48 pages • 1 hour read
Robin Wall KimmererBraiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
Nonfiction | Book | YA | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Interconnectedness of Life on Earth
The interconnectedness of life on Earth is an important theme throughout Braiding Sweetgrass, which depicts the world as a “web of reciprocity” (254). Kimmerer argues that, contrary to modern belief, humans cannot be separated from the natural world, but are rather intimately interconnected with “all living beings, our relatives” (10). She frames this relationship as both a responsibility and a gift.
Kimmerer’s parents raised her with strong Potawatomi roots and taught her to think of plants as “teachers and companions to whom I shared a mutual responsibility” (60). She writes that, like many Indigenous groups, the Potawatomi believe that humans have “relationships with and a responsibility to water and wolves and one another” (13). For Kimmerer, a botanist, the most obvious example of this mutual responsibility is respiration, “the source of energy where the breath of plants gives life to animals and the breath of animals gives life to plants” (262). The cycle of give-and-take described here is a physical manifestation of the interconnectedness of life on Earth. Kimmerer’s experience as an avid gardener also contributes to her understanding of mutual responsibility. She describes how her family in Oklahoma fulfilled their responsibility to nearby pecan trees “by taking care of the grove, protecting it from harm, planting seeds so that new trees will shade the prairie and feed the squirrels” (35). Kimmerer herself tends to a maple grove in her home in New York; in turn, “the Maples each year carry out their part of the Original Instructions, to care for the people” by producing sap for syrup (71). The symbiotic relationships between humans and plants described throughout Braiding Sweetgrass point to Kimmerer’s belief in the interconnectedness of life on Earth.
Although Kimmerer’s belief in the interconnectedness of life is based on an ethics of mutual responsibility and reciprocity, she also identifies clear benefits for humans engaging with the natural world. Simply being in the presence of nature can be beneficial: research shows that “breathing in the scent of Mother Earth stimulates within us the production of serotonin” (204). In addition to these physiological effects, Kimmerer argues that acknowledging human connections to other beings on Earth can improve the human spirit. She challenges readers to “imagine how less lonely the world would be if we knew and believed that we didn’t have to figure everything out by ourselves” (11). For Kimmerer, human interconnectedness with other beings on Earth is a comforting reassurance that we are not alone.
The Importance of Storytelling in Indigenous Communities
Throughout Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer uses traditional Anishinaabe stories and storytelling techniques to introduce readers to Indigenous culture and support her arguments. Her use of these stories and techniques reflects her belief in the vital importance of storytelling in Indigenous communities. Kimmerer suggests that stories help Indigenous people to connect to each other and their culture and that stories can actively help to heal humanity’s fractured relationships with the natural world. Finally, she suggests that Indigenous stories also have a prophetic use, helping to guide and shape the future.
Kimmerer argues that “traditional stories are the collective treasure of a people” (14), and that sharing these stories can help people to reconnect to their culture. As they are told and retold, traditional stories “grow, they develop, they remember, and they change, not in their essence by sometimes in their dress” (14). These changes can reflect an individual storyteller’s unique perspective or the people’s changing relationship with the land. Ultimately, Kimmerer argues, stories are “shared and shaped by the land, the culture, and the teller” (14). The process of listening to and retelling stories helps new storytellers to deepen their roots.
In addition to their power to reconnect individuals to culture, stories also have the power to heal humanity’s relationship with their land. Kimmerer explicitly presents her book as “a bundle of healing stories that allow us to imagine a different relationship in which people and the land are good medicine for each other” (28). Throughout the book, Kimmerer uses Anishinaabe stories to share “traditional ecological knowledge” (155) and “instructions for sustainability” (155) with the reader. Her use of these stories reflects her belief that they have the power to help readers “restore balance and locate ourselves once again in the circle” (155). She concludes that “stories are among our most potent tools for restoring the land as well as our relationship to the land” (258). To that end, Kimmerer deploys traditional Indigenous stories to drive home points that she goes on to present in other ways. For instance, the story of the Three Sisters, the Indigenous account of the symbiosis among corn, beans, and squash, leads into a chapter on Western scientific investigations into Indigenous agricultural practices. The fact that Kimmerer puts the Three Sisters first reflects the fact that Indigenous stories codified and transmitted important ecological knowledge long before Western science “discovered” it.
Finally, Kimmerer interprets stories as the site of prophecy and guidance in times of need. Kimmerer argues that Anishinaabe people “know time as a circle,” and stories are a “place where history and prophecy converge” in circular time (181). Kimmerer structures her own book as a circle, returning to the Anishinaabe origin story she told at the beginning of the book in the final chapter to suggest that now is a moment to look toward rebirth through reclaiming Indigenous wisdom. Anishinaabe stories act not only as a record of what has happened but as a prediction for future action, an example to be repeated or avoided. Stories thus become not only entertaining or educational, but a sacred form of spiritual guidance.
The Injustice of the American Government’s Treatment of Indigenous Americans
Robin Wall Kimmerer’s family history deeply influences her thinking and features prominently in the book. The injustice of the American government’s treatment of Indigenous people is an important part of that family history: Kimmerer’s great-grandmother was part of the infamous Trail of Death, while her grandfather was sent to Carlisle Indian Industrial School. These two injustices shape Kimmerer’s thinking about land and reciprocity throughout Braiding Sweetgrass.
The Trail of Death—a 60-day forced march that resulted in the death of 42 people—separated Kimmerer’s ancestors “from our traditional knowledge, our ways of life, and our connection to the land and water […] from the bones of our ancestors and the plants that had sustained us for generations” (32). Kimmerer is explicit in identifying the United States government as the source of this loss, writing that, “our people were canoe people. Until they made us walk. Until our lakeshore lodges were signed away for shanties and dust. Our people were a circle, until we were dispersed” (50). The injustice of forced separation and the great loss of culture that followed is an essential motivating factor for Kimmerer, who imagines the book as an attempt to reconnect the people to the Earth and heal the trauma of loss. However, she acknowledges that some things cannot be recovered, including the “graves of half the people,” primarily “children and vulnerable community members” (32). Kimmerer’s depiction of the Trail of Death highlights the historical injustice of the American government’s treatment of Indigenous people, demonstrating to the non-Indigenous reader the crimes against both humans and nonhumans that must be rectified.
Kimmerer’s grandfather was one of tens of thousands of Indigenous children sent to residential schools, which were designed by the United States government to “Kill the Indian, Save the Man” (222). Indigenous children like Kimmerer’s grandfather were taken from their families and brought to schools like Carlisle Indian Industrial School, which was “well known for abuse, loneliness, and hunger” (33). At schools like Carlisle, “braids were cut off [and] native languages forbidden” to separate children from their culture (222). As a result of the loss of cultural practices and languages in these schools, “a universe of knowing vanished in a generation” (276). Kimmerer feels the continued trauma of this loss deeply. Braiding Sweetgrass represents Kimmerer’s attempt to reclaim the knowledge and practices her family and people lost as a result of the US government’s policies and transmit them to new generations. The book restores what was taken from Kimmerer’s family and offers the gift of it to its readers.
