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Chapter 1 opens with a description of Kimmerer picking berries from a serviceberry, a flowering fruit tree native to the Northeastern United States. She describes the many ways serviceberries have provided for locals through centuries, including:

•    Medicine
•    Sign of the changing season
•    Food for deer and moose
•    Pollen for insects
•    Homes for butterfly larvae and birds
•    Main ingredient in pemmican, a preserved food similar to an energy bar

In Potawatomi, the serviceberry is called Bozakmin, in which “min” is the root word for “berry” and also “gift.” Serviceberries are a gift indeed, Kimmerer claims, as is everything else the earth provides to sustain life. These berries, and so many other gifts, are the result of a series of exchanges of nutrients, energy, and services between members of the natural world, which are all gifts in themselves. In Indigenous cultures, these gifts are honored with a gratitude that feeds a cycle of recognition, responsibility, and reciprocity. In this way, a gift is not a static thing, but circulates through nature in order to serve everyone. Water, for example, is not simply used up, but feeds back into the ecosystem and continues to provide in multiple forms. This natural economy is a form of gift economy, in which abundance is seen as something not to be commodified and taken as private property, but to be shared among all for the good of all. Kimmerer concludes the chapter by introducing the idea that gift-giving is a natural human state, as exemplified by what Genevieve Vaughan calls the “maternal gift economy.” When a mother has a baby, she gives the gift of her milk and her time to her child, not for any sort of profit, but for the common good of both.

Read about Main Idea #1 of The Serviceberrry: Cooperation and generosity are inherent human traits.

Chapter 2 further describes the difference between a gift and a commodity. When a buyer obtains a commodity, Kimmerer states, the relationship with the seller begins and ends with the exchange of money. Gifts, on the other hand, form relationships that are ongoing, and encourage others to “pay it forward,” creating a web of relationships within a community that connect all. Because of these relationships, gifts are treated differently and have far more value. This, according to Kimmerer, is why commodifying a gift given by nature is inherently harmful and detaches one from personal responsibility to care for that gift. She gives the example of a clear, beautiful spring. When the spring’s water is treated as a gift, people will care for it and keep it clean so that the spring can keep supplying water. However, when it is treated as a commodity, it may be damaged or destroyed in an attempt to extract the most value from it by activities such as damming or overharvesting. The modern American economy, Kimmerer states, does exactly this, and we must consider how to fix it.

Read about Main Idea #4: The earth has given us the gift of abundance, and commodifying it tarnishes that gift.

Next section Chapters 3-5

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