Braiding Sweetgrass

people.
In this wet climate, where everything is on its way back to decay,
rot-resistant cedar is the ideal material. The wood is easily worked
and buoyant. The huge, straight trunks practically offer themselves
for seagoing craft that could carry twenty paddlers. And everything
that was carried in those canoes was also the gift of cedar:
paddles, fishing floats, nets, ropes, arrows, and harpoons. The
paddlers even wore hats and capes of cedar, warm and soft
against the wind and rain.
Along the creeks and bottomlands, the women sang their way
down well-worn trails to find just the right tree for each purpose.
Whatever they needed they asked for respectfully, and for
whatever they received they offered prayers and gifts in return.
Notching a wedge in the bark of a middle-aged tree, the women
could peel off a ribbon a hands-width wide and twenty-five feet
long. Harvesting bark from just a fraction of the tree’s
circumference, they ensured that the damage would heal over
without ill effect. The dried strips were then beaten to separate the
many layers, yielding inner bark with a satiny softness and a glossy
sheen. A long process of shredding bark with a deer bone yielded a
pile of fluffy cedar “wool.” Newborn babies were delivered into a
nest of this fleece. The “wool” could also be woven into warm,
durable clothing and blankets. A family sat on woven mats of outer
bark, slept on cedar beds, and ate from cedar dishes.
Every part of the tree was used. The ropy branches were split for
tools, baskets, and fish traps. Dug and cleaned, cedars’ long roots
were peeled and split into a fine, strong fiber that is woven into the
famous conical hats and ceremonial headgear that signify the
identity of the one beneath the brim. During the famously cold and
rainy winters, with a perpetual twilight of fog, who lit the house?