A Potawatomi aboriginal Distinguished Professor of Environmental Science at the State University Of New York in Syracuse provides a very disturbing native perspective on the dire state of the modern world in this wide-ranging erudite treatise. Much emphasis is placed on the Native legends such as the pregnant Skywoman falling to earth and the evil stalker Windigo representing rapacious consumerism, and allegories that vary tremendously from tribe to tribe, but they bring valuable lessons about sustainability in relation to human interactions with the rest of nature, both living and inanimate. Trees, plants, and all living beings, even lichens, are referred to as sentient articulate people, and our equals, with intentions, struggles, and feelings.
The need to show gratitude for everything that the natural world gives to sustain us Homo sapiens by giving back what those entities need to also survive and thrive is the central theme, and how to go about that giving is illustrated by many examples, such as minimizing the roadkill of slow salamanders crossing a highway to breed. The white man’s harmful endless resource extraction and consumer culture is reviewed with derision as is their shameful past and continuing treatment of the natives and their cultures, traditions, languages and beliefs.
The writing style is catching and unique, with dozens of delightful metaphors and allegories. Perhaps the tone of the whole message is best illustrated by
“We continue to embrace economic systems that prescribe infinite growth on a finite planet, as if somehow the universe had repealed the laws of thermodynamics on our behalf.”
“Our toddlers speak of plants and animals as if they were people, extending to them self, and intention and compassion – until we teach them not to. We quickly retrain them not to and make them forget. When we tell that them a tree is not a who but an it, we make that maple an object; we put a barrier between us, absolving ourselves of moral responsibility and opening the door to exploitation.”
« …there is no substitute for standing in the rain to waken every sense—senses that are muted within four walls, where my attention would be on me instead of all that is more than me.”
I can certainly relate to the fascinating chapter on making maple syrup, having helped with that that for a few years in my teens. I think my father did care for the forest responsibly, culling only old and diseased trees to heat the house, ensuring room for the younger ones and tapping only at most two spots on even big trees. But the biochemistry, tree physiology, and physics is discussed in more detail than anything I learned from doing it, a process passed on from many generations of aboriginal people and elucidated in detail by modern scientists such as the author.
I am also familiar with the Three Sisters farming in which the aboriginals carefully timed planting of corn, beans and squash together may yield more produce than monoculture of any one of them. For the past three years, I have volunteered for a regenerative farming project, which includes the Three Sister technique, run by a retired physician. It is hard work on hands and knees but yields abundant delicious produce without use of fertilizer, herbicides, pesticides or modern equipment. Here Kimmerer suggests that it should be called the Four sisters, as humans are an integral part of the symbiosis in planting them together. And as Mother Earth is a vital component of the process as well, I think it could be called the Five Sisters technique.
In places, the narrative of aboriginal lifestyles seemed too foreign and mysterious to bridge the gap between their experiences and mine. But the message to take from nature only what you need and to give back what you can comes through loud and clear.
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Thanks, Lois.
The Passionate Reader 