The Chippeway herald. [volume], September 01, 1902, Image 2

About The Chippeway herald. [volume] (White Earth, Minn.) 1902-19??

Image provided by: Minnesota Historical Society; Saint Paul, MN

                
THE WILD-R.ICE
PEOPLE.
The annual harvesting of a wild
cereal on a large scale by semi-savage
people, who reap where they do not sow,
many thousands of them obtaining
much of their subsistence from the
spontaneous product, possesses notable
elements of the picturesque. One might
g’O so far as to say that such a specta
cle is not to be witnessed anywhere in
the world except in nortnern Wisconsin
and a part of adjacent Minnesota,
where the so-called “wild rice” flour
ishes exceedingly in lakes and streams,
and is regularly gathered every au
tumn by the Indains.
Long before the landing of Columbus
the wild rice was an important source
of food supply to the aborigines in that
part of the country, and it is estimated
that at one time as many as 30,000
people were fed by its crop, including
Chippeways, Sioux, Minominee, and
other tribes. In fact, the cereal has
had a great influence upon the history
of the region, the Chippeways and
Sioux struggling through centuries for
possession of the natural grain fields,
while the very name of the Menominee
signifies “wild rice Indians.”
In early days the extension of the fur
trade in a territory unsurpassed for
richness in pelts was actually made
practicable by the wild rice, which
furnished a wholesome support for
traders and hunters. Pike,the explor-
er, in 1805, described the fort of the
Northwest Company at Leech Lake as
stored with large quantities of grain.
500 bushels of which were put away in
in a loft over the trading room. Em
ployees of the company depended on it
chiefly for food,buying it from the sav
ages at an average price of $1.50 a bu
shel.
At the present time white people in
the neighborhood of all the reservations
in Wisconsin ann Minnesota are very
fond of wild rice, which is cemmonly
offered for sale in the towns. Charles
C. Oppel, a produce dealer of Duluth,
states that he handles from one to two
tons of it every season. “Most of the
cruisers, explorers, and homesteaders
take it out into the woods with them.”
he says, “and they claim that it is
better than tame rice, because it does
not take so long to prepare it.” It is
largely consumed in lumber camps in
the region where it grows.
The wild rice that comes to market
in this way is all of it gathered by the
Indians, the work of harvesting and
preparing the grain being performed
almost entirely by the women. It is
customary for the women of several
families to unite their labors and de-
vide the product, and sometimes certain
families have hereditary rights to cer
tain areas. By September the seeds
are ripe, the pale green fruit-heads ac
quiring a tinge of purple; but the col
lecting of the crop is accomplished a
few days before maturity is reached,
because otherwise the grain would fall
and be lost in the water.
For the wild rice is a water Plant,
and one of the most beautiful of aqua
tics. To the botanists it is known as
Zizania aquatica, and it is a proper
cereal, belonging to the Same order as
other grain-bearing grasses, such as
oats, wheat and barley. The grain is
a slender cylindrical kernel, half an
inch or more in length and of a dark
slate color when ripe. Mud-bottomed
shallows of fresh or brakish water are
the natural home of the plant, the seed
falling into the water when ripe in the
autumn, and lying in the soft mud un
til spring, when it germinates, takes
root, and grows rapidly, sending up a
single stalk.
Early in June the shoot appears at
the surface, and at once begins to form
its head of seeds. When from a dis
tance, the rice beds at this stage look
like low green islands on the lakes, and
to one who passes through them while
they are in flower they present a most
attractive aspect, with broad grassy
leaves and waving spikes garnished
with pale yallow-green blossoms.
From beneath each flower fall three
dainty straw-colored anthers, which
move with every breath of air or slight
est motion of the water. Later on, the
beds somewhat resemble fields of wheat
the stalks ranging from two to twelve
feet in height, according to the depth in
which they stand.
The harvesting begins two or three
weeks before the grain is ripe, when it
is still “in the milk;” and the women,
going to the rice fields in canoes,tie the
standing stalks into bunches or sheaves
with long strips of basswood bark, the
object of this performance being to
prevent the seeds from being devoured
by birds or threshed out by rain or wind
storms. The bunches are made with
great regularity and uniformity. A
row is tied on both sides of the canoe,
and when the end of the field is reached,
the woman starts back, tying two other
rows parallel to the last. The grace-
ful sheaves, thus arranged, have a very
pleasing effect
The stalks are usually so close to-
gether in the harvest field that it is im-
possible to use a paddle; so, when the
grain is gathered, the canoe—the crop
could not be taken without boats —is
pushed along by a pole. Ordinarily
two women go in each boat, and as
they pass among the rice, which stands
four or five feet above the water, one of
them reaches out a sickle-shaped stick,
and with it pulls a quantity of stalks
down over the side of the canoe. Then
with another stick, held in her free
hand, she beats the fruit-heads, knock
ing the grain into the bottom of the
boat.
In this way the grain on both sides
of the path is gathered. When half of
the canoe is full, the women exchange
implements, the harvester becoming
boatsman and the boatman harvester,
and the other end of the canoe is filled
on the return trip to the shore. It then
remains to unload the rice, dry or cure
it, deprive it of its tenacious hull by
threahing, and, after winnowing, to
store it away for future use.
The work of curing the newly gath
ered rice begins immediately, and, like
the harvesting, falls to the women. In
asmuch as the grain has been taken
before maturity, it has to be put through
an artificial ripening process, and this
is accomplished in any one of several
ways. Sometimes it is simply sun
dried on blankets or on birch bark, or
it may be preferred to cure it by spread
ing it on a sort of scaffold covered with
cedar-bark mats or reeds, kindling a
slow fire underneath. A third method
is to parch the seeds in a kettle until
thev burst.
The rice as it comes from the fields
is cevered with a close-fitting hull, and
looks for all the world like a long
bearded oat. This outer coat has to be
removed, and that part of the business
being somewhat arduous is performed
by men and boys. Holes are dug in
the ground two feet deep, lined with
skin, and in them the grain is trodden
out with the feet; or sometimes an im
pliment resembling a churn-dasher is
used instead, a half-barrel being sunk
in the earth to hold the rice. A better
method is adopted by the Minominee,
who dump twenty bushels or so of the
grain into a long ditch and beat the
hulls loose with crooked sticks em
ployed as flails, high screens being
erected on both sides to prevent the loss
of flying kernels.
The threshing once accompli shed, the