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

Kimmerer recounts the Indigenous creation story of Skywoman. Skywoman falls from the Skyworld, bringing light with her. Caught by a flock of geese, she steps onto the back of a turtle. After many creatures try, the muskrat sacrifices himself to fetch mud from the sea floor. It is spread on the turtle’s back and the woman dances upon it, creating Turtle Island, the original land mass. Skywoman plants seeds and grows plants. Of all these flourishing plants, sweetgrass (or wiingaashk) is “the very first to grow on the earth” (8) and is one of the four sacred plants of the Potawatomi nation. It has many uses: “[I]ts value is both material and spiritual” (5). Braiding sweetgrass to make baskets can be like braiding hair, the author writes. Both are acts of reciprocity and tenderness.

As a lecturer in botany and ecology, Kimmerer teaches students how Skywoman’s gardens—known to scientists as “global ecosystems”—function. While most of her students believe humans and the environment do not mix well, she believes otherwise. She compares those raised with the story of Skywoman against those raised with the story of Eve in Eden; the latter individuals learn of how humanity was “instructed to subdue the wilderness into which she was cast” (7).