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

Robin Wall Kimmerer

Milkweed Editions, Sep 16, 2013 - Nature - 320 pages

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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.

Contents

• Skywoman Falling: 3
• The Council of Pecans: 10
• The Gift of Strawberries: 22
• An Offering: 33
• Asters and Goldenrod: 39
• Learning the Grammar of Animacy: 48
• Tending Sweetgrass: 61
• Maple Sugar Moon: 63
• Witch Hazel: 72
• A Mothers Work: 82
• The Consolation of Water Lilies: 98
• Allegiance to Gratitude: 105
• Picking Sweetgrass: 119
• Epiphany in the Beans: 121
• The Three Sisters: 128
• A Black Ash Basket: 141
• The Teachings of Grass: 156
• A Citizenship Guide: 167
• The Honorable Harvest: 175
• Braiding Sweetgrass: 203
• Becoming Indigenous to Place: 205
• The Sound of Silverbells: 216
• Sitting in a Circle: 223
• Burning Cascade Head: 241
• Putting Down Roots: 254
• The Belly Button of the World: 268
• OldGrowth Children: 277
• Witness to the Rain: 293
• Burning Sweetgrass: 301
• Windigo Footprints: 303
• The Sacred and the Superfund: 310
• People of Corn People of Light: 341
• Collateral Damage: 348
• People of the Seventh Fire: 360
• Defeating Windigo: 374
• Returning the Gift: 380
• Notes: 385
• Sources: 387
• Acknowledgments: 389

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.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
• Author: Robin Wall Kimmerer
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Milkweed Editions, 2013
• ISBN: 1571318712, 9781571318718
• Length: 320 pages
• Subjects: Nature / Ecology; Nature / Essays; Science / Life Sciences / Ecology; Social Science / Native American Studies