Scan barcode
Reviews tagging 'Colonisation'
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
94 reviews
dominic_t's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
5.0
This was a really fascinating book. The author did a great job of weaving together stories and plant teachings. The stories really made the plant teachings come alive. This book got me thinking a lot more deeply about nature and my relationship to the world.
I had heard about the Three Sisters (squash, beans, and corn), and I loved learning about why they grow so well together. The beans' vines wrap around the corn, which lifts their pods off the ground so that they don't get eaten by predators. The beans also provide nitrogen, which helps the corn and squash. The squash reduces weeds. I really hope I have enough space someday to grow a Three Sisters garden.
I also loved the chapter "Wisgaak Gokpenagen: A Black Ash Basket." The author talks about the process of weaving black ash baskets, starting from picking out a tree to cut down. It was really fascinating hearing about every step of the process.
The chapter "Sitting in a Circle" talked about foraging in a cattail marsh. It was fascinating to hear all the ways that you can use cattails and other marsh plants. I had no idea that you could eat cattails or that pollen had nutritional value.
"Mishkos Kenomagwen: The Teachings of Grass" was another great chapter. One of her students was studying the best way to harvest sweetgrass to protect the population. The faculty committee thought she was wasting her time because they thought that harvesting sweetgrass would damage the population regardless of the harvesting method. She ran an experiment where she tried out different harvest methods, and she found that harvesting sweetgrass stimulated more growth, regardless of the method of harvest. It was a cool way to see how traditional knowledge is backed up by science.
I had heard about the Three Sisters (squash, beans, and corn), and I loved learning about why they grow so well together. The beans' vines wrap around the corn, which lifts their pods off the ground so that they don't get eaten by predators. The beans also provide nitrogen, which helps the corn and squash. The squash reduces weeds. I really hope I have enough space someday to grow a Three Sisters garden.
I also loved the chapter "Wisgaak Gokpenagen: A Black Ash Basket." The author talks about the process of weaving black ash baskets, starting from picking out a tree to cut down. It was really fascinating hearing about every step of the process.
The chapter "Sitting in a Circle" talked about foraging in a cattail marsh. It was fascinating to hear all the ways that you can use cattails and other marsh plants. I had no idea that you could eat cattails or that pollen had nutritional value.
"Mishkos Kenomagwen: The Teachings of Grass" was another great chapter. One of her students was studying the best way to harvest sweetgrass to protect the population. The faculty committee thought she was wasting her time because they thought that harvesting sweetgrass would damage the population regardless of the harvesting method. She ran an experiment where she tried out different harvest methods, and she found that harvesting sweetgrass stimulated more growth, regardless of the method of harvest. It was a cool way to see how traditional knowledge is backed up by science.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation and Genocide
readingwithkaitlyn's review against another edition
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Minor: Excrement, Pregnancy, Alcohol, Misogyny, Fire/Fire injury, Animal death, Forced institutionalization, Animal cruelty, Racial slurs, Death, Colonisation, Suicide, War, Genocide, Blood, Car accident, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, and Murder
residential schools, trail of death, carlisle, pollution.novella42's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation and Forced institutionalization
Moderate: Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, and Classism
johns122's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Colonisation
thesapphiccelticbookworm's review against another edition
informative
medium-paced
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation and Genocide
salemander's review against another edition
5.0
i think this is the best book i’ve ever read, if not the best book ever written. a beautiful mix of memoir and history and knowledge. kimmerer takes you through the tragic massacres of the indigenous peoples, and the ways in which they have persevered and kept their culture and traditions alive. she talks about her own childhood and her relationship with the earth. this book taught me so much and also just reminded me how much i don’t know and still have to learn. i highly recommend listening to the audiobook as well, kimmerer narrates it herself and the pure passion in her words along with the poetry of her writing is so powerful. i can’t wait to read this over and over again
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation, Genocide, and Racism
grace_b_3's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
3.0
I really appreciated the message of this book, about humans being a part of the environment, and how we, as humans, should live in and with nature. However, the writing style wasn't for me, as I prefer drier, denser nonfiction. If you like to read poetry and memoirs, you'll probably really enjoy this, as the writing style might be more in line with your tastes.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Colonisation and Animal death
theabee's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Colonisation
bashsbooks's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
4.25
I buddy-read Braiding Sweetgrass with my dear and beloved friend @emakay... which means I've already commented on it extensively in a private setting. So I will do my best to summarize my thoughts, but apologies if this review reads a little more scattershot than some of my others.
All-in-all, Braiding Sweetgrass is a fantastic personal essay collection about nature, culture, and our interpersonal (person here including nonhumans!) connections. I can understand perfectly why it is so popular and widely recommended. My friend and I listened the audiobook, so we not only appreciated the descriptions as written, but also, Kimmerer's steady and soothing voice as she read through the text she so lovingly crafted. My favorite takeaways from Braiding Sweetgrass were: the obvious and unabashed love Kimmerer has for the natural world, her willingness to combine traditional wisdom and hard science, her gentle encouragement to consider the world from a different perspective (especially that of a plant or an animal), and her fierce love and appreciate for her Potawatomi culture and heritage. I was also deeply compelled by her rumination on how to become indigenous to place and what obligations we have to others (both human and not). What I liked less was relatively minor by comparison; I thought she was a little uncomfortably committed to gender roles as 'natural' from time to time, and I wished that she came out and actually expanded on her issues with 'technology' rather than taking vague pot-shots at it here and there. Adjacently, my friend pointed out that the anecdote about an ex's attempted suicide in his car to make a point about human disconnectedness with nature was... messy, at best. But those were small moments, and with a book as long and expansive as this one, there were bound to be hangups here and there. Overall, fantastic book, and I highly recommend listening to the audiobook.
All-in-all, Braiding Sweetgrass is a fantastic personal essay collection about nature, culture, and our interpersonal (person here including nonhumans!) connections. I can understand perfectly why it is so popular and widely recommended. My friend and I listened the audiobook, so we not only appreciated the descriptions as written, but also, Kimmerer's steady and soothing voice as she read through the text she so lovingly crafted. My favorite takeaways from Braiding Sweetgrass were: the obvious and unabashed love Kimmerer has for the natural world, her willingness to combine traditional wisdom and hard science, her gentle encouragement to consider the world from a different perspective (especially that of a plant or an animal), and her fierce love and appreciate for her Potawatomi culture and heritage. I was also deeply compelled by her rumination on how to become indigenous to place and what obligations we have to others (both human and not). What I liked less was relatively minor by comparison; I thought she was a little uncomfortably committed to gender roles as 'natural' from time to time, and I wished that she came out and actually expanded on her issues with 'technology' rather than taking vague pot-shots at it here and there. Adjacently, my friend pointed out that the anecdote about an ex's attempted suicide in his car to make a point about human disconnectedness with nature was... messy, at best. But those were small moments, and with a book as long and expansive as this one, there were bound to be hangups here and there. Overall, fantastic book, and I highly recommend listening to the audiobook.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief and Colonisation
Moderate: Animal death, Racism, Misogyny, Sexism, Violence, Genocide, and Religious bigotry
Minor: Cannibalism, Cultural appropriation, Fire/Fire injury, and Suicide attempt
Graphic descriptions of environmental disasters, pollution, and other eco-destructive activities.jennswan's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
sad
slow-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Colonisation and Animal death