
the reservation because they'll say, you know, this is not there,
(19:10):
not their jurisdiction, and then the woman is basically left
in this position of not being able to turn to anyone,
and a lot of times a lot of these crimes
go unreported. And some of these organizations, like the National
Organization of Women estimate that the or guests that these
statistics are probably even even higher because the women don't
(19:30):
really don't have any place to turn at all. And
so um, they're really trying to lobby for a lot
more support specifically for women in reservations because on the
one hand, we have this great success story of people
like woman man Killer, UM, and just women in general,
American Indian women in general, who are on the whole
(19:50):
more educated. Um, they're the ones going to college more
so than American Indian men. But at the same time,
day to day life is still very struggle, it seems like.
So I think that that's you know, this podcast might
have seemed a little bit all over the map, but
I think that, you know, we are white feminists, and
maybe we haven't been brought enough in bringing stories like
(20:13):
that into our podcast. And I also think, Molly that
it's really good to at the same time honor woman
man killer and the legacy that she leaves behind, but
not necessarily allow all of those those high points to
distract us from these very deep, um hurtful issues that
are still going on today that need you know, that
(20:35):
need public awareness. I didn't know about this before this.
You have sexual assault and domestic violence, Um I did.
I was not aware of that before this podcast. So
just broadening our our viewpoints on what's going on in
the world for women. So, guys, as always, we'd love
to know your thoughts on our discussion. Any experiences, any questions,
let's hear them. It's mom stuff at how stuff Works
(20:57):
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(21:19):
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(21:40):
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(23:12):
thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stop? Mom? Never told you?
From House to works dot Com. Hey and welcome the podcast.
This is Molly and I'm Kristen Christine. Know. We try
(00:21):
to keep an eye on current events UM that relates
to our listeners, relate to women's issues, and so recently
something that made the headlines was the death of woman Mankiller.
She died in early April, and she was the first
female chief of the Cherokee Nation and you know, she
just because it was such a monumental achievement, she was
heralded quite a bit during that first week of you know,
(00:42):
her life, the loss of her to the nation, and
just what her legacy was within the American Indian community.
And we don't talk about we haven't really talked about
the American Indian community with on our podcasts, and so
we thought it would be really cool to get into
Mankiller's life and show exactly what she did. But eve right,
because her story is also UM a great segue into
(01:06):
what a lot of other women are doing UM among
other American Indian tribes right now, and also what is
going on with women in tribes, so we might not
be aware of right. I mean, I had never heard
of a woman man Killer, And the more I read
about her, the more I was like, why haven't I
heard about this? So let's let's talk about who she is,
because it's a pretty pretty cool story. So well, the
(01:27):
man Killer was born and grew up in an Oklahoma reservation.
Her family was quote unquote dirt poor, and the style
she described her her early life they according to a
Salon article by Andrew Nelson, the man Killers frequently eight
suppers with squirrel and other game. The house didn't have
any electricity, her parents use coal oil for light, and
(01:49):
basically things got so bad that finally her dad, Charlie Mankiller,
decided to move the family out to California as part
of a program that I believe was regulated through the
Bureau of Indian Affairs. And it was kind of a
sad story because it was just government plan to move
(02:09):
American Indians out of the reservations, get them into more
urbanized settings, and I guess sort of adjust them, if
you will, acclimate them to American modern day American society.
And it was a tough transition. I mean, the neighbors
had to teach them how to use the telephone. But
her father all along, you know, instilled pride and his
(02:30):
kids about their heritage. Um. She frequently went to an
Indian center in San Francisco. UM. She didn't really love
school obviously because she was going through this tough transition.
And she got married right after high school, had two children,
and uh, you know, it was kind of living this
weird life and that she had this heritage that didn't
probably fit in with the you know, crazy San Francisco scene.
(02:53):
But living in San Francisco allowed her to get her
first real touch of activism. So in nineteen sixty nine,
a group of I believe eighteen American Indians go out
to Alcatraz, the island prison which was since abandoned that
I think at the time had been bought by some
businessman who wanted to redevelop it as some kind of
(03:14):
tourist attraction. And the American Indians went out took over
Alcatraz and stationed themselves there to basically protests the Americans
taking their land away. Uh, you know, the founding of
the country. I think they brought out enough beads and
like it was something like twenty four glass beads and cloth.
(03:35):
It was whatever the price they paid for. Are the
white colonists paid to claim Manhattan? Right, So it was
just this big, you know, display of symbolism. Hey, you
took this lamb, We're going to claim this land for us.
And it went on for like several months, and at
first man Killer wasn't that interested. You know, her her
family was a little bit involved in the protest, and
(03:58):
you know, hundreds of people joined these eighteen or nineteen
uh Indians out on the island and it became this huge,
huge story. Celebrities got involved, per usual. So she writes
later when when Wilma Mankiller actually went out there for
the first time, it really did give her a sense
of pride. She had kind of always known about Native
(04:18):
American issues, but this was sort of the defining moment
she always talks about where she has this sense of
pride in her people, in her history, and she wants
to get more involved with this community. Yeah, this is
really a process of her reclaiming herself and and part
of that process involves her actually divorcing her husband because
she ended up in this marriage that was I mean
(04:39):
a pretty pretty cozy arrangement for her husband was you know,
it sounded like pretty well off. You know, she was
very much the typical sixties housewife. But at the same
time he seemed pretty controlling. He didn't want her to
have her own car, certainly didn't want her to be
working or being involved in in this American Indian activism.
So she divorced is her husband in then she finds
(05:02):
a job in Oakland as a social worker, and then
she makes very crucial decision seems like a wild gamble
at the time. She decides to return to her native Oklahoma,
back to the reservation. She has no money, the car's gone,
it's you know, like you said, it seems like a
huge gamble to have these kids and to be moving
back into you know, into her past and back into poverty.
(05:27):
She leaves California in you hall, with twenty dollars in
her pocket and basically just hoping that things are going
to work out. So she gets back to the Cherokee
tribe and she finds a position as a community coordinator,
And at this time, the tribe was trying to start
operating or distancing itself from the Bureau of Indian Affairs,
which is basically the government organization or government agency that
(05:51):
was responsible for allocating federal funds to the different reservations
and kind of saying what they can and can't do
with that money, right, so they were trying to, you know,
find better ways to operate, to get out from under
their thumb. And so now Wilman Man Killer has all
this background in social organization from her time in California.
She's gotten a degree at the University of Arkansas, so
(06:13):
she really kind of has, you know, both the history
and the experience to be part of this movement to
to reform the tribe. And then it's not until nineteen
seventy nine when she is involved in very serious car
crash that injures her and kills her friend who is
also in the car with her, that she really hits
this swall and kind of it seems like she kind
(06:35):
of goes through this existential crisis while she is recovering,
going through the guilt of losing her friend in the
car um and really deciding what what she's gonna do
with herself, how she's going to pick herself back up.
And then in nineteen eighties, she's diagnosed with a thermomuscular
disease UM and she has an operation to remove her
thymus secures her ever illness, and so she gets back
(06:58):
on the job in nineteen eighty one UM and she
starts getting involved with urban planning, and she oversees this
very successful project of laying a sixteen mile water pipeline
that actually gets two different tribes people involved. They each
person involved is actually responsible for laying a mile of
(07:20):
this groundwater that they can then um have freshwater piped
into the tribe, and it really starts to reinvigorate this
Cherokee reservation. I think they also had to do fundraising
for each segment themselves. So this kind of is one
of her hallmarks, and that if we're going to get
out from under the thumb of the b I A,
we're gonna solve our problems ourselves. And all this time
(07:41):
she's starting to catch the eye of a Cherokee chief
at the time, Ross Swimmer, and he wants man Killer
to run us his deputy in the next tribal election,
which she does and they win. They win, not that
it was an easy path for her. As soon as
he names her as the as the deputy, she starts
getting all these uh you know, awful threats to her life.
(08:03):
Swimmers criticized for it. You know, she thought that it
was because she was very liberal, because she did say,
we can solve our own problems, we don't need the government,
which was a very liberal stance to take within the
tribe at that point. And rather than attacking her on
our politics, as you might imagine, they attacked her for
purposes of being a woman. Now, then something else, very
important happens in September. Then President Ronald Reagan taps the
(08:29):
Cherokee Chief, Ross Swimmer to become head of the Bureau
of Indian Affairs. So that leaves Mankiller US and next
in line. So with her uh taking over the title,
she becomes the first woman chief of any American Indian tribe.
And she holds that position for the next ten years,
(08:50):
winning elections. It's not like she just had to sit there,
you know, unelected by the people. Some of the elections
in which she won she won by landslides with the
highest voter turnouts that have been seen. So not only
did she come in just you know, through good luck,
she really galvanized the people and presided over a ton
of accomplishments. For example, she oversaw the historic self Determination
(09:13):
Agreement so that the Cherokee Nation assumes responsibility for the
b i A funds and you know, takes on some
of their own leadership in that regard. Uh. She oversaw
budget more than seventy five million. She helped the tribe
publicize itself so that tripled enrollment, employment doubled under her reign.
She built new health centers, children's programs. She was known
for taking what are considered women's issues like healthcare, education
(09:36):
for the kids, etcetera, and really making them the forefront
of her administration. In fact, sometimes she's criticized for not
doing what they consider the stereotypical American Indian things and
like trying to build new casinos, gaming centers, getting the
getting the fast cash. She was really working on rehabilitating
the community within a try, because it's pretty well known
(09:56):
that UM American Indian communities have been racked with dire poverty,
problems with alcoholism, domestic abuse, poor education, and man killer.
Really left behind a legacy of making solid progress towards
pulling them out of that. And I think that we
should also note that while all of this is going on,
she starts to battle lymphoma, breast cancer, and another of
(10:20):
other health problems. Finally steps down, doesn't decides not to
seek reelection, and she starts to just teach at Dartmouth College.
But throughout all this she's she's constantly dealing with with
health issues. And when she died in April, she had
reached stage four metastic pancreatic cancer. Yeah. One um obituary
(10:43):
noted that not only was she such a prominent female leader,
but a prominent disabled leader as well, because she did
have so many health issues. Now, let's talk about the
name Kristen, because if you are sort of this token
woman who is leading your tribe, who's you're in the
prominent eye in your last name is man killer. You know,
that is, as she said herself, a lot of feminists
(11:05):
would like to have that name. Not that feminists want
to kill men, but she would. She had such a
great sense of humor about it. She you know, someone
would say, oh, is that your real last name, and
she'd be like, well, I earned it through reputation. Um,
So it actually is just an old Cherokee military title.
So it's it's it's it was just lucky stroke of fortune. Um.
(11:25):
But she has a lot of great quotes about how
you know, she was aware of her legacy. She knew
that there were lots of Cherokee girls that would have
never considered they could grow up and be chief, and
now they could because they had seen a woman do it.
They had seen a women do it successfully. And now
there are a lot of articles about how women are
taking more of a leadership role within tribal councils. They've
(11:47):
been giving a lot of educational opportunities in the last
years and their ranks are growing. So it's always sort
of attributed to the leadership of woman man killer. So
just to give you an idea of how women are
sort of rising through the ranks in the tribes. According
to the National Congress of Indians, by two thousand six,
the number of women leaders of tribes was a hundred
(12:09):
and thirty three among more than five hundred and sixty
recognized tribes. And that includes Vivian Juan Saunders, who became
the first woman to head the tojno O Autumn Nation
in Arizona in May two thousand three. We have Irma Visianor,
who was elected in June two thousand four as the
first woman to lead the White earth Band of the
Ojibway in Minnesota. And then we also have Cecilia fire Thunder,
(12:34):
who became the top leader of the Oglala Sioux tribe.
And fire Thunder is a good example of despite the
fact that we have all these women who are coming
through the ranks and that's fantastic, it is not without
some controversy. Right as soon as she took office, she
faced all this criticism about how she was handling the
(12:56):
massive death they've been handed to her by a long
reign of male leaders, and she was getting, you know,
all these personal attacks, and she there was a New
York Times argle where she was basically like, I don't
want to say it's because I'm a woman, but what
else could it be? You know, you're reading from an
Econo article that was like, oh, yeah, fire Thunder has
been elected. A year later, the New York Times comes
out and she's like, this has sucked. I'm paraphrasing. She
did not say that, but you know, I am under
(13:19):
constant attack that the previous leaders were not what else
could it be but the fact I'm a woman. And
she was very much like, I don't want it to
be because of that, but you know, that's the status
of women within this community. Well, I think it's also
interesting that instead of giving her the title of chief,
she was given the title, I believe, of congresswoman. And
so we have to talk a little bit about feminism
(13:41):
within the American Indian community. And it's gonna be much
briefer than it than it deserves, but hopefully it's something
we kind of lay a foundation for and come back
to later. Now, let's go back to the man killer.
She was in the Cherokee tribe, and you know, they're
talking about how she faced this very systemic viewpoint that
women couldn't lead, and it it goes back, of course
(14:03):
to the very long and sad history of how you know,
American Dymnians have been treated over time, because before they
were colonized. We found, uh from the North Carolina Museum
of History, a really great outline of how powerful they
were before old white man came and ruined everything. So
(14:23):
back in the day, relatives were charted, not through the
fathers as they are today, but actually through the mothers.
You were only related to each other through your maternal side,
and then the households were really overseen by the women,
not just in terms of women taking care of clothing
and cooking and all of that, but they were actually
(14:44):
the ones out in the fields gathering the foods because
the men would either be engaged in warfare and out
of the house, or they would go on extended hunting trips.
So it really was up to the women to keep
everything going while the men were out. And then, funnily enough,
if let's say a guy and a girl don't get
along too well, their marriage isn't working out, or their
union is not working out, the guy would just leave
(15:07):
and go back home and live with his mom. Yeah,
it was the woman's home. And if he did leave,
he lost basically all rights to the children, because, as
you said, it was a matrilineal kinship system. The children
weren't technically related to the father. They're related to the mother,
and the most important male in a in a child's life,
according to this Museum of History, was the wife's brother,
because that's how strong the female influence was within just
(15:30):
one given family. So I think that you could say
that in a way, this resurgence of women leaders in
American Indian tribes, it's really just getting back to the
way life was a little bit in a very small
way before white colonists came in and basically ruined everything.
(15:50):
And now you can probably tell that that's like an
uncomfortable thing to say. It's very hard, I think for
anyone discussing history to talk about maybe the own the
part that their own race played in it. You know,
Kristen and I weren't around, But the way the history goes,
the white people came in and made the Cherokee Indians
model their life after them, and that's when women lost
a good deal of power. And so that's why the
(16:13):
chairm of feminism has been very tricky within the American
Indian community because the way I became familiar with man
killers passing was there a lot of feminist blogs who
were saying, oh, look at this great woman leader who
who died, and let's celebrate her rightly. Um, But you know,
there is this problem of what feminism and what a
(16:35):
woman's role within these communities is. And when you go
back and look at this matrialneal society that Molly and
I talked about a second ago, it's understandable that this
concept of feminism might rub American Indian women the wrong
way because this seems like a construct that white women
in particular created in you know, the fifties and sixties
(16:58):
with second wave feminism, Betty for Dan, etcetera. Uh, and
they're saying, well, wait a second, No, you're simply having
to reconstruct what we enjoyed before you guys came along
and enforced patriarchy. So Chris Baker probably talked for days
about this issue of feminism for women of color. It's
a tricky issue, but we just wanted to acknowledge it
(17:19):
and say, you know, it's it is kind of weird
that we're sitting here discussing what feminism means for them,
but it's it's a tricky It's a tricky issue, right,
I think to the point that we have to acknowledge
that for for women of color, simply taking the label
of feminism might not be enough, because not only do
they have to deal with the issues of being a woman,
but also deal with the issues on top of that
(17:40):
with being a minority in society and building on that.
For American Indian women in particular, Molly and I did
not realize um one of the major issues even more
so they have to deal with than other, more than
black women, more than white women, other um racial groups
in the United States is the issue of sexual assault
(18:01):
and domestic violence right. According to New York Times, Indian
women suffered two and a half times more domestic violence
during a half times more sexual assaults. In sevent of
those women will be stocked. So UM disproportionate victimization in
in crimes. And you know, I don't want to turn this,
you know what we're trying to make a celebration of
a woman man Killer's life into a podcast about right,
(18:24):
but it's just something to be aware of in that
you know, women are in this situation and Mankiller has
been a really great voice for trying to left them
out of it well. And I think that the the
issue of sexual assault and how it is handled is
also another example of UM just the tricky politics of
life on the reservation. Because if a woman is raped
(18:48):
by a man who is not part of the tribe, UM,
she cannot take that case to tribal government. They can't
be tried. But then if she goes to say the
municipal police out side of the reservation and says, hey,
this this white guy or whoever raped me, UM, they
also don't want the police don't want to come into
the reservation because they'll say, you know, this is not there,
(19:10):
not their jurisdiction, and then the woman is basically left
in this position of not being able to turn to anyone,
and a lot of times a lot of these crimes
go unreported. And some of these organizations, like the National
Organization of Women estimate that the or guests that these
statistics are probably even even higher because the women don't
(19:30):
really don't have any place to turn at all. And
so um, they're really trying to lobby for a lot
more support specifically for women in reservations because on the
one hand, we have this great success story of people
like woman man Killer, UM, and just women in general,
American Indian women in general, who are on the whole
(19:50):
more educated. Um, they're the ones going to college more
so than American Indian men. But at the same time,
day to day life is still very struggle, it seems like.
So I think that that's you know, this podcast might
have seemed a little bit all over the map, but
I think that, you know, we are white feminists, and
maybe we haven't been brought enough in bringing stories like
(20:13):
that into our podcast. And I also think, Molly that
it's really good to at the same time honor woman
man killer and the legacy that she leaves behind, but
not necessarily allow all of those those high points to
distract us from these very deep, um hurtful issues that
are still going on today that need you know, that
(20:35):
need public awareness. I didn't know about this before this.
You have sexual assault and domestic violence, Um I did.
I was not aware of that before this podcast. So
just broadening our our viewpoints on what's going on in
the world for women. So, guys, as always, we'd love
to know your thoughts on our discussion. Any experiences, any questions,
let's hear them. It's mom stuff at how stuff Works
(20:57):
dot com and we'll do some listener mail right now.
So they were going to read an email from Emily,
who writes, I found the Shopping gender Stereotypes podcast very
amusing because according to those stereotypes, I shopped like a man.
When I find what I want, i'd buy it and
move on. My boyfriend, on the other hand, has been
forever deciding what type of mustard to buy. I can
(21:19):
go finish shopping for the rest of the groceries, and
he's still in front the mustards deciding. Not that I
don't like to browse on occasion, but how long can
you really contemplate mustard? A few months ago, my landlord
was a few days later with drawing my rent from
my bank account. I called him to make sure everything
was okay on my end, not wanting any possible late fees.
He said, they were a few days late due to
the holidays, but they will withdraw it, so don't rush
(21:40):
out and go shopping, he said, And, as Emily rightly says, jerk.
Although I was pull out on the phone, I resented
the implication because I'm a woman, I must not know
how to manage money, and I do think that landlord
was a pretty big jerk. Well, if you've got any emails, Cinema,
our way, Moms Stuff at how stuff works dot com,
and have a couple of new ways you can get
(22:01):
in touch and follow me and Molly. First of all,
you can do that on Twitter. We have a Twitter
account It's Mom's Stuff podcast. Head on over there, join us,
follow us. We will send you delightful tweets at random
times during the day. Uh. And then you can also
become our fan on Facebook. Hey, how about that We're
(22:24):
just stuff Mom never told you? Join our fan page.
We promise we will not um bombard your wall with
a lot of useless updates, but you know we'd like
to see your face. And then, finally, we have a
new blog. It's called stuff Mom never told you to
take over. You might remember our old blog, how to Stuff.
We got a couple of new people taken that over
(22:46):
so that Molly and I can devote ourselves to all
things mom stuff. And you can find that new blog
and other articles at how stuff works dot com. For
more on this and thousands of other topics. Does that
how stuff works dot com. Want more house stuff works,
check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot
com home page. Brought to you by the reinvented two
(23:12):
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