Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
4.61 · Rating details · 4,297 ratings · 790 reviews
As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer as been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learning to give our own gifts in return. (less)
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"What if you were a teacher but had no voice to speak your knowledge? What if you had no language at all and yet there was something you needed to say? Wouldn't you dance it? Wouldn't you act it out? Wouldn't your every movement tell the story? In time you would be so eloquent that just to gaze upon you would reveal it all. And so it is with these silent green lives."- Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass
In 2007, Yann Martel compiled a reading list for Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper (http://newwestminster.bibliocommons.c...). People on Twitter was discussing other books to add to the list to make it more diverse (http://priscillajudd.ca/thexpress/?p=...). Our PM isn’t that great with environmental issues or indigenous issues, so this is one book I would recommend this book to him if he's not too busy meeting panda bears (http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto...).
This is by far one of the most important books I’ve read this year. The author is a scientist but she is also a poet. Her writing is absolutely stunning and eloquent. Her love for the land, especially the land she grew up on, comes through very clearly in her writing.
There is acknowledgement that the previously ignored indigenous cultures and knowledge are absolutely essential. As much as I focus on indigenous research in my studies, this is the first time I have seen the focus being on science. This book was definitely a shout out to indigenous culture and knowledge, knowledge that is often ignored by academia, or seen as wishy-washy or not true science:
"My natural inclination was to see relationships, to seek the threads that connect the world, to join instead of divide. But science is rigorous in separating the observer from the observed, and the observed from the observer."
The book clearly states the importance of the land, for so many reasons: sustenance, healing, etc. While reading this, I thought of how my mother had had asthma as a child but my grandfather, who was very familiar with traditional African medicine (which was of course seen as backwards by Western medicine) knew which plant medicine to give my mother. She doesn’t have asthma anymore. My grandfather also helped with my sister’s anaemia (by boiling guava leaves in water and giving her the liquid to drink - this helps to replenish iron levels). What sort of knowledge is dying out because people aren’t interested in the land anymore? My grandfather passed away and I wonder who has the knowledge of the herb that cured my mother's asthma.
The author uses incidents from her personal life, as well as myths, to enrich her insight on nature, plants and the land. The book is relatively heavy on the science (biology) but I think basic high school biology knowledge is enough to understand most of the processes.
Also included in the book is the sad history of the Natives in North America, the death of language, the near-extermination of their culture and what it means to the world as a whole:
"In the settler mind, land was property, real estate, capital or natural resources. But to our people, it was everything: identity, the connection to our ancestors, the home of our nonhuman kinfolk, our pharmacy, our library, the source of all that sustained us....It belonged to itself; it was a gift, not a commodity, so it could never be sold."
After reading this, I feel compelled to observe nature more closely, plant vegetables, look at possible relationships between plants, tap maple trees for syrup, something! The most engaging science book I’ve ever read and one I’d recommend to anyone.(less)
In 2007, Yann Martel compiled a reading list for Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper (http://newwestminster.bibliocommons.c...). People on Twitter was discussing other books to add to the list to make it more diverse (http://priscillajudd.ca/thexpress/?p=...). Our PM isn’t that great with environmental issues or indigenous issues, so this is one book I would recommend this book to him if he's not too busy meeting panda bears (http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto...).
This is by far one of the most important books I’ve read this year. The author is a scientist but she is also a poet. Her writing is absolutely stunning and eloquent. Her love for the land, especially the land she grew up on, comes through very clearly in her writing.
There is acknowledgement that the previously ignored indigenous cultures and knowledge are absolutely essential. As much as I focus on indigenous research in my studies, this is the first time I have seen the focus being on science. This book was definitely a shout out to indigenous culture and knowledge, knowledge that is often ignored by academia, or seen as wishy-washy or not true science:
"My natural inclination was to see relationships, to seek the threads that connect the world, to join instead of divide. But science is rigorous in separating the observer from the observed, and the observed from the observer."
The book clearly states the importance of the land, for so many reasons: sustenance, healing, etc. While reading this, I thought of how my mother had had asthma as a child but my grandfather, who was very familiar with traditional African medicine (which was of course seen as backwards by Western medicine) knew which plant medicine to give my mother. She doesn’t have asthma anymore. My grandfather also helped with my sister’s anaemia (by boiling guava leaves in water and giving her the liquid to drink - this helps to replenish iron levels). What sort of knowledge is dying out because people aren’t interested in the land anymore? My grandfather passed away and I wonder who has the knowledge of the herb that cured my mother's asthma.
The author uses incidents from her personal life, as well as myths, to enrich her insight on nature, plants and the land. The book is relatively heavy on the science (biology) but I think basic high school biology knowledge is enough to understand most of the processes.
Also included in the book is the sad history of the Natives in North America, the death of language, the near-extermination of their culture and what it means to the world as a whole:
"In the settler mind, land was property, real estate, capital or natural resources. But to our people, it was everything: identity, the connection to our ancestors, the home of our nonhuman kinfolk, our pharmacy, our library, the source of all that sustained us....It belonged to itself; it was a gift, not a commodity, so it could never be sold."
After reading this, I feel compelled to observe nature more closely, plant vegetables, look at possible relationships between plants, tap maple trees for syrup, something! The most engaging science book I’ve ever read and one I’d recommend to anyone.(less)
Dec 04, 2014Diane S ☔ rated it it was amazing
One of my goals this year was to read more non-fiction, a goal I believe I accomplished. Never thought I would rate my last three non-fiction reads 5 stars. This was a wonderful, wonderful book. It teaches the reader so many things about plants and nature in general. Different animals and how the indigenous people learned from watching them and plants, the trees. tis is how they learned to survive, when they had little.
teaches us about thankfulness, gratitude and how often we take these wonderful things in nature for granted. How important traditions are, languages and family. How much we can learn from others. I am so glad I bought this book, because though I seldom re-read I can see myself picking this book up and reading a chapter, pretty much any chapter, and reminding myself of all I have. A book I hope never to forget. (less)
teaches us about thankfulness, gratitude and how often we take these wonderful things in nature for granted. How important traditions are, languages and family. How much we can learn from others. I am so glad I bought this book, because though I seldom re-read I can see myself picking this book up and reading a chapter, pretty much any chapter, and reminding myself of all I have. A book I hope never to forget. (less)
Sep 18, 2014Chrissie rated it it was amazing
This is an important and a beautiful book. We are discussing it here:https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Rather than repeating all my thoughts I post the link.
On completion:
I don't give that many books five stars. They have to qualify as amazing. The author writes so you understand the value of nature, of the gift that is given to all of us. She shows us that a gift is tied with responsibility. Only if you understand that you have received a gift do you feel the responsibility to reciprocate. She opens our eyes to what has been given us. She also shows us how to handle the despair one can so easily feel. What is the point? I can do nothing. She gives us hope, and that is what is necessary so we don't just give up!
She wonderfully intertwines science with marvelous tales of the indigenous people. You can read the book just for these tales. You can read the book to learn scientific detail of flora and fauna. For example about strawberries, pecans, cattails, salamanders, maples and of course sweetgrass. Absolutely fascinating! You can read the book for inspiration; she is a single mother who has raised her kids alone. And what a fantastic job she has done. She remains humble. To top it all off she writes beautifully.
Occasionally I felt she was long-winded, but her message had to be made clear so we all really understand. Her message is SO important - to all of us!
This book is available on Kindle. If you try it and you don’t like it, you can get your money back if you return it within a week. What can you lose? I know, I am too pushy……. but I think this is such an important book. (less)
Rather than repeating all my thoughts I post the link.
On completion:
I don't give that many books five stars. They have to qualify as amazing. The author writes so you understand the value of nature, of the gift that is given to all of us. She shows us that a gift is tied with responsibility. Only if you understand that you have received a gift do you feel the responsibility to reciprocate. She opens our eyes to what has been given us. She also shows us how to handle the despair one can so easily feel. What is the point? I can do nothing. She gives us hope, and that is what is necessary so we don't just give up!
She wonderfully intertwines science with marvelous tales of the indigenous people. You can read the book just for these tales. You can read the book to learn scientific detail of flora and fauna. For example about strawberries, pecans, cattails, salamanders, maples and of course sweetgrass. Absolutely fascinating! You can read the book for inspiration; she is a single mother who has raised her kids alone. And what a fantastic job she has done. She remains humble. To top it all off she writes beautifully.
Occasionally I felt she was long-winded, but her message had to be made clear so we all really understand. Her message is SO important - to all of us!
This book is available on Kindle. If you try it and you don’t like it, you can get your money back if you return it within a week. What can you lose? I know, I am too pushy……. but I think this is such an important book. (less)
Jan 29, 2016Alexis rated it it was ok
I feel I must justify my rating of this book as some of my peers would disagree with me. First, I simply did not enjoy the book stylistically. While I treasure creative nonfiction essays, I find Kimmerer's language over-reaching in its poetic pursuits. If this were my only qualm with Braiding Sweetgrass, I would be able to overlook it. However, Kimmerer's lengthy prose-poetry is coupled with an over-generalized critique of American/Western/Christian culture (often conflating all three instead of recognizing the nuances between them). Kimmerer understandably favors her native culture, but in her efforts to emphasize its goodness, she often misrepresents the other side. For example, in her first chapter, she compares the Skywoman legend with Eve in Eden, claiming that Skywoman is inherently in harmony with nature while Eve is at war with it. I found this problematic as she neglects the further complexities of the Eden story: the presence of Adam and God for starters. Her version of the Christian creation story juxtaposed with the Skywoman tale certainly implies that Western society (as in typical Western society, for certainly her people were further west first) is at odds with nature due to their foundation myths. However, this certainly is not the case; it is quite clear that when Moses speaks of subduing the earth, he does not mean to destroy but to cultivate, for it is obvious we require it to survive. This is merely one example from the many I found.
I did give the book two instead of one star as I feel it is important for us to engage with conversations and cultures so radically different from our own, and Kimmerer certainly does well in representing her heritage. The book also addresses a significant, though often mocked, topic of conversation: the troubling state of our relationship with nature.
I understand Kimmerer's attempted message, but I find her rhetoric unconvincing due to its repetitiveness and her tendency towards misrepresentation of the West and idealization of her own culture.
In all fairness, however, aren't we all prone to this same fault? (less)
I did give the book two instead of one star as I feel it is important for us to engage with conversations and cultures so radically different from our own, and Kimmerer certainly does well in representing her heritage. The book also addresses a significant, though often mocked, topic of conversation: the troubling state of our relationship with nature.
I understand Kimmerer's attempted message, but I find her rhetoric unconvincing due to its repetitiveness and her tendency towards misrepresentation of the West and idealization of her own culture.
In all fairness, however, aren't we all prone to this same fault? (less)
Mar 16, 2014Cheryl rated it it was amazing
Shelves: native-american, non-fiction, science, tek, survivance, ethno-botany, nature,memoir
If there is one book you would want the President to read this year, what would it be? This question was asked of a popular fiction writer who took not a moment's thought before saying, my own of course. She is wrong. The book the President should read, that all of us who care about the future of the planet should read, is Robin Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass.
This is one of the most important books written on the environment since Silent
Spring. Kimmerer blends her scientific background as an ethno-botanist with Potawatomi Tradition Ecological Knowledge in an astonishingly poetic book. There are few books that I put down at the end of chapters so that I can take them in and dream around them before going on. This is one of them. The best of books make me have to get up and walk around. (One of those I remember is Red on Red, by Craig Womack.)
Kimmerer was told in college that her reason for wanting to be a botanist was aesthetic rather than scientific. Turns out it is both. I cried when I read this chapter. I was told the same thing in the late sixties, that animals (never mind plants) did not communicate, and had no emotions. Unlike Kimmerer, I decided not to continue as a scientist. Kimmerer had the courage I did not, and pursued a doctorate in ethno-botany. She considers her training as a scientist as one of many tools that she can use in understanding the living world.
When I was a girl, I never felt "American," and to me the american flag was just a piece of cloth. The first time I saw the flag with the leaf of the Red Maple on the white background, I got so excited - this was a flag I could relate to, even rally around. I thought, though I didn't have the words for it, that it was the flag of what Kimmerer names as the Maple Nation. (I was disappointed when I found out it was a flag of a human government, though also interested that Canada would choose that living symbol.) And this brings me to the most important thing about this book. Kimmerer brings the reader into a Native understanding of the world, that there are in fact, Nations that are not human, that all beings are persons.
Let me say that again. All beings are persons. It is the root of our relatedness to the world, our seeing ourselves as not separate, but part of a web of relations that includes the green world, the animal world, the world of streams and lakes and ocean, of clouds and rain, sunlight and starlight, and that our relationship to each of them is, or should be, an intimate, person-to-person relationship.
This does not come from a romantic, but rather from a very pragmatic Native view. She takes us through the woods with a class, where she is not the all-knowing teacher, but rather the intermediary for the real teacher, the woods, the marsh, the earth.
She shows us how indigenous systems work in a sustainable way, and what an Honorable Harvest means. She approaches wild leeks and asks permission to take some for the dinner she wants to cook for her daughters. That is, she acknowledges their personhood, and that it is a gift they are giving in being our food.
But how do you ask permission? What does that mean? And how do listen for the answer? How do you listen to the Grand Banks when you ask permission to fish? Kimmerer says you use both sides of your brain. First, analytically, you pay attention. Is the population healthy? Is it thriving? Are there enough to share with us?
She digs a small clump of leeks and notices that they are weak, the bulbs poorly developed. So, even though she wants to make her visiting daughters this meal that would remind them of childhood meals they made together in spring, she puts them back, tucks them back into the earth, and leaves.
She doesn't do what many of us would do, that is, take them anyway and complain about how the leeks are bad this year. She accepts that the leeks are not thriving, puts them back, leaves with thanks, and the gift of replanting and care-giving.
As for the right brain, Kimmerer says you must listen with your heart, with your spirit. Is there a sense of generosity, or a kind of holding back or reticence? This kind of listening is valued as much as the analyticain the Native world. Though it is harder to talk about, it is no less real.
One of the most interesting, and important things Kimmerer has to say is about becoming indigenous. There are so many wannabe Indians out there, as well as people who really do want to have a better relationship with the land, but don't know how.
Kimmerer say, no, you can't become indigenous. You are immigrants, not from this place. Your people have not lived for thousands of years on this land.
But, she says, you can become naturalized. What does that mean? She uses the example of Plantain, an English plant that came over with the colonists, and soon was found all over the northeast. It is a useful plant that willingly shares its medicine. And it blends into the land, does not crowd out indigenous species, unlike Kudzu and other plants that destroy the ecosystems they invade. So, my new bumper sticker would read: Be Plantain, Not Kudzu.
This is such a creative response and challenge to the wannabes. Don't dress up in feathers and go to pow wows and invent indian-princess-great-grandmothers. Naturalize. Learn how to be a person among persons. Learn to listen, really listen, which means learning about the Maple Nation and all the other Nations, not romanticizing them as "Mother Earth" without doing the work of becoming intimate with the land you are, after all, a part of.
There is so much more in this book, I cannot praise it enough. Kimmerer thought she had to choose between science and poetry, but in Braiding Sweetgrass, she shows us that she is both a scientist and a writer with a poet's visiion, and a keeper of Traditional Knowledge.
There is hope for a sustainable earth on the other side of climate change and the fall of industrial civilization. It is possible to replant a forest, to reinvigorate a coastal ecosystem.
Our stories say that in earliest times, all the beings could talk to each other. Kimmerer says, if we listen hard enough, we can still hear enough to be good relations.
I say, with the greatest respect, Wlwni, Robin Kimmerer. Thank you.(less)
This is one of the most important books written on the environment since Silent
Spring. Kimmerer blends her scientific background as an ethno-botanist with Potawatomi Tradition Ecological Knowledge in an astonishingly poetic book. There are few books that I put down at the end of chapters so that I can take them in and dream around them before going on. This is one of them. The best of books make me have to get up and walk around. (One of those I remember is Red on Red, by Craig Womack.)
Kimmerer was told in college that her reason for wanting to be a botanist was aesthetic rather than scientific. Turns out it is both. I cried when I read this chapter. I was told the same thing in the late sixties, that animals (never mind plants) did not communicate, and had no emotions. Unlike Kimmerer, I decided not to continue as a scientist. Kimmerer had the courage I did not, and pursued a doctorate in ethno-botany. She considers her training as a scientist as one of many tools that she can use in understanding the living world.
When I was a girl, I never felt "American," and to me the american flag was just a piece of cloth. The first time I saw the flag with the leaf of the Red Maple on the white background, I got so excited - this was a flag I could relate to, even rally around. I thought, though I didn't have the words for it, that it was the flag of what Kimmerer names as the Maple Nation. (I was disappointed when I found out it was a flag of a human government, though also interested that Canada would choose that living symbol.) And this brings me to the most important thing about this book. Kimmerer brings the reader into a Native understanding of the world, that there are in fact, Nations that are not human, that all beings are persons.
Let me say that again. All beings are persons. It is the root of our relatedness to the world, our seeing ourselves as not separate, but part of a web of relations that includes the green world, the animal world, the world of streams and lakes and ocean, of clouds and rain, sunlight and starlight, and that our relationship to each of them is, or should be, an intimate, person-to-person relationship.
This does not come from a romantic, but rather from a very pragmatic Native view. She takes us through the woods with a class, where she is not the all-knowing teacher, but rather the intermediary for the real teacher, the woods, the marsh, the earth.
She shows us how indigenous systems work in a sustainable way, and what an Honorable Harvest means. She approaches wild leeks and asks permission to take some for the dinner she wants to cook for her daughters. That is, she acknowledges their personhood, and that it is a gift they are giving in being our food.
But how do you ask permission? What does that mean? And how do listen for the answer? How do you listen to the Grand Banks when you ask permission to fish? Kimmerer says you use both sides of your brain. First, analytically, you pay attention. Is the population healthy? Is it thriving? Are there enough to share with us?
She digs a small clump of leeks and notices that they are weak, the bulbs poorly developed. So, even though she wants to make her visiting daughters this meal that would remind them of childhood meals they made together in spring, she puts them back, tucks them back into the earth, and leaves.
She doesn't do what many of us would do, that is, take them anyway and complain about how the leeks are bad this year. She accepts that the leeks are not thriving, puts them back, leaves with thanks, and the gift of replanting and care-giving.
As for the right brain, Kimmerer says you must listen with your heart, with your spirit. Is there a sense of generosity, or a kind of holding back or reticence? This kind of listening is valued as much as the analyticain the Native world. Though it is harder to talk about, it is no less real.
One of the most interesting, and important things Kimmerer has to say is about becoming indigenous. There are so many wannabe Indians out there, as well as people who really do want to have a better relationship with the land, but don't know how.
Kimmerer say, no, you can't become indigenous. You are immigrants, not from this place. Your people have not lived for thousands of years on this land.
But, she says, you can become naturalized. What does that mean? She uses the example of Plantain, an English plant that came over with the colonists, and soon was found all over the northeast. It is a useful plant that willingly shares its medicine. And it blends into the land, does not crowd out indigenous species, unlike Kudzu and other plants that destroy the ecosystems they invade. So, my new bumper sticker would read: Be Plantain, Not Kudzu.
This is such a creative response and challenge to the wannabes. Don't dress up in feathers and go to pow wows and invent indian-princess-great-grandmothers. Naturalize. Learn how to be a person among persons. Learn to listen, really listen, which means learning about the Maple Nation and all the other Nations, not romanticizing them as "Mother Earth" without doing the work of becoming intimate with the land you are, after all, a part of.
There is so much more in this book, I cannot praise it enough. Kimmerer thought she had to choose between science and poetry, but in Braiding Sweetgrass, she shows us that she is both a scientist and a writer with a poet's visiion, and a keeper of Traditional Knowledge.
There is hope for a sustainable earth on the other side of climate change and the fall of industrial civilization. It is possible to replant a forest, to reinvigorate a coastal ecosystem.
Our stories say that in earliest times, all the beings could talk to each other. Kimmerer says, if we listen hard enough, we can still hear enough to be good relations.
I say, with the greatest respect, Wlwni, Robin Kimmerer. Thank you.(less)
Mar 19, 2014Yasmin rated it it was amazing
A fantastic book I cannot praise it enough. It is a vitally important read for humanity as we see ourselves, how we see the world, our relation to it and how we need each other. While she speaks of greed that chokes the world and ourselves she speaks too of positiveness and what we can do to heal the earth and ourselves. More than recycling bins, carpooling and composting in the garden, we need to reassess ourselves as children of the land. How important the earth is to us and how important we are to the earth. Altho' it is easy to see the negative impacts humans have on the planet we are apart of this planet, we are here and we belong here, we help it as it helps us. We don't have to have dominion over every living thing, we can live with everything equally as the earth feeds us and we feed the earth with good, pure and healthy things. It is possible to live in harmony with the earth as we have done it before for countless generations and we can do it again, but we don't have to become cave men/women to do it again. We have to find the equal balance and know what price we reap on the earth for "progress" and for material "needs" we don't need. There is a saying you reap what you sow and currently in huge numbers we are reaping terrible things on our planet, we only have one planet earth, we can't look for anywhere else when we don't look after what we already have. But if we sow back to the earth patience, chemical free, harmony, peace, love and beauty we will reap richer rewards than all the money and jewels in this world. READ THIS BOOK!(less)
May 19, 2015Richard Reese rated it it was amazing
Science is a painfully tight pair of shoes. It perceives the family of life to be little more than a complex biochemical machine. It has created powerful tools for ravaging the planet’s ecosystems, creating a hard path for our descendants. It gives us knowing, but not caring. It’s not about wisdom. It’s about pursuing the wants and needs of humans, with less concern for the more-than-human world.
Robin Kimmerer is a biology professor. After being trained in the rigid beliefs of science, she heard a Navajo woman talk about the realm of plants from the perspective of indigenous knowledge. For that woman, plants were not subjects, but teachers. In a flash, Kimmerer realized the shallowness of her scientific training. It only provides a pinhole view of reality. Science is not enough.
Her grandfather was Potawatomi. When he was a boy, the government sent him away to the Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where he was trained to become an English-speaking wageworker. He forgot his language and culture and drifted away from his people. He never felt at home in either world.
Kimmerer has worked hard to reconnect with her Native American roots, because traditional indigenous cultures are blessed with a far more holistic relationship with the family of life. All people on Earth have tribal ancestors who once lived close to the land, but so much has been lost with the passage of centuries. Her book, Braiding Sweetgrass, is a collection of stories that focus on living with respect and reverence for the land.
She once asked a city lad where his sense of place felt strongest. He immediately responded, “My car.” Her book is especially important for the impoverished millions, who have grown up indoors, in a ghoulish netherworld of glowing screens. She has a strong and respectful relationship with the land, and she describes it beautifully. It’s a perspective that is almost absent in our culture, and without it, a long-term future for humans is impossible. We must remember.
While explaining the culture of sharing, respect, and gratitude, she does not conceal her scientist badge. So, readers are less tempted to automatically dismiss her stories as daffy rainbows of New Age woo-woo. Science is not worthless. In the centuries of restoration that lie ahead, it can offer some useful ideas, if we keep it on a short leash. Nature will play a primary role in healing the land as much as possible — it knows what to do. The far bigger challenge is dealing with the monsters that inhabit the goop between our ears.
In the native world, when a patch of ripe strawberries is discovered, the plants are warmly greeted. The people ask permission to take some berries. If the response is yes, they take only what they need, never more than half of the fruit. The plants are thanked for their gift, and the pickers leave an offering of tobacco.
Gifts and responsibilities are two sides of the same coin. The berry pickers now have an obligation to promote the wellbeing of the strawberry people, by depositing their seeds in good locations (not a toilet). This is a relationship of reciprocity between berries and people. The berry eaters need the plants, and the plants need the berry eaters.
On the other hand, the relationship between mainstream people and nonrenewable resources is not reciprocal. The oil, coal, iron, and other minerals do not need the miners, nor is their wellbeing improved by the mining. The planet’s atmosphere does not appreciate our toxic offerings of carbon emissions. The ecosystem does not enjoy being treated like an open pit mine.
Cultures that enjoy a direct and intimate relationship with their ecosystem have far more respect for it than those that forage at malls and supermarkets. Consumer culture receives enormous gifts from the land, but gives almost none in return. Kimmerer’s students clearly understand that the relationship between consumers and nature is abusive. It’s difficult for them to imagine what a healthy relationship would look like.
Kimmerer lives in the Onondaga Nation. At the school, the Haudenosaunee flag blows in the breeze, not the stars and stripes. There is no pledge of allegiance to a political system that claims to provide “liberty and justice for all.” Instead, each day begins with the Thanksgiving Address, in which the students express gratitude for all of creation. It helps them remember that, “everything needed to sustain life is already here.” We are wealthy.
I had one issue with the book. Natives from corn-growing cultures see corn as sacred. Corn was a recent arrival to the region of the eastern U.S. Its expansion spurred population growth and conflict. We know that hunter-gatherers could succeed in achieving genuine sustainability when they lived with the wisdom of voluntary self-restraint. But environmental history has not documented a culture achieving sustainability via intensive agriculture.
Potawatomi legends describe a dangerous spirit called the Windigo. It wanders across the land in the lean months of winter. It is always hungry, and never stops hunting. It’s a selfish spirit that is obsessed with its own survival, by any means necessary. The Windigo is notorious for having an insatiable hunger. The moral of the story is to share, to take care of one another. Don’t be a greedy butthead.
Much to the horror of the natives, the colonists imported a diabolical spirit of incredible self-destructive overindulgence — Super Windigo. In white society, mastering the madness of insatiable consumption was seen as an admirable mark of success! Kimmerer winces. “We spend our beautiful, utterly singular lives on making more money, to buy more things that feed but never satisfy. It is the Windigo way that tricks us into believing that belongings will fill our hunger, when it is belonging that we crave.”
After a lifetime of shopping and discarding, we don’t return our bodies to nature. The dead are placed in heavy caskets and buried deep in the ground, where nature will struggle for centuries to retrieve the nutrients. I’ve always hoped that my corpse would be eaten by mountain lions in a wild location, an offering to an ecosystem upon which I have lived far too hard.
From other books, I have learned about cultures that did something like this. Carl Jung noted that the Maasai tribe did not bury their dead. Corpses were left outdoors for the hyenas to eat. John Gunther wrote that the Bakutu people of the Congo recycled corpses by laying them on a termite hill. In sky burial, corpses are fed to the vultures. This is done in Tibet, and in Zoroastrian communities in India. Evan Pritchard noted that the Western Algonquin people also practiced it.
Over the years, Kimmerer has heard the Thanksgiving Address recited countless times. It is so inspiring to listen to people express gratitude for all of creation. She longs for the day “when we can hear the land give thanks for the people in return.” So do I.
Questions for a Resilient Future is a 17-minute talk given by Kimmerer.
Returning the Gift is a brief essay.(less)
Robin Kimmerer is a biology professor. After being trained in the rigid beliefs of science, she heard a Navajo woman talk about the realm of plants from the perspective of indigenous knowledge. For that woman, plants were not subjects, but teachers. In a flash, Kimmerer realized the shallowness of her scientific training. It only provides a pinhole view of reality. Science is not enough.
Her grandfather was Potawatomi. When he was a boy, the government sent him away to the Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where he was trained to become an English-speaking wageworker. He forgot his language and culture and drifted away from his people. He never felt at home in either world.
Kimmerer has worked hard to reconnect with her Native American roots, because traditional indigenous cultures are blessed with a far more holistic relationship with the family of life. All people on Earth have tribal ancestors who once lived close to the land, but so much has been lost with the passage of centuries. Her book, Braiding Sweetgrass, is a collection of stories that focus on living with respect and reverence for the land.
She once asked a city lad where his sense of place felt strongest. He immediately responded, “My car.” Her book is especially important for the impoverished millions, who have grown up indoors, in a ghoulish netherworld of glowing screens. She has a strong and respectful relationship with the land, and she describes it beautifully. It’s a perspective that is almost absent in our culture, and without it, a long-term future for humans is impossible. We must remember.
While explaining the culture of sharing, respect, and gratitude, she does not conceal her scientist badge. So, readers are less tempted to automatically dismiss her stories as daffy rainbows of New Age woo-woo. Science is not worthless. In the centuries of restoration that lie ahead, it can offer some useful ideas, if we keep it on a short leash. Nature will play a primary role in healing the land as much as possible — it knows what to do. The far bigger challenge is dealing with the monsters that inhabit the goop between our ears.
In the native world, when a patch of ripe strawberries is discovered, the plants are warmly greeted. The people ask permission to take some berries. If the response is yes, they take only what they need, never more than half of the fruit. The plants are thanked for their gift, and the pickers leave an offering of tobacco.
Gifts and responsibilities are two sides of the same coin. The berry pickers now have an obligation to promote the wellbeing of the strawberry people, by depositing their seeds in good locations (not a toilet). This is a relationship of reciprocity between berries and people. The berry eaters need the plants, and the plants need the berry eaters.
On the other hand, the relationship between mainstream people and nonrenewable resources is not reciprocal. The oil, coal, iron, and other minerals do not need the miners, nor is their wellbeing improved by the mining. The planet’s atmosphere does not appreciate our toxic offerings of carbon emissions. The ecosystem does not enjoy being treated like an open pit mine.
Cultures that enjoy a direct and intimate relationship with their ecosystem have far more respect for it than those that forage at malls and supermarkets. Consumer culture receives enormous gifts from the land, but gives almost none in return. Kimmerer’s students clearly understand that the relationship between consumers and nature is abusive. It’s difficult for them to imagine what a healthy relationship would look like.
Kimmerer lives in the Onondaga Nation. At the school, the Haudenosaunee flag blows in the breeze, not the stars and stripes. There is no pledge of allegiance to a political system that claims to provide “liberty and justice for all.” Instead, each day begins with the Thanksgiving Address, in which the students express gratitude for all of creation. It helps them remember that, “everything needed to sustain life is already here.” We are wealthy.
I had one issue with the book. Natives from corn-growing cultures see corn as sacred. Corn was a recent arrival to the region of the eastern U.S. Its expansion spurred population growth and conflict. We know that hunter-gatherers could succeed in achieving genuine sustainability when they lived with the wisdom of voluntary self-restraint. But environmental history has not documented a culture achieving sustainability via intensive agriculture.
Potawatomi legends describe a dangerous spirit called the Windigo. It wanders across the land in the lean months of winter. It is always hungry, and never stops hunting. It’s a selfish spirit that is obsessed with its own survival, by any means necessary. The Windigo is notorious for having an insatiable hunger. The moral of the story is to share, to take care of one another. Don’t be a greedy butthead.
Much to the horror of the natives, the colonists imported a diabolical spirit of incredible self-destructive overindulgence — Super Windigo. In white society, mastering the madness of insatiable consumption was seen as an admirable mark of success! Kimmerer winces. “We spend our beautiful, utterly singular lives on making more money, to buy more things that feed but never satisfy. It is the Windigo way that tricks us into believing that belongings will fill our hunger, when it is belonging that we crave.”
After a lifetime of shopping and discarding, we don’t return our bodies to nature. The dead are placed in heavy caskets and buried deep in the ground, where nature will struggle for centuries to retrieve the nutrients. I’ve always hoped that my corpse would be eaten by mountain lions in a wild location, an offering to an ecosystem upon which I have lived far too hard.
From other books, I have learned about cultures that did something like this. Carl Jung noted that the Maasai tribe did not bury their dead. Corpses were left outdoors for the hyenas to eat. John Gunther wrote that the Bakutu people of the Congo recycled corpses by laying them on a termite hill. In sky burial, corpses are fed to the vultures. This is done in Tibet, and in Zoroastrian communities in India. Evan Pritchard noted that the Western Algonquin people also practiced it.
Over the years, Kimmerer has heard the Thanksgiving Address recited countless times. It is so inspiring to listen to people express gratitude for all of creation. She longs for the day “when we can hear the land give thanks for the people in return.” So do I.
Questions for a Resilient Future is a 17-minute talk given by Kimmerer.
Returning the Gift is a brief essay.(less)
Dec 02, 2018David Joy rated it it was amazing
One of the most beautiful books I've ever read. I don't know what else to say. It left me at a loss for words. Read it. Just read it.
Jun 05, 2017michael Tintner rated it it was amazing
I listened to the audiobook narrated by the author while camping and hiking in a national park. As the book came to a conclusion I was returning to my camp with tears in my eyes, hope in my mind, and pain in my heart. As someone currently studying science at an online university I am often disenchanted by terminology and jargon of the language scientist use, however, this book is as much poetry as it is scientific. The words are heartfelt and intelligent, they connect the feelings of mind and emotions of the heart. I long for the world Robin Wall Kimmerer believes we can have, and hope to see the change she proposes. This is one of the stories I have heard that I believe can truly change the world if enough people heed the words. (less)
This book contains one exceptional essay that I would highly recommend to everyone, "The Sacred and the Superfund." As for the rest of it, although I love the author's core message--that we need to find a relationship to the land based on reciprocity and gratitude, rather than exploitation--I have to admit, I found the book a bit of a struggle to get through. The author has a flowery, repetitive, overly polished writing style that simply did not appeal to me. I would read a couple of essays, find my mind wandering, and then put the book down for a couple of weeks. Then I would find myself thinking about something the author said, decide to give the book another try, read a couple of essays, etc. Clearly I am in the minority here, as this book has some crazy high ratings overall. (less)
Braiding
Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants:
Robin Wall Kimmerer
: 9781571313560: Amazon.com: Books
As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on “a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise” (Elizabeth Gilbert).
Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings―asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass―offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices.
In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“Robin Wall Kimmerer is writer of rare grace. She writes about the natural world from a place of such abundant passion that one can never quite see the world the same way after having seen it through Kimmerer’s eyes. In Braiding Sweetgrass, she takes us on a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise. She is a great teacher, and her words are a hymn of love to the world.”―Elizabeth Gilbert
“Robin Wall Kimmerer has written an extraordinary book, showing how the factual, objective approach of science can be enriched by the ancient knowledge of the indigenous people. It is the way she captures beauty that I love the most―the images of giant cedars and wild strawberries, a forest in the rain and a meadow of fragrant sweetgrass will stay with you long after you read the last page.”―Jane Goodall
“With deep compassion and graceful prose, Robin Wall Kimmerer encourages readers to consider the ways that our lives and language weave through the natural world. A mesmerizing storyteller, she shares legends from her Potawatomi ancestors to illustrate the culture of gratitude in which we all should live.”―Publishers Weekly
“Robin Wall Kimmerer opens a sense of wonder and humility for the intelligence in all kinds of life we are used to naming and imagining as inanimate.”―Krista Tippett, host of On Being
“The gift of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book is that she provides readers the ability to see a very common world in uncommon ways, or, rather, in ways that have been commonly held but have recently been largely discarded. She puts forth the notion that we ought to be interacting in such a way that the land should be thankful for the people.”―Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Braiding Sweetgrass is instructive poetry. Robin Wall Kimmerer has put the spiritual relationship that Chief Seattle called the ‘web of life’ into writing. Industrial societies lack the understanding of the interrelationships that bind all living things―this book fills that void. I encourage one and all to read these instructions.”―Oren Lyons, Faithkeeper, Onondaga Nation and Indigenous Environmental Leader
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About the Author
Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,
Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants and Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses.
She lives in Syracuse, New York, where she is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.
Product details
Paperback: 408 pages
Publisher: Milkweed Editions; First Paperback edition (August 11, 2015)
Language: English
Product details
Paperback: 408 pages
Publisher: Milkweed Editions; First Paperback edition (August 11, 2015)
Language: English
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Top reviews from other countries
Sally Walker
5.0 out of 5 stars Exceptional
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 November 2018
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This is a truly exceptional book. It is a letter of love, respect and gratitude to our Mother Earth. It is a prescription for how to restore our world and take the right path and turn back from the brink of our own destruction. The author puts her message across with gentleness and grace; this by no means lessens its impact.
Wall Kimmerer draws on her own life experiences and her half North American Indian and half white settler ancestry. Her writing blends her academic botantical scientific learning with that of the North American indigenous way of life, knowledge and wisdom, with a capital W. She brings us fair and square to our modus operandi of live for today who cares about tomorrow, our throwaway society and our greed that can never be sated. It is clear that by comparison with our indigenous brotherhood we are absolutely the younger brother; the loafing teenager with no respect for anything their elders have to tell them, but rather thinking they know everything and they know best.
The author, rightly in my opinion, says that all of the messages that we receive, practically on a daily basis, about the destruction that we have so far wrought to our home planet do not in fact spur us into action, but rather send those that care into a frozen state of despair. Her idea is rather to take relative baby steps to try to restore landscapes local to us. She gives an example of a wrecked landscape local to her that people are gradually trying to rescue and bring back to life with some success. It is also about developing a creed of gratitude and reciprocal relationship to our environment, only taking what is needed and never more. Wall Kimmerer gives plenty of examples of how this can be done.
She is never sanctimonious and is the first to acknowledge that it is far easier to write about the correct way to live than to actually live it.
For all who care about our planet and nature and for all who wish to learn about the balanced life that the North American Indians lived before the white settlers destroyed their culture and way of being, I would highly recommend this book to you.
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rouxfio
5.0 out of 5 stars A tour de force that you need to read
Reviewed in Canada on 13 December 2016
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I am a female forest firefighter in Northern Ontario Canada and this book came with me all fire season this year as my pleasure reading while out in the bush, and is now fully battered and loved and has ashy fingerprints ground into every page. I've always been a biology nerd and adore living and working in the bush , but this book managed to open my eyes and I felt like I was seeing everything in technicolor for the first time this year. The way I concieve of myself in relation to the natural world, as well as the philosophy from which I now interact with my environment on a daily basis has been completely revolutionized by this book. The very way that I walk through the woods is now different. Written with a fierce and honest beauty, Kimmerer's elegantly balanced prose is somehow ornate yet minimalistic all at once,. Her intersecting identities as indigenous, woman, mother, poet, and acclaimed biologist are all woven together in a beautiful tapestry in this work, which is itself a truly wondrous and sacred offering to creation. Her weaving together of traditional indigenous knowledge corroborated by today's biology has made the science of plants and ecosystems come alive for me in a way I've never experienced. It is now my favourite book of all time and I will read it again and again as long as I live and work in the forest. I encourage this book for literally anyone who even remotely 'enjoys the outdoors' or 'cares about the environment', especially those who live in North America and probably do not know nearly enough about the cosmology of the original peoples of this land. This land has rules, rules that indigenous people know and learned and honour and abide by, and we are all (uninvited and very violent settler colonizer) guests in this land and we have never bothered to learn the rules and customs and natural order of this place. She provides an excellent way forward for settlers who want to learn more and try to honour our precious environment and the land here and live right, without just co-opting or appropriating from native culture to try and do so. It's a complicated dilemma, how we can try to belong here in a place that our ancestors stole and colonized. But she handles that delicate dance with both grace and firm conviction. I wish this was required reading in highschools across the continent. I know I will be buying multiple copies over the years to give away!
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191 people found this helpful
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Moth
5.0 out of 5 stars A book written from a wise and brave heart.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 February 2019
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Stunningly poetic. Informative, intriguing, inspiring. A book that took me by the hand and led me from despair to hope. A fabulous new way of looking at life and our place in the world. A marriage of science and creativity that faces problems and offers solutions. Braiding Sweetgrass has made a huge impact on the way I experience and live my life.
28 people found this helpful
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single speed pedaller
5.0 out of 5 stars My desert island book!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 January 2021
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I love this book. My all time favourite. A book full of information about ecology and botanical science, written in a beautiful, readable style. A rare combination of science, with native wisdom and knowledge.
If I was marooned on a desert island, this would be the book I'd take. It's taught me that even if there were no other humans or animals about, I'd never need feel alone, if trees and plants were present. A great reminder that we humans have no more important a place, than any other species on this beautiful planet. I am so grateful and glad I read it.
13 people found this helpful
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Ella
5.0 out of 5 stars if I could give more then 5 stars, I would
Reviewed in Canada on 29 August 2020
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This women is simply extraordinary. She writes with kindness and elegance, she writes with her heart and her soul. I have learned so much from her words and wisdom, it opened my eyes, made me realize; I want to be a part of the ecological solution;. Which is why after finishing my Indigenous Studies, I have been accepted in Environmental Sciences. This book changed my life.
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