Land Acknowledgement

ActOUT!’s Land Acknowledgement

We live and work on the traditional territory of the Attawandaron (Neutral), Anishinaabeg and Haudenosaunee peoples on the Haldimand Tract, the land granted in 1784 to the Six Nations that includes 10 kilometres on each side of the Grand River from its source in Dundalk to its mouth at Lake Erie. We specifically work on – Block 2 of the Haldimand Tract – land purchased from the Six Nations in 1805 by the first European community of Mennonites in present-day Kitchener-Waterloo.

We all fall under the dish with one spoon wampum.

The Dish with One Spoon Wampum between the Anishinaabe Three Fires Confederacy (Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi Nations) and Haudenosaunee Confederacy (Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora) is the most well-known inter-nation ‘one-dish alliances.’ It represents a formal peace agreement assuring mutual benefit to all parties and extends to all other indigenous nations and settlers who arrived in the area around the Great Lakes Region and along the St. Lawrence River up to the province of Quebec. This wampum covenant and other ‘one-dish treaties’ reflect the principles that were given to the Haudenosaunee by the Peacemaker in the Kaienerekowa (Great Law of Peace). The Peacemaker said that nation leaders should eat from this common dish, sharing one spoon and only taking what each one needs. No knife should be used as there should be no conflict and violence; everyone has an equal right to eat from the dish or harvest from the land’s bounty. There should always be something for others and future generations and the plate should be kept clean. Our harvest from and development of the land should be based on ethical, conscious practice as caring stewards.