"News channels on TV and radio intersperse reports of rising foreclosures and job losses with features on how to save money and avoid waste.

But if they want to learn how to make the best of what they have, Americans could do a lot worse than turn to their oldest inhabitants.

Native Americans were masters of living in harmony with their environment for countless centuries before modern America was born.

And in people like Gayle Thrower, of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, their skills live on to be passed down to future generations.

Her reservation, near Atmore in Alabama, features none of the cowboy film cliches like teepees or totem poles.

However, the people who live there are deeply proud of their traditions, and with good reason. Indians have lived on the site for thousands of years, and the tribe today numbers some 2,500 people.

When Europeans invaded, bringing deadly infections and driving the natives from their homes, the inhabitants of the land that is now the Poarch Creek reservation brokered a deal to stay where they were rather than fight to the death."

Get the Story:
Tribal Pride On US Reservation (Sky News 10/24)