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.
Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “Meeting Sweetgrass”
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary: “An Invitation to Remember”
The Anishinaabe people believe we are living in the time of the Seventh Fire, a time of both darkness and light. Kimmerer invites readers to remember that they are in kinship with all living beings in the world, including not only humans but also plants and animals. These other living beings have the potential to teach and care for humans and to make our world less dark and lonely.
In English, the pronoun “it” is used to describe most animals, plants, and other beings, while “he,” “she,” and “they” are used for humans. This linguistic pattern implies that humans are superior to and have mastery over other beings. Potawatomi and other indigenous languages use the same pronouns for humans and other beings, using what Kimmerer calls a grammar of animacy to acknowledge kinship among all beings. Kimmerer proposes ki (plural kin) as a pronoun to describe all living beings and those inanimate beings imbued with spirit, such as sacred drums and medicines.
Kimmerer acknowledges the indigenous language experts and storytellers who supported her during the writing process. She explains that many of the stories she uses in the book come from an oral, rather than written, tradition, and therefore belong to many storytellers.
The names of people are capitalized in English as a sign of respect and acknowledgment of their humanity. The names of plants and animals are rarely capitalized unless their name is taken from the name of the human that “discovered” or identified the species. This capitalization practice reflects a deeply felt assumption that humans are different from and better than other species on Earth.
Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary: “Skywoman Falling”
The second chapter is an illustrated “shared telling” of a Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe origin story. The story begins with a traditional opening in which the storytellers evoke the memory of the people who came before them and everyone who has told the story before. The current storytellers are only messengers for the story.
Skywoman falls from Skyworld into the world below. Her fall has created a hole in Skyworld, allowing light to escape. As she falls, she sees nothing but darkness beneath her. In the darkness, many eyes gaze up at her. A flock of geese flies to meet her and break her fall. The geese know they cannot hold her for long and call a council of other beings, including otters, beavers, swans, fish, and other sea creatures. A giant turtle volunteers to let Skywoman rest on his shell.
The animals realize that Skywoman needs to live on land and decide to help her. The sea creatures believe that there is mud at the bottom of the water, and the strongest of them dive down to try to collect it. When they cannot, the weakest swimmer, Muskrat, volunteers. He reappears after a long while with a small handful of mud. Turtle tells Skywoman to spread the mud on his back. As she sings and dances to thank the animals for their help, the mud begins to grow, and the whole Earth is made. Skywoman plants seeds she had taken from the Tree of Life as she fell, and the plants flourish. Together, Skywoman, the animals, and the plants form Turtle Island, our home.
Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary: “Wiingaashk”
Kimmerer imagines meeting the reader and giving them a bundle of freshly picked sweetgrass. The smell of sweetgrass is personal and familiar and would likely bring specific memories to the reader. For Kimmerer, it smells like honey, vanilla, rivers, and rich earth. Appropriately, the scientific name of the plant is Hierochloe odorata or fragrant holy grass.
The Potawatomi name for the plant, Wiingaashk, means sweet-smelling hair of Mother Earth, and points to the belief that sweetgrass was the first plant to grow on Earth. It is one of the four sacred plants for the Potawatomi and other Indigenous groups, alongside tobacco, cedar, and sage. Sweetgrass is used in Potawatomi ceremonies, as a medicine, and to make baskets. The Potawatomi consider sweetgrass both medicine and a relative.
Sweetgrass grows primarily through rhizomes, underground secondary stems that grow perpendicular to the primary stem. These rhizomes can grow several feet from the parent plant, with new sweetgrass plants budding up along the length of the rhizome. This method of propagation is much more successful than sweetgrass seeds, which are rarely viable. Because the plant relies on rhizomes, sweetgrass cannot grow across human-made obstacles like roads or parking lots.
To braid sweetgrass, tension is needed. Although it is possible to do it alone, the best way is to braid with a partner holding the end and providing tension and support. A braid of sweetgrass is given as a gift of kindness and gratitude. Kimmerer offers the book as another kind of braid, bringing together plant knowledge, Indigenous ways of knowing, and scientific data in a healing collection.
Part 1 Analysis
In the first chapter of Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer establishes The Interconnectedness of Life on Earth as the ideological framework that will guide the rest of the book. She begins by inviting readers “to remember another way of being in the world, in kinship […] with all living beings, our relatives” (10). Although many modern humans believe that they are separate from—and maybe more important than—nonhuman beings, Kimmerer’s kinship framework asks humans to see nonhuman beings as family. Kimmerer reminds her readers “that plants and animals can be our caretakers, our healers, our teachers, and our guides,” and that “there are intelligences other than our own” (10). This ideological framework is essential to the arguments that Kimmerer makes throughout the rest of the book. Framing it as a “remembering” rather than new knowledge (10), furthermore, suggests that this kinship framework is a deep truth that has been suppressed or forgotten. That suggestion foreshadows the theme of The Injustice of the American Government’s Treatment of Indigenous Americans, as the reason this knowledge has been forgotten is because of the US government’s deliberate suppression of Indigenous culture.
After introducing the ideological framework guiding her book, Kimmerer explains two linguistic choices that may surprise readers. She notes that, although “in English we would never refer to our friends and family as it” (11), plants and animals are often referred to as things rather than people. She argues that this linguistic choice “gives us permission to think about the world as our own property where we can do whatever we want” (12). Kimmerer rejects this practice, opting to follow the Indigenous “grammar of animacy” (12), which uses the same pronouns for human beings and other living beings. The choice to follow the Indigenous grammar of animacy is a linguistic reflection of the same ideological framework she establishes earlier in the chapter. Following her egalitarian ideology, Kimmerer’s linguistic choices reject species hierarchies and imply equality between human and nonhuman beings.
The final chapter of this section, “Wiingaashk,” reflects the ideological and linguistic frameworks established in the first chapter. Kimmerer’s description of sweetgrass as “both medicine and relative” (23-24) reflects her belief that human and nonhuman beings are in kinship with one another. Her use of the pronouns “she” and “her” to describe sweetgrass throughout the chapter is a reflection of her linguistic decision to use the same pronouns for human and nonhuman beings. Kimmerer’s choice of pronouns not only signals her beliefs about the relationships among living things but also shifts her readers’ relationships with the nonhuman beings she describes, as well. Calling sweetgrass “she” invites the reader to relate to the plant the way they would any human character in a book. Thus, “Wiingaashk” demonstrates the ideological and linguistic frameworks described in the first chapter of “Meeting Sweetgrass” and initiates the reader into the relationships that Kimmerer describes.
Finally, “Skywoman Falling” is a retelling of a traditional Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe origin story. The chapter demonstrates the book’s thematic interest in both the interconnectedness of life on Earth and The Importance of Storytelling in Indigenous Communities. Skywoman is completely reliant on the unique gifts and sacrifices of the animals who see her falling from Skyworld. Skywoman’s survival depends on not only the “great turtle” and the “deep divers” but also “Muskrat, the weakest diver of all” (19), who brings her mud from the bottom of the ocean. This powerful origin story suggests that humans must recognize the gifts and sacrifices of all animals and plants on Earth, not just the most beautiful and powerful. The fact that Kimmerer turns to a traditional Anishinaabe tale to drive home this point reflects her conviction that Indigenous stories and storytelling practices play an important role in building community among humans and nonhumans. Stories are a key method Indigenous communities use to pass knowledge from generation to generation. By telling the story of the Skywoman to underscore her argument about the interconnectedness of life on Earth, Kimmerer is both transmitting Indigenous knowledge in a distinctly Indigenous way and also enacting the cultural practice of storytelling that connects communities of Indigenous people across the Indigenous American diaspora.
