Section 4: Braiding Sweetgrass

Summary

In this longest, self-titled section of the book, Kimmerer first goes into further detail concerning Nanabozho, the Original Man of the Anishinaabe creation story (“In the Footsteps of Nanabozho: Becoming Indigenous to Place”). She tells how he traveled over Turtle Island (North America) and learned how to live by observing the plants and animals. Kimmerer suggests that although not everyone is Indigenous by birth to the place they happen to live, all can “become Indigenous” in the more general sense of learning to care for their home. She offers the example of plantain, also known as white man’s footstep, as an example of a nonnative plant that became naturalized and is now valued for its medicinal and culinary uses. 

“The Sound of Silverbells” narrates a university field trip into the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. Kimmerer tells of being challenged by the students’ widely shared Christian worldview, which to her seemed at odds with Indigenous beliefs that see humanity as part of nature. Despite extensive lectures and excursions designed to open the students’ eyes to the wonder of the diverse mountain ecosystem, Kimmerer feels that she has failed to really convey her point to her students. When she hears them singing “Amazing Grace” as they hike back down from the mountain, however, she realizes that they do indeed share her “love and gratitude” for creation.  

Another field trip, this one for an ethnobotany class, is the subject of “Sitting in a Circle.” This time, Kimmerer takes her students to a wetlands environment where they learn the myriad uses for plants such as cattails and spruce trees. Some of the students are initially anxious and bored by their foray into the woods, but most develop a strong appreciation for the beauty and complexity of the environment they are studying. The class discusses the nature of gift giving and reciprocity as it relates to ecology. A variety of opinions emerge as to what, if anything, humans owe the land or can give back to it. 

Set in the Pacific Northwest, “Burning Cascade Head” narrates the annual salmon run and the coastal Indigenous traditions around this event. When these people were decimated by disease, Kimmerer says, settlers dammed up (“reclaimed”) much of the estuary land for cattle grazing, disrupting salmon migration patterns. Since the 1970s, it has been the work of field biologists to study the salmon and recommend ways to rehabilitate their habitat. “Heart-driven scientists,” she offers, have a great role to play in restoring humanity’s relationship to the “more-than-human world.” 

“Putting Down Roots” describes Kimmerer’s efforts to reestablish a field of sweetgrass at Kanatsiohareke, a Mohawk settlement devoted to reviving traditional Haudenosaunee practices and values. In the process, Kimmerer recounts her grandfather’s experience of forced assimilation at a residential school at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Kanatsiohareke, she notes, represents an attempt at “undoing Carlisle” and allowing people to proudly claim long-suppressed aspects of their heritage. 

In “Umbilicaria: The Belly Button of the World,” Kimmerer describes the ecological role and adaptations of the Umbilicaria americana lichen. She observes that lichens are a “marriage” of two distinct types of organism, fungi and algae, and that the two complement each other. What’s more, she says, lichen “unites the two great pathways of life” by incorporating elements of a growing plant (an autotroph) and an organism that feeds on others (a heterotroph). Kimmerer contemplates the joy that would result if human beings chose to “marry ourselves to the earth” in a relationship of mutual thriving.  

“Old-Growth Children” tells of the reforestation efforts of Franz Dolp, an economist and writer who made it his mission to restore old-growth forest on a tract of Oregon land. Kimmerer observes that cedars, among the tallest and longest-lived of trees, provided the basis for the lifestyle of Indigenous peoples in this region. When logged, however, cedars regrow extremely slowly and precariously, and human help is needed to reintroduce them to their former habitat. 

The closing chapter of the section, “Witness to the Rain,” is short and meditative in tone. Kimmerer describes time spent in an Oregon rain forest. She reflects on the many different timescales seen in the natural world, from the formation of raindrops to the growth of trees to the hollowing out of a river valley.  

Analysis

Fittingly given its title, this is the section of the book where the different ideas Kimmerer has introduced are “woven together” and shown to interrelate. One such thread is the apparent conflict between Indigenous and “settler” attitudes toward the land. Back in “The Grammar of Animacy,” Kimmerer touched on the ways in which culture (specifically language) conditions people to see the world in a particular way. A worldview that sees humanity as distinct from and superior to the natural world, for instance, will have different behavioral consequences from one that sees humanity as part of nature. Herself a descendant of both Indigenous and European peoples, Kimmerer argues that while Indigeneity in the strict sense is a birthright, it is possible to “become Indigenous” to a place by entering into a relationship of caring reciprocity with it.  

One of Kimmerer’s great concerns as a teacher is the apathy that her students, even the biology majors, often have toward nature. To really commit to a healthy relationship with nature, she suggests, intellectual sizing-up of ecological problems is not enough: one must be able to appreciate the environment on an emotional and even a spiritual level. Up to this point in the book, Kimmerer has largely presented her teaching career through examples of highly motivated graduate students who already have a deep interest in ecology, Indigenous traditions, or both. In “The Sound of Silverbells” and “Sitting in a Circle,” Kimmerer shows how impactful field work can be for undergraduate students, even those who would not describe themselves as nature lovers.