Dr. Kimmerer discusses Indigenous vision of gift economy

Indigenous botanist Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of the best-seller “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge & the Teaching of Plants,” spoke collaboratively for two nonprofits – the Massachusetts Audubon Society and Wellesley College – in the Bay State.

Her latest book, “The Serviceberry: Abundance & Reciprocity in the Natural World,” is illustrated by artist John Burgoyne.

Kimmerer, a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation who was appointed a MacArther Fellow in 2022, reflects in “The Serviceberry” on the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the center of what she terms “the gift economy.” In her engaging talk “All Flourishing is Mutual,” she asked audience members to reconsider their relationship with Mother Earth, allowing them to live more responsibly.

Both her latest book and her talk began with her exuberantly describing birds calling. In “Serviceberry,” she and four kinds of birds “are both stuffing our mouths with berries and chortling with happiness. The bushes are laden with fat clusters of red, blue and wine purple in every stage of ripeness … This abundance of berries feels like a pure gift from the land. I have not earned, paid for nor labored for them.”

This book is dedicated to her “good farmer neighbors” in New York State, Paulie and Ed Drexler, who planted a western species of serviceberry (Amelanchier alnifolia, also known as Saskatoons) and not a local variety that produces small, dry, hard fruits. These berries are directly important to Indigenous People, Kimmerer noted, and support biodiversity: “A preferred browse for Deer and Moose, a vital source of early pollen for newly emerging insects and host to a suite of butterfly.”

“Human people, too, rely on those calories, especially in traditional Indigenous food practices,” she said. “Serviceberries were a critical ingredient in the making of pemmican. The dried berries, along with dried venison or bison, were pounded to a fine powder, bound with rendered fat and solidified into the original energy bars.

“Pemmican became part of the traditional trade economy, a sophisticated local and transcontinental network that distributed vital materials across ecosystems and cultures.”

The names of many plants include the root word for “gift.” James Vukelich, an Anishinaabe linguist (from the Great Lakes region), teaches that these plant gifts are “a manifestation of unconditional love that plants have for people.”

Kimmerer added, “In the Anishinaabe worldview, it’s not just fruits that are understood as gifts, rather of the sustenance that the land provides from fish to firewood. Everything that makes our lives possible.”

Our whole relationship to the natural world changes when we speak of these not as things or natural resources or commodities but as gifts, she writes.

“Receiving a gift from the land is coupled to attached responsibilities of sharing, respect, reciprocity and gratitude – of which you will be reminded,” Kimmerer emphasized. “I’m reminded that my life is contingent upon the lives of others, without whom I simply would not exist. Water is life, food is life, soil is life – and they become our lives through the paired miracles of photosynthesis and respiration. All that we need to live flows through the land … Food in our mouths is the thread that connects us in a relationship simultaneously spiritual and physical, as our bodies get fed and our spirits nourished by a sense of belonging, which is the most vital of foods.

“Many Indigenous Peoples … inherit what is known as ‘a culture of gratitude,’ where lifeways are organized around recognition and responsibility for earthly gifts, both ceremonial and pragmatic,” Kimmerer continued. “Recognizing ‘enoughness’ is a radical act in an economy that is always urging us to consume more. Data tell the story that there are ‘enough’ food calories on the planet for all 8 billion of us to be nourished. And yet people are starving. Imagine the outcome, if we each took only enough, rather than far more than our share. The wealth and security we seem to crave could be met by sharing what we have. Ecopsychologists have shown that the practice of gratitude puts brakes on hyper-consumption … Climate catastrophe and biodiversity loss are the consequences of unrestrained taking by human. Might cultivation of gratitude be part of the solution?”

Kimmerer pointed out, “If our first response to the receipt of gifts is gratitude, then our second is reciprocity: to give a gift in return. What could I give these plants in return for their generosity?” She considers a direct response, such as weeding, watering or creating more bee-friendly habitat – or perhaps indirect action, such as donating to a local land trust … or hanging laundry in the sunshine.

“Gratitude and reciprocity are the currency of a gift economy, and they have the remarkable property of multiplying with every exchange, their energy concentrating as they pass from and to hand, a truly renewable resource,” she said. “Can we imagine a human economy with a currency which emulates the flow from Mother Earth? A currency of gifts?”

The college students Kimmerer meets at her lectures tell her that today’s digital world provides new forms of the gift economy, including open-source software and Wikipedia. “Over and over, they name TikTok and YouTube videos where ‘you can learn anything because someone has made a gift of their time and experience to share with anyone who wants it,’” she said.

Throughout this powerful book, Kimmerer urges us to reconsider our fundamental relationship with Mother Earth and how we might learn how to live on it responsibly.

She recommended a website for a short optimistic video: www.plantbabyplant.com.

by Edith Tucker