TREATY PERSPECTIVES

“I have heard the Elders say that when the terms of the treaties were deliberated the smoke from the pipe carried that agreement to the Creator binding it forever. An agreement can be written in stone, stone can be chipped away, but the smoke from the sacred pipe signified to the First Nation peoples that the treaties could not be undone” – Ernest Benedict of Akwesasne, Mohawk reserve told the Indian Claims Commission in 1992 (Miller 139).