People & Plants: Indigenous, Native, Invasive, & Naturalized

If we have committed to cultivating a bioregional awareness, and have decided to devote ourselves as custodians of the land we live on, there is still a glaring fact that all people committed to a bioregional approach must contend with: for most of us, we are relatively new here, and many of the people who lived here before have been displaced under shameful circumstances, their cultures uprooted in the process.

As bioregional herbalists, we must understand we are working with plants on unceded Bodwéwadmi (Potawatomi), Hoocąk (Ho-Chunk), Myaamia (Miami), Peewaareewa (Peoria), oθaakiiwaki‧hina‧ki (Sauk), Meškwahki·aša·hina (Fox), Kiikaapoi (Kickapoo), Illiniwek (Illinois), Mamaceqtaw (Menominee), (Odaawaa) Odawa, and other indigenous nations and tribes, as well as other herbs obtained nationally on Turtle Island.

The Great Lakes region was for millenia traversed, occupied, stewarded and sustained by these groups of people, especially those allied in the “Three Fires Confederacy,” which includes people from many other tribes as well. I believe it is our responsibility as herbalists to do our work in deeply understanding and feeling through the history of the U.S. violently seizing this region over the course of several centuries, and work to repair the harm done in some way.

The words above (native, invasive, naturalized) commonly refer to the status of plants as they move and migrate among geographies and communities of people.

But Robin Wall Kimmerer offers them as ways of thinking how settlers can repair the harm done and become 'naturalized' to a place they are not indigenous to.

In her incredible chapter from Braiding Sweetgrass, 'In the Footsteps of Nanabozho: Becoming Indigenous to Place' (which I will extensively quote below) Kimmerer relates the story of First Man, given the name Nanabozho, who, in Anishinaabe myth, was given the Original Instructions and tasked in becoming native to his new home. Before relating this story, she asks of the settlers of this land:

"After all these generations since Columbus, some of the wisest of Native elders still puzzle over the people who came to our shores. They look at the toll on the land and say, 'The problem with these new people is that they don't have both feet on the shore. One is still on the boat. They don't seem to know whether they're staying or not.' This same observation is heard from some contemporary scholars who see in the social pathologies and relentlessly materialist culture the fruit of homelessness, a rootless past. America has been called the home of second chances. For the sake of the peoples and the land, the urgent work of the Second Man may be to set aside the ways of the colonist and become indigenous to place. But can Americans, as a nation of immigrants, learn to live here as if we were staying? With both feet on the shore?

What happens when we truly become native to a place, when we finally make a home? Where are the stories that lead the way? If time does in fact eddy back on itself, maybe the journey of the First Man will provide footsteps to guide the journey of the Second."

– Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, p. 207

She relates the story of Nanabozho, who travels to the four directions to learn how to become native to his new home, discovering his responsibility:

• to learn the names of all the beings, so he can call them by their names and build relationship with them
• to protect all life on earth
• to seek guidance from his elder brothers and sisters: the animals and plants
• in trusting that the land teaches all that is needed to live

In asking if this is possible for settlers or 'Second Man' to follow in Nanabozho's footsteps, Kimmerer is aware of the potential danger:

"Against the backdrop of that history, an invitation to settler society to become indigenous to place feels like a free ticket to a housebreaking party. It could be read as an open invitation to take what little is left. Can settlers be trusted to follow Nanabozho, to walk so that 'each step is a greeting to Mother Earth'? Grief and fear still sit in the shadows, behind the glimmer of hope. Together, they try to hold my heart closed.

But I need to remember that the grief is the settlers' as well. They too will never walk in a tallgrass prairie where sunflowers dance with goldfinches. Their children have also lost the chance to sing at the Maple Dance. They can't drink the water either."

– Kimmerer, p. 211-212

Ultimately,

"Immigrants cannot by definition be indigenous. Indigenous is a brith-right word. No amount of time or caring changes history or substitutes for soul-deep fusion with the land. Following Nanabozho's footsteps doesn't guarantee transformation of Second Man to First. But if people do not feel 'indigenous,' can they nevertheless enter into the deep reciprocity that renews the world? Is this something that can be learned? Where are the teachers?"

– Kimmerer, p. 213

In taking this question deeper, Kimmerer recalls passing a familiar plant ally: White Man's Footstep, or what us herbalists would call 'Plantain' (Plantago major) a common and weedy plant found in disturbed soils across the United States (and very likely within at least 50 feet from your current location). While there is a native Plantain (Plantago rugelii), the more common Plantain we find is the naturalized Plantago major, of European origin.

"At first the Native people were distrustful of a plant that came with so much trouble trailing behind. But Nanabozho's people knew that all things have a purpose and that we must not interfere with its fulfillment. When it became clear that White Man's Footstep would be staying on Turtle Island, they began to learn about its gifts. In spring it makes a good pot of greens, before summer heat turns the leaves tough. The people became glad for its constant presence when they learned that the leaves, when they are rolled or chewed to a poultice, make a fine first aid for cuts, burns, and especially insect bits. every part of the plant is useful. Those tiny seeds are good medicine for digestion. The leaves can halt bleeding right away and heal wounds without infection.

This wise and generous plant, faithfully following the people, became an honored member of the plant community. It's a foreigner, an immigrant, but after five hundred years of living as a good neighbor, people forget that kind of thing."

– Kimmerer, p. 213-214

Differentiating the naturalized Plantago major from more invasive species of plants:

"Our immigrant plant teachers offer a lot of different models for how not to make themselves welcome on a new continent. Garlic mustard poisons the soil so that native species will die. Tamarisk uses up all the water. Foreign invaders like loosestrife, kudzu, and cheat grass have the colonizing habit of taking over others' homes and growing without regard to limits. But Plantain is not like that. Its strategy was to be useful, to fit into small places, to coexist with others around the dooryard, to heal wounds. Plantain is so prevalent, so well integrated, that we think of it as native. It has earned the name bestowed by botanists for plants that have become our own. Plantain is not indigenous but 'naturalized' This is the same term we use for the foreign-born when they become citizens in our country. They pledge to uphold the laws of the state. They might well uphold Nanabozho's Original Instructions, too."

– Kimmerer, p. 214

In her description of invasive species, I recall Chicago (Shikaakwa / Zhigaagoong are the indigenous names), and am reminded of hungry real estate developers gentrifying neighborhoods and displacing low-income residents. I am reminded of industrial zones that poison the neighborhoods that surround them. It reminds me that capitalism, this economic system and culture we live in, breeds invasive people and practices that are considered 'normal', but will eventually choke out the very life that nourishes us. Invasive species themselves, are a product of global capitalism. There was always the potential for invasive species causing havoc on a new ecosystem, but most environments were resilient and had enough biodiversity to manage them. Our culture, in a myriad of ways, weakens these ecosystems, leaving them vulnerable to invasive species which have a multitude of points of entry.

Concluding, Robin Wall Kimmerer suggests of us immigrants, settlers, and 'Second Man':

"Maybe the task assigned to Second Man is to unlearn the model of kudzu and follow the teachings of White Man's Footstep, to strive to become naturalized to place, to throw off the mind-set of the immigrant. Being naturalized to place means to live as if this is the land that feeds you, as if these are the streams from which you drink, that build your body and fill your spirit. To become naturalized is to know that your ancestors lie in this ground. Here you will give your gifts and meet your responsibilities. To become naturalized is to live as if your children's future matters, to take care of the land as if our lives and the lives of all our relatives depend on it. Because they do.

As time circles around on itself again, maybe White Man's Footstep is following in Nanabozho's. Perhaps Plantain will line the homeward path. We could follow. White Man's Footstep, generous and healing, grows with its leaves so close to the ground that each step is a greeting to Mother Earth."

– Kimmerer, p. 214-215

I share these passages from Kimmerer's beautiful book here because it deeply informs our practice of Bioregional Herbalism. It also provides a foundation of values and an ethical structure to guide our practice as herbalists. It is my belief that the principles outlined above are not optional. If we consider them optional, we are merely colonists playing with plants for likes on instagram. Our responsibility runs much deeper.

I highly recommend picking up a copy of Braiding Sweetgrass, the book where these passages come from, put it by your bedside, and read a few pages every night. I've read this book probably four times at this point, and I know I will continue to learn from it for many years to come.

Relating with plants no matter where they came from and how they got here

While we explored the possibility that people can be indigenous/native, invasive, or naturalized to a place in the last section, these terms are more commonly applied by botanists to plants.

Bioregional Herbalists, in their careful and tireless observation of the land in which they live, begin to learn which species are native, and which did not originate here, either invasive and naturalized. You might think that a 'true' bioregional herbalist might only work with native plants, but the best bioregional herbalists may come across a rare native medicinal species and instead of harvesting it, they sit with it as a young monk sits with a zen master. They observe everything about the plant, and everything about the environment it grows in: its neighbors, the presence or absence of moisture, the fungal connections. They are fully present. And then they take leave of the plant, thanking it for the teachings offered and leaving it be to flourish in its own way.

Having left this native plant, they come across many invasive and naturalized species, much more abundant and aggressive in their growth. They smile at the plants, despite their maligned status among naturalists, conservationists, and trail-workers, knowing that they too are native somewhere, and are valued for their medicine and ecosystem services in another place far away. These are the plants the bioregional herbalist gathers en masse, for food, and for medicine, knowing that their absence in the forest will make room for native species to grow, lightening the load on the soil and opening up breathing space for other plants (provided that the herbalist knows how to properly harvest the plant to discourage further spread and remove the plant entirely from ecosystem).

Still, the bioregional herbalist gives thanks to these plants.

Now it's Fall

The bioregional herbalist returns to visit the native plant they encountered earlier in the season. They greet the plant, and ask to collect some seed to later spread in the same or similar environment to the one in which this native plant thrives. Several years go by, and they return to the place they sowed these native seeds and discover that some have sprouted, and there is now a patch of this native plant. They continue stewarding this patch for years to come. Perhaps they will gather medicine someday, perhaps not. Regardless, they are fulfilling their responsibility as a bioregional herbalist and steward of the land.