The Editing Company Inc.
Toronto, Ontario
Finishing the Sweetgrass Braid: Indigenous Knowledge Transfer in Urban Indigenous Communities
Client: Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres (2021)
Project: Finishing the Sweetgrass Braid: Indigenous Knowledge Transfer in Urban Indigenous Communities by Aleksandra Bergier with Sylvia Maracle
The act of finishing the sweetgrass braid, reflected in the title of this book, speaks to the importance of returning to the Original Instructions on how to be a human being and putting them into practice. Just like sweetgrass, increasingly hiding below asphalt and striving to grow through the concrete in modern cities and towns, Indigenous knowledge too had become more and more suppressed to the point of almost being lost. This knowledge needed to be reclaimed, nurtured, and implemented to ensure its continuity in urban environments.
Finishing the Sweetgrass Braid examines how the OFIFC is taking up these responsibilities as an intra-community knowledge mover, creating necessary conditions for perpetuating socio-cultural memory and rejuvenating Indigenous identity. We explore what Indigenous knowledge is passed on and how it is passed on throughout Indigenous urban communities.
Service: TEC editors provided a substantive edit of the manuscript, working with the authors to shape the story of the sweetgrass braid. We copy edited the final draft for consistency in style and assisted in finalizing the text for design and production. When the final PDF was ready, we proofread the text for any stray errors, edited the photo and figure captions, checked the table of contents and the bibliography.
