They had a name for popcorn, but the writer saw none of it while around them.
Wild Rice (Zizania palustris L.), “manoˈ mîn” [good berry]. The Ojibwe word is their pronunciation of the Menomini term for wild rice. Most Algonkians have the same word for wild rice and it forms a very important part of their food. The writer has often been present at the Ojibwe rice harvests. The largest operation seen was that of the Ojibwe at Mole Lake in Forest County, Wisconsin. There about twenty families were working at one time and the writer worked at each operation to become familiar with it. Wild rice preparation is the hardest kind of labor, and they earn all they get for it when they sell it. It sells in Milwaukee for $1.05 a pound, but one can buy it from the Indians at $.25 to $.35 a pound. One man reaped 1325 pounds of rice in the harvest time. The Menomini Rice Harvest group in the Public Museum exhibition halls, shows very well most features of the operation.
Various families have definite parts of the lake for their share, while others travel to small lakes and stay there until the harvest is complete. They set up a family camp, while the grain is still in the milk stage and wait for it to ripen. When this time arrives, having made experimental collections to determine it, they make a ceremonial gathering. Three to a canoe, two women and a man go to the rice beds and gather sufficient rice for a preliminary feast. With a hooked stick, held in a crescent by a string, the women pull the rice over the canoe and beat off the kernels with a stick, into the canoe bed. Sometimes, when the Indians do not want to waste any of the rice, they will go into the beds before it is ripe and tie several heads together to ripen in that manner. The first collection is prepared complete, with songs to their deities and a ceremonial feast is observed. After that all hands fall to in earnest and gather unremittingly until all the rice is harvested.
When the canoe is partly loaded, they pole back to camp, to prepare it. Wild rice grows in a mucky soil which may be quite deep. Ten foot poles, with a wide fork to secure a hold on the grass, are used to propel the canoe through the rice. On the return trip when loaded, the women trample the rice to break off the spiny beards or awns. The next step is roasting or parching. A wash tub is tilted against a large back log and a fire maintained under it. To keep the rice from burning, one must use a forty inch paddle and stir constantly for about three hours. The roasting destroys any weevils that might be present, gives the rice a pleasant flavor, loosens the husks or glumes and hardens the rice so it may be kept indefinitely.
In earlier times, a hole was dug into the ground and carefully lined with buckskin. Nowadays a candy bucket is sunk into the hole. This is the threshing floor. A man with new moccasins steps in to trample and thresh it.[138] He has a couple of poles, slanting near the hole, and supported on a tree with which he balances, while trampling the rice. He gives a circular, twisting pressure to the rice with his feet to grind off the husks. Then the chaff is winnowed away by a woman as shown in the present series, Vol. IV, plate 29, fig. 2. A large shallow birchbark tray is shaken up and down by the woman as she stands in a breeze. If there is no wind, the chaff accumulates on top and is pushed over the edge from time to time. After the winnowing, the rice is washed to clean it of foreign matter and of the smoky flavor of parching. It is then dried and ready to use or store. Wild rice swells more than cultivated rice in cooking. It is often moistened with six times its bulk in water. The kernels are about six times as long as thick and in cooking the ends curl backward to meet in the center, thus differing from Oryza sativa, the white man’s rice. The proper way to cook it Indian fashion is with deer broth and season with maple sugar. Wild rice cooked with wild fowl takes away the muddy or wild taste and is highly prized by those whites who know its qualities.
HYDROPHYLLACEAE (WATERLEAF FAMILY)
Virginia Waterleaf (Hydrophyllum virginianum L.), “nebîneˈnanikweˈîag”[139] [having hair on only one side]. The Pillager Ojibwe use the root as a feed for ponies to make them fatten rapidly.
JUGLANDACEAE (WALNUT FAMILY)
Shell-bark Hickory (Carya ovata [Mill.] K. Koch.), “bagaˈ nakoˈ bagan”. Hickory trees are scarce in the north, but the Ojibwe appreciate the edible nuts.
Butternut (Juglans cinerea L.), “bagaˈ nag”. Butternut is plentiful in the north and in most Ojibwe territory, while the Black Walnut is not to be found. They use the nuts for food and the hulls for dye.