For anyone who has spent even a small amount of time absorbing the sound, fragrance, and feathery feel of the Eastern White Pine, you have experienced what the Iroquois called the “will of the Master of Life.”  It is a fitting expression for a tree whose needles were once used to make teas that we know today contain nearly 500% more Vitamin C than lemons of equal weight; whose cambial layers (soft inner bark) were once harvested as a flour substitute; whose roots were once turned into a pine tar for adhesive and medicinal purposes; and whose resin was once used not only as a waterproofing agent, but as a base compound used in healing salves.  Yet for the Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, and Tuscarora peoples who made up the Six Nations of the Iroquois (after 1722), the Eastern White Pine also came to symbolically represent peace and unity.