- Hello, I'm Beth Macmillan, and welcome to "ARTEFFECTS."

In our featured segment, we meet the women behind The Mankillers, a Native American drumming and singing group that formed in 1991.

The members lived throughout Nevada and California in cities, including Reno, Fresno, Riverside, and Yreka.

When The Mankillers come together, they celebrate friendship, identity, and culture through powerful performance.

(birds chirping) (lively music) - The Reno-Sparks Indian Colony is a federally-recognized sovereign nation located here, right in the middle of Reno and Sparks, Nevada.

We have about 1300 plus tribal members and we represent our membership and descendancy of Washoe, Paiute, and Shoshone people.

We have 28 acres downtown.

We are located between Mill Street and Second Street, that's the 28 acres.

We also have 15,000 acres in Hungry Valley.

My name is Michon Eben.

I manage the Cultural Resource Program and Tribal Historic Preservation Office for the Reno and Sparks Indian Colony.

And I'm also the co-founder of the All-Native women drum group, The Mankillers.

The Mankillers began and were established at Humboldt State University in Northern California.

We were all college students, and we just came together as friends.

We did sing with the co-ed drum group, so other male singers.

We were called the Humboldt State University Drum Group and the Humboldt State University Student Drum Group.

We would just get together and sing on campus for different Indigenous events.

- There was a gathering at Captain Jack's Stronghold and the Humboldt State Student Drum was there, and several of the women were singing together and all of a sudden, looked at each other and said, "Hey, you know, we sound really good."

- We were singing.

And from that gathering it was like, "Oh, the women have such different tones that it would be nice to get the women to sing together."

- We decided to become a support group and begin meeting on the weekends and start drumming on a big drum.

We just began to practice more and more.

And then we were asked to sing on campus for an Indigenous conference.

We decided, "Well, let's do this little song for this Indigenous conference, but we need a name."

(drum thumping rhythmically) (The Mankillers member vocalizing) Somebody had yelled out, "What about The Mankillers?"

Well, that name is a strong name in the Cherokee Nation.

That name is from Wilma Mankiller.

And Wilma Mankiller is a great role model.

She was the principal chief of her Cherokee Nation in the '80s and '90s.

She was an activist, an educator, brought a lot of good economic development to the Cherokee Nation, and we decided to go with, "Okay, let's be The Mankillers."

And we knew that we needed to ask permission.

We just couldn't come out and use the name.

So, we sent a letter to Wilma Mankiller, let her know who we all were.

And after her leaving this world, her nephew approached us and told us how they approved that name.

So, our understanding is that she took our letter to all the head men of the Cherokee Nation and they passed our letter around, and they gave us permission.

So, hence, The Mankillers.

(The Mankillers vocalizing) (drums thumping) The Mankillers encompass many tribal nations throughout the United States.

- I am from the Village of Tuata, or Taos Pueblo, and Raramuri, the Running People.

- I am Yaqui and Chicana, so my tribe is from the Arizona area, Tucson.

- I am Cherokee and Muskogee Creek, and Tunica Choctaw Biloxi.

- My father's people are Pyramid Lake Paiute, the Qui-ui-pa, and my mother's people are Tampisha Nua, so that's Death Valley Shoshone.

(drum thumping rhythmically) When you see and hear us, you will know and understand who we are.

(drum thumping rhythmically) (The Mankillers vocalizing) (drum thumping rhythmically) After we started our first conference and did our first performance in public, we decided, "Let's start learning songs and let's start going to powwows."

(The Mankillers vocalizing) (drum thumping rhythmically) - One of our songs is called "The Gathering Song," and it was given to us by Germaine Tremmel.

(drum thumping rhythmically) Usually, songs came to us by other drum groups that supported us.

- Or we would ask permission in the right way, ask with an offering for mother drum groups, and they would give us permission.

And then we started learning our own songs or catching our own songs.

The Mankiller women would come up with songs or would hear songs.

Would hear songs in nature or would hear songs in dreams.

- We started songwriting and dreaming and, you know, again, like Carrie said, catching songs.

And that's a beautiful process.

You know, you're just living your life and all of a sudden- (Carrie speaks faintly) - A beautiful melody comes- - Yeah.

(laughs) - To you and you just try to catch it as you would like a poet or a writer.

(The Mankillers vocalizing) (drum thumping rhythmically) (relaxing guitar music) - We have a sisterhood with the drum group, so it makes us stronger as women for ourselves, 'cause we need that healing.

As women, as moms, as aunties, as grandmas, as cousins.

You know, that women's spirituality is really important, and that connects us.

- You know, I lost my sister a long time ago and the drum helped me heal.

So I can say that it helped me find sisters.

- And I don't have any sisters, but I do here.

And that's a wonderful, beautiful, fulfilling thing for me, just that feminine energy, that bond of other women.

- Yeah.

- And, you know, I didn't have that growing up, som it was a beautiful thing to get as a gift when I was 18, and it's just never left me.

And I think the drum refills us.

- Yes.

- And... - Sustenance, mm-hmm.

(Kristy breathes deeply) - Nurtures.

And again, loves and protects, and, you know, just like the story of that drum is the heartbeat of The Mother.

We come back to Mother when we come back to sing.

(The Mankillers vocalizing) (drum thumping rhythmically) - It's exciting for me to be able to sing with the women because of the voices that we have, the different tones.

There was one comment one time that a male drum group member had said, "Oh, you know, you almost sound as good as the men drum groups."

And it's like, "Well, that's not what we're trying to do.

We have our own voice, we have our own tones."

And we're not here to compete with the man, we have our own way of singing, and it's just a beautiful thing.

(The Mankillers vocalizing) (drum thumping rhythmically) - When we first started out- - It was a big deal.

- It was a big deal.

- Very big deal.

- It was very controversial, because men can only sit at the drum and that's specifically to certain tribal traditions.

And then after a while, people became accustomed to us as a group.

- We have a lot of stories where people, at first, came to be upset with us, and then they changed their tune.

(The Mankillers vocalizing) (drum thumping rhythmically) - For 35 years, what we've gone through, there's been really great, good, and some obstacles that we had to go through to become who we are.

But I think once people understood who we were as individuals, as women in our jobs, women in our communities, and the type of work we've done, I think that that has changed and we're more accepted.

And I'm really proud of Nevada and my relatives at Nevada for being so supportive and embracing The Mankillers.

(The Mankillers vocalizing) (drum thumping rhythmically) - [Announcer] Funding for "ARTEFFECTS" is made possible by Sandy Raffealli with Bill Pearce Motors, Heidemarie Rochlin, in memory of Sue McDowell, The Carol Franc Buck Foundation, and by the annual contributions of PBS Reno Members.

(lively outro music)