One spoon signifies that all Peoples sharing the territory are expected to limit the game they take to leave enough for others, and for the continued abundance and viability of the hunting grounds into the future.
[4]: 217–218 The treaty territory includes part of the province of Ontario between the Great Lakes and extends east along the north shore of the St. Lawrence River up to the border of Quebec.
[9] However, scholars Barbara Mann and Jerry Fields tie a number of oral history stories to the dates of solar eclipses and conclude the Confederacy was formed on August 31, 1142.
The Dish With One Spoon reference in the Great Law of Peace expressly mandates conserving the game roaming about in the hunting grounds, as well as requiring its sharing.
[10]: 267–68 Further south in the current state of Georgia, in the mid 18th century, the Creeks and Cherokee agreed to a peace treaty on Dish With One Spoon terms with the small difference that it specified a dividing line between their hunting territories with some parts being dedicated to each nation.
[4]: 212 In September 1645, Wendat, Kichesipirini, Montagnais, and Mohawk negotiated another peace at Trois-Rivières to share the area for hunting,[14]: 39 and renewed it in February 1646.
At that meeting the western nations requested to be part of the Covenant Chain and to share hunting grounds in accordance with the Dish With One Spoon principle.
"[4]: 219 In 1793 Six Nations chief Joseph Brant wrote to Indian Affairs superintendent Alexander McKee explaining that the Indian Affairs Department's claim that some part of the country near Grand River belongs to the Six Nations is in error, because about a hundred years earlier there was an agreement to share the lands with other Indigenous Peoples for hunting purposes,[4]: 220 and there is a Dish With One Spoon wampum which supports his position.
[5]: 1636 In 1824, Wendat chief Tsaouenhohi told the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada that about two hundred years earlier seven nations had concluded a treaty to eat with the same spoon from the same bowl.
[4]: 221–222 Buck stated it represented the first treaty, to share hunting grounds, made between the Anishinaabe and the Six Nations many years earlier in Montréal.