One sentiment expressed both in Mankiller and in Wilma Mankiller’s podcasted speech is that Indians gain common values from understanding that our lives are inseparable from the natural world despite differences between people. Cherokees and other Indians gain knowledge from living in the same place for many generations and somehow inheriting a familiarity with Mother Earth.

Wilma Makiller’s autobiography is unique in that she is able to tell her own history by telling the history of her people, the Cherokee, and vice versa. The emphasis of community on Native cultures allows for the history of a person to describe their entire nation and for the history of a community to describe one of its members. As Wilma explains in her speech, one difference between indigenous and non-indigenous people is that Natives have a constant reminder of connectedness with land and each other through stories, passed down from generation to generation, or as in this situation, recorded in an autobiography.

Cherokees, Makiller explains, are particularly conscious of future generations – plants, animals, and people – and realize the power that we as humans have to irreparably damage our landscapes. Mankiller grew up with a firm understanding about her relation to the natural world given to her by Cherokee elders and her own family members. This early sense of reciprocity and self-efficacy is what allowed Mankiller to excel as the first female principal chief of the Cherokees.

Mankiller suggests that being an Indigenous person in 21^st century means utilizing reciprocal relationships to gather the most valuable and ancient knowledge and then trusting that knowledge again. We all live in a troubled world, and by employing some of the ideals Mankiller outlines in her autobiography and in her speech, Indians and non-Indians alike can employ ancient worldviews to move us all into a new era of awareness.