Written By Committee Member Marcia DeJesús-Rueff

We now turn our thoughts to the Trees. The Earth has many families of Trees who have their own instructions and uses. Some provide us with shelter and shade, others with fruit, beauty, and other useful things. Many people of the world use a Tree as a symbol of peace and strength. With one mind, we greet and thank the Tree life.

Now our minds are one. - from the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address

“In the winter, when the green earth lies resting beneath a blanket of snow, this is the time for storytelling.”

Thus begins Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book Braiding Sweetgrass.* And here we are in wintertime, just at the point before spring will break forth. The nights freeze, but the sun warms the face of our Mother Earth with its light, more and more light as the days progress, bringing temperatures well above freezing during the daytime. It is now that the trees begin sending forth nourishment to their buds, nourishment that will allow these tiny buds to burst forth into the flowers and green leaves of springtime. This same nourishment is the sap that, when collected and boiled down by humans, will become maple syrup and maple sugar.

Now is the time to read and listen to the stories drawn from Indigenous Nations of the Northeast and Upper Midwest; a list of the resources I drew from is provided at the end of this essay.

It All Began with a Gift from Skywoman

There was a hole in the Sky World, and Skywoman fell through it, but just as she fell, she grabbed onto plants, hoping to break her fall. The plants couldn’t stop her, so she plunged downward spinning like a maple seed, clutching seeds and roots from the Sky World in her hands. Down, down, down she spun, towards the Water World. The Geese of the Water World realized that Sky Woman would fall to her death, so they rose together and caught Skywoman on their backs.

Turtle offered support for Skywoman. So the Geese gently placed Skywoman on Turtle’s back. The animals noticed Skywoman had roots in her hands. They thought if she had mud she could plant the roots and they might grow. So one by one they tried to dive down to retrieve mud. And one by one, they failed. Finally Muskrat was the only animal who had not yet tried to reach the mud. So brave little Muskrat made the dive, and he was gone a long, long time. The other animals became very concerned, and then his tiny body surfaced. He had died in the dive, but when the animals looked into his clenched fist, they saw he had managed to grab a handful of the mud.

Skywoman spread the mud on Turtle’s back and planted the seeds she had brought down from Sky World. One of those seeds may have been the Sugar Maple Tree seed. Immediately she got up and sang her gratitude as she danced around Turtle’s back. As she danced around and around, she thanked the Geese for catching her, Turtle for supporting her, the animals who helped her, especially Muskrat who gave his life for her. As she danced and sang, the soil and Turtle's back expanded, becoming Turtle Island, also known as North America.

Thus Turtle Island was created from many gifts of kindness and cooperation and was enhanced by Skywoman’s gratitude.

The Trees Make Sweet Sap, and Humans Turn it into Maple Sugar

Throughout the summer, a tree’s roots take in water and nutrients from the earth and the leaves absorb carbon dioxide from the air. Almost magically trees transform these elements into oxygen, which is released into the air for us to breathe, and sugar which is used for the trees growth. The extra sugar is sent down through the tree and stored in its roots, where it remains throughout most of the winter. As the days get warmer and longer, however, sensors in the buds send messages to the roots that it is time to release this stored sugar back up into the branches. This energy is used to create new buds and leaves. Sap starts flowing when the nights are still freezing and the days are longer and warmer. This time comes right after the period of winter known as the Time of Hunger, when food supplies have been depleted, there are no plants or berries to gather, there is little game and few fish.

The sugar maple trees, which are plentiful throughout the upper Midwest and Northeastern areas of Turtle Island, send so much sap flowing that there is plenty to share with animals, including squirrels and humans. Many say it was the squirrels who taught people to gather the maple sap. People watched the squirrels chew on the new buds and drink from the wound in the bark. Perhaps children were the first to discover how tasty Maple icicles are! Thus, Indigenous Nations learned thousands of years ago to tap into a tree’s sap, let it freeze in a wide basket overnight, break off the ice the next morning, and expose a thicker, sweeter maple water. This could then be reduced further by boiling, often boiling it down to maple sugar instead of syrup, because the sugar could be much more easily transported, stored, and traded.

The Creator is said to have originally provided ample maple syrup for the People, direct from the trees. All they had to do was sit under the trees and lick the thick, flowing sap. But the Creator saw that the People had become lazy. They no longer worked hard, followed the original teachings, or tended to their children. They took for granted the gifts of the Creator. Therefore, the Creator diluted the maple sap.

Now the People must work hard to gather it into baskets and buckets and then boil it down into sugar. It requires about 40 gallons of maple sap to make one gallon of syrup and even more to boil down to sugar. To ensure that the People would no longer become lazy, they had to participate in creating this gift from the trees. Making maple syrup is not just about extraction and boiling sap down to sugar, however. It is about humans becoming a part of the process of creation through their labor. As Kimmerer explains: “…one half of the truth is that the earth endows us with great gifts, the other half is that the gift is not enough. The responsibility does not lie with the maples alone. The other half belongs to us; we participate in its transformation. It is our work, and our gratitude, that distills the sweetness.”

Because storing maple syrup was more difficult than storing maple sugar, historically any syrup made was eaten soon after the harvest. Most of the sap was instead used to make maple sugar. This sugar could then be stored in boxes or tightly woven baskets, and then used to season and preserve food. It was also used in medicines to make them more palatable.

Indigenous Nations shared the gift of maple sugar with the European settlers, who at first found it very difficult to follow the complex process. Over time, however, these European settlers “improved” this process by using metal taps and buckets and later plastic tubing to extract the sap. These new tools made the maple sugaring process more efficient, allowing the European settlers to extract much more sap and make much more syrup and sugar than they needed, which they then used for trade.

One of the main ways Indigenous sugar making differed from European systems was that traditionally, Native American women led the maple sugaring operation. Women ran the sugarbushes, made and repaired the baskets, and boiled the sap. This was not the case among the European settlers. Instead this more heavily patriarchal culture relied on men to extract and boil down the sap. Maple sugar became one more element of their economic system, a system already built upon the pillars of supply and demand.

Gifts Must Be Shared

Maple syrup and sugar are gifts the maple trees give in abundance every spring. Among Indigenous people, gifts of abundance are meant to be shared. While Native Americans did trade maple sugar with other Indigenous Nations and with European settlers, most was utilized to fill in the food gap between the deprivation of winter and summer’s crops and for food preservation.

Additionally, maple sugar was often given as a gift during celebrations. When a family has an event they are grateful for – the birth of a child, for example – they celebrate their good fortune by giving gifts to others. Maple sugar was one of the gifts used in these celebrations. Among the Indigenous Nations, gifts of abundance are meant to be shared, not hoarded. When people have been blessed, they share. This is in stark contrast to the beliefs of the European settlers, who believed that blessings were bestowed by God upon good people. Therefore, they generally sold their excess harvest, keeping the proceeds for their own family.

What Maple Sugar Teaches Us

In our current economic system, we really have little choice but to partake of this selling and earning money – this “never enough” cultural experience. Perhaps, however, maple syrup can remind us that there is another way. We can – at least at times – step out of this system and open our eyes to an abundance freely given, meant to be freely shared.

The story of maple sugaring can help those of us who descend from European settlers come to a better understanding of the deeply held Native American beliefs concerning the humans’ role in the natural world. The differences between these two world views, as I understand them, can be summed up this way:

• Indigenous Nations believed that gifts of abundance are meant to be shared, because all of Nature is interconnected, as all life is interconnected. Humans are just one part of the natural world. Maple sugar is also one part of an enormous network, for which we must all be grateful. Once we have given thanks each day for these many gifts, we show our gratitude by caring for them and sharing them with others.

• Many European settler cultures believed that abundance proved their own worth and goodness in God’s eyes, and that, therefore, they were justified in keeping that abundance for themselves. People stand primarily as individuals, and they were created to dominate the natural world. Maple sugar is one more item to be traded, and we must thank God for bestowing his favor upon us. Once we have thanked God, we have the right to extract as much of what we’ve been given as possible, in whatever way is most efficient. God’s many gifts are given to us to exploit.

Which of these views leads to deeper happiness and contentment? While it is often easier to simply accept and follow the extraction model, many research studies over the past several decades confirm that our predominant economic and social models are not leading us to happiness and they are destroying the Earth. At the same time, those studies highlight the many ways gratitude, awe, community, and purpose do bring about happiness and contentment.

Maple sugar allows us to literally taste and see the sweetness of this world that we are a part of – the snowfall, the frozen water on top of the sweetness, the beauty of this incredible world. Even though we humans truly are just one small part of the whole, we have an important role to play in the co-creation of the gifts the earth provides and in taking care of this overwhelmingly vast and beautiful world we have been given.

Can we just step back and see it for the wonder that it is? And then may we give thanks, feeling true gratitude for being allowed to be a part of this wonder? Let us follow the guidance of the Haudenosaunee, “With one mind, we greet and nyaweh (thank) Wah-dah (Maple) the Leader of the Trees.”

NOTES:

* For most of the stories in this blog, I relied heavily on Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, Milkwood Editions, 2013 (kindle edition). For the story of the beginning of the world, Kimmerer herself cites Joanne Shenandoah and Douglas M. George’s Skywoman: Legends of the Iroquois, Clear Light Publishers, 1988.

In writing this blog, I also drew from the following resources:

Alexander Cotanik’s Sugaring in the Wbanahkik (the Land of Dawn), https://vt.audubon.org/news/sugaring-wabanahkik-land-dawn

Gabriel Petrorazio’s Onondaga Nation’s ‘Seven Buffalo Maple Syrup Co.’ taps into traditions: https://centralcurrent.org/onondaga-nations-seven-buffalo-maple-syrup-co-taps-into-traditions/

For additional resources, as well as local activities, on maple sugaring, please click here.

A Note of Gratitude: I want to extend many thanks to Trish Corcoran and Nancy Kraus for their invaluable edits!