Braiding Sweetgrass

mossy pool. In the still water, you can see your own face. The land
speaks the language of renewal.
When Tom and others arrived, the buildings were in a sad state
of disrepair. Over the years, scores of volunteers have banded
together to repair roofs and replace windows. The big kitchen once
again smells of corn soup and strawberry drink on feast days. An
arbor for dancing was built among the old apple trees, making a
place where people can gather to relearn and celebrate
Haudenosaunee culture. The goal was “Carlisle in reverse”:
Kanatsiohareke would return to the people what was taken from
them—their language, their culture, their spirituality, their identity.
The children of the lost generation could come home.
After rebuilding, the next step was to teach the language, Tom’s
anti-Carlisle motto being “Heal the Indian, Save the Language.”
Kids at Carlisle and other mission schools all over the country had
their knuckles rapped—and much worse—for speaking their native
language. Boarding school survivors did not teach their children the
language of their birth, in order to spare them hardship. And so the
language dwindled right along with the land. Only a few fluent
speakers remained, most over the age of seventy. The language
was teetering on extinction, like an endangered species with no
habitat to rear its young.
When a language dies, so much more than words are lost.
Language is the dwelling place of ideas that do not exist anywhere
else. It is a prism through which to see the world. Tom says that
even words as basic as numbers are imbued with layers of
meaning. The numbers we use to count plants in the sweetgrass
meadow also recall the Creation Story. Én:ska—one. This word
invokes the fall of Skywoman from the world above. All alone,
én:ska, she fell toward the earth. But she was not alone, for in her