It offers a new perspective and renewed hope. Knowing that climate change has become one of the foremost concerns for younger generations, this adaptation speaks to those discouraged by the acceleration of the climate crisis and the inaction of those empowered to curb it. Monique Gray Smith adapted this pivotal text for younger readers in Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults. The people work to replenish the sweetgrass populations, and in return the plant offers itself up as a gift to its respectful harvesters.'In 2013, Indigenous botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer released the bestselling Braiding Sweetgrass, a blend of scientific study and memoir that proposed complementing Western ecological ideas with Indigenous ideologies and practices. Here sweetgrass becomes a symbol of Indigenous culture itself, while also still representing the reciprocity between land and people that is such a central aspect of that culture. As Robin and her Indigenous neighbors work patiently at planting new shoots of sweetgrass on ancestral Mohawk lands, she likens this activity to recovering the cultural roots that were stolen from so many of their ancestors at places like the Carlisle Indian School. “Putting Down Roots” then describes how sweetgrass is best grown not from seed but by replanting shoots. This suggests that sweetgrass has come to rely on humans as well, adapting to a relationship of give-and-take with the Indigenous harvesters. Despite the initial skepticism and scorn of her advisers, Laurie discovers that harvesting sweetgrass in the traditional way-by taking only half-causes the population to increase, while not harvesting at all caused a decrease in the sweetgrass.

In “ Mishkos Kenomagwen: The Teachings of Grass,” she helps her graduate student Laurie study how harvesting sweetgrass affects the species’ population. Kimmerer then builds on this idea, emphasizing aspects of sweetgrass that represent reciprocity between people and land.

Kimmerer introduces the plant by describing it as “the sweet-smelling hair of Mother Earth,” one of the first plants to sprout from the body of Skywoman’s daughter, so that picking and braiding sweetgrass becomes an act of intimacy with the land itself, like braiding one’s mother’s hair. Sweetgrass’s scientific name is Hierochloe odorata, and in Potawatomi it is called wiingaashk. Sweetgrass represents a way of looking at the world as a system of reciprocity between people and land, and the mutual love and nourishment that comes from such a generous two-way relationship.

Sweetgrass braiding