dailyBooks - Braiding Sweetgrass--Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer--Conversation Starters

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Robin Wall Kimmerer's

Braiding Sweetgrass

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Tips for Using dailyBooks Conversation Starters:

EVERY GOOD BOOK CONTAINS A WORLD FAR DEEPER THAN the surface of its pages. The characters and their world come alive through the words on the pages, yet the characters and its world still live on. Questions herein are designed to bring us beneath the surface of the page and invite us into the world that lives on. These questions can be used to:

• Foster a deeper understanding of the book
• Promote an atmosphere of discussion for groups
• Assist in the study of the book, either individually or corporately
• Explore unseen realms of the book as never seen before

Introducing Braiding Sweetgrass

B raiding Sweetgrass : Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants is a book by botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer that underlines human relationship to the natural world. The title of the book is based on a traditional tale of Potawatomi, in which a Skywoman falls from Skyworld, and all the creatures try to find her a home. The turtle offered to carry her and the muskrat gave her a handful of mud to spread around. And the world grows. Sweetgrass, known by the Potawatomi as wiingashk, was the first plant to grow in this new world. Kimmerer also brings out the imagery of the tribe members braiding the sweetgrass, which usually is done with the help of others, cementing our connection to other people.

The book is split into five sections. In the first section, Kimmerer talks about the displacement of the native Americans from the Lake Michigan area. The generation of Kimmerers great-grandfather was displaced three times until they settled in Oklahoma. During these moves, the Potawatomi not just lost their homelands and their way of life, but also their language, traditional knowledge, and even their names which were changed by soldiers and missionaries. For the Native Americans, land was everything it denoted identity, connection to ancestors, library, pharmacy, and sustenance. They considered land as a sacred gift. The ownership of the land was communal unlike with the settlers, who saw the land as property, real estate, capital, or natural resources to exploit and profit.

Though they were forced to leave their forests, they soon discovered pecan trees, which became an integral part of their lives. Kimmerer talks about the lessons that could be learned from plants. The pecans all fruit together at the same time throughout the country, as if working together. But her ancestors strayed away from this example and opted for individual land allotments offered by the United States government in a bid to distance them from their lands. She touches on the concepts of private and joint land ownership as two different cultural landscapes. By having joint ownership of land, people are more aware of the community in which they live and consume less, thereby preventing scarcities. It will be a community with justice and abundance for everyone. She also talks about the bounty of strawberries and how she could call herself raised by strawberries.

In some ways, Kimmerer desires to connect back to her roots. A trained botanist, she desires to combine her scientific knowledge with traditional knowledge. She had also begun to take Potawatomi classes, of which there were only nine fluent speakers left at the time, and which she then practiced with her sister. She points out how the old language had verbs for inanimate things because those things belonged to nature and hence considered to have lives. It becomes evident that a language reflects the culture of its speakers.

Kimmerer shares her experiences as a mother making maple syrup from scratch, befriending downtrodden neighbors, and creating a living space for her children in which to enjoy themselves. She tried creating a pond for them but the project only got finished after they grew up. Nevertheless, it became a special place in her own heart, a space for her to commune with nature and marvel at the beauty of life. She describes the childhood of her children and how she tried to raise them with proper regard and enjoyment for nature. However, her children experienced it in a way much different from her own, and she points out that is true for everyone.

Kimmerer claims that we are linked in a co-evolutionary circle. The better the plant product, the more people tend to spread its seeds and nurture the plants. The thriving of one is in the best interest of the other. The author defines this as love. If you love your garden and nature, it will love you back. The Three Sisters of indigenous agriculture are corn, beans, and squash. These three plants together have fed generations of Native Americans throughout North and South America. The three are often planted together, and each enhances and supports the other plants. The author also explains the concept of Honorable Harvest, which dictates to take only what you need and use everything you take. This keeps the ecological balance between humans and nature intact and reduces both wastage and over-usage of resources.

She shares her experience teaching botany in unique ways, trying to get her students to understand the harmony of nature and to feel a connection to her gifts. She takes her students out on different occasions to demonstrate how nature is able to take care of peoples needs, provided we treat her properly. She also shares her experiences of teaching in the Bible Belt and was thrilled to make a connection with the students. She makes a lot of effort to help her students discover nature and its benefits in the hope that they would pay it forward.

The book is in the form of snippets of different topics, each intertwining to form a whole like the Three Sisters garden. The main underlying theme of the book is that one should respect nature and maintain a relationship with her, and only then would nature give us her gifts with an open hand.