(motor whirring) BETTY OSCEOLA: I was out in my airboat in the Everglades one day, and I stopped the boat and I just sit and I listen.

(motor stops) And I remember hearing this voice in the wind, and that voice said, "I am you and you are me."

Don't be afraid to be you.

(motor churning) Indigenous women are the two-legged manifestation of Mother Earth.

Mother Earth is very caring, very caressing.

That's where we get our nurturing from.

But also Mother Earth can be stern.

With her hurricanes, her tsunamis, with her earthquakes.

Everything Mother Earth does, we do.

(birds chirping) Growing up here, in the Florida Everglades in an Indian village, is kind of unique and different from everyone else.

Today, we're don't have the luxury of living wherever we want, because, you know, now Florida is inhabited.

(door clanging) Some of our structures that you see today, because we don't have, you know, seasonal homes, that nomadic lifestyle we used to have.

(door snaps shut, beeping) My house has walls, it has electricity, and it has some of the creature conveniences.

It has a kitchen inside.

(sipping) Mm, that's good.

Every morning, I make a fire, and I offer a prayer and a little food to the fire.

I'm speaking directly to Creator, 'cause we always say it's not the words that come from your mouth, but it's the words that come from your heart that makes it to Creator, your true intentions.

And if you're true in your intentions and in your prayers, you don't pray for yourself.

You're always praying to help creation around you.

So, nephew, this morning, I wanted your help to make this fire in the right way.

(sparking) NEPHEW: Yeah!

BETTY: A lot of times you see other people put the big pieces and put a lot of lighter fluid on it and then throw a match or whatever.

But, you know, we were always taught you start out small, because everything needs a good foundation.

(flames crackling, animals chittering) (popping) When the fire pops like that, we say the fire is saying "mado," which means thank you.

Mado.

(flames pops) For us, nature is the church.

You find Creator in a rock.

You find Creator in the water.

You find Creator in the trees, because we say Creator loved all his creations, so much that he gave his creations the gift of life through his breath that he breathed, and that's why we call him Breathmaker.

So Creator is in that fire.

(flames crackling) This morning I noticed there were some mosquitos in the yard, so I took some of this grass that was cut yesterday and is still damp.

So I'm going to add this grass, so that as it dries in the fire, it's going to create a lot of smoke and that will push those mosquitoes back.

And as... you're not using any chemicals or anything, this is a more natural way.

My family, particularly my mother, was very strong and adamant about keeping our culture and traditions.

Because I'm of the last generation that knew some form of subsistence living, because mainly what we ate came from what my brothers hunted for, what we went fishing for, what my mother grew, and that was our life.

These days, one of the reasons I really educate about the environment is that it's getting harder to survive off the environment and to exist.

My late mother used to say (speaking Mikisúkî) She would say, you know, the land over time got bitter.

The water coming through over time with chemical pollution has changed the composition of the soil.

The Everglades is a skeleton of its former self.

I want to help heal the Everglades and put it back to where it's alive and abundant with its wildlife, its plant life.

(motor humming) I'm just being who I was taught to be as a woman of the Panther clan.

We were always taught that we don't own anything.

We're only caretakers of this creation.

As a woman of my clan, it's a part of my responsibility to make sure that my future generations, have that opportunity to experience Creator's creation.

(birds squawking)