Trees’ collective wisdom went unheeded in the historic land decision

Evidence

We have always known that the plants and animals have their own councils, and a common language. The trees, especially, we recognize as our teachers. But it seems no one listened that summer when the Pecans counseled: Stick together, act as one. We Pecans have learned that there is strength in unity, that the lone individual can be picked off as easily as the tree that has fruited out of season. The teachings of Pecans were not heard, or heeded. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 73

Categorization

• XREF: Kimmerer’s rhetorical move — aligning the trees’ synchronized fruiting at location 65 with the tribe’s fatal decision to go it alone as individual landowners — is the braiding method itself, joining natural history to human history.