Exchange is at the heart of indigenous cultures. For indigenous peoples, all spheres of life are interspersed by relationships of exchange: between individuals living in a community, between different communities, and between different domains of life. Whether in the exchanges of people and nature, in social life, or in the special relationships one holds with the spiritual world, one cannot take without giving. Traditional indigenous cultures living in the same region cultivated such relationships of exchange at every level of everyday life. They used to differentiate themselves culturally in order to foster exchange relationships with its neighbors. Exchange relationships were at the basis of the first federations to be conceived by indigenous peoples. The Iroquois Federation, for instance, itself an inspiration for the creation of the United States, was not solely based on a treaty of non-aggression between its five indigenous nations (Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca), but it was also informed by a great deal of deeply cultivated exchange relationships. Intertribal rituals are also important in marking such forgoing of violence, but equally serve for an array of exchange practices that drive each community ever closer to one another. Upon the arrival of European cultures in the American continent, such practices were extended to the newcomers to include them in a prosperous network of reciprocity, but the foreigners chose war instead, and it has taken a few centuries for them to realize it is by learning through such exchange practices with indigenous peoples that all cultures may again thrive on this Earth. Among the practices conceived as acts of exchange by indigenous peoples are ritual, marriage, hunting, fishing, gathering, horticulture and healing. Conceiving humanity, animal and plant species, as well as spiritual beings as involved in intricate exchange relations, indigenous cultures set the tenet of a collaborative, compassionate, loving and tender philosophy of life.