Braiding Sweetgrass: Chapter 16 Summary & Analysis

In Kimmerer’s small, close community in upstate New York, there is only one gas station, which acts as a gathering place and trading post. It is almost spring, “sugaring season,” when maple syrup is harvested—and also tax season, so people at the gas station discuss both topics. Robin listens to a local man banter with his former teacher, complaining about taxes. The teacher, who is now a town official, has no patience for his griping and tells him to “show up to a damn meeting.”

The new moon at this time of year marks the start of the Anishinaabe new year: the Maple Sugar Moon, when nature starts to awaken from the slumber of winter. Robin receives her census form at this time as well, and considers how the maple trees outnumber people in this region. She has seen a map of the country that divides the land into bioregions rather than state boundaries, and the Northeast would be “Maple Nation,” she thinks. Kimmerer considers what it would mean to be a citizen of Maple Nation: what kind of taxes would we be expected to pay? Even though the maples themselves aren’t on the census form, they have still been contributing to their community all year long, offering their wood as building materials, their shade to keep people cool, and their sap for syrup.

Robin’s parents are involved in their own local town government, so she is familiar with the work necessary to build a strong community. There are different kinds of involvement necessary to do this, including the “quiet leaders” who work behind the scenes and make sure that things get done. The Onondaga people call the maple tree the leader of the trees, Kimmerer says. She goes on to describe the maples’ natural processes as if they were civic duties: “running air and water purification service 24-7,” beautifying the region, creating soil, providing habitats for local wildlife, and more.

Economists can put a monetary value on timber or syrup, but not on these other services that the trees provide. Something as crucial as oxygen is essentially their gift to us that we take for granted, ignoring its value because it cannot be commodified. In terms of civic responsibility, the maples “do their share for us,” Kimmerer says,” but “how well do we do by them?”

Robin arrives at the “sugar house,” where the workers are making fresh maple syrup, boiling the water from the fresh sap until it’s at the perfect consistency. She watches them for a while and then asks the workers a question: “What does it mean to be a good citizen of Maple Nation?” One man describes how they use traditional methods to make the syrup, and how they take care of the trees by clearing out some new growth that would compete with the sap trees.

A second man emphasizes the fact that they make their fires with wood instead of oil or gas, thus remaining carbon neutral in their work. The wood burned to boil the syrup releases its carbon, which is then absorbed by the very trees that the syrup came from. Kimmerer thinks about carbon as a kind of currency in Maple Nation, passed cyclically through the community of trees, people, animals, and atmosphere. Robin asks her citizenship question to a third man, who thinks a while and then answers that being a good citizen means making the syrup, enjoying it, and sharing the gift with others. All of them then discuss their favorite ways to eat maple syrup, including at many community events where the gift of the syrup is shared with everyone.

Robin joins one of the workers as he goes to fetch more sap, and as they drive back he explains to her how some years are good for sap and others are bad. It’s always a gamble to rely on sugaring, he says, but still “you take what you get and be grateful for it,” because we have no control over the weather. Kimmerer then comments that our use of fossil fuels actually has affected the weather, and the seasons are noticeably different in this region than they were even 20 years before.

Driving home, Robin thinks about the American Bill of Rights, but imagines that the maples abide by a different Constitution: a “Bill of Responsibilities.” At home, she looks up the citizenship oaths of several different nations. If she had to swear an oath to a nation, she thinks, she would swear allegiance to Maple Nation, with its laws of “reciprocity, of regeneration, of mutual flourishing.” As in other citizenship oaths, she would swear to protect them, as they are in great danger from climate change at this very moment. Rising temperatures will soon make New England inhospitable to maples, driving them further north like climate refugees. She tries to imagine her home without the maples and feels heartbroken.

The cost of our tax-free gasoline is the survival of the maples, Kimmerer writes, and she would happily pay a tax to protect them. We might deserve the governments that we have created, but other beings do not—and they still suffer the consequences of our policies. Kimmerer closes the chapter by asking the reader to abide by the “Maple Nation Bill of Responsibilities,” to “show up at the damn meeting,” and to actively work to protect the trees.