Traditional harvesters request and receive consent from trees before cutting them.

Evidence

Traditional harvesters recognize the individuality of each tree as a person, a nonhuman forest person. Trees are not taken, but requested. Respectfully, the cutter explains his purpose and the tree is asked permission for harvest. Sometimes the answer is no. It might be a cue in the surroundings—a vireo nest in the branches, or the bark’s adamant resistance to the questioning knife—that suggests a tree is not willing, or it might be the ineffable knowing that turns him away. If consent is granted, a prayer is made and tobacco is left as a reciprocating gift. The tree is felled with great care so as not to damage it or others in the fall. Sometimes a cutter will make a bed of spruce boughs to cushion the landing of the tree. When they finish, John and his son hoist the log to their shoulders and begin the long walk home. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 504

Categorization

• XREF: The asking-permission-then-leaving-tobacco protocol is the consummate embodied model of reciprocity — core anchor concept bridging Indigenous land ethic (Eco-Justice) and legal/relational land rights. — connects to: Harvesting ritual asks a plant’s consent and aims to bond children to place — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 623; Replanting reverses the harvest and asks the land’s permission to give back — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 728
• DEFINE: Concrete instantiation of reciprocity-as-organizing-ethic: harvest begins with a conversation, consent may be refused, and tobacco is the reciprocating gift.
• ADDENDUM: Tree-as-person consent mirrors tamarisk and living-root-bridge threads in Grafting & Growth; ‘trees are not taken, but requested’ could open a paragraph on harvesting ethics.

Broader Connections

• Harvesting ritual asks a plant’s consent and aims to bond children to place #corroborates (0.85) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 623
• Replanting reverses the harvest and asks the land’s permission to give back #expands (0.78) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 728