Braiding sweetgrass : Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants / / Robin Wall Kimmerer

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910824747403321
• Autore: Kimmerer Robin Wall
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Minneapolis, Minn., : Milkweed Editions, 2013
• ISBN: 9781571318718 (e-book); 9781571313560 (pbk.); 9781571318718 (electronic book); 9781571313560; 1571313567
• Edizione: [1st ed.]
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (x, 390 p.)
• Disciplina: 305.597
• Soggetti: Indian philosophy; Indigenous peoples - Ecology; Philosophy of nature; Human ecology - Philosophy; Nature - Effect of human beings on; Human-plant relationships; Botany - Philosophy; Potawatomi Indians; Potawatomi Indians - Social life and customs
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references (pages 387-388).
• Nota di contenuto: Planting Sweetgrass. Skywoman falling -- The council of pecans -- The gift of strawberries -- An offering -- Asters and goldenrod -- Learning the grammar of animacy -- Tending Sweetgrass. Maple sugar moon -- Witch hazel -- A mother's work -- The consolation of water lilies -- Allegiance to gratitude -- Picking Sweetgrass. Epiphany in the beans -- The three sisters -- Wisgaak Gokpenagen : a black ash basket -- Mishkos Kenomagwen : the teachings of grass -- Maple nation : a citizenship guide -- The honorable harvest -- Braiding Sweetgrass. In the footsteps of Nanabozho : becoming indigenous to place -- The sound of silverbells -- Sitting in a circle -- Burning cascade head -- ; Putting down roots -- Umbilicaria : the belly button of the world -- Old-growth children -- Witness to the rain -- Burning Sweetgrass. Windigo footprints -- The sacred and the superfund -- People of corn, people of light -- Collateral damage -- Shkitagen : People of the seventh fire -- Defeating Windigo -- Epilogue: Returning the gift.
• Sommario/riassunto: As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two ways of knowledge together. Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, a mother, and a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings - asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass - offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices. In a rich braid of reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.