other stick, dislodging the grain and causing it to fall into the canoe. Reversing hands, she operates in the same way on the other side of the canoe. About a gill is detached at each blow. This operation is continued until the forward end of the canoe is heavily loaded and sinks deep in the water. Then the women exchange implements and duties, but keep their respective seats, and the direction of the canoe's movement is reversed. The work is resumed and is carried on until the other end of the canoe is also loaded, when the women push it to the shore and at once begin their preparations for drying and separating the rice. It is covered at this stage with an unusually tenacious husk, and has a beard about two inches long. When bound in sheaves the rice is gathered in the same manner. Usually, however, after the twine is slipped off the seed drops into the canoe on being shaken over it."

The grain is dried in three ways. Some merely spread it on skins or blankets in the sun until it is thoroughly cured. The quickest process is that of parching a handful at a time in at kettle over the fire, but this method to some extent destroys the nutritive qualities of the grain. The common way is to build a light scaffold, called abwadjigan by the Ojibwas, about three feet from the ground. Upon it is placed a mat of basswood or cedar bark to hold the grain, and underneath a slow fire is built. Sometimes the scaffold is inclosed by a hedge or fence of green cedar branches to confine the heat and thereby quicken the drying process. The rice on the mat is turned or shaken from time to time, and it usually takes a day to dry a scaffoldful.

O. T. Mason, Origins of Invention, p. 190, says: "Wherever savages have been visited in their native simplicity, they seem to have found out just how to garner the products of the plants in the best manner : the Ojibwa woman paddles her canoe among the wild rice, and with a proper wand beats the seeds into a coarse mat spread on the bottom." Seed-gathering seems to have been conducted in much the same manner by many Indian tribes. See F. V. Coville, in Am. Anthropologist, vol. v, p. 354, on the Panamint Indians; G. B. Grinnell, Story of the Indian, p. 65, on the Mandans, Rees, and Pawnees. In On the Border with Crook, p. 131, Capt. J. G. Bourke says: "The Apache women place their conical baskets under the tops of the stalks of seed-bearing grasses, draw these down until they incline over the baskets, and then hit them a rap with a small stick, which causes all the seed to fall into the receptacle provided."

6.

For separating the husk from the kernel a hole is dug in suitable ground, about a foot and a half deep and three feet in circumference. After the grain is dry four or five quarts of it are securely wrapped in a moose or deer skin or the modern substitute, a bag, and laid in the hole. The stalwart brave" then treads on it until the husk is detached. This is considered hard work and its performance has always fallen to the man. At the present day a tub is sometimes substituted for the hole in the ground. After the husk is detached the grain is cleaned in the wind or by means of a birch-bark fan," and is then ready for storage. Properly cured, it can be kept many years if stored in a dry place. It was formerly kept in boxes made of bark." Carver says that the skins of fawns or young buffaloes were taken off nearly whole and sewed into sacks, in which the rice was stored until the next harvest.12

In preparing rice for the table the simplest method is that of boiling it in a kettle. It is always cooked unground and usually without seasoning. Cooked into a paste it is used as a substitute for bread. The broth of meat and fish is also thickened with it. It is very nourishing; an acre of wild rice being said to furnish about as much nutriment as an acre of wheat. Rev. Chrysostom Verwyst, O. S. F., of the Odanah Reservation mission, writes: "Wild rice is very palatable, and the writer and his spiritual children prefer it to the rice of commerce, although it does not look quite so nice. I am very fond of it." The Mississagua Indians parched rice until it burst like popcorn, and their hunters and fishermen used it in this form when away from home. They commonly used it in soups or stews.

Father Dablon, in the Relation of 1671, says: "The fat of the buffalo mixed with wild oats makes the most delicate dish of this country." Another mixture was a whole partridge, picked and pounded to jelly, boiled in rice. At a later day a favorite

14

15

10 The Mississagua Indians clean rice by shaking it in a basket. See A. F. Chamberlain in Jour. Am. Folk-Lore, vol. 1, p. 150.

14 Page 44.

15 J. D. Doty. Northern Wisconsin in 1820, in Wis. Hist. Coll., vol. vii, p. 199.

dish was composed of wild rice, corn, and fish boiled together."6 It is also served with maple syrup and with cranberries. It swells greatly when put into the water. A small handful is enough for the meal of a large family."

In addition to being an important article of food for himself and his family, wild rice served the Indian of former days in another way. It attracted vast numbers of wild fowl of every sort, and thus brought to him another great food-supply. The fondness which these birds evince for wild rice is well known, and to this day in northern Wisconsin they can be found in considerable numbers only on waters where it abounds. The accounts of early travelers fairly teem with descriptions of the vast quantities of birds to be seen hovering around the Zizania and the ease with which they might be killed. The birds were in the finest condition after feeding on the rice, "inexpressibly fat and delicious." The rice not only served as a decoy, but also as a blind, the Indian easily concealing himself in its thick masses and sometimes being able to kill the birds with a club.

Although gathered somewhat in the milk, wild rice is harvested mainly in September. The harvest lasts but a few days, as, when fully ripe, the seed is detached at the slightest touch. Even a strong wind for a day or two will sometimes shake all the grain into the water. The binding into sheaves above described to some extent lessens the risk of loss from this cause. It was formerly customary to gather enough to last through the winter, the amount being about five bushels for each family. Some of the more industrious women gathered as much as twentyfive bushels, using the surplus in trade. The Ojibwas of today gather about one hundred pounds for an average family.

Peltries, maple sugar, and rice were the commodities offered for sale by the Ojibwa of seventy years ago. In 1820 a bushel sack of rice was valued at two skins, the price of a large, prime beaver pelt. At the present day this grain may be bought at stores in some of the cities of northern Wisconsin.

18

16 J. W. Biddle, in Wis. Hist. Coll., vol. 1, p. 63.

17 An intelligent half-blood of the Odanah reservation writes me in relation to the nutritive qualities of rice: "Fill the stomach real full and then lay down. It keeps from hunger. Not strongly nutritious, it produces great rest and sleep to men, while women work."

18 J. D. Doty, op. cit.

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