I’m thinking that they might not be picking right.Some people, they’re in a hurry and they pull up the whole plant. Eventhe roots come up. That’s not the way I was taught.”
She sees how something works and connects it back with her traditional ways. This causes her to make up a question regarding the way sweetgrass is harvested
This tells other pickers that I’vebeen here,” she says, “so that they know not to take any more
Traditional system held in order to respectfully harvest
mishkos kenomagwen
Def
“Your experiment seems to demonstrate a significant effect,” said thedean. “But how do you explain it? Are you implying that the grass thatwas unharvested had its feelings hurt by being ignored? What is themechanism responsible for this?”
Despite having provided evidence for why it would be better to harvest sweetgrass, the dean seems to mock Laurie's data. Could part of the reason be that these traditional ways are neglected on a scientific stand point?
laws are the productof hard experience, of past mistakes
Our elders taught that the relationship between plants and humansmust be one of balance
Def The idea of balance is important. Reminds me of the way we must live now. We are harming our earth by taking too much resources from it.
Ancestors
Even though traditional values and facts could be linear with facts in a scientific aspect, why are they disregarded?
Wiingaashk
Although at first, Laurie had struggled and was faced with doubt regarding her traditional values, could another factor behind her doubt been affected by her gender? Would have the committee believed her if she was a man doing the experiment. For example, she was still doubted even when presenting her evidence but would her data been accepted then if she was male?
The basket makers had given us the pre-requisites of the scientific method: observation, pattern, and a testablehypothesis
If we allow traditions to die,relationships to fade, the land will suffer.
Sweetgrass thrives where it is used and disap-pears elsewhere.
Further examples to convince her point
Many grasses undergo a physiological change known as compen-satory growth in which the plant compensates for loss of foliage byquickly growing more. It seems counterintuitive, but when a herd ofbuffalo grazes down a sward of fresh grass, it actually grows faster inresponse. This helps the plant recover, but also invites the buffalo backfor dinner later in the season. It’s even been discovered that there is anenzyme in the saliva of grazing buffalo that actually stimulates grassgrowth. To say nothing of the fertilizer produced by a passing herd.Grass gives to buffalo and buffalo give to grass.The system is well balanced, but only if the herd uses the grassrespectfully. Free-range buffalo graze and move on, not returning tothe same place for many months. Thus they obey the rule of not takingmore than half, of not overgrazing. Why shouldn’t it also be true forpeople and sweetgrass? We are no more than the buffalo and no less,governed by the same natural laws.
Def The author goes into detail of examples of where in the real world harvesting grass but respectfully leads to a more flourished patch
When we mow themthey multiply
Using a real life example as evidence to her findings.
But she had one thing skepticalscientists value most: data
Data is key to an arguement
They had been taught that harvesting causes decline. And yetthe grasses themselves unequivocally argued the opposite point
Reminds me of the "Contrary to what you have learned in class" from the reading we were assigned.
The surprise was that the failing plots were not the harvested ones,as predicted, but the unharvested controls
Their hypothesis was concluded
“I honor that traditional relationship, but Icouldn’t ever do it as part of an experiment
like swimming upstream in cold, cold water
simile
Couple that with the unblinking assump-tion that science has cornered the market on truth and there’s not muchroom for discussion
Part of the reason that facts coming from indigenous cultures are shot down are due to the fact that outsiders believe in science rather than anything else
They’ve been so con-ditioned to be skeptical of even the hardest of hard data that bend-ing their minds toward theories that are verified without the expectedgraphs or equations is tough
Outsiders disconnect from indigenous culture cause them to be skeptical of information and facts connected with indigenous cultures
If we use a plantrespectfully, it will flourish. If we ignore it, it will go away
Together we designed experiments to compare the effects of thetwo harvesting methods the basket makers had explained.
Def. Further expanding on the idea/purpose of this article.
n many places, sweetgrass is disappearing from its historic locales, sothe basket makers had a request for the botanists: to see if the differentways of harvesting might be the cause of sweetgrass’s leaving
Main idea of this article. Seeing what happens when grass is picked out a right way.
‘If we use a plantrespectfully it will stay with us and flourish. If we ignore it, it will goaway. If you don’t give it respect it will leave us.’
The scent flickers on the breeze, you sniff like a dog on a scent,and then it’s gone, replaced by the boggy tang of wet ground. And thenit’s back, the sweet vanilla fragrance, beckoning.
The longing for something. You can have something enjoyable and then it disappears but it reappears again.