Braiding Sweet Grass

Robin Wall Kimmerer

Excerpted from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

In Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (2013), Kimmerer employs the metaphor of braiding wiingaashk, a sacred plant in Native cultures, to express the intertwined relationship between three types of knowledge: TEK, the Western scientific tradition, and the lessons plants have to offer if we pay close attention to them. Moving deftly between scientific evidence and storytelling, Kimmerer reorients our understanding of the natural world. She shares the many ways Indigenous peoples enact reciprocity, that is, foster a mutually beneficial relationship with their surroundings. One chapter is devoted to the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address, a formal expression of gratitude for the roles played by all living and non-living entities in maintaining a habitable environment. The sun and the moon are acknowledged, for instance. Kimmerer explains how reciprocity is reflected in Native languages, which impart animacy to natural entities such as bodies of water and forests, thus reinforcing respect for nature. Reciprocity also finds form in cultural practices such as polyculture farming, where plants that exchange nutrients and offer natural pest control are cultivated together. The concept of the honorable harvest, or taking only what one needs and using only what one takes, is another Indigenous practice informed by reciprocity. Kimmerer presents the ways a pure market economy leads to resource depletion and environmental degradation. As an alternative to consumerism, she offers an Indigenous mindset that embraces gratitude for the gifts of nature, which feeds and shelters us, and that acknowledges the role that humans play in responsible land stewardship and ecosystem restoration.