This remarkable book had been mentioned to me so many times that it was about time I read it. First I listened to the audio version, read by Robin Wall Kimmerer herself, then had to buy a copy to keep. Combining poetic observation, botanical knowledge, folklore and social history, it compelled me to note down something from almost every page. It'll be difficult to do justice to this much-admired, wide-ranging exploration of our relationship to the natural world, but I'll have a go.
Robin Wall Kimmerer is a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, a tribe of the Anishinaabe people of Canada and the northern United States. She's a professor of biology as well as founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, whose mission is to bring together science and indigenous wisdom to raise awareness, protect ecosystems and create true sustainability. References to 'sustainable food' and 'nature restoration' are everywhere now - but what do those terms truly mean? Can we live and feed ourselves in sustainable ways without fundamentally shifting our perception of nature and our place in it?
The term 'ecological services', often heard in political discussions of growth and the economy, supposes that the natural world exists purely to support humanity. Indigenous wisdom holds the different view that humans are part of nature, no more important than other species or than trees, rivers or mountains. This fundamental difference, Wall Kimmerer suggests, is apparent in creation stories: the Genesis account of the expulsion from Eden is based on concepts of ownership, rights, permission and exclusion, whereas the Anishinaabe Skymother myth which begins her book emphasises co-operation, acceptance and natural generation - and, of course, femaleness.
Her explorations of language highlight differences in perception. Alarmed to realise how few fluent Potawatomi speakers are left in the world, and how much will be lost if the language dies out - its culture, myths, beliefs, traditions and practices - she sets out to learn. At first, she's exasperated by the lack of precision in nouns; rather than a noun equivalent for 'bay', for instance, the Potawatami word means 'to be a bay'. Then the realisation comes to her that this is part of the animacy of Potawatami language and world vision, with the profound difference that a tree is not objectified by the observer but seen as something with its own life, its being. Felling a tree that's seen as an animate being requires more thought and justification than if it's just an object for human use or disposal.
Central to the indigenous way of life is the 'honorable harvest'. This means taking only what's given and what's needed; being grateful; giving something in return ('reciprocity' is a term that appears often in this book); being responsible about what you take and using all of it, for example when an animal is killed for meat. 'I believe that the principles of the Honorable Harvest have great resonance in an era when over-consumption threatens every dimension of our well-being. But it can be too easy to shift the burden of responsibility to the coal company or the land developers. What about me, the one who buys what they sell, who is complicit in the dishonorable harvest?' Acknowledging her privilege in living in the country, growing her own fruit and vegetables, buying from neighbours or swapping with them, she takes herself to a shopping mall, far from her 'comfort zone' where, looking at many of the plastic items on sale, she feels no sense of their living origins and is overwhelmed by the power of the market economy. The idea of taking only what you need gets lost when 'our needs get so tangled with our wants.'
'If we are fully awake,' she writes, 'a moral question arises as we extinguish the other lives around us on behalf of our own' - (a question that surely can't occur to most consumers of animal flesh). She describes the return of salmon to inland waters to breed and the indigenous ritual of celebration, allowing four days' worth of salmon to swim upstream unhindered before catching any to eat. That way, there will always be fish: 'you never take the first, and you never take the last' is another core principle of the 'honorable harvest'. The bones of eaten fish are placed back in the river, enriching the water with minerals and demonstrating respect and gratitude. This watching and waiting for the year's marker-point is a far cry from the abysmal treatment of farmed salmon, denied their migratory instincts and kept in crowded pens.
The book is a series of essays, several focusing on particular plant species and what they have to teach us: black ash, red cedars and especially sweetgrass. Why sweetgrass? Because it holds a special place indigenous lore: 'Our stories say that of all the plants, wiingaashk, or sweetgrass, was the very first to grow on the earth. Accordingly, it is honoured as one of the sacred plants of my people.' It is used to weave baskets and, along with the other three, tobacco, sage and cedar, it provides health and medicinal benefits. Learning from plants is crucial in chapters describing Wall Kimmerer's interactions with students, including camping trips. One student is dismayed to learn that they'll pitch camp miles from medical help or the nearest Walmart: "I mean, what if you need something?" Days in the wild reveal that everything the group needs can be provided by plants: food, building materials, shelter, comfort, kindling for their fires.
A chapter near the end focuses on Windigo, the legendary monster of the Anishinaabe people: a huge, fearsome figure, a terrorising cannibal. The more it eats, the more ravenous it becomes. The metaphor is all too clear. In Donald Trump's second term as President, Windigo is louder, brasher and more wasteful of the natural world than ever before. What chance does indigenous wisdom have of standing up to the brute forces of ignorance and greed?
'The fear is that the world has been turned inside out, the dark side made to seem light. Indulgent self-interest that our people once held to be monstrous is now celebrated as success. We are asked to admire what our people viewed as unforgivable ... we have unleashed a monster.'
Can traditional wisdom save us, or have we already gone too far down the road of exploitation and neglect?
Braiding Sweetgrass is published by Penguin.
More reviews of nature writing:
Sarn Helen, by Tom Bullough, reviewed by Alison Layland
Featherhood by Charlie Gilmour, reviewed by Tina Jackson
Sightlines by Kathleen Jamie, reviewed by Sue Purkiss
The Invention of Nature: the Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, the Lost Hero of Science, by Andrea Wulf, reviewed by Linda Newbery
