Braiding Sweetgrass: Chapter 11 Summary & Analysis

One day when Robin’s daughters are still young and living at home, one of their teachers calls to say that Robin’s daughter (it’s not stated whether Linden or Larkin) has started quietly refusing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance in class. Robin remembers her own school days and being forced to say those words, recognizing even then that “liberty and justice for all” was far from her country’s truth. She questions her daughter about this when she gets home, and the girl says that she won’t “stand there and lie” anymore. She is used to different rituals, like Robin’s father pouring out the coffee grounds, or Robin’s sunrise ceremony of gratitude.

At the school on the nearby Onondaga Nation reserve, the school week begins with the “Thanksgiving Address,” also known as the “Words That Come Before All Else”—not the American Pledge of Allegiance. All the students gather together in the atrium and the different grades take turns delivering the recitation. Today the third graders lead the ritual, which Kimmerer quotes. The first two sections involve giving thanks to each other as people and to Mother Earth, both ending with “Now our minds are one.” Kimmerer notes that the Onondaga Nation is outside of the jurisdiction of the U.S., and that the Thanksgiving Address is not a pledge or a prayer, but something more complex.

The children continue the Address, thanking the waters of the world, the fish, the plants, and the berries, each time ending with “Now our minds are one.” Kimmerer comments that the Address is primarily a statement of gratitude, but it is also a kind of “scientific inventory of the natural world.” Next the children thank the Three Sisters (corn, beans, and squash) and other food plants, the “Medicine Herbs of the world,” and the trees. Kimmerer interjects again to say that the Address takes a long time to recite, and whenever it’s delivered at gatherings with non-Native people, she always notices them fidgeting and looking impatient. She reminds the reader that the Address’s length only means that we have so very much to be thankful for.

Listening to the Thanksgiving Address makes one feel wealthy, Kimmerer says, and expressing gratitude for the earth’s plenty is actually a radical idea in a consumer-driven society. Capitalism thrives on the idea of scarcity, that people always need to be buying and consuming more to achieve satisfaction, so being grateful for what one has and not asking for more goes against such an idea. “Gratitude cultivates an ethic of fullness, but the economy needs emptiness,” she writes.

The Address continues, thanking the animals, the birds, and the Four Winds. A clan mother and teacher at the Onondaga Nation School has told Kimmerer that the Thanksgiving Address is also a reminder that human beings are not at the center of the universe, but are instead just another part of a larger whole. Kimmerer again remembers her own childhood reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, which asks for loyalty to a flag rather than to the land itself. She wonders what it would be like to declare a pledge of “interdependence” to the “democracy of species.” She feels that the Thanksgiving Address is an important aspect of such a culture of gratitude.

Kimmerer explains how the Address has also helped the Haudenosaunee people in diplomacy. By listing all of the things that we can all give thanks to and ending each section with “now our minds are one,” the Address breaks down the divisions between people and helps them to see the bigger picture. Among the Haudenosaunee, decisions are not made by a majority vote, but only “when our minds are one.” Kimmerer wonders what would happen if more contemporary leaders tried giving thanks and finding common ground before negotiating or arguing.

Interspersed with more sections of the Address giving thanks for the sun, moon, stars, and the Creator, or Great Spirit, Kimmerer points out another consequence of the Address—the “roll call of gifts” makes us question the state of the world as it is now, and if the different parts of the world are functioning as they should.

Altogether, the Address acts like a “Bill of Responsibilities” (as opposed to a Bill of Rights) and a creed for a culture of gratitude. “Cultures of gratitude must also be cultures of reciprocity,” Kimmerer says, as no one member exists alone or above the rest, but each has a duty to the others. All the beings mentioned in the Address have a duty, and she wonders what gift humanity has to offer. The answer might be gratitude itself, which sets in motion cycles of reciprocity, of gifts and thanksgiving.

Kimmerer says that she was initially cautious about publishing the words of the Thanksgiving Address in her book, but an elder assured her that the Haudenosaunee want everyone to know about the Address—“If they’d understood the Thanksgiving [five hundred years ago], we wouldn’t be in this mess,” he says. The Address has indeed been published worldwide and translated into many languages, but it is not well-known in the United States itself. Kimmerer says that she means no disrespect for U.S. veterans, but she also hopes for liberty and justice for all, not just one country or even one species. She ends the chapter with the conclusion of the address and her own wish that one day the land will be thankful for humans in return.