Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants in Reading with Style

Oct 04, 2021 Connie G rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction, science, indigenous, nature

"Braiding Sweetgrass" is a remarkable book that melds indigenous wisdom with modern science. Author Robin Wall Kimmerer is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology in upstate New York, and a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She starts her book with the Skywoman story of Creation with its message that we need to respect the earth, offer gratitude, and remember than future generations will inherit it.

Another indigenous story is that of the Three Sisters--corn, beans "Braiding Sweetgrass" is a remarkable book that melds indigenous wisdom with modern science. Author Robin Wall Kimmerer is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology in upstate New York, and a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She starts her book with the Skywoman story of Creation with its message that we need to respect the earth, offer gratitude, and remember than future generations will inherit it.

Another indigenous story is that of the Three Sisters--corn, beans, and pumpkins--that provide the proper nutrients and sunlight that is needed when the three are planted together. The beans wind around the corn's strong stem while the pumpkin or squash vines travel over the ground, sheltering the soil, keeping the moisture in, and reducing the weeds. Rhizobium bacteria, housed in the bean roots, take nitrogen from the air and convert it to nitrogen fertilizer for the three plants. This is just one example of reciprocity in nature. Reciprocity and restoration of damaged land by humans is told in additional stories such as intelligent planting to restore clearcut land.

The book also emphasizes the Honorable Harvest, taking less than half of what you find in the wilderness, and leaving the rest to reproduce during the following year. We are warned away from the Windigo of greed, overconsumption, and pollution.

Kimmerer feels a strong bond with her ancestors. Her grandfather, Asa Wall, was sent to the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. The school separated the indigenous children from their parents for years, cut off their braids, and punished them if they spoke in their native language. The author is taking lessons to learn the Potawatomi language, attends indigenous ceremonies, participates in workshops to learn native crafts such as basket weaving, and passes down indigenous wisdom to her daughters and students.

Kimmerer writes thoughtfully with beautiful lyrical prose as she looks at nature through the eyes of a botanist, an ecologist, and an indigenous person with a strong love of the land. Gratitude, reciprocity, and restoration are necessary to renew the earth. ...more

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Dec 06, 2014 Chinook is currently reading it

I just started reading this and just finished the chapter on pecans. I really enjoy how she writes and I think this will be a quick read. It flows really nicely. So far I'm particularly struck by the way pecan trees reproduce. I'd never heard about that kind of reproduction. Nature is fascinating.

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The chapter on strawberries brought to mind two things. First, it made me think about the wild spaces of my childhood. I grew up in a small town in a very suburban looking neighbourhood. But it I just started reading this and just finished the chapter on pecans. I really enjoy how she writes and I think this will be a quick read. It flows really nicely. So far I'm particularly struck by the way pecan trees reproduce. I'd never heard about that kind of reproduction. Nature is fascinating.

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The chapter on strawberries brought to mind two things. First, it made me think about the wild spaces of my childhood. I grew up in a small town in a very suburban looking neighbourhood. But it hadn't expanded much yet and there were ravines to play in and access (I'm fairly certain we were trespassing, in retrospect) to a campground that was only used in the summer. I spent most of my summer at our family cottage, on an island which was reservation land. Lots of wild spaces to explore. And there was my grandmother's backyard - full of strawberries and raspberries - that wasn't terribly large but there was a hill that took you out of sight of the house - and so the grown ups. Secondly, it made me contemplate why small local businesses matter so much to me. The are a mix of market and gift economies. Yes, when I visit the local cloth diaper store, I pay for the product. But I've been gifted with the knowledge of the women who work there and a sense of community too, as they have LLL meetings and craft meeting and sponsor families for Christmas presents. The shop has spaces for common use - places to breastfeed and change babies and for children to play. Maybe this sort of mixed economy is closer within our grasp.

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"But their rhythm made me feel at home and the ceremony drew a circle around our family."

I like that quote a lot. Ceremony does focus on making a circle around a group of people. Traditions too. And I like the idea of the mundane becoming more over time.

I also really liked the way she talks about the goldenrods and asters as being like the two ways of thinking - science and indigenous. I studied archaeology in university and it could be done as either a BA or BSc. The best of the classes were the ones that merged both together.

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May 02, 2022 GONZA rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: biblioteca, audio-book

Probably my main mistake was listening to the audiobook, where the names of the plants, already difficult for non-native speakers, became even more confusing, leaving me with a lot of questions. I must also admit to a certain impatience on my part with the rhetoric of the "good savage". Of course, I do not want to say that we do not have a major and current problem, not only with our behavior towards nature, but also with the fact that so much traditional knowledge has been lost with a chilling ...more

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Sep 28, 2021 Kim rated it liked it

Shelves: history, non-fiction, libby, wfauthor, memoir-a-b, indigenous, plants, nature

3.5/5.0 - It's hard for me to review this book. I am surprised at how high a rating it has after >39K people have read it. I'm not saying that it's bad, just that it might be the highest rated book (4.56) I've read (with that many ratings). What I liked: the philosophy of the indigenous people, their history, stories about the plants and the respect for the earth. What I didn't care for was the way the book jumped around, both in subject matter and timeline.
Compared to The Seed Keeper by Diane ...more

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