Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

“Children, language, lands: almost everything was stripped away, stolen when you weren’t looking because you were trying to stay alive.”

The story of the sweetgrass and the environment as described in the book is inseparable from the story of the Indigenous people of North America. The violence and the theft removed “children, language, lands” (17), but also the knowledge of how to live in harmony with nature. Only by returning to this knowledge, the author suggests, will humanity be able to practice a truly sustainable existence.

“Ceremonies large and small have the power to focus attention to a way of living awake in the world.”

In this quote, the author highlights the importance of ceremonies. Rather than being purely spiritual or religious in nature, these actions have important literal meanings. The acts of leaving behind kindling and cleaning the campsite, for example, demonstrate a commitment to the preservation of the natural world which extends beyond pure belief and into actionable community benefits. These ceremonies have real world, positive ramifications, not just for those conducting the ceremonies but for those who come before and after.

“Plants were reduced to objects; they were not subjects.”

This tension between the teachings of the author’s ancestors and the scientists informs much of the book. The author herself tries to reconcile this tension, but the early stages in college make this seem impossible. She compares the stark differences to her grandfather’s experience being torn away from his family and robbed of his culture. Described in such blunt terms, the introduction to botany in college seems almost violent and injurious.

“I’m told that the Thanksgiving Address is at heart an invocation of gratitude, but it is also a material, scientific inventory of the natural world.”

The description of the Thanksgiving Address as a “scientific inventory” (85) is an attempt to demonstrate to the reader the inherent compatibility between Indigenous, traditional practices and modern science. By reimagining the Address in a different context, the author illustrates the way in which it serves the same purpose as an inventory. She is finding common ground between modes of thought which might have seemed incompatible.

“The corn is the firstborn and grows straight and stiff; it is a stem with a lofty goal.”

One of the central themes of the book is to ascribe life and agency to nonhuman natural entities. Often, this is done through a process of personification. In this chapter, the author relates the story of the three sisters and gives them human qualities. In the above quote, the corn is said to be a “firstborn”—a human quality, given that seeds and plants are not technically born in the traditional sense—and it is given a “lofty goal.” That the bean has ambition and agency imbues it with a sense of humanity. The personification forces the audience to think of the plants from a different perspective.

“There is a rupture in the chain of relationship that stretches back through time immemorial.”

The cycles and relationships described in the book provide a template for conservation that is under threat. Typically, this threat comes directly from humans, but in this section of the text, another, more insidious threat is described. The bugs that attack the ash trees are an invasive species. Although they were likely transported to North America by humans, their destructive traits are not necessarily a product of the materialist culture criticized during the book. This adds a new element into the text: a natural threat to a natural cycle, albeit one born out of unnatural circumstances.

“ix. References Cited”

Chapter 15 is structured to resemble a scientific paper. Headings such as the quote above break up the anecdote and the memory into the format of a thesis—one which can stand up to scientific scrutiny. Here, the author combines the language of the ancestors with the structure of the scientific academic world, showing how both can be combined in order to produce results. The structure mirrors the content.

“Show up at the damn meeting.”

Throughout the book, much of the content focuses on descriptive and anecdotal forms of communication. Stories, data, memories, and other pieces of information are shared to paint a portrait of a specific understanding of ecology. In this chapter, however, the author becomes prescriptive. Given the dangers of climate change, she demands that the audience “show up at the damn meeting” (174) and say something about it, a far stronger message than anything thus far in the text and a notable shift in narrative tone and mode of address.

“When they abandoned gratitude, the gifts abandoned them.”

The above quote is one of the anecdotes given in the book which casts a negative light on the Indigenous people, demonstrating that they too could be prone to laziness and indolence. This is important in helping the text navigate certain clichés—such as the “noble savage”—which might paint Indigenous people as unblemished and blameless. Instead, it demonstrates a universal humanity and shows how these ideas can be applied to the rest of the world.

“As time circles around on itself again, maybe White Man’s Footstep is following Nanabozho’s.”

In this chapter, White Man’s Footstep—the plantain—becomes a poignant metaphor for the way in which a new arrival can become naturalized. The author uses the example of the plantain which arrived with the Western settlers and shows how the plant, rather than the people, became a part of the natural order in the ecology of North America. While others are destructive, the White Man’s Footstep is an example of successful, respectful naturalization which serves as an example for other species.

“I was humbled.”

In this chapter, the author reveals her own fallibility. Although she has spent much of the book evangelizing, this section helps to demonstrate the limits of her ideas and how she uses these past limitations to inform her worldview. The students—who she believed had not understood her respect for the natural world—demonstrate a reverence which makes her proud. In this moment, she is humbled by the realization that there is more than one way in which to show respect and reverence for the natural world.

“I feel like a good mother.”

The concept of motherhood is addressed repeatedly throughout the text, in both the real and the abstract sense. As well as the Skywoman and the motherhood that she brings to the world, there is the author’s own daughters. But the above quote refers to the time when the author successfully imparted onto her students a respect for the natural world. This dynamic functions as a microcosm of the text itself; the author feels justified in teaching her ideas to the students and then putting them in the form of a book.

“Science can be a way of forming intimacy and respect with other species that is rivalled only by the observations of traditional knowledge holders.”

While modern society seems to be far removed from the cultural heritage and traditional ideas that the author values, she does see an important role for science. As described in the above quote, the intersection of science and traditional knowledge provides a template for the modern society. It is a way of combining old knowledge with new, showing respect for nature, and doing everything possible to preserve it for the future.

“As nonnative species come in, they may also crowd out the sweetgrass—plants repeating the history of their people.”

Throughout the book, the author has used sweetgrass as a metaphor for a certain conception of the world. In this quote, however, she adds a historical dimension to the metaphor: The disappearance of sweetgrass, crowded out by invasive species, is likened to the Indigenous populations, driven to near extinction by the settlers. This codifies a bleaker, more violent subtext to the title and the metaphor itself, reminding the audience of the plight of Indigenous people.

“Trees that were born before Columbus sailed.”

The above quote provides perspective on the dynamic between settlers and Indigenous people. Thanks to their close relationships with nature, Indigenous people are represented by the cedar trees. The settlers, in this instance, are represented by Columbus. The continued endurance of the spectacular trees speaks to the lengthened timescale on which the world operates: Although it might seem as though the settlers have emerged dominant, they are simply a small speck on the larger timeline. In the grander scheme of things, the ecological bond will endure long after the life span of a single man.

“Perhaps we cannot know the river. But what about the drops?”

Given the scale of the problems outlined in the text, the author begins to grapple with the difficulty of how to implement any kind of large scale solution. Sitting in the rain in the forest, the above quote becomes a commentary on the intentions of the book. If the large-scale problem is represented by the river, then perhaps smaller scale solutions are represented by the individual drops. These are easier to consider and address, and perhaps they offer a means by which change can gradually be affected.

“As the monster shrieked on the wind, the Windigo stories reinforced the taboo against cannibalism, when the madness of hunger and isolation rustled at the edge of winter lodges.”

The account of the Windigo demonstrates a cultural depth to Indigenous folklore, showing that these are not just scary stories. Rather than a monster story, the Windigo has a cultural purpose: to ward people away from cannibalism in the depths of winter when they might be compelled to turn on one another. The Windigo is more than a beast; he is a metaphor, wandering exiled and isolated, shunned by society for breaking the taboo of cannibalism.

“The Onondaga people know the pain of displacement too well to inflict it on their neighbors.”

Despite the extreme violence inflicted on the Onondaga people, this quote makes it clear that their efforts to reclaim their land are not motivated by revenge or bitterness. It is a key insight into the cultural perspective of the Onondaga, who view themselves as stewards of the land. They do not consider property ownership to be a legitimate practice, demonstrating the fundamental difference between their worldview and the dominant American worldview.

“Restoring land without restoring relationship is an empty exercise.”

As well as criticizing the polluters and those who do nothing, the author also takes the time to point out that certain kinds of ecological preservation are half-hearted and doomed to fail. Without the full understanding of the way ecology functions and without the traditional comprehension of how life interacts, these efforts seek to restore land without restoring relationships. Without the latter, the former will never truly succeed.

“I dream of a world guided by a lens of stories rooted in the revelations of science and framed with an indigenous worldview—stories in which matter and spirit are both given voice.”

As a scientist and a practitioner of traditional beliefs and practices, the author hopes to combine her two seemingly disparate interests into a single cohesive worldview. By using science as a means of explanation traditional beliefs and vice versa, she provides a new way to conceive of the intersection between science and spirituality. This intersection is the culmination of the ideas described in the text.

“It has begun—bombs are falling on Baghdad tonight.”

With so much of the text focusing on natural imagery and scenes of plants and animals, the juxtaposition between the majority of the book and the sudden image of the US-led invasion of Iraq is stark. The war emphasizes the importance of the fight for environmentalism. Just as collateral damage is felt on many fronts, the violence and the suffering of the war on nature is being felt across the world. By drawing the comparison, the author conveys what is at stake and makes it clear that she believes that a war will need to be fought for the planet.

“Fire building was a vital connection to those who came before.”

In this chapter, fire functions as a broad-ranging metaphor. The fires of prophecy illustrate the past, present, and future of the Anishinaabe people. Just as the author is taught by her father to light a fire with a single match, the culture of the people itself is passed down across the generations. By literally lighting a fire, the author is learning how to keep the metaphorical fires burning long into the future.

“He has come, followed my tracks home just as I knew he would.”

In the closing stages of the book, the narrative takes a more abstract turn. After confronting the problems facing the planet in a spiritual, a scientific, and a material manner, the author finds herself standing face-to-face with the manifestation of these evils. The Windigo is haunting her. The creature symbolizes her fears for the planet and the materialist culture which threatens to doom everything. After a book of careful descriptions of the intersection between science and spirituality, this sudden turn to the abstract is jolting, designed to impose the weight of the problem on the audience.