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2023-2024 Common Read - Braiding Sweetgrass: Putting Down Roots

"When a language dies, so much more than words are lost. Language is the dwelling place of ideas that do not exist anywhere else. It is a prism through which to see the world." p. 258

Mohawk River in autumn

Image courtesy of Wikimedia

Bank Swallows

Image courtesy of National Audubon Society

Navajo Tom Torlino pictured before and after time in the Carlisle School

Dickinson College Archives & Special Collections via Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center

Marker at the Carlisle Indian Cemetery, where American Indians, including children who died at the Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, are buried

Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, photograph by Carol M. Highsmith [reproduction number, e.g., LC-USZ62-123456]

Mohawk basket made of sweetgrass and black- and brown-ash splints.

Smithsonian Institute National Museum of the American Indian

Flowering purple loosestrife

liz west, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Keywords

Barracks: housing characterized by extreme plainness or dreary uniformity (MW)

Dioxins: a chemical (with a ring structure containing two oxygen atoms) that is formed as a result of some industrial processes. Dioxins are toxic (= poisonous) and cause harm to the environment. (OLD)

Genteel: having an aristocratic quality or flavor  (MW)

Imbued: endowed  (MW)

Melancholy: suggestive or expressive of sadness or depression of mind or spirit  (MW)

Pathogens: a specific causative agent (such as a bacterium or virus) of disease (MW)

Spartan: marked by simplicity, frugality, or avoidance of luxury and comfort  (MW)

Synonymous: having the same connotations, implications, or reference  (MW)

New York’s Mohawk tribe works to restore their culture, PBS NewsHour

Additional Resources

Return of the Mohawks

Contact

James A. Cannavino Library

3399 North Road
Poughkeepsie, NY 12601
(845) 575-3106

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