How to Defeat the Windigo.
For today’s blog, I’m bringing you another book review. It’s fairly old now, coming out in 2013, so I suspect a lot of people will have already read it. However, it isn’t one I’d come across until recently, so in case other people have missed it too, I hope this gives you a sense of the book and whether or not you’d like to give it a read. This blog has gone slightly longer than I’d meant it to, so at the bottom is a TLDR!
In Braiding Sweetgrass (2013), Robin Wall Kimmerer explores ‘“indigenous ways of knowing, scientific knowledge, and the story of an Anishinabekwe scientist trying to bring them together in service to what matters most. It is an intertwining of science, spirit, and story” (p. x). Kimmerer is a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and a trained botanist, and the blending of these areas does not disappoint as she asks us to consider plants and the planet through the eyes of both, suggesting that there are types of knowledge that exist in each that the other can’t explain. The book sits in a genre of indigenous environmentalism that’s increased in recent years - though I have to admit I’ve not engaged with any other similar books, and have only read a few pieces on the topic. So, how it connects to those other texts, I don’t know, but as a way into the topic at least it’s highly readable.
Split into five sections that loosely chart the life cycle of growing and using sweetgrass, "the fragrant holy grass”, or in the language of the Potawatomi, “wiingaashk, the sweet-smelling hair of Mother Earth." (p. ix), Kimmerer’s book gave me so much more than I thought it would. I’d heard good (though vague) things about it and decided to pick it up as it’s loosely connected to my topic of the natural world. I wasn’t expecting the book to be so varied, and touch on such a vast array of topics. The mini history lessons you get on indigenous American peoples were fascinating and the way she weaves her ancestral past, into her scientific present and life as a woman, daughter, and mother, was a delight.
In section one - Planting Sweetgrass - we learn the story of the Skywoman, the Haudenosaunee creation myth, where a woman brings gifts, lands on Earth and creates the land known as Turle Island. The opening chapter brought to mind other creation myths and it’s interesting, to me at least, how often women are connected with the natural world in these stories. This opening story - each chapter tells us a new story and uses it to illustrate a larger point - sets the book up with a theme of womanhood - something that Kimmerer returns to again and again. We learn that the Skywoman worked to ensure the world would flourish after her, for her children and grandchildren. It reminded me of the phrase ‘A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit’ - something I think we have routinely forgotten. The subject of memory comes up throughout the book and in the chapter Learning the Grammar of Animacy Kimmerer uses the subject of language, specifically the Potawatomi language, and asks us to consider what is lost when a language is lost. I loved this chapter - it was full of cultural history, and the ramifications of historical acts in the present day, and drew in thoughts around the natural world and how our language allows us to think and engage with it in a way that made me consider how what language you speak can impact your approach and even your feelings - I really can’t rave about it enough.
In section two we have Tending Sweetgrass, and the chapter A Mother’s Work where we follow Kimmerer’s attempt to make a swimmable pond for her daughters, and the efforts of nature to resist her, whether that is the unstoppable algae, or the cheeky ducks that are in cahoots with it. Her efforts to build this pond, an act of love for her children, are met by other mothers existing in and around the area - frogs with their tadpoles, a bird who panics when her nest is revealed by Kimmerer cutting down bushy growth. Whilst I’ve been reading the book, in my local area, baby foxes are venturing out becoming more inquisitive and her takeaway ‘I could hardly sacrifice another mother’s children’ feels incredibly apt. When she disturbs the birds’ nest Kimmerer tells us she ‘forgot to look…[she] forgot to acknowledge that creating the home that I wanted for my children jeopardized the homemaking of other mothers whose interents were no different from mine’ (p. 92). If we all thought of the animals around us as children of parents, that want their children to survive and thrive, would we think differently about them when we engage with nature? Instead, if we were to practice gratitude to the natural world, plants, and animals we coexist with, would we connect with them on a deeper level, would we feel more responsible for their wellbeing, would they rank on a par with us? Again here, the author draws on the indigenous approach to thanksgiving, or gratitude by providing us with an account of the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address, a version of which you can read here [https://americanindian.si.edu/environment/pdf/01_02_Thanksgiving_Address.pdf], and she asks us to consider what the act of verbally giving thanks to specific parts of nature can do for us.
In the third section - Picking Sweetgrass - we move to a world of harvesting, where Robin asks us to consider ideas of reciprocity between us and the earth, the plants, the animals that we tend and protect. Does our garden love us, she asks? Does the exchange of time and effort on our part for fruit and veg on the part of the plant mean that a relationship is built? If we were to think of the natural world as something that loves us in return, would that change our relationship with it? One of her student’s responses ‘you wouldn’t harm what gives you love’ (p. 124) feels apt. The act of reciprocity can exist both between us and our land, but between the plants themselves, and her description of the Three Sisters (sweetcorn, peas, and pumpkins) growing together and helping each other felt particularly well timed for me, having planted beans next to my sweetcorn just that morning). Alas in that particular area of the garden I’ve had to forgo the pumpkins, but it’s one I’ve tried before, and will do again one day. The chapter and my gardening activities inspired a fun ten-minute speedy ink and wash (below). In this section we also get another look at the act of mapling, and how it might be impacted by climate change - will we have to ‘imagine New England without maples…a brown fall instead of hills afire. Sugar houses boarded up. No more fragrant clouds of steam. Would we even recognise our homes?’ (p. 173). It made me wonder about my own landscape - what plants will be lost in South East England, what will we have to live without as pests and diseases arrive with the changing climate, what animals will disappear? Finally, in one more plea for gratitude and reciprocity, we are asked to consider the ‘honorable harvest’ - yet another lesson I think we could all learn. I must confess I couldn’t always see the steps you would take, but I think the basic concepts of (i) don’t take the first or last plant you see (ii) never take more than half (iii) take only what you need and use everything you take (p. 183) would be a good one for people to take on board - particularly in a culture that so frequently discards food.
A speedy watercolour Three Sisters
Section four is a biggy, and felt like a bit of a slog, and I’m not entirely sure why. I think it might be because it was so long, and the lessons we’re learning begin to become a little repetitive. However, there were still parts that jumped out to me with plenty of sticky notes to be found. Ideas of ‘looking to nature for models of design’ (p. 210), and considering the physical acts of damage we do to the earth as it is ‘torn open for oil’ (p. 211) are reflective, if fleeting moments. Recounting a conversation in the story of Nanabozho, we are told ‘All powers have two sides, the power to create and the power to destroy. We must recognize them both, but invest our gifts on the side of creation.’ We, as humans, have a vast amount of power to impact the Earth as is clear in climate change modelling. The Earth, however, has just as much power and through climate change disasters that kill us and other creatures, and reshape the physical environment, she is warning us. Kimmerer asks us to become indigenous of place in a local sense, but arguably the lesson can be applied globally - without that the continued destruction of the environment will continue, in the ever increasing pursuit of profit, capitalism - the yield! ‘The biologist Paul Ehrlich called ecology “the subversive science” for its power to reconsider the place of humans in the natural world’ (p. 218) and perhaps ultimately, that is what we need - more people to have a basic understanding of ecology, life, and the planet in order to understand what we need to protect. We could add new ecology lessons in the curriculum, and require an ecology GCSE, higher education could demand every student study an ecology module in their degree, but those policy questions are far outside the realms of this blog. There is a much quicker way to start understanding the natural world, regardless of where you are in your educational life. Research tells us that the ‘smell of humus exerts a physiological effect on humans’, and breathing in the smell of the Earth stimulates the release of oxytocin - the ‘love hormone’ (p. 236). Simply spending time in your garden, or a local green space, can start to help us bond with the natural world around us. You can start to cultivate a plot, growing plants indoors or outside - and the act of getting the earth under your fingernails and seeing a plant grow and provide for you starts the act of reconnection that so many of us need - ‘a place becomes a home when it sustains you, when it feeds you in body as well as spirit’ (p. 259), and for that, plants must return. We live in harsh times, and ‘when conditions are harsh and life is tenuous, it takes a team sworn to reciprocity to keep life going forward’ (p. 272) and that is what the planet needs, right now.
In the final section, Burning Sweetgrass, we are introduced to the concept of the Windigo, a beast who thinks only of itself, whose selfishness and greed means that it can never be satisfied. This beast stalks us all and can strike out through self-destructive practices, and a greed driven in large by a capitalism that never sleeps, constantly feeding us the idea that we need more, tricking ‘us into believing that belongings will fill our hunger’ (p. 308), creating a ‘proposition of scarcity’ that keeps us wanting, needing more (p. 376). The idea that we must strive for limitless economic and productive growth on a limited planet is, we are told, ‘Windigo thinking’ (p. 309). It is not all doom and gloom, however, as Robin tells us that ‘despair is paralysis. It robs us of agency. It blinds us to out own power and the power of the earth’ (p. 328). How do we counter it then? ‘Restoration is a powerful antidote to despair’ (p. 328), restoration of the earth and our relationship with it. Being responsible for the land, and everyone that lives within it. To stop doing bad things, and to make amends, ‘these are the antidotes to despair’ (p. 339). Ultimately, she asks us all to try to defeat the Windigo, by practicing that reciprocity and gratitude that has run as a theme throughout the book - ‘Gratitude for all the earth has given us lends us courage to turn and face the Windigo that stalks us, to refuse to participate in an economy that destroys the beloved earth to line the pockets of the greedy, to demand an economy that is aligned with life, not stacked against it. It’s easier to write that, harder to do’ (p. 377).
TLDR: A key takeaway is the sense of connectivity that exists between all forms of life, and across time - the past, present, and future are all interconnected and the actions we take now entirely impact the future of life. Reciprocity and living with gratitude for the natural world is how we will repair our damaged relationship with it. Kimmerer asks us to look to plants and animals, the natural world as our teachers, rather than our objects to study, reminding us that they work together to protect each other from attack, and they ‘know how to make food and medicine from light and water, and then they give it away’, (p. 10). We’re asked to consider what our gifts, and therefore our responsibilities are as people, and Robin suggests that at least one of these is language - ‘I’ve come to think of writing as an act of reciprocity with the living land’ (p. 347). Perhaps that is what this blog post is - reciprocity both with the author herself, but also with the land, allowing me to consider how I think about my relationship with the land, and how I can improve it, and asking anyone that reads this to consider the same thing?
My view: I would recommend. There were large parts of the book that I absolutely loved. That said, there were parts that left me uncomfortable - an offhand reference to suicide in particular jump out. Around the 250 page mark it started to feel like the book was getting a little long (there are 386 pages in total) for chapters whose themes were perhaps a little repetitive. Others have taken issue with certain representations of indigenous cultures, though I’m no way qualified to talk about those. This book likely won’t feature much in my thesis, but what I did I love was that the things I’ve been thinking about both in present-day life, but also in history - the engagement with and making of green spaces by women for their own and the wellbeing of others is an idea that is replicated time and again across cultures. As is probably obvious from my research I am interested in the connection between women and the natural world, so I particularly enjoy the constant returning of the book to the idea of the feminine and its connection to the earth. Further, the idea of reciprocity, loving the land and being loved in return, and taking care of it is something I practice in my own garden, so spending 386 pages reading about those ideas from a culture entirely distinct to my own, even if I would have cut maybe 100 pages, was still largely an enjoyable read.
