A Dish with One Spoon: The Shared Hunting Grounds Agreement in the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Valley Region VICTOR P. LYTWYN Acton, Ont. INTRODUCTION The words dish with one spoon and other similar terms1 have been used since time immemorial by aboriginal people in the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence valley region to describe agreements concerning shared hunting grounds. The dish symbolizes a common hunting ground, while the spoon denotes that people are free to hunt within it and to eat the game and fish together. Agreements between aboriginal nations to share hunting grounds predate written records, but their antiquity is memorialized in oral traditions. Mnemonic devices such as wampum belts have also preserved the image of a shared hunting ground in beadwork patterns crafted by aboriginal record keepers over the ages. Such agreements were sometimes formalized in treaties, and after the arrival of Europeans in North America the words were translated and recorded by French, Dutch and English interpreters and secretaries who attended treaty council meetings. Throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, treaties involving the dish with one spoon were renewed between Algonquian and Iroquoian nations in a vast area around the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence valley. This paper examines the concept of the dish with one spoon as it applied to agreements or treaties between aboriginal nations in the St. Lawrence valley and Great Lakes region. It reviews agreements to share hunting grounds which have been preserved in oral traditions, wampum belts and written records. Finally, it traces the continuity of such agree­ ments over the course of at least three centuries to the present. Other terms such as bowl or kettle were sometimes used in place of dish and in some cases spoon was absent. However, the overall meaning, which conveyed the freedom of abonginal nations to hunt in neighbouring territories, remained remark­ ably consistent over the centuries. A DISH WITH ONE SPOON 211 THE DISH WITH ONE SPOON IN ORAL TRADITIONS The Haudonoshone, or Longhouse People, incorporated an image of the dish with one spoon in their oral tradition concerning the formation of the Great League of Peace, or Iroquois Confederacy, which was made up originally of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca nations. Their oral tradition states that at the time the League was formed,2 an agreement was reached by the Five Nations to share their hunting grounds in order to avoid territorial conflicts. Tekanawita, also known as the Peacemaker, said: We promise to have only one dish among us; in it will be beaver tail and no knife will be there... which means that we will all have equal share of the game roaming about in the hunting grounds and fields, and then everything will become peaceful among all of the people; and there will be no knife near our dish, which means that if a knife were there, someone might presently get cut, causing bloodshed, and this is trouble­ some, should it happen thus, and for this reason there should be no knife near our dish. [Gibson 1992:457^160] The oral history of the Ojibway nation also includes a tradition about sharing hunting grounds with neighbouring nations. According to an oral tradition recorded by William Warren, an agreement was reached to avoid warfare with the Sioux nation during the hunting season, when Ojibway and Sioux hunters ranged through a common territory. Warren explained that Efforts were made to bring about a peaceable meeting between the two camps, which at last were crowned with success, and it soon became customary, let the war rage ever so furiously during all other seasons. The pipe of peace was smoked each winter at the meeting of the two grand hostile hunting camps, and for weeks they would interchange friendly visits, and pursue the chase in one another' s vicinity, without fear of harm or molestation. [Warren 1984 (1885):267] EARLY WRITTEN RECORDS After the arrival of Europeans to the St. Lawrence River valley and Great Lakes region in the 17th century, there was a sharp increase in the fur trade which brought aboriginal nations into greater conflict over access to hunting grounds. Diplomatic initiatives brought nations together and 2 Most scholars agree that the formation of the League pre-dated the arrival of Europeans. Horatio Hale (1883:177-180) calculated that the League was formed about 1459 A.D. 212 VICTOR P. LYTWYN council meetings were held to attempt to work out agreements to share hunting grounds and thereby avoid territorial conflicts. Sometimes European observers witnessed these negotiations and recorded the treaties which resulted. For example, in 1624 Samuel de Champlain recorded several remark­ able treaty council meetings between Montagnais, Algonquin and unspecified Iroquois nations at Trois Rivieres and Quebec. Champlain, writing at Quebec, had learned that negotiations between the Iroquois, Montagnais and Algonquin nations had begun "some time ago", but had so far been unsuccessful in securing a peace treaty. Champlain also observed that peace was desired by the parties because they wanted to hunt beaver without fear of being attacked. He explained that peace would secure "safety for our savages who go in quest of beavers, but do not dare to go in certain parts where they abound, because they are afraid of their enemies, though hitherto they have always worked in those places" (Champlain 1933:73). Chrestien Le Clercq, who described the event over sixty years later, noted that "One has never seen until that time, a conference of so many different nations." His description of the feast at the conclusion of the treaty included a reference to the "kettle of peace", which may have been symbolic of the dish with one spoon (Le Clercq 1690:260). Certainly the symbolism of shared hunting grounds was apparent in Champlain's observations about the treaty: the interview they were having with one another was a friendly one, they drawing a pledge from their enemies not to injure them, nor to prevent their hunting anywhere in the country; and promising that they would conduct themselves in like manner towards the Iroquois. This was all the treaty they had for making peace. [Champlain 1933:77] However, peace among Iroquoian and Algonquian nations proved difficult to maintain after 1624. French, Dutch and later English colonial officials promoted hostilities between aboriginal nations in order to gain greater economic and political power in North America. European traders supplied firearms and encouraged their use to settle territorial disputes. Fighting instead of diplomacy came to characterize meetings between Iroquoian and Algonquian nations who were increasingly allied to French and English economic interests. In 1645, another attempt was made to put an end to warfare and establish a new peace. In July 1645, a preliminary peace treaty was negot­ iated at Trois Rivieres between the French, Huron, Algonquin, Montagnais, A DISH WITH ONE SPOON 213 Attikamegue and Mohawk3 nations. The Mohawk spokesman, Kiotseaeton, brought 17 wampum belts which he displayed on a rope suspended between two poles. One of the wampum belts may have contained a bead-work emblem depicting a single dish as evidenced from the description by Jesuit missionary Barthelemy Vimont, who wrote: "The eleventh [wampum belt] invited us to eat with them. 'Our country is well stocked with fish, venison, and with game; it is everywhere full of deer, of Elk,4 of beaver'" (JR 27:261). In September 1645, the peace treaty was ratified by the Mohawk, Huron, Attikamegue, Montagnais, Kichesipirini (the Island Algonquin), Ononchataronon (the Iroquet), and other unnamed nations. The speeches which accompanied gift-giving and feasting included one by a Mohawk leader which clearly signified shared hunting grounds. The speech was recorded as follows: "All the country that lies between us is full of Bears, of Deer, of Elk [moose], of Beaver, and of numerous other animals. For my part, I am blind; I hunt at hap-hazard; when I have killed a Beaver, I think that I have secured a great prize. But you," speaking of the Algonquins, "who are clear-sighted, you have but to throw a javelin, and the animal falls. This present invites you to hunt, we shall benefit by your skill; we shall roast the animals on the same spit, and we shall eat on one side, and you on the other." [JR 27:289-291] After the treaty was ratified, Vimont noted that one of the treaty delegates remarked: "Things are going well... we eat all together, and we have but one dish" (JR 27:303). Bruce Trigger observed that the Mohawk who negotiated the treaty were interested in obtaining rights to hunt in Algonquian territory. Trigger explained that During the previous years the Mohawk had penetrated Algonkin and Montagnais hunting territory and in the course of their negotiations with the French, they expressed keen interest in the hunting territories that lay in the no man's land between them. During the period of the truce, the Mohawk were free to trap as many furs as they wished in this area. It also may be that ritual kinship acquired through the truce gave the Mohawk the right to hunt in Algonkin territory. [Trigger 1987:653] 3 The records describe them as Iroquois, but contextual evidence indicates that they were Mohawk (see, for example, JR 28:275). 4 The term elk, or elan, was commonly used to describe the North American moose. See, for example, the drawing of a moose depicted as an "elan in the collection known as the Codex Canadiensis (Nicolas 1974:36). 2)4 VICTOR P. LYTWYN The importance of obtaining hunting rights for the Mohawk is confirmed by events immediately following the 1645 treaty.