English 1102

BRAIDING ~ SWEETG~ASS

Robin Wall Kimmerer

'' milkweed editions

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© 2013, Text by Robin Wall Kimmerer

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotatio~s in c~itical arti~le_~ or reviews, no p_art of t~is book

may be.reproduced in any manner without pnor written perm1ss10n from the publisher: Milkweed

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Published 2013 by Milkweed Editions

Printed in Canada

Cover design by Mary Austin Speaker

Cover photo © Cindy Hughes

Author photo by Dale Kakkak

22 23 24 25 26 32 31 30 29 28

First Paperback Edition

978-1-57131-356-o

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MINNESOTA STAJIAl'nb&D

m~ 0 NATIONAL 111 ENDOWMENT

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kimmerc:r, Robin Wall. .

Braiding sweetgrass : indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants /

Robin Wall Kimmerer. - First edition.

pages cm

Summary: "As a leading researcher in the field of biology, Robin Wall Kimmerer understands

the delicate state of our world. But as an active member of the Potawatomi nation, she senses and

relates to _the world through a way of knowing far older than any science. In Braiding Sweetgrass,

she intertwines these two modes of awareness-the analytic and the emotional, the scientific; and

the cultural-to ultimately reveal a path toward healing the rift that grows between people and

nature. The woven essays that construct this book bring people back into conversation with all that

is green and growing; a universe that never stopped speaking to us, even when we forgot how to

listen"-Providc:d by publisher.

ISBN 978-I-57131-335-5 (hardback : alkaline paper)

I. Indian philosophy. 2. Indigenous peoples-Ecology. 3. Philosophy of nature.

4. Human ecology-Philosophy. 5. Nature-Effect ofhul)'lan beings on. 6. Human-plant

relationships. 7. Botany-Philosophy. 8. Kimmerc:r, Robin Wall. 9. Potawatomi

Indians-Biography. JO. Potawatomi Indians-Social life: and customs. I. Title:.

E98.P5K56 2013

305.597-dc23

2013012563

Milkweed Editions is committed to ecological stewardship. We strive to align ~ur book production

practices with this principle:, and to reduce the: impact of our operations in the environment. We are a

mem~er of the Green Press Initiative, a nonprofit coalition of publishers, manufacturers, and authors

worki~g to protect the world's endangered forests and conserve natural resources. Braidiflg Swutgrass

was pnr:ited on acid-free !00% postconsumer-waste paper by Friesens Corporation.

SKYWOMAN FALLING

In winter, when the green earth lies resting beneath a blanket of snow, this

is the time for storytelli~g. The storytellers begi'n by calling upon those who

came before who passed the stories down to us, for we are only messengers.

In the beginni'ng there was the SkYworld.

She fell like a maple seed, pirouetting on an autumn breeze: A column

oflight streamed from a hole in the Skyworld, marking her path where

only darkness had been before. It took her a long time to fall. In fear, or

maybe hope, she clutched a bundle tightly in her hand.

Hurtling downward, she saw only dark water below. But in that

emptiness there were many eyes gazing up at the sudden shaft of light.

They saw there a small object, a mere dust mote in the beam. As it grew

closer, they could see that it was a woman, arms outstretched, long black

hair bill~wing behind as she spiraled toward them. ·

The geese nodded at one another and rose together from the water

in a wave of-goose music. She felt the beat of their wings as they flew

beneath to break her fall. Far from the only home she'd ever known,

she caught her breath at the warm embrace of soft feathers as they gently

carried her downward. And so it began.

The geese could not hold the woman above the water for much

longer, so they called a council to decide what to do. Resting on their

wings, she saw them all gather: loons, otters, swans, beavers, fish of all

kinds. A great turtle floated in their midst and offered his back for her

• Adapted from oral tradition and Shenandoah and George, 1988.

I

4 Planting S

Weetgrass to rest upon. Gratefully, she stepped from the goose wing

s onto th dome of his shell. The others understood that she needed land c e h . h ior her home and discussed how t ey m1g t serve her need. The de d" ep 1vers among them had heard of mud at the bottom of the water and

to go find some. agreed

Loon dove first, but the distance was too far ~nd after a long while he surfaced with nothing to show for .his efforts. One by one, the other animals offered to help-Otter, Beaver, Sturgeon-but the depth, the darkness, and the pressures were too great for even the str<?ngest of swimmers. They returned gasping for air with their heads ringing. Some did not return at all. Soon only little Muskrat was left, the weak­ est diver of all. He volunteered to go while the-others looked on doubt­ fully. His small legs flailed as he worked his way downward and he was gone a very long time.

They waited and waited for him to return, fearing the worst for their relative, and, before long, a stream of bubbles rose with the small, limp body· of the muskrat. He had given his life to aid this helpless human. But then the others noticed that his paw was tightly clenched and, when they opened it, there was a small handful of mud. Turtle said, "Here, put it on my back and I will hold it." ·

Skywoman bent and spread the mud with her hands across the shell of the turtle. Moved by the extraordinary gifts of the anim~ls, she sang in thanksgiving and then began to dance, her feet caressin~ the earth. The land grew and grew as she danced her thanks,· from the dab of mud on Turtle's back·until the whole earth was made. Not b · h · ls' gifts Y Skywoman alone, but from the alchemy of all t e -anima coupled with her deep gratitude. Together they formed what we know today as Turtle Island, our home. d d

L.k ty-han e · 1 e any good guest Skywoman had not come emp ' led from The bundle was still clutched in her hand. When she topp T h h l · b to the ree t ~ o e m the Skyworld she had reached out to gra on ds f L. c h fi . ts and see 0 Ile t at grew there. In her grasp were bran~hes- rm d f 11 k. h ground an 0 a mds of plants. These she scattered onto t e new b n to green-carefully tended each one until the world turned from row

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SKYWOMAN FALLING 5

Sunlight streamed through the hole from the Skyworld, allowing the seeds to flourish. Wild grasses, flowers, trees, and medicines spread everywhere. And now that the animals, too, had plenty to eat, many came to live with her on Turtle Island.

Our stories say that of all the plants, wiingaasht or sweetgrass, was ~e . very first to grow on the earth, its fragrance a sweet memory of Skywoman's hand. Accordingly, it is honored as one of the four sacred plants of my people. Breathe in its scent and you start to remember things you didn't know you'd forgotten. Our elders say that ceremonies are the way we "remember to remember," and so sweetgrass is a power­ ful ceremonial plant cherished by many Indigenous nations. It is also used to make beautiful baskets. Both medicine-and a relative, its value is both material and spiritual.

There is such tenderness in braiding the hair of someone you love. Kindness and something more flow between the braider and the braided, the two connected by the cord of the plait. Wiingaashk waves in strands, long and shining like a woman's freshly washed hair. And so we say it is the flowing hair of Mother Earth. When we braid sweet­ grass, we are braiding the hair of Mother Earth, showing her our loving attention, our care for her beauty and well-being; in gratitude for all she has given us. Children hearing the Skywoman story from birth know in their bones the responsibility that flows between humans and the earth.

The story ofSkywoman's journey is so.rich and glittering it feels to me like a deep bowl of celestial blue from which I could drink again and again. It holds our beliefs, our history, our relationships. Looking into that starry bowl, I see images sw1rling so.fluidly that the paSt and the present become as one. Images of Skywoman speak not juSt of where we came from but also of how we can go forward.

'

~ have Bruce King's portrait of Skywoman, Moment in Flight, hanging tn my lab. Floating to earth with her handful of seeds and flowers, she

' 6 Planting Sw

C<:tgrass

looks down on my microscopes and data loggers. It might . . . seern an odd 1· uxtapos1t1on, but to me she belongs there. As a wnter a s • . ' . , c1entist, and a carrier of Skywoman s story, I sit at the feet of my elder te h listening for their songs.

ac ers

On Mondays, Wednes~ays, and Fridays at 9 :35 a.m., I am usu­ ally in a lecture hall at the university, expounding about botany and ecology-trying, in short, to explain to my students how Skywoman's gardens, known by some as "global ecosystems," function. One other­ wise unremarkable morning I gave the students in my General Ecology class a survey. Among other things, they were asked to rate their understanding of the negative interactions between humans and the environment. Nearly every one of the two hundred students said confidently that humans and nature are a bad mix. These were third-year students who had selected a career in environmental pro­ tection, so the response was, in a way, not very surprising. They were well schooled in the mechanics of climate change, toxins in the land and water, and the crisis of habitat loss. Later in the survey, they were asked to rate their knowledge of positive interactions between people and land. The median response was "none."

I was stunned. How is it possible that in twenty years of education they cannot think of any beneficial relationships between people and the environment? Perhaps the negative examples they see every day­ brownfields, factory farms, suburban sprawl-truncated their ability to see some good between humans and the earth. As the land becomes impoverished, so too does the scope of their vision. When we talked bo h. · · what a ut t 1s after class, I realized that they could not even. 1magme .

beneficial relations between their species and others might look h~e. How can we begin to move toward ecological and cultural suScam,­ ability if we cannot even imagine what the path feels like? If we can c · · h · don the 1magme t e generosity of geese? These students were not raise story ofSkywoman.

0 . . h ' ·ch che liv-n one side of the world were people whose relations 1p wi h . d d for c e mg world was shaped by Skywoman, who create a gar en

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SKYWOMAN FALLING 7

well-being of all. On the other side was another woman with a _garden

and a tree~ But for tasting its fruit, she was banished from the garden

and the gates clanged shut behind her. That mother of men was made

to _wander in the wilderness and earn her bread by the sweat of her

brow, not by filling her mouth with the sweet juicy fruits that bend the

branches low. In order to eat, she was instructed to subdue the wilder:

ness into which she was cast.

Same species, same earth, different stori~s. Like Creation stories

everywhere, cosmologies are a source of identity and orientation to the

~orld. They tell us who we are. We are inevitably shaped by them

no matter how distant they may be from our consciousness. One story

leads to ~he generous embrace of the living world, the other to banish­

ment. One woman is our ancestral gardener, a cocreator of the good

green world that would be the home of her descendants. The··other

was ·an exile, just passing through an alien world on a rough road to

her real home i~ heaven.

And then they met-the offspring of Skywoman and the children

of Eve-and the land around us bears the scars of that meeting, the ·

echoes of om: stories. They say that hell hath no fury like a woman

scorned, and I can only jmagine the conversation between Eve and

Skywoman: "Sister, you got the short end ?f the stick ... "

The Skywoman story, shared by the original peoples throughout the

Great Lakes, is a constant star in the constellation of teachings we call

the Original lnstructi~ns. These are not "instructions" like command­

ments, though, or rules; r·ather, they are like a compass: they provide

an orientation but not a map. The work of living is creating that map

for yourself. How to follow the Original Instructions will be different

for each of us and different for every era.

. In their time, Skywoman's first people lived by their understand­

mg of the Original Instructions, with ethical prescriptions for respect­

ful hunting, family life, ceremonies that made sense for their world.

Those measures for caring might not seem to fit in today's urban

World, where "green" means an advertising slogan, not a meadow. The

r

8 Planting Sw

eetgrass

buffalo are gone and the world has moved on. I can't return l . . . . sa rnon to the river, and my neighbors would raise the alarm if I set fire t o rny yard to produce pasture for elk . .

The earth was new then, when it welcomed the first human. It's old now, and some suspect that we have worn out our welcome b casting the Original Instructions aside. From the very beginning :r the world, the other species were a lifeboat for the people. Now, we must be theirs. But the stories that might guide us, if they are told at all, grow dim in the memory. What meaning would ·they have today? How can we translate from the stories at the world's beginning to this hour so much closer to its end? The_ landscape has changed, but the story remains. And as I turn it over again and again, Skywoman seems to look me in the eye and ask, in return for this gift of a world on Turtle's back,'w!iat will I give in return?

It is good to remember that the original woman was herself an immigrant. She fell a long way from her home in the Skyworld, leav­ ing behind all who knew her and who held __ her dear. She could never go back. Since 1492, most here are immigrants as well, perhaps ar­ riving on Ellis Island without e~en knowing that Turtle Island rested beneath their feet. Some of my ancestors are Skywoman's people, and I belong to them. Some of my ancesto~s were the newer kind of im­ migrants, too_: a F~ench fur trader, an Irish carpenter, a Welsh farme~. And here we all are, on Turtle Island, trying to make a home. Their stories, of arrivals with empty pockets and nothing but hope, resonate with Skywoman's. She came here with nothing but a handful of seeds

d h 1. f • . " · f d dreams for an t e s 1mmest o instructions to use your gt ts an ood " h · · h d the gifts from g , t e same instructions we all carry. S e accepte d h h be. . . h bl She share t e ot er mgs with open hands and used them onora Y· h . fi f b he business t e g1 ts she brought from Skyworld as she set hersel a out t

of flourishing, of making a home. · s P h h o are alway er aps t e Skywoman story endures because we to • _ . c 11· . . h h traJectorY• 1a mg. Our lives, both personal and collective, ~ are er Id

Wh h f h k own wor et er we jump or are pushed, or the edge o t e n nd · bl · · · lace new a JUSt crum es at our feet, we fall, spmmng mto somep

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SKYWOMAN FALLING ' 9

unexpected. ~espite our fears of falling, the gifts of the world stand by

to catch us.

As we consider these instr~ctions, it is ~lso good to recall that, when

Skywoman arrived here, she did not come alone. She was pregnant.

Knowing her grandchildren would inherit the world she left behind,

she did not work for flourishing in her time only. It ~as through' her

actions of reciprocity, the give and take with the land, that the original

immigrant became Indigenous. For all of u_s, becoming Indigenous to

a place means living as if your children's future mattered, to take care

of the land as if our lives, both material and spiritual, depended on it.

In the publi~ arena, I've heard the Skywoman story told as a bauble of

colorful "folklore." But,. even when it is misunderstood, there is power

in the telling. Most of my students have never heard the origin story of

this land where they were born, but when I tell them, something be­

gins to kindle behind their eyes. Can they, can we all, understand the

Skywoman story not as an artifact from the past but as instructions for

the future? Can a nation of immigrants once again follow her example

to become native, to make a home?

Look at the legacy of poor Eve's exile from Eden: the land shows

the bruises of an abusive fela~ionship. It's not just land that is broken,

but more importantly, our r~lationship to land. As Gary Nabhan has

written, we can't meaningfully proceed with healing, with restoration,

without "re-story-ation." In other worc;ls, our relationship with land

cannot heal until we hear its stories. But who will tell them?

In the Western tradition there is a recognized hierarchy of beings,

with, of course, the h~man being on top-the pinnacle of evolution,

the da~ling of Creation-and the plants at the bottom. But in Native .

ways of knowing, human people are often referred to as "the younger

brothers of Creation." We say that humans have the least experience

with how to live and thus the most to learn-we must look to our

teachers among the other species for g~idance. Their wisdom is appar­

ent in the way that they live. They teach us by example. They've been

on the earth far longer tha~ we have been, and have had time to figure things out. They live both above and below ground, joining Skyworld

• 10

Planting Sweet grass

to the earth. Plants know how to make food and medicine from 1. h . tg t and water, and then they give it away. I like to imagine that when Skywoman scattered her handful of

seeds acros_s Turtle Island, she was sowing sustenance for the body and also for the mind, emotion, and spirit: she was leaving us teachers. The plants can tell us her story; we need to learn to listen.

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