Animacy

In Indigenous languages, the classification of a word as referring to an animate being as opposed to an inanimate object. Nature is considered to be animate, while human-created objects such as tools or furniture are considered inanimate. 

Ecology

Derived from the Greek word oikos, for home, ecology is the study of the relations between organisms. 

Ecosystem Services

Benefits provided by an ecosystem, whether direct or indirect, such as providing food, water, habitats for animals, tourism, and recreation. Ecosystem services also include preventing erosion and carbon absorption.

Gift Economy

A gift economy is an economy based on the concepts of gifts, social bonds, and responsibilities, as opposed to money, or bartering.

Gratitude

Giving thanks for that which has been received. Gratitude may be shown toward anything, such as the earth, and not just other people. 

Indigenous

Native to a place; one who treats a place like home and tends to it for future generations. 

Nanabozho

In Indigenous belief, the first man to be created. He was tasked with walking the earth and coming to know it.

Potawatomi

Indigenous peoples descended from the Anishinaabe peoples of the Great Lakes, to which Kimmerer belongs. Potawatomi is also the name of the language of this people. 

Reciprocity

The practice of maintaining a relationship of equal exchange. 

Respect

Protecting the rights, tending to the needs of, and not taking advantage of something or someone.

Skywoman

In Indigenous belief, the first woman to fall to Earth from Skyworld, bringing with her a branch from the Tree of Life. She is responsible for creating the land, known as Turtle Island, and caring for it by planting seeds.

Sweetgrass, or Wiingaashk

A grass native to North America and one of the sacred plants in Indigenous belief. According to the legend of Skywoman, Sweetgrass was the first plant sown on the newly created earth.

Windigo

A monster of Anishinaabe legend born of a cannibalistic human. The more it eats, the hungrier it gets. 

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