Braiding Sweetgrass: Chapter 14 Summary & Analysis

Kimmerer describes a man masterfully peeling long, thin strips of wood from a log using an axe. She is attending a class taught by John Pigeon, a Potawatomi basket maker who is showing them how to make traditional black ash baskets. Many members of the Pigeon family are expert basket makers, and their creations can be found in museums as well as here, at the annual Potawatomi Gathering of Nations. John doesn’t just teach how to weave the baskets, but how to make them from scratch, starting with the living black ash tree.

Black ash trees like swampy ground, Kimmerer explains, and the traditional basket makers patiently seek the perfect tree, which should be straight and healthy. Each growth ring of the tree is affected by the year in which it forms—and here Kimmerer describes why the rings form at all—and the layers of individual rings form the strips of material for the basket.

Recognizing the trees as individuals and “nonhuman forest [people],” John takes his time examining the trees and finally decides on one that he wants to cut down. He doesn’t immediately begin sawing, however—first he has a conversation with the tree, asking its permission to be harvested. If he notices something off about his interaction with the tree, he will assume the answer is no, and he will find a different tree. If the answer is yes, he says a prayer, offers some tobacco, and then cuts down the tree.

To create the strips, or “splints,” for the basket, John pounds along the log with the back of his ax, then splits it at a ring and peels off the strip of wood, which usually contains at least one growth ring. As he peels off more and more, he reminds his students that the pile of wood splints contains the tree’s entire life, year by year. John then splits the wider strips with his pocketknife and a homemade device called a splitter. Robin tries to emulate him, but she finds that it is much harder than he makes it look. John observes his students as they work, explaining that the ash tree is a good teacher, and that humans can find balance within themselves by working to split the wood. John then shows them how to smooth the wood’s surface with a very sharp knife.

Basket-making has been the Pigeon family livelihood for a long time, and John comments on how his mother used to chastise him whenever he would slip up and ruin a splint. He says that some customers balk at the ash baskets’ high prices, but that with all the work that goes into finding the tree and making the splints even before weaving, they are priced barely above minimum wage.

Having finished shaping the splints, the students are now ready to start weaving, but first John stops them and reminds them that even the discarded wood shavings around them represent a tree’s long and full life. The tree has honored them by giving them its life, he says, so they must show it their respect and not waste any part of it. He then shows them how to sort the debris to be used as material for other baskets or for tinder. Kimmerer comments on how disconnected most modern people are from the fact that “just about everything we use is the result of another’s life.” Like the splints of ash, a regular piece of paper also represents a tree’s life, yet we easily throw away paper all the time.

Kimmerer then describes a study she did with one of her graduate students, counting and measuring black ash tree populations in different areas. Most forests had only seedlings or old, mature trees, and nothing in between. In forests that were harvested by traditional basket makers, however, the trees were diverse in age and size. Having the trees occasionally cut down opened up gaps in the foliage for new growth to flourish. The ash trees and the basket makers had formed a symbiotic relationship.

While traditional Indigenous basket making is having a revival across the country, the black ash trees themselves are now under attack from a new threat: emerald ash borer beetles. John Pigeon hands out pamphlets to the students showing a picture of the insect, which was first introduced from China and is fatal to the black ashes. He reminds the students that they have a responsibility to take care of the trees because the trees take care of them by giving their wood to make the baskets. Kimmerer then describes several Indigenous-led efforts to protect black ash populations and to plant new seedlings. “It is an honor to be the guardian of another species,” she says, and the black ash baskets are reminders of both the gifts that the land gives us and the responsibility that comes with them.

Returning to the basket-making class, John shows his students how to assemble the basket’s bottom, explaining how the crossed strips represent the balance of the four cardinal directions, forming a strong foundation to build on. Once the framework is formed, John tells his students to let their creativity flow in the weaving process. They have the responsibility to create something beautiful to honor the tree that gave its life for them, he says. Kimmerer pauses to comment that this idea could relate to writing on paper as well—she already feels a responsibility to write as a way of sharing her own gifts with the world, but now she thinks about her responsibility to the tree that formed the physical paper she’s writing on as well.

Kimmerer describes the act of weaving the basket, which requires keeping everything balanced in order to maintain its form. She sees reciprocity in the “give and take” of tension in this process. There are three rows involved in making the basket, and she compares these rows to acts of caring for and protecting the land itself. The first row is the plenty of nature, the second row is made up of humanity’s material needs, and the third row is respect and reciprocity between people and land.

Some children stop by to watch the students weaving, and John Pigeon deftly constructs some small horses for them out of the leftover ash shavings. When everyone is done with their basket, John tells them that they should sign their work and take pride in what they have created. Each basket is different, but they all come from the same tree, and they are all beautiful. At the powwow later that night, Robin notices how the dancers move together as if weaving a basket with their bodies.

Now back at her house, which contains many Pigeon baskets, Kimmerer considers what John taught her and tries to see the life in all the everyday objects around her: the tree in her tissue, the algae in her toothpaste, the metal in her lamp. She finds that she cannot find the thread of life in anything plastic, however, as it just seems too far “removed from the natural world” for her to relate to without some mental gymnastics. She recognizes that we can’t always maintain this kind of constant awareness, but says that it is important to remember our connections to all the lives around us, and the responsibility and respect that we owe them for their gift.