Plants who take care of us provide models humans adopt for survival

Evidence

The parallels between the adaptations evolved by the plants and the needs of the people are indeed striking. In some Native languages the term for plants translates to “those who take care of us.” Through natural selection the cattails developed sophisticated adaptations that increase their survival in the marsh. The people were attentive students and borrowed solutions from the plants, which increased their likelihood of survival. The plants adapt, the people adopt. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 823

Categorization

• DEFINE: The plant-naming translation ‘those who take care of us’ — core of Indigenous language’s relational framing of plants.
• XREF: Hinge to all four polyad courses: plants as caregivers (Eco-Justice), observation-as-method (Soundscape), plants as place-kin (Reading the Landscape), plants as covenant partners implied in land ethics. — connects to: Domestication has mutually tamed both plants and humans — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 430; Food plants and humans shape each other’s evolution toward mutual thriving — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 431; Humans can act as guardians who return care to their plant helpers — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 528 (+7 more)
• SEED: Essay angle: the phrase ‘those who take care of us’ as a corrective to Western ‘resources’ vocabulary, and how translation itself can shift a culture’s relation to plants.

Broader Connections

• Attention to ecology is reciprocal and literally sustains both human and plant survival #corroborates (0.95) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 500
• Sweetgrass renewal after harvest signals the plant’s mutual need for people #exemplifies (0.90) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 585
• Garden food arises from human-plant partnership where each supplies what the other cannot #exemplifies (0.90) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 444
• Clearcutting a gift relationship breaks the plants’ trust that humans would protect them #complicates (0.80) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 1384
• Man is both plant and animal, joining vegetative and sensitive nature #qualifies (0.75)
• Cattail words in two Indigenous languages encode being nursed by the plant #exemplifies (0.75) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 861