Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

The story of the “three sisters”—squash, corn, and beans—is told from each plant’s individual perspective. Plants, the author says, tell their stories “not by what they say, but by what they do” (128). When planted in May, corn is the first to emerge from the soil, followed by the bean, and finally the squash. While the corn grows tall, the beans grow along the ground until, when the corn has grown to a certain height, they wrap their shoots around the corn stems. Meanwhile, the squash begins to spread away from the other two sisters. Its leaves grow broad, and “they shelter the soil at the base of the corn and beans, keeping moisture in, and other plants out” (131). Finally, the beans convert nitrogen into a form that is usable to the other two plants.

Indigenous people name this gardening style the Three Sisters, retelling their stories as though the plants are three female siblings who help people through a long, harsh winter. Grown together, the three plants are “a blueprint for the world, a map of balance and harmony” (131). When harvested, such gardens produce more than if the plants were grown individually. As above ground, they similarly cooperate below ground. To teach her class about this cooperative behavior, the author has them grow their own garden.

The Three Sisters complement each other in the garden and “on the kitchen table” (137). They form a “nutritional triad that can sustain a people” (137). Similarly, they provide “a new metaphor for an emerging relationship between indigenous knowledge and Western science” (139).

John Pigeon teaches the author and others in a class how to strip bark from a tree to make baskets. The basket weaving process begins by finding the right black ash tree to cut down; before chopping down a tree, the tree “is asked permission for harvest” (144). Next, the bark is stripped, the freshest layers of wood are removed, and these strips are split into their component layers.

John teaches the author how to use a knife to slice down these strips even further. Before they move to the actual weaving, he pauses the class and asks his pupils to consider the waste and how to honor it correctly. The author recalls a study she conducted into the declining numbers of black ash trees; the basket makers are worried that “overharvesting might be to blame” (148). Instead, the declining numbers of basket makers means that less space in the forest is being opened up: “Black ash and basket makers are partners in a symbiosis between harvesters and harvested” (149).

John teaches the students how to start the basket but says that “no one can tell you what to create” (152). He leaves the students to improvise. The author begins to weave, drawing parallels between the three rows of the basket and the three disciplines needed to understand the natural world: ecology, economics, and spirit.

Walking through a meadow, the author follows a woman named Lena, who collects sweetgrass until “she has gathered a thick sheaf of shining stems” (157). She is careful not to take more than she needs. The author is there to investigate whether the various sweetgrass harvesting methods are harming the sweetgrass population. She struggles to conflate the traditional gift of sweetgrass with objective scientific rigor. Together with a student named Laurie, she devises an experiment to test the hypothesis that harvesting sweetgrass may increase its population. When the proposal is taken before a faculty committee, however, the professors are dubious. They believe it is a waste of time for Laurie and the author to conduct this research because it is settled science that harvesting a plant diminishes its population over time.

This condescending “verbal smackdown” (160) Laurie receives is a rite of passage for female scientists, says the author. Deploying Indigenous knowledge in scientific discourse is like “swimming upstream in cold, cold water” (160). Nevertheless, the author and Laurie continue with the experiment. For two years, Laurie measures, harvests, and evaluates the sweetgrass. During this time, she has a baby. The results show that, rather than the harvested plot, the failing populations are actually the control group, the plots which were not harvested at all. Harvesting the sweetgrass “seemed to actually stimulate growth” (162). This completely disproves the committee’s doubts. The author views this as further evidence of her belief that “[a]ll of our flourishing is mutual” (166).

Laurie defends her thesis, and the scientists applaud. Laurie has combined the knowledge of her ancestors with scientific language.

On a trip to go sugaring, the author visits her hometown’s sole gas station, nicknamed the Pompey Mall. She explains that both of her parents were active in their town government, and that her father instilled in her the lesson that “[g]ood communities don’t make themselves” (169). Civic engagement, the author adds, is another act of reciprocity.

Later, the author researches “the citizenship oaths for various human nations” (173). In the United States, the oath calls on citizens to defend the nation. In Maple Nation, the author imagines, this call to arms should be against climate change. Given the current rates of change, maples might be gone from New England within 50 years; they will become climate refugees.

As the author picks through the dirt, she remembers the cautionary Indigenous tales that warn of overconsumption. Traditional peoples had “detailed protocols” about how much to take, just as hunting regulations exist today. These protocols are referred to as the Honorable Harvest.

The guidelines for the Honorable Harvest, though not written down, are as follows: know the ways of those who take care of you in order to take care of them; introduce yourself; be accountable; ask permission before taking; abide by the answer; never take first or last; take only what you need and that which is given; never take more than half; use it respectfully; give thanks; give a gift; sustain the ones who sustain you and “the earth will last forever” (183).

In the Honorable Harvest, coal is notably absent. In order for coal to be extracted, “we must inflict irreparable damage” (187). Renewable energy—wind and solar, for instance—conform to the code. In an era when overconsumption threatens the planet, the author believes that the principles of the Honorable Harvest may hold the solution.

Finding herself at a shopping mall, the author observes, “It’s not the Honorable Harvest that is the aberration though—it is this marketplace” (199).