This article is about judicial reasoning in the assessment of evidence, and more precisely about judicial reasoning with respect to gauging the weight of oral history and oral tradition evidence presented by Aboriginal peoples in cases involving Aboriginal and treaty rights claims. Their study of the cases leads the authors to observe that such evidence, once found admissible, is either given excessive or insufficient weight, or is ignored. They also conclude that judicial reasoning in the assessment of oral history and oral tradition proceeds from three different logics: (1) systematic; (2) reconciliatory; and (3) empathic. The article explains these logics and thus sheds new light on the complexity of the act of judging in cases involving rights recognized under section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982. This study shows that the evaluation of evidence in Aboriginal litigation is still substantially experimental and validates the Supreme Court's assertion that the resolution of Aboriginal claims takes the law, and thus judges, into the often unchartered waters of history, legends, politics and moral obligations.