The Office of the Treaty Commissioner (OTC) mourns the passing of kêhtê-aya Jacob Bill, at age 101. We send condolences to his family, friends, colleagues and the people of Pelican Lake First Nation, Treaty 6.

At his passing, Elder Bill was a member of the OTC’s Treaty kihtehayah Council providing advice on all research conducted by the office and giving guidance to the work of the office as a whole.

He advised the Treaty Table for the OTC in the 1990s and 2000s and contributed to the book Treaty Elders of Saskatchewan: Our Dream Is That We May One Day Be Clearly Recognized as Nations authored by Harold Cardinal and Walter Hildebrandt and based on extensive interviews with Treaty kêhtê-ayak.

Jacob Bill, who was 76 when he was interviewed for the book, was the last surviving voice of the book.

In the book, kêhtê-aya Jacob Bill talks about the Treaties as ‘kihci-asotamatowina’ or as ‘sacred undertakings,’ noting that “When one makes a sacred promise to the Creator ... such an undertaking is a grave matter, and it is to be feared in the event of a breach.”

In his final interview with OTC last year, he told interviewer Abel Charles, Grandmother’s Bay, Treaty 6A (1889) simply that “from this Treaty, all life comes from it.”

He will be greatly missed, but his knowledge and teachings on Treaty and the nêhiyawak, which he said means ‘People of the Four Directions’ will live on.