Film screening and Q & A with film director Candace Maracle. Special thanks to the Library for sponsoring the event.

The Grandfather of All Treaties or the Two Row Wampum, is considered the most important diplomatic instrument in First Nation’s history. Wampum belts often accompanied written treaties between two nations and were created in the spirit of friendship. The Two Row Wampum consists of two rows of purple beads separated by three rows of white. The white symbolizes the river of life or the land that we all now share. The two purple rows symbolize the Haudenosaunee and the Europeans traveling side by side, never interfering with each other’s journey. Subsequent agreements are predicated upon this one. Each nation recognized the other’s sovereignty and ecological stewardship was central to that co-existence. This documentary examines those central tenets and the Indigenous mobilization that is happening across North America as a response to not honouring this agreement and the power of the people to affect real change in the world.