Cattail words in two Indigenous languages encode being nursed by the plant

Evidence

As it turns out, the Mohawk word for cattail has much in common with the Potawatomi word. Their word also refers to cattails in the cradleboard, but with a twist so lovely that tears spring to my eyes. In Potawatomi, the word means “we wrap the baby in it”; in Mohawk, it means that the cattail wraps humans in her gifts, as if we were her babies. In that one word we are carried in the cradleboard of Mother Earth. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 861

Categorization

• BMF: The grammar-of-animacy kinship that extends cradleboard treatment to a plant evokes how Potawatomi grammar in ch13 already extends family kinship to the whole living world — an echoed-world moment rather than one from the fiction list.
• XREF: This is the linguistic mirror of ch13’s grammar of animacy and ch14’s being-nursed-by-the-earth — perfect for weaving the integrative theme. — connects to: Quechua ecological feeling is sensual and continuous with landscape, weather, and the dead — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education: Toward Diverse,…, 1627; Naming a plant falls far short of knowing the plant itself — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 155; Plants communicate knowledge through embodied action rather than verbal language — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 450 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Indigenous languages encoded moss distinctions that English collapses into one word #expands (0.80) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss, 423