Maple

In terms of local trees missing from the traditional ogham, I think maples are the most egregious omission. They’re just so ubiquitous around me, both cultivated and in the wild. When I first moved into the house I live in now, the first tree I planted on my property was a fire maple. I positioned it in the yard so I would see it every day out the kitchen window.

My maple that I planted in my yard

I feel like maples are culturally important where I live, because they’re known for doing so many interesting things: producing sap to make maple syrup, turning brilliant colors in the fall, representing the country of Canada (which is very relevant and present for me in particular, living only a mile from the Canadian border). Many people have fond childhood memories of playing with their playful seeds that twirl and spin. And you can see that fondness in all the whimsical names people have given them: helicopters, wingnuts, whirlybirds, whirligigs, pollynoses. (They’re actually called samaras, and they’re not unique to the maple tree, but it’s definitely big piles of maple samaras, from all the maple trees in our neighborhood, that I remember playing with as a kid!)

Syrup is the most defining aspect, I think, as it is pretty unique to just maple trees. (Technically syrup can be made from other kinds of trees as well, but you don’t see it very often since it’s less suitable, takes more work, is lower quality and some trees’ sap is poisonous to humans.) Maple syrup is a very special substance. Making it is extremely simple in theory, but very hard work in practice. It takes around 40 gallons of maple sap to make a single gallon of maple syrup (!!!) but it’s completely natural; real maple syrup literally contains no ingredients other than maple sap. You just boil the sap to remove water and therefore concentrate the sugar. I say “just” kind of ironically, though—while I’ve never done it myself, my understanding is that it’s a long and finicky process.

Maple sugar was discovered—and the process for making maple syrup was invented—by eastern Native Americans, hundreds of years ago. Written accounts mentioning maple syrup date back to 1557, but it’s safe to assume that Indigenous people had already been doing it for thousands of years at that point. By the 1700s they had shared that knowledge with French explorers and European settlers were making maple syrup as well. I’d like to recommend this excellent article called the Indigenous Origins of Maple Syrup, which talks both about the syrup-making process and their beautiful cultural connection with it.

Here’s something else I found really interesting while I was learning about syrup. Have you noticed that artificial maple syrup doesn’t really exist? Sure, you can get processed syrup for your pancakes that isn’t true maple syrup, but anyone who has ever tried both can tell you that they taste almost nothing alike. It turns out that there’s nothing artificial that actually tastes like maple syrup because we have no idea how to make it! Apparently maple sap is so chemically complex that scientists haven’t been able to figure out the nuance of its molecules and reactions and what makes it taste the way it does. Sometimes it feels to me like science already knows everything about how our world works; there’s something a little awe-inspiring to realize that something as ubiquitous as maple sap is still a mystery to us. 

But I want to go back to the role of maples in Indigenous culture and folklore, because there are lots of myths relating to maple syrup. I found a few different stories about how it was originally discovered—in one, an Iroquois chief threw a tomahawk at a maple tree in the winter and the next day, found sweet sap flowing out of it; in another, a squirrel showed a Haudenosaunee boy how to get crystallized sugar out of the tree. The Haudenosaunee also call maple “the leader of the trees” because it’s the first to wake up in spring, before the snow has even melted.

My favorite myth is one that I came across over and over while I was reading about maple trees and syrup. It’s a Wabanaki story featuring a mythological hero/demigod named Glooskap. (I fell into a little bit of a rabbit hole while reading about this character; there are so many different versions of him in different stories that the main thing I was able to glean for sure is that he is very culturally important to a lot of people. But I will try my best not to speak wrong as I talk about him in the context of this particular story!) Anyway, the legend says that long ago, thick syrup flowed freely from maple trees year-round, a gift from the Creator. But because the syrup was so easy to get, over time people became complacent and lazy about it. One day, Glooskap came across a village that was falling into disrepair, because all the people were just laying under the maple trees all day, letting the syrup flow directly into their mouths. He saw this and knew that getting the syrup too easily was causing them to stop appreciating this gift and take it for granted. As punishment, he filled the trees with lake water, so they were no longer filled with syrup, but instead a diluted, watery sap that flowed only in the winter. So the people still had access to the gift of maple syrup, but they had to work hard to make it for themselves and only enjoy it during a certain time of year. (An interesting thing to note is that Glooskap is universally described as a benevolent figure, so the nuance of him “punishing” the people gives a “for their own good” sort of vibe, teaching them the value and reward of hard work.)

Japanese maples @ the Buffalo History Museum

While the iconic sugar maple and red maple are North American trees, different species of maple can be found across the Northern hemisphere. In fact, it’s one of the most common types of tree in Asia, and that’s where the largest chunk of all the different maple species can be found. It fills a different cultural niche there: it’s one of the most commonly used trees for bonsai, but no maple syrup production. While it’s not an ogham tree, there are maples in the British Isles as well, and apparently it was said that if a young child passed through the middle of a maple tree that had been split, they’d be sure to have a long life. 

Ultimately, one of the major aspects of the project will be assigning divinatory keywords for all of my chosen trees, so that’s something that’s on my mind, but it’s also not something I intend to settle on until much later in the project. (I’ll want to make sure there’s a good spread of meanings that cover the themes I want and don’t overlap; nearly all trees are strong, but in the end, I’ll have to choose one to represent the theme of strength.) But here’s some of what I think are the overarching themes of the maple. Hard work is the most important theme in play here: it was always going to be present due to the laborious nature of making maple syrup, but the Glooskap story puts it into clearer focus. Hard work pays off (with something beautiful and delicious); refusal to put in hard work cuts you off from appreciating what you have and connecting with your community. That also brings up the idea of engagement or participation. There’s value and reward in being an active part of the process. Native Americans also held ceremonies to honor the maple trees and ensure a good sap harvest, which is a way of engaging and connecting with nature and showing that her gifts aren’t being taken for granted. 

Maples also make me think of change and the idea of everything happening in its own time. The beautiful and iconic red leaves only happen in the fall; tapping sap for syrup only happens in the late winter/early spring. It’s profoundly connected with the cyclical nature of the year, and of life in general. We have to appreciate things when it’s their season, and accept it when it’s time for them to move on, trusting that they will be back when the time is right for them again. That’s something I’ve been focusing on a lot in my own practice lately.

Another aspect that falls on me as part of this project is “naming” the trees that aren’t in the traditional ogham. The ogham letters all have names (oak is “Duir”, for instance) that are rooted in old Irish. Obviously, my new names can’t be—and nor should they be, since the point is to honor American trees. It feels a little silly to mix new names and old, but I guess that’s kind of what my entire project is doing. But I’m also not sure where I should derive my names from. For maples, I do like “Acer,” which is the scientific classification for maple’s genus, because it’s short and punchy and matches the vibe of the ogham letter names. But ultimately what I would really like is to reference Native American names in a similar way to how the original ogham references Irish. I’ve had some trouble finding information about that, and I don’t want to be culturally appropriative or get something wrong. That said, “Wahta” is the word that was used in the article I shared above, which was about the Haudenosaunee people, who are the caretakers of the area of the Northeast where I live. So I’ll almost certainly end up using “Wahta” here, it feels like a really good fit.

I feel good about maples being the first tree I got to writing about for this project—and I think pines will be the next one. Those are the two trees I instinctually pointed at in my last post, when talking about what felt like the biggest gaps in the original ogham. Coincidentally, I asked my friend in New Hampshire what he felt the most common, prolific or important trees were in his area before I visited for an artist residency, and the first two he said were also pine and maple. (Actually, it’s not a coincidence at all, it’s a validation that I’m on the right track with the trees I’m choosing to focus on!) I’m really looking forward to spending a little time in New Hampshire, working with the trees there, and seeing what art ends up coming out of it!