Dish with One Spoon and Our Creational Calling

Have you ever had the experience of reading something and suddenly all kinds of connections start going off in your head? I had that experience a few years ago when I first read about the Dish with One Spoon Wampum, the covenant that held together the Indigenous peoples of the Great Lakes before settlers appeared. This wampum seemed to echo and affirm material that I had been teaching on creation. I would like to explore the parallels and their implications briefly with you.

I had that experience a few years ago when I first read about the Dish with One Spoon Wampum.

Wampum belts have been used by Indigenous peoples since long before the colonizers came. They are made of shells, and are the closest thing to a written record of commitments and promises made between different Indigenous groups. Some say that the Dish with One Spoon wampum represents the oldest covenant made with between Indigenous peoples.

The white belt of the Dish with One Spoon wampum has a darker figure in the middle that represents the dish or bowl. Sometimes there is a symbol in the middle of the bowl that represents a beaver tail. But it is what this symbol represents that is most intriguing. The dish represents all of creation: birds, animals, plants, fish, water. Everything you need to be healthy and happy is found in the dish.¹ (You can learn more about wampum and view the Dish With One Spoon wampum here.)

This is, of course, precisely the image that we have of creation in Genesis 1.

This is, of course, precisely the image that we have of creation in Genesis 1 where the Creator God places us in the garden to till and to keep it (Genesis 2.15). In Genesis 1, after a vivid description of creational abundance, God gives all of us a gift, the image-bearers and the beasts of the earth, the birds of the air, and everything that creeps upon the earth. Everything with the breath of life, the text says, is given every green plant for food (Gen 1:29-30). Just as the dish in the wampum contains everything we need to flourish, so does the creation given to us by the Creator God.

But there are more parallels. For the Dish with One Spoon Wampum has three rules. The first is that when you eat from the bowl, you take only what you need. The second is that you leave something for everyone else, including the dish.

These themes are also seen throughout the biblical story. Again and again, the powers that oppress God’s people seek to control the food supply, taking more for rulers and leaving others in want. (The clearest example is Egypt in Genesis 47:13-26). God’s response to such control is manna in the wilderness (Exodus 16), an invitation to food without price (Isaiah 55:1), and Jesus’ provision of more food than the hungry can eat in the desert (Matthew 14:13-21; 15:32-38; Mark 6:30-44; Luke 9:10-17; John 6:1-13).

For the Dish with One Spoon Wampum has three rules.

The startling thing about these stories is captured in Exodus 16:16-18: the people gathered as much manna as each of them needed. No one had too little. No one had too much. That seems to be the message that Jesus gives too: no one should have too little; no one should have too much. (The parable of the rich fool in Luke 12:3-21 and of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31 drive this point home rather starkly.) Don’t take more than you need. Leave something for others.

But there is more to this rule in the wampum: we are also to leave something for the dish. That is, we are to leave enough for the other creatures that make up the dish: fish, animals, insects. In addition, the third rule is that we are to leave the dish clean.

No one had too little. No one had too much.

This too is paralleled in the biblical story, for there we are also called to ensure that we do not ruin creation for other creatures. Hosea 4:1-3 contains the strongest lament: creation mourns because the theft, lying, murder, and adultery of the people has caused the wild animals, birds and fish to perish. We are not to steal land, murder its owners, and lie about our intentions so that we can abuse it at our own whim. Such actions show that we have no knowledge of God.

Rather, knowledge of God is demonstrated by those who act in accordance with God’s first covenant in Genesis; the covenant with human beings, the land, and every living thing (Genesis 9:8-17). God has committed to never again destroying every living thing. It is a betrayal when God’s image-bearers do so.

Such actions show that we have no knowledge of God.

Ezekiel also contains a condemnation of those who are greedy and who destroy the land and foul the water so that no other people or creatures can eat or drink from it (Ezekiel 34:18-19). God condemns those who do not keep the dish clean.

Acknowledge that we have been given all that we need, do not take more than you need, leave something for others, including other creatures, and leave the creation clean. How do we interpret these starting parallels between pre-settler Indigenous peoples and the biblical story?

How do we interpret these starting parallels between pre-settler Indigenous peoples and the biblical story?

In Amos there is a cryptic reference to God having enacted exodus events for Egypt and for the Philistines, events that we have no record of anywhere else (see Amos 9:7). This suggests that God has a history with other peoples that we might not know about, a history that might be written not in texts but in symbols on belts. At the very least, where that history does not contradict what we find in the biblical story, we might want to acknowledge that the Creator God has been present with other peoples in ways that are not known to us.

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[1] Rick Hill in a talk on “Wampam: Language and Symbol” given at The Indigenous Visual Culture Program at Toronto’s OCAD University, reported on in Barb Nahwegahbow “Wampum holds power of earliest agreements” Windspeaker Publication 32:1.

[Image: Ella Olsson]