Braiding Sweetgrass

viewpoints. I would have admired the great sickle curve of the yellow sand spit enclosing the bay and the lace-edge waves riding ...

people and loving land. We know that loving a person has agency and power—we know it can change everything. Yet we act as if lov ...

you stand together and profess a thing before your community, it holds you accountable. Ceremonies transcend the boundaries of t ...

responsibilities to the community that has supported them. We hope it inspires them. And the checks tucked into the graduation c ...

steps in the right direction, but they lack an active, reciprocal relationship with the more-than-human world. I want to stand b ...

including humans, used to speak the same language. We could share with one another what our lives were like. But that gift is go ...

Today the natural curvaceous flow of the river has been restored. From the headland, the river looks like an etching of a gnarle ...

Putting Down Roots A summer day on the banks of the Mohawk River: Én:ska, tékeni, áhsen. Bend and pull, bend and pull. Kaié:ri, ...

up and rub the small of my aching back. The sunshine pours down around us, warming the grass and releasing its scent. Red stake ...

bent to the soil. The shiny black curls tied back with a red bandanna belong to Daniela. She pushes herself up from her knees an ...

all else was stripped away. In the 1700s, the Mohawks had to flee their homelands in the Mohawk Valley and settled at Akwesasne, ...

dams, heavy industry moved in to take advantage of the cheap electricity and easy shipping routes. Alcoa, General Motors, and Do ...

mossy pool. In the still water, you can see your own face. The land speaks the language of renewal. When Tom and others arrived, ...

womb a second life was growing. Tékeni—there were two. Skywoman gave birth to a daughter, who bore twin sons and so then there w ...

ceremonies to honor the cycle of the seasons, where “the words that come before all else” are spoken. He spoke for a long time a ...

Tom’s daughter came to join the game. She held a red velvet bag in her hands and poured its contents onto the deerskin. Diamonds ...

identity is tied to the plants the people use, so it was for the European immigrants who sought to make a home here. They brough ...

But those tender white rhizomes cannot make their way across a highway or a parking lot. When a patch of sweetgrass was lost to ...

Scientists have made a dent in understanding how to put ecosystems back together, but our experiments focus on soil pH and hydro ...

Stephen Silver Heels (Oneida), Thomas Medicine Horse (Sioux). Tom points to show me his uncle’s name. “That’s why we’re doing th ...