Braiding Sweetgrass Major Figures

Robin Wall Kimmerer

Although Braiding Sweetgrass is not primarily a memoir, several individual chapters focus on the author’s upbringing, education, and professional experience. Robin Wall Kimmerer tells of childhood experiences that taught her respect and appreciation for the natural world, values she identifies with her Indigenous heritage. Later, as a college student and then as a scientist, Kimmerer says she rejected “Indigenous ways of knowing” in favor of modern scientific perspective. Braiding Sweetgrass documents her attempt to reconcile the two. 

Kimmerer also reflects on how the historical displacement of Indigenous peoples has shaped her family history. She describes her gradual rediscovery of her Potawatomi heritage and reconnection with other members of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. For Kimmerer, the values and traditions of the Potawatomi illustrate how Indigenous wisdom can inform modern attempts to protect the environment.

Skywoman

Skywoman is the central figure in several Indigenous creation stories of North America. In the version told by Kimmerer, Skywoman falls from a gap in the heavens, lands on a great turtle, and proceeds to build an island on the turtle’s back. She plants the muddy soil of the island with seeds brought from above, and the plants that grow include many that are useful to human beings, such as strawberries and tobacco. In time, “Turtle Island”—sometimes taken to mean North America, sometimes the world as a whole—becomes a haven for all kinds of creatures. Versions of the Skywoman story are told by many Indigenous peoples of the Great Lakes region, among them the Anishinaabe (with whom Kimmerer identifies) and the Haudenosaunee. 

In Braiding Sweetgrass, the story of Skywoman serves as a counterpoint to other prevailing myths about how humans can and should relate to the earth. Many people in Western societies, Kimmerer notes, have been raised on stories that suggest humans should dominate or subdue the land. Instead, she urges, humankind would do well to embrace the holistic, cooperative attitude taught by the Skywoman story. 

Nanabozho

Nanabozho is the “Original Man” of Anishinaabe lore, the first human being to walk the earth. Braiding Sweetgrass recounts several stories of Nanabozho, each showing him in a slightly different light. In one story, Nanabozho shows great wisdom and forethought by diluting the sap of maple trees so that people will not become lazily dependent on the trees’ bounty. Other stories show Nanabozho himself falling into greed and carelessness, as when he learns a new fishing technique from Heron and overfishes the waters. For Kimmerer, Nanabozho is most admirable in his open-eyed curiosity about the natural world and his willingness to learn from nonhuman life. Part trickster, part hero, he represents the full breadth of human experiences.

Father

Kimmerer’s father plays a central role in her development of an Indigenous perspective toward the natural world. In recounting summer canoe camping trips, she tells of his morning habit of offering the first pour of coffee to the local gods of the lakes and mountains. This “secondhand ritual,” originally a purely practical way of clearing grounds from the coffeepot spout, makes a strong impression on Kimmerer. It helps her to realize that one’s attitude and actions toward nature are important, even if one does not have ancestral ceremonies or an ancient language to draw upon. Broadly speaking, Braiding Sweetgrass presents Kimmerer’s father as an example of reverence toward nature through ritual. 

Mother

Kimmerer’s <Prod: link Kimmerer to char in major figures> mother appears intermittently throughout Braiding Sweetgrass. She is introduced in “An Offering,” where Kimmerer recounts her family’s summer tradition of canoe camping in the Adirondacks. On these trips, Kimmerer’s mother is the one who instructs the children to clean up the campsite and leave it better than they found it by, for instance, stacking firewood for the next campers. Together, Kimmerer’s parents represent two sides of the same underlying attitude toward the natural world—an attitude of respect and thoughtfulness. Although Kimmerer describes both parents as politically engaged and active in their local government, she identifies her mother specifically with the practical reverence of conservation.

Grandfather

Although many of Kimmerer’s relatives make brief appearances in Braiding Sweetgrass, her grandfather occupies a special place in her family history. Early in the book, Kimmerer tells of her grandfather’s boyhood experiences in Oklahoma under the disruptive “Indian policies” of the United States government. She fondly recounts his summer exploits of fishing and gathering pecans, but there is an undercurrent of grief when she tells how his family was displaced and he was forced to assimilate to settler culture. As depicted in Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer’s early adulthood is in part a journey back toward a way of life closer to that of her grandfather, a life in tune with nature and connected to the rich cultural heritage of her Indigenous ancestors.