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When Everybody Called
Me Gah-bay-bi-nayss: a note on tenses
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Mah-no-min-i-kay Gii-siss:
Wild Ricing Moon(1)
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The experience of my life was very great. I often wondered how I went through this life. And I often wondered how I got to be seventy-five. I've thought many times of all the things I've seen and heard in such a beautiful country. I thought the beautiful country made me happy. I thought the people of the country made me feel good. I thought of the wild life, and of the camping grounds that I've seen. I thought of the trips of canoes that I made, and my days of playing along the shores of the water and lakes -- and this made me very happy.(2)
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I grew up working with my folks, Indian folks, and working with our wild life, like wild rice. Wild rice is the very greatest food there was. Wild rice should never be taken away from the Indian. Wild rice is natural for the Indian; it's a natural food. Wild rice is a great thing that we always look for every season. Wild rice is a great thing, so we move our camping grounds to the lakeshore of wild rice lakes. I remember seeing hundreds and hundreds of camps; I saw many family wigwams. The tipis and wigwams were made of birch bark. And we had birch bark canoes when I was a boy. Oh, it's a beautiful sight! I always dream about this, about when I was eighteen and nineteen, and about the years before that. When I was beginning to be interested about ricing I was about nine, ten, twelve years old. I was very young. About 1915, or somewhere alone in there, fourteen, fifteen. I was really taking interest of wild rice. I liked that life. I liked the camping out, the joining, the boys and girls that I friend with. I'll have a lot of friends, and we'll have lots of fund paddling -- paddling our boats around, fishing, harvesting, eating, working, and playing. I met a lot of new friends ricing. They came from a long ways to rice. There were always some Leech Lakers where we went and I enjoyed looking at their boats or the dances(3) they're giving. I enjoyed hearing about what improvements the Indians are getting to. It is a good life. It's something to look at how beautiful those birch bark wigwams, tipis and campfires looked.(4)
How can they be so particular? How could they be so neat? That's true. I've seen that. I enjoyed that rice field. Every year it comes. After we went picking berries we traveled all through the country. Some wanted, maybe, to continue to go picking berries.(5) Others traveled up river. We always split up like that. And then, in the fall, ricing time come. We went by seasonal, and in the fall ricing time comes. We were always ready for ricing. Many times the Chippewa's camped at Mud Lake watching for the Sioux to enter.(6) We knew they camped here. At this time of the year everybody waited for the crop of rice at Mud Lake headquarters. A lot of rice, mah-no-min, tons and tons came to the people from Mud Lake. Just think, huh? At harvesting time this was a busy area. At this time of the year, or a little bit later, in the first part of September, is when it was busy. Many of the Indians would thresh rice here. They'd go from one another's camp to help pound out the hulls in the rice. Some would be down the river checking fish -- checking for bullheads -- and setting nets. Others would be cooking the big bullhead and fish stew. They'd take the stew of that fish and they'd pour it in the wild rice. A little salt pork in there won't bother things. Add a few wild potatoes and fried salt pork, and, ho!, you got something there! Yah, we used to kill a lot of ducks at Mud Lake during ricing camp. We call that season "ricing-moon" in Indian. The spots of the sun and the spots of the moon have answers for us. The moon purifies the air of the earth. It gathers the earth's moisture, and the fall-out of that forms only a crust on the moon.(7) Any of the old-timers will tell you that. The spots of the moon cast on to the earth a reflection of the weather. And then the air and weather of the earth continually work to crust the spots of the moon. Sooner or later the moon has to be surfaced evenly, and the purifying action of the moon will fill the pockets of the moon, if there are any. And so it becomes crusty, and the crust isn't very thick. The crust of the moon every year, for so many years, stores the impurities of the air of the earth. It's kind of a storehouse. The air is different up there. There's no air up there, it's dead. The moon has its answers. It has the answer of how it's working with the sun. Every month the moon vanishes, and you can't see it. But every time the moon changes you can tell whether it's going to be wet weather, whether we're going to have a storms. The weather proves what's going on on the moon. It gets windy and everything by the action of the moon. Well, sometimes it does. We start wild ricing when the moon is in the quarter. When it's a full moon the rice is too green.(8) The rice is too green when the moon is full. We know a certain percentage of rice is green when the moon is full. Everything is matured through the sun and the hot weather. And if there's a big area that's ripening and the stage of water and the stage of the heat from the sun are normal, we'll know when the rice is ready by the stage of the moon. We go by the time of the moon. We watch the seasoning of the rice by the moon, yah, we go by the moon. It's the same as a clock. Ya. Before the "ricing-moon" we went up river. And up river we canoed all over Goose Lake. We were looking at the crop of rice fields. We were looking at the crop of ducks. Boy were there birds and ducks! Boy there was plenty! We used a certain method when we go out into the field to look for medicines, wild rice, and other crops of the season which will be turned over to the Indian when they are mature. When we look at a crop we are always ready to say "migwItch." We know. There's much danger ahead, and we must wait 'till the crop is matured, well matured, and it's the season to pick. There's much danger ahead: storms, hails, different things might destroy the crops. That's why we act with our belief. We always have respect of the weather, the stars, the Creator. And even though we show our respect and say migwItch, we fear yet. We're not sure of a crop until we receive it in our hands. In our life, meditation gives us strength. Beware! Anything could happen between now and when we harvest a crop. We know that even though we are about ready to receive from the Great, anything could still happen. When we are ready to receive from the natural, from nature, and we should say thanks. We should say migwItch. When we leave home on a journey, like the journey that we are about to take to look over the crop, we think of our little home. Maybe on the journey we'll take something that we need, for a sample, for a taste, to see if it's matured. There's things that's matured already. We migwItch mahnomen, the wild rice, migwItch maple sugar, migwItch the berries and garden, migwItch the seasons. MigwItch every season that you have. You should migwItch every season. That's what it is for, to migwItch manitou. "MigwItch manitou!" Bang!! It's nothing funny. Do that and you feel good. Should you receive stuff and not thank the Great? Do you get stuff(9) with your own power? You walk to it and you'll find it. You walk to it; you're able. You pick it. You carry it. But how long do you think you can keep doing that if you don't thank the one who let you walk to it and get it?? You have to remember it to somebody. Before you pick rice you have to give thanks. If you pick rice, take that tobacco and put it in the water. Water is a big thing. It's dangerous. And when you go out into the world life is dangerous. If you're going on a trip say, "I shall be back. I ask to be back." When you leave home you say thanks to the Great. That's why I pound the drum to thank the Great Spirit, and that's why I make signs to the north and west and east and south.(10) The Great Power has given directions the power, he has given these parts of the storms. A storm could come from either way and make a lot of damage in the area, and that may destroy our crops. It may also hurt the feelings of the people. It may hurt the life of the people. So that's why we are careful about saying thanks for what we are provided. That's why we do these things in our Indian way. We thank for happiness. We thank to mature the crop, which is why it is well taken care of by the local people. We know when it's ripe; we know when it's ready and fit to eat. When it's time, we know it's ready. We wait until the crop is ready before we take it. When it is ready we call upon the Great Spirit to guard us, to care for us all, the same as with the crop. Nature does all things. We pound the drum to call all spirits, and with this method the spirits are risen to the air to come to the people. We pound to the North. We pound to the South. We pound to the East. We pound to the West. From the drum we hear Thunder rumble. We hear storms. We pound the drum for all. "Wonder." "Crops." "MigwItch!" And when we drum, we sing songs. And in our songs we say "migwItch, migwItch, migwItch, migwItch," "thanks, thanks for all." When you meditate, it is very easy to make a mistake. Because of the request that you have it is very easy for you to make a mistake. Never forget to leave the food offering behind with your "migwItch." Never forget to leave other stuff behind, like clothes. We use food and clothes in our meditating. Yah. It is true. We could easily make a mistake in meditating for everything that we receive. The crops are seasonal, and because of that it is easy to make a mistake. When it's time to say "migwItch" for our crops, with shortness here, say "migwItch" for all. "Thanks Great." Pound the drum and say:
This is what we believe and these are the methods we use to meditate as we scout out our rice crop. Back at our camp everybody would be anxious to hear about the rice crop. The scouts(11) would bring the news back, "It looks good. The crop is very wonderful. I think we're gonna have a wonderful crop."
"Well, that's good news." Boy there was rice! Everything's filled up. Boy there was ducks! There was a good young crop. There were bunches of ducks." Someone might ask, "How are the meadows? Are there any deer?" "In the evening we went to one place there and we saw two, three, standing around in the opening to blow the mosquitoes off. Boy they looked good." We check on the rice often. We survey the wildlife as we go. At a certain time of the year the rice is not ready, it's too green, but we begin to see the rice blossom. When we check on the blossoms of the rice, we begin to hope the rice is coming. We have to be very careful with the rice. When the rice is blossomed there's a fall-out of that rice blossom. With anything that blossoms, at times, there's a fall-out to it. It takes to you. You get the rice blossom on you. You can not see the germ part of the blossom. That's all right; it's there. The germ flies, the blossom flies, in the lake and in the rice field.
Why does the blossom fall back in the lake at blossom time? Does it help the necessary requirement of the bed? Does that blossom scatter into the water to give strength to that rice? I wonder. We'll all have to wonder about that. We do not destroy the blossom. Why? Because we stay out of there. But when the blossom of the rice comes, we begin to ask one another, "Should we have the wild rice? Will we have the wild rice?" Wild rice is given to us and we ask that nothing should destroy that. It's up to the Indian to watch that. When the blossoms fall out into the lake they must have something to do with the water. At that time of the year, at that time of the season, falling blossoms must have something to do with the water. Nature does that. Nature takes care of itself. That blossom skins off and at times drifts away. Where does it go? Maybe it's some fertilizer to the rice, which it should have. That's a requirement, and the falling blossom may be proof of that. After awhile we begin to see the heads of the rice. How beautiful them heads come! By a certain stage of water the rice should mature to a head and stand on top of the rice stalk. The wild rice will start to load up and form its head. When it's treated right, when the water and the weather treat it right, wild rice forms up into a good crop. It will be a good crop if it's right, if it hits it just right. If everything's right the rice will come to a head and the head will be heavy. Some places that wild rice will grow, I think it'll grow, nine-, eight-inch stems of heads. If it's a nice crop, the stalk hangs over with heads of rice so loaded that it bows back. The heads of the wild rice were long years ago because the fertilizer was in them. There was fish fertilizer and wild life fertilizer. It had muskrat manure, and manure from cranes, sidepokes, ducks, and bullheads. It sure had a lot of fertilizer. The air is pure; then the rice comes. It's the same way with trees, same way with gardens, same way anything. That body of water has to be taken care of, for the crop of wild rice. If you don't supply that fish fertilizer, or some other fertilizer, for the grain, well, the grain crop runs out. But if you have a good year and use good fertilizer, good supplement from fish to help fertilize, then you'll get a good crop. You can use frogs for fertilizer too. Maybe there's something to that; you can use animals: muskrat, ducks. You can use anything, because they all carry that germ that'll help enrich the crop. It could be that's the way it was before they had all of those chemicals. Now they don't use any of that natural fertilizer anymore, nothing to speak of anyway. There isn't enough of that natural fertilizer, maybe. It's all wore off, all wored out. It takes too many, too much help to fertilize with the natural fertilizers. There's a lot of things we have to study yet before we learn. At certain stages cold temperatures and quick weather changes are rough on the people. Quick changes are rough on the rice too. When rice matures, it begins to have kernels; it's developing for the better. When it's clear, the blossom draws the nourishment from the roots into the wild rice kernel, and as it matures it looks all this green. There's not a fall-off in the wild rice while it's green, while it's growing. When it's green, it's maturing. And when it matures you can not see the kernels fall-off; it cures itself, nature does that. When you touch well-matured wild rice it'll drop itself. There's no danger that you have to beat well-matured rice off. There's no proof that you have to beat off the wild rice. The wild rice will mature if you give it time, and it will drop off easily. If you want to catch rice before the weather gets it or blows it off, then you'll have to tap it a little. But in tapping it a little you're careful on the wild rice. You're careful on the wild rice, instead of coming in and hammering it with big clubs. When you hammer rice, you break it and are destroying it when it's green and tender; it breaks as the boats go over it. These aluminum canoes now-a-days are good, providing you don't turn too short, and providing you turn around in open water to preserve the rice. But lots of them turn right in the green rice and push a lot of it down and ruin it. Well that part's all right, but still they feel it's a big field. We all do that to help the crop as we go, fine. "It'll be better next year," we hope. Sometimes the ricing council had to remind people not to beat the rice, not to hammer the rice. In the past we used say, "Indians, did anybody damage the crop?" If they did, a ricing council member would talk to the offending party: "Huh-uh. Look at where you went through; look at the broken rice. You can not pound. You get somebody else that will knock the rice better. Get somebody who will be a little more careful. You get somebody else that'll pound a little more careful, and not damage the rice. See? Do not damage the rice. You can hit it enough so that it'll come off, but don't pound it. If it'll strip off, it'll come off with a gentle knock. If it's green there's no use hitting it, because it won't come off. If you did knock it off before it ripens, you're not gaining anyhow. Somebody's losing. In the long run you lose in years. The crop, the germ, is destroyed." We do not want to take all the germ of that lake of wild rice. We want to leave some, so it would germinate for the next year. By looking forward it always answers, and by looking forward it always answers good, most generally.(22) We'd take care of it by explaining to everyone the limits on boats. It helps to improve that area. It helps to better the crop. Now-a-days they hammer rice and each boat on that lake has a certain amount of rice, on a per-centage, that'll never mature. In my day we never took immature rice by hammering it into the canoe. We tapped it gently. Respect the rice fields and don't hammer rice. Remember that. With all the people, with all the population that's coming, it doesn't take long to ruin a rice field. It comes to ruin through hammering; the first stages of ruin of the green rice are here already, because they hammer it when it's immature. Wild rice most generally doesn't ripe even; it doesn't all ripen at the same time. It ripens in spots. There's spots that ripen earlier and spots that ripen afterwards. Some of that ripens early. Some lakes is ripe early and in some lakes it don't ripen 'till late. Wild rice is a funny thing; it don't all ripen at the same time. In my area, further north, it's earlier, and further south, it's later. In the waters you'll find that some spots are ripe, while some spots matures later. That's wild rice. That's why I think it's a good name -- it's wild. It all depends on the crop: how thick the crop is, how deep of water is, how shallow it is. That's what we figure on. In the olden days it used to seem to ripen pretty well even, at least pretty much so, because, unless it was windy, we allowed the rice to naturally mature on the stalk. But even then there were spots in the bottom of that lake where it's shallow, and there's spots where it's a little deeper, that's natural. Where there's a little deeper water the rice comes mature much later. When it's even a little less deep or shallow, it ripens earlier. Lily pads proves where it's shallow. Wherever there's lily pads and you see wild rice laying there, it'll mature quicker. The reflection of the sun and the heat from the lily pads matures the rice faster. Heavier crops, with heads up to six, seven, or eight inches, is later rice. In the olden days they'd pick the wild rice where it's maturing. They knew where to work. They discuss that, they bring the reports. Now-a-days they go meddle with the green rice where it isn't mature, and it isn't worth picking. You get chaff only. You think you're getting rice, but you're only really getting chaff. The people now-a-days don't really go for the matured rice. They pay a license now -- it's way up to two, three dollars now(12) -- and it's the pressure, it's a pressure to get that wild rice that makes them hammer the green rice. They're all afraid they aren't going to get enough to pay for the license. At least generally a lot of them say that: "Just so I get my license back." When the rice is coming in you meet at that rice crop. When you now go out to get rice, everybody's racing to pay for his license. It becomes a contest. One will say, "I got a hundred and fifty pounds, two hundred pounds." The next guy will make it bigger, even though maybe he didn't get more. When you're "contesting" anything, you want to be the best, I think. So they take clubs out to get the wild rice and they go for the heavy crops that don't have time to mature. Wild rice don't mature evenly. The spot where it's shorter will ripen, but this heavier crop in deeper water takes more time to mature. Ripe rice is heavy and falls head first. With mature rice all of the tails in the rice pile are up. When you hammer rice it falls crossways all over, because it's only about half ripe. You have to beat green rice off, and when you look back to where you worked, there's so much per centage of that rice broken. You could see the broken heads where you hit it too hard. If you hit it too hard, the heads of the wild rice snap off because they're tender.
For market it doesn't make any difference. For market, people think, "Well this is rice, we'll get this rice in the boat." I see in my time a lot of wild rice buyers who give good money for any kind of wild rice. He didn't know the difference, so people shoved every head of green rice, tops and everything, in a sack. They shoved it right in the sack and told him, "This is wild rice." A certain per cent of it was good rice, but a certain per cent of that wild rice was hulls, shafts, and heads; but there's a very few good kernels maybe in that on a percentage. For market, the individual harvester now-a-days knows that the Buyers Association pays a good price for that rice, even the poor rice. Then again it becomes a contest for the buyers. It seems to be a contest; "He's the one that got a bigger truck." "He's a bigger buyer." "He can buy more." So that's the way it goes. Everything is now on the run, it seems like, when it comes to wild rice. Why? Because that's good money in there. Indians now want the money. They have to go for the money, the way times are; everything's high priced. It's the money that's ruining it. Ricing is now a quick way to get cash to live, cash for their living purposes. The children have to go to school, they have to have clothes. So everything now is on the run when the harvesting time comes.
In my time, the ricing was special and we all looked forward to the "ricing-moon," just as we waited for maple-sugar camp. When ricing time come we moved into the lakes where the rice fields were. When we moved to the ricing camp most generally the leaders moved first. The leaders moved first to that camp hill, and we all in the summer camp get ready for ricing. Then the leaders began to put upcamp, figuring that they'll be there for six weeks of ricing anyhow. This first camp had messengers. They got racks put up; they set camps; they're working hard getting ready. They got wood." Then we all moved. We all went along in our own divisions, our own groups, taking care of our ricing "business." Oh-bah-pah-nI-say-wIn-gi-wa ma-no-mIn-i-kay. During the building of the rice camp grounds there's a man out there in the rice fields. There were always two scouts from the rice camp out there checking the rice. They sent them out to make one trip around and to check the rice. The chief, or somebody who knows about rice, the mah-no-mI o-gii-mah, most generally meets the scouts at the landing. He'll look at the boat; they don't have to say nothing. He'll look at the boat. If the rice in the boat fell off on its own, he'll asks, "Was it that way all along?" "There's pretty good spots on the south side and on the west side. We could just see it as we went. It's ripening. But this spot here where there's deeper water and a heavier crop, it's a little bit later." "I know there's a spot. That crop is level on the east side of the lake, so it all depends on the current." The old timers would meet out by the lake. They held council out by the lake; that's the committees, the great leaders, the advisors.(13) They have a council, and the council of the local area of the rice field discusses the crop. They'd discuss the rice fields. They'll check them all over. Then come back and set in talk. They are very understandable when they come in from the fields. There were six or seven ricing council members in the reservation, for all divisions, because two, four, six can go different places and one would always be at home to fit in or set in talk. There were six or seven, all together. Two guys could go there, the others could go somewhere else. Two guys were on from each area, across the north. They have three who understand the rice and the nature of rice, and three practicing to learn. The three learning do the running most generally, but the directing party of the committee has a lot to say, and the others have to listen to that. In the old days the chief had scouts and the scouts were active. The scouts would go and tell the people, "We're gonna have a meeting and discussion." When they sat together in the meeting all the Indians were backing and approving their discussion. We do not want that rice destroyed. When they met like that, the outlaws, they wouldn't go near. That ricing council usually keeps everyone in line. We were able to make a living from the wild life because it was well taken care of by the Indians. We lived by the rules and regulations of the Indians. Our chief and his advisors discussed the rice crop out in the lake. "Should we lay off of it?" they would always ask. If the council said, "Yes," they put up a flag, a white flag, showing that we should lay off the wild rice. That was usually enough to warn people to stay off. Once, in 1932, near the Black Duck Point rice field on Leech Lake, the scouts, the younger class, saw a boat out in a closed rice field near Bear Island. "There's a boat out there. I wonder if they know that we're resting that field?" At that time I was on board as a scout, and I was on a ricing council too, for Leech Lake, Mud Lake, and Goose Lake. At that time the council approved that we rest that field. It was approved by a group council of the rice harvesters before they riced. They counciled about opening it up, but continued to approve that we rest it. We generally didn't have any trouble, but there was a boat out in the closed rice field one time. So the council sent me and my cousin Simon Smith out there to catch up with that harvester. A fellow was out harvesting rice, and when he's out in the field he doesn't want to be disturbed by anyone, naturally. I was approved to talk with the harvester by the rice council leader, so I sat down beside him. I said to the guy harvesting, "Ah, I'm sent out here to visit you people by a group of Indians that's on the board of the ricing committee. I'm sent by the directors." "Hm. Hmm. So what?" "I wanna ask you a question. I'd like to have an answer from you. Did you know that this rice field is closed?" "I thought the rice was ripe." "Well they're not harvesting this field." "Well, I don't care. If that's what they want, fine. I'm here to get rice." Simon didn't say a word. He just sat there listening. "Very well, but how about the other ones? Why should they sit back and wait for the orders when you guys are out here ricing?" "Well, because they like to play the moccasin game. They like to play games. The rice is ripe." "Is it ripe?" I asked. He showed me the rice that they had there. "Ya," I said, "I think you have groups over there where you are camped. The committee sent the messages out all over, including to your groups. And when they all go, we'll all go. If you want to continue ricing, I'm afraid we're gonna have trouble because they're watching me right now talking to you. They got eyes all around the lake that are looking. They see me out here. I'm the message to you fellas that they didn't open this rice field. The committees, the group, the chiefs, decided it's not ready. The rice don't ripen evenly, most generally. So all I ask you is will you cooperate with the Indians?" "Yes." They got out; they got right out, of the field. The Indians saw this and said, "Very well." If the harvesters sneak out again, if they catch them out there again, then one or two boats of Indians will go out there and tip them right over. They might ask him, "Are you gonna get out or are you gonna keep ricing?" And if he says, "Help us out, give us something, and we'll go," that's all there is to it. They'll tip them. It's nothing funny. And if the harvester wants to fight back, he'll be fighting all the way to shore. And if they're fighting back the others will come. That's the way we used to have it. The committees, different ones, the groups, will come in and defend that right for their children. It was hard to not obey rules and regulations. If you wanted to take over, you were in trouble. When you work with the group for the best, you got all the rice you want, and you didn't have any trouble. In 1909, 1910, somewhere in there, there was a party on Mud Lake who had a pole with a fork on it. He pushed the canoe with the pole, and the Indians said, "He should be told to not use that."
That happened at Sugar Point on Leech Lake too. Now-a-days everybody's got poles with duck-bills, everybody's got forks on their poles, and that pushes the root of the bottom of the wild rice. Maybe that has some effect to it. Maybe there's a disturbment of the growth so it has a hard time to mature. Some of that rice is not rice because the roots are disturbed on the bottom. The Indians years ago were very careful. How did they know that? Boy! I tell you they were good not to disturb the bottom. Years ago they didn't allow forks, forked-ended pushing poles for canoes, on the lake. They got driven out if they used a forked pole for ricing. In the olden days, the Indians were against using a forked pole to push the canoes and ricing boats through the rice. You know what we used? Paddles. We used a long paddle with a little fork on it just big enough to catch a little on the bottom, to catch the weeds on the bottom. You can see in the old pictures that they stood in the front with a long paddle.
We didn't disturb the roots of the wild rice. We'd just paddle around, first on one side of the canoe then on the other side. That long paddle was about six, seven feet long so you'd have to raise it so as to not hit the rice heads. And when you paddled you could hear the rice fall, when it was ripe. We never used a pole, uh-uh. You know what a pole does? When you shove on a pole you usually take a bunch of rice and pole it right up when you push. You're destroying about one bunch of rice every time you push on the bottom, you're tearing the roots out of it, and there she lays, never to get up.
Boy the rice chiefs took care of their rice in those days! You would never see the weeds of the rice floating around then. When they riced in the old way the rice and the stalks would come right up again. They had a big meeting. They had a big meeting to deal with the pole users. They decided to give him a warning first. The people on the rice committee gave him a warning. They sent the scouts so they'll tell him, "You're not supposed to do that and we're ordering you to take your pole out. If you wanna rice, we got long paddles for that. Use your paddle. Your paddle has a little `V' shape on the end. When you stick that in the water that releases the rice. The fork bunches up the rice when you push, and breaks it down. If you use long paddles the rice will last longer."
They stopped him. They stopped him at that time. They told him to get out of there: "Go use your pole somewhere out on a little lake where there's not so much rice. We don't allow poles here." If he didn't stop using the pole they'd go out again, and this time they'd tip him over. Now, with the changes, they all use poles. Then they wonder why the crop don't mature the way it used to. In my times ricing council members were chosen by the vote, and by the point of the chief. He elects, and then you have to go. The council of the ricing committee knows that these guys are very capable and very active. If you're to be appointed by the council, they'll discuss that and they'll ask, "Could you be able to understand the rice? Have you been working the rice in your background? Could you take interest on the wild rice to preserve our rice fields?" Then, if he'll accept, he's appointed. They'll usually appoint their men. So each reservation, each council, appoints their men. And when the council men appoint, the new persons give an answer: "Will I have the power to show that I'm authorized?" "Yes." When you authorize rice in the olden days, you were protected. Nobody can go against you. I was on the rice committee for seven years in the early days, six years anyhow -- about 1925, '26, ' 27, '28. And I was on the ricing council for awhile, during the 30s, and mid-40s. I was on the council when the Indians still had mostly Indian language. But there were a lot of us who could talk English. There were really husky boys that could be a committee; they were very active. I don't know how it happened, but I got in. They knew my way of life. I was interested in the benefit of the local people in the area of Sugar Point and Boy River. We expect that area to repay if we use the field good, and they were discussing that at a big meeting at Sugar Point. I was at Sugar Point and one chief got up and said "We gotta have deputies, rice deputies on the committee." They're the committee's deputy in with the Business Committee.(14) The Business Committee is the chief council. And they come to a vote. "Do you accept that I appoint Buffalo, that we appoint Buffalo? Any objection? Anything against him? Will he be capable? Would we take it up to a vote?" The women vote, they voted in this too. They were the main ones. They voted for him, or who they trusted. Well, then I had to work with them. Everybody had a voice in the discussion. "How vote? Vote how -- how? Come on. Come on." That's the way we would put it. That's what they did to me. Before they voted, I told them before they voted, "I'm not gonna do it alone. I want two more." On that rice committee, when I was appointed, you had a right to deputize anybody you appoint. The people that's interested in wild rice will be glad to work with you. That's the way they used to do it. They'd ask, "How many do you want in this area with you?" "I want a couple good men, and they gotta be a little older than I am." A young member of the committee can be twenty-one if you're practicing ricing. I don't think eighteen could take it. Eighteen maybe would be disturbed by strangers by temptation. I think twenty-one to twenty-six would make a pretty good young committee man. Then they got solid in mind to stand it. And after you're thirty, it's better yet. But you have to have a couple old people on the committee to help. You need experience and directing. Then your experience at wild rice and matured wild rice will help turn the young twenty-six into the experienced. You have to balance the committee. That's what we talked about. Education is really what we're talking about. "Education, that's going to help. You know the laws, by-laws, rules and regulations; you're read up. Then the experience comes in there on top of that. Then, with both the education and the experience, that helps you even more. That's the way I work for a betterment." But if a person wants to take education alone, well then he's all by himself. Sure, he knows it all. . . . He thinks he knows it all. . . . Ya. "Go ahead. Up." Afterwards he'll say, "I forgot something. Help me. You've been there." "How about that?" "Well, your education's supposed to take care of you. I got the experience; I know. But, I might as well keep it to myself." "No, it wouldn't do. Could you answer me a question? How about that rice? How about that feeling in your past?" See? Well he'll learn by working together with experience. When he's got the by-laws, rules and regulations of it, and knows the new set-up and the old-time way, it jabs good in life. On the top of that, I asked, "Will there be a chance that the government will be trying to help us with everything? They want us to a make our living and help us ourselves. Will the government help us in any way? Will there be any money in any way appropriated so that I get paid? I put in lots of time. A lot of 'em spend a lot of time in those committees." Before they voted, I brought that up. "I don't think there's money available now as a tribe. It'll take too long to get all the tribes to approve. This is something that has to be done now, so this group can go work in this rice field. We'll ask the federal for a badge for your protection. You will be legal." There were no objections and the council head said, "So you're appointed, Buffalo. Boy River, Sugar Point, you're appointed." When I was on the committee I lived in Federal Dam. You ask Russ Lego. I was on a committee up there. That dam was build up a long time.
Then down at this end, Mud Lake and Goose Lake were appointed. Jess Tibbets and Ben Tibbets were appointed too. Right away they made action on that and they got the federal, I think in Bemidji, to come down with three buttons. Davis from Bemidji came down with buttons. So we pinned them on. That was approved. Legally I had protection, and they had protection. That's the way we worked in the old days. Why did they do that? We want orders, to be in order. All the ricing committees work together with the ricers' council, with the rice directors. There are directors of wild rice from each area and they're studying it all of the time. We bring in all the views they could understand, and we discuss them in council. We each picked helpers to help keep things in order. We had to be in order. The Indians that were harvesting wanted to rest. When it was resting time, it has to be quiet. If there was anything wrong or any disturbment, we had the authority to go there, on the rice field or at the camps, and take care of it. We had to keep it clean. And if you knew of anything wrong you were supposed to report to the ricing committee, and they'll back you. I caught a couple of white guys out there when they weren't supposed to be out there. I just talked to them. "Oh, we didn't know that," they told me, "so we'll go in then. I suppose you got our rice." I had a badge on me too, the one Davis came and pinned on. "Take it along," I said. "There'll be a lot of rice if we take care of it." They were Slaters from Remer. They thought I was a pretty good guy. And I had an assistant along with me. I used to have a fast motor too. Holy Christ! It was a twin Johnson. Jesus, boy, I'll tell you that really moved that old canoe. Holy Christ! "Here comes the game warden," they said. I was pretty nice about it to them. I didn't get smart. I know too many. In the past we had leaders of the wild rice that will tell you when to rice. But now the state took over the wild rice in order to protect us. Yes, they took it. They're selling licenses; they get a great sum of money out of wild rice license. When they took it over we always believe they would put on additional help to "re-preserve" the wild rice situation. But we've been waiting so long for some improvement. The state had this wild rice and is taking care of it, but I don't think the wild rice is improving. But they check on the license, and then the person without one is wrong on the rice field.(15) They tell us we've overstepped the rulings. The Game and Fish Department is helping with conservation of the rice, and I can see that they have to outlaw the wild rice resources at times in order to conserve our seasonal ricing and continue to make it better. But I think the Conservation Department should try and do more with the amount of money we get for the rice. They should use a certain percentage of that money to help the people on the boat landing, to improve that landing. And if the crop is short on that lake at that time, I believe it would be better if they took only so much money and numbered the boats. The boats could have the number of the license and be registered in that lake. If you number his boat with the license, he will consider himself more responsible for that number. And he can be tracked down to see what his percentage is. And then this party would be a little more careful when he goes out to the rice field, because he's got a number on his boat. If he's beating, hammering, the rice, and going as a contest, he ruins so much rice. At certain stages the Conservation Department have to cooperate in regulating the water level. The governing body of the water has to respect how many millions of dollars came out of wild rice from the state of Minnesota in the past because we had wonderful crops. Now the crops are getting shorter. Why? There's so many who like wild rice. People like to eat wild rice. It comes to market and the buyers will buy any of that green rice. I worked with Chester Wilson of the Conservation Department. He used to write letters to me. He was deeply concerned and deeply interested in the Indians and in wild rice. And he used to say, "We have dams that regulate the water. How much water you need on the wild rice? If you're short of water, or if there's too much, will you please work with our dam keeper Anderson up in Grand Rapids(16)?" And he used to come up and work with us the same way, and Anderson used to work with the Federal Dam keepers. And that water was regulated so well, and not that quick. They were interested in the temperature and the stage of the water. If you rush water in there you have a sudden change again. It takes a time to regulate the water. Everything was even, because they went by the measurements of the water. They watched and studied. They watch, and it was doing good every year. It was better, improved. Other reservations have their own rice. They have good crops, but they let everyone out in the field and they go crowded. That money catches. They get too big of a pressure on their rice crop by people saying, "You should let us in." So they started to let the outsiders in, but that didn't work very good because they were in there just to go in there and get the rice crop. They didn't care whether they were going ricing next year or not. They didn't know whether they were going next year, and they went in there and beat up the field, because when they got the rice they'd get the money for it. They didn't care when they went in because they thought that maybe there's other lakes that they could go to if this crop didn't come out again as a good crop of rice. "There's a lot of other lakes that have a good crop of rice," they'd say. But now-a-days you can't figure that, because there are people in every lake. And they're getting all the rice they can get. I think we have that right to go to other reservations and rice. We should, but we don't. We can not go. We can not go to Nett Lake. Why? We're not trusted. They take care of their rice. They take very good care of their rice, and they're careful. How they take care of their rice! They get orders by the local council on what to do. You can't blame the individual caretaker. He has to do what the people who help him look over the rice fields say. That's why the outsiders, those outside of the reservation, can not come. They have proven that rice. They get wonderful crops because they take care of it. If we do the same here, if we take care of that rice, and have our committees -- if we have a committee of somebody that understands rice -- I think we would do better. By resting the lake, and if we get cooperation from people, I think we'll never lose our rice. But I don't think it's fair the way it's going. Everybody is dropping their work just to go in there and get that rice, and it gets so crowded in there that it only makes hard work to a lot of them. They don't know anything about the rice. Some of them know nothing about the rice. Some of them think that all they have to do is go out in there and get it. Some of the white folks even ask, "Where is it?" But some white people are very good at ricing. White people can learn lots about rice, which they are learning. Now they know something about rice. I think the people in that local area can rice. We don't hurt the rice crop any if they're very careful. We can not blame any damage against anybody if they're careful. We have Indians too that go for the money; the Whites also go for the money. These days a generation never figures far enough ahead to the next year on wild rice, because there's so much money involved in wild rice. The more rice you get, the more weight you get, and the more money you get. We all do that. I think the White people are all right if they consider the cooperation of the people in that area they're living in. If we have a bumper crop, we can spare rice. If the whites want to register and come in, we'll estimate and tell them how they could rice in there. They can buy their license. But it wouldn't do for me to buy a license in any other state and go there and do any damage. If I did, I would hear about it. I know that. That's the way it is in the law. That's the same here as with other states. It's the same thing with rice and the Indian. Everything goes just like that. If you're careless, you'll lose it. If we have a good crop of rice on these big rice fields, and if it's well taken care of with water, I don't think that the rice will be damaged as much as when we're short of water. Some of them even says, "I had to push down a lot a rice before I could go through there." It was hard to regulate the water stage with the crop. And that crop in the north here reaches out a long way. That's something wonderful to eat. It's good now, but in my time, BOY!, we had wild rice! Nobody bothered anybody. We'd tell them, "If you wanna celebrate, if you have a special party, you wanna put it on right there in town. Why you get over there. Not here. We're harvesting here. . . ." Everything was in order while we were working. It was in order a month anyhow. "With things in order you can get all the rice you want; supply yourself." Geez, that went good. Geez, that was a nice camp. There was no disturbing. Everybody was happy and busy working. When we first arrived at camp some of them would get anxious to have rice and they ask, "We're getting so hungry that we gotta have something to eat. Is there anyway we can get rice?" The Chief of the committee says: "You go." "You go into this low rice in the shallow water. Go where it's a little bit shallow. It matures faster in there." So the Indian's leaders of the rice camp would let them go and prove it, test it, and we'd go along and prove it to ourselves. We'd make one trip. We went very carefully out on the lake. The original canoes were very tender on the crop. We went very carefully on the water. Very carefully we'd go to prove to yourself where there's rice, because by proving it yourself you may have enough to eat on. Very carefully we'd get to where it's matured, and it'll be fit to eat. We hunted for the good rice. We followed one another. We have to have respect for everything we eat. When we go out to the field to search for something that has grown for the people we always say, "When you meet this wild rice, go out in the canoe fully dressed in clean clothes. It is clean when you meet it, and you should be dressed clean in the best clothes you can wear, to show that you appreciate it." You want to be clean with the field. You want to be clean with the waters. You want to be clean. You want to be well dressed, fully dressed clean. It shows how thankful you are to dress yourself clean.
So we put on nice clean clothes when we gather food. When you're picking fruit you have to be clean. When you're picking wild rice we have to be clean. At ricing time my clothes were washed in Blue China soap and rinsed two, three times. I was supposed to wear them when I went out to rice, which I did. Not all of them did that, but they were supposed to. You see, there's respect due on that rice. That's the way the Indian feels. They put their good clean clothes on to harvest rice. Those clean clothes protect. Cleanness all the way around looks nice. That's nature. When you rice and you're clean, you feel better. And when you're a clean guy when you go out to the rice field, you get more rice than you would if you were dirty. When you're clean and when your clothes are clean, that rice is tame. It'll be tame to you, and those rice beards won't hardly stick on your clothes. Rice has wicked little bores on it. We call o-zu-wask which means "rice beard that's growing, it's got a tail on." "Rice-beard-growing-with-a-tail." O-zo-wask, they're dangerous. If you don't pay attention to what you're doing those rice beards might get in your eyes, nose, everything. We were very careful. We have a clean way of doing that. If you get that in the eye you're going to lose your eye if you don't get it out of there. It'll go right through it, like a porcupine quill. And it'll work its way right down your throat. The tiny little barbs on the rice beards face one direction. That helps them to stick on and work their way into things. If you go to a rice place dirty you'll not get as much rice and you'll have more trouble with the beards. Rice didn't used to stick as much as it does now. Why? Because now they pick it too green and the beards are all over. It isn't supposed to be like that. Rice is supposed to mature before you harvest it. In the old days we hit rice easier, easier. The rice falls even then and doesn't glance so much when it's ripe. But when you hit it hard, which you generally have to do when it's not ripe, it'll glance all over; it glances quite a bit. When it's mature, it will not stick on you. When it's mature, it will drop off from you. That's when it's good full-kernel rice. If it's too green, the beard sticks right on you. It's worse when it's damp or when you splash water on you. The beards stick right to you when you're wet. But when you wear clean clothes -- and that's in respect for the rice -- rice is tamer to you, the beard and everything. The best way to get rice is to be clean about it. Of course I didn't wear wool. It's very dangerous to wear wool because all those rice beards sticks and picks wool. I wear a straight jacket so when a beard goes through it'll drop off. If you wear wool or you wear flannel -- we used to have flannel underwear -- you'll never get those rice beards off. It's hard to get them off. If you wear a straight jacket when you're harvesting on the rice field, the beards go through and it'll drop out.
You have to wear something that the beards won't stick on, but something that'll get air through too. If it's sealed, it's too hot; some might want to figure on going plastic, but that's too hot. We used to have oilcloth aprons, and the one that was knocking rice would have the apron looped around the neck and tied behind with the string. Some used to tie their sleeves so they wouldn't get scratched up and infections. And some of them wore gloves. What I mean is that some of them wrapped their hands in order to hold the knocker, but not too tight. That made them strong. They can work better when they're tied, and it helped keep the rice clean.
We always kept our boats clean too. When we picked wild rice some of them had brand new boats, brand new canoes. They were nice because they build them to use for harvesting wild rice.(17) They were new, and clean. You keep your rice clean because it's the food that you eat. That's what the Indian done. And they keep their feet clean, wherever they step -- into the gravel and everything. Keep yourself clean, because we had to keep the food clean. We worked to keep the food clean. My people enjoyed themselves in this field. They enjoyed themselves in this land. I feel that's why I follow the Indian way. I'm clean. I'm ready to meet the Great Spirit with clean clothes and mind and thank him for the new crop of rice. Before you take rice you always say "Thanks," "Mi-gwItch," to the Manitou. You say "thanks" with the first load of wild rice to come in because you're so happy that you got wild rice. You hurry up and make a prayer of thanks. You expect to make good on the rice field. You meditate that nothing shall happen, no accident, no fires, no sickness. Before you go, you say, "Great Spirit, harvesting time is here. You are ready for us to harvest this wild rice. You are ready to let us have the wild rice, and we shall have a feast with you. We enjoy tasting wild rice. Once a year, every year, that comes. And when we see that you have given us this great gift, when we see what you have given all, we thank you. Out in the air that I breathe we thank you. For what we eat, I thank you." We would go in there and get enough to eat in camp. We used to get lots of rice in a little while. We'd go in there and take the rice and come back in two, three hours. Two hours was doing good. We were very careful not to work too hard the first day on the rice fields. It's not easy; it's hard work. It was really hard work them days because we paddled. We didn't use poles yet. Poles shove the bedding of the rice down! So we used paddles! You have to be careful with wild rice, especially the first crop. When we go in to examine the first crop we check it wherever we find that it has surfaced. The first rice, the first crop, will usually come from where the water's low. The men in the boat will stop in different spots and if the rice is milky they don't stay there.(18) An expert that's been on the lake over and over to rice just looks, just takes one look at the rice and knows if its ready: "The green rice is no good." Green rice is o-jaa-wash-ko-ma-no-mIn. We break the green rice, and if it's milky, it isn't ready. If it comes out doughish, it isn't too ready, so we just go back. If you break the rice kernel and it becomes powder, or if it's brittle, it's ready. The kernel has to be dry with powder; there has to be lime in that. We figured, "That's lime food." We go where the rice is dry and cured. We know when the crop is better because we can hear it fall in the boat as you paddle through the rice field. Where the rice is milky you can hardly hear it fall in the boat -- it don't sound very good. And besides, you have to labor that much harder to get it, and when you get it, it's too green. If the rice is ready you can hear it. You hear it as you go along in the boat. It'll fall in there and make a noise, sounding like rainfall or hail. The clout of the clubs, the beaters, sound different when you're in the green rice. The beaters sound nice when you're in the well-matured rice. You don't have to hit ripe rice heavy. Ripe rice comes better. You can hear the sound of it in your boat. You can hear the sound of the beater; how nice the sound. And you look in the boat you could see that the tails of the rice are up. Ripe rice falls head first. That's heavy rice. Rice harvesters usually work together in teams. Now-a-days they talk and laugh; we didn't talk in the old days. We were very careful. We always remembered where the rice bed was level, even, tender. When we commenced to work, they flocked around the rice fields with the boats full.
When you're in the rice field ricing one person poles or paddles while the other rices. The poler poles the boat, and the ricer pounds. The ricer sits in the middle of the boat with two "knockers," two tapered sticks about two-and-a-half feet long. He'll gently bend the rice over the side of the canoe, then knock the rice off with a couple of taps. If he's good, he'll tap gently. That's all it takes to knock the ripe rice off. It doesn't pay to beat on the rice. Both the poler or paddler and the ricer have to be good. The poler has to know where the rice drops. If it's dropping right, he'll stay there, he won't bother about going into too green a rice. And when they hear the green rice -- the sound of the clubs will tell you that -- they think "We better get outa here. Let's go where it's ripe." When they find a little spot where it's ripe, they'll stay right there. As I said before, the rice don't mature in the whole field at once. It matures in spots. Later on in the season it's generally easier to locate the ripe rice. You just look around and go where everybody else is working. When I was little I'd paddle for my mother. She got me in the boat and pointed me where to head. The women pointed with their chin in those days. "You go in that direction. Do you see anybody on the lake?" "Ya." "Well go for them." She knew there were old-timers ricing there. "How many? How many?" she'd say. "Well, there's four or five." "You go there. Go wherever there's two, three boats." Then, while we were going there, she'd say, "Yah. That's where it's ripe. That's why they're working there." "Follow the gang and you'll get rice. But if you run off, if you run alone or run here and there, you're just working for nothing. Let's stay where it's falling; that's why they stay there. They stay where it is fallin'." "You can see them going back and forth in one spot. They're only taking the good rice. It's good rice there." We get all the rice we wanted, and we know it was matured because the others were ricing there too. Sometimes I see nature telling us where the rice is ripe. I used to follow all the mud hens, all the birds, blackbirds, the blackbirds in flocks. I'd ask my mother, "What are all those blackbirds doing?" "They're getting ready to go." mother said. "Oh, the rice is ripe. It's fit to eat." The flock of blackbirds were all around. "The birds, ducks, and everything are going to that rice; it's ripe, it's fit to eat. They won't stay where it's green." So I used to kinda chase the flock around. But if you chase them too much, they'll lead you off of that rice field. Gee. There's another thing about keeping wild rice clean. How are the old people going to have somebody work with them? Pairs of two of the tribe picked one another out for good ricing partners in order to make good harvesting with the wild rice. But some were usually left out. They were often too old, but they had a good memory. One said that he didn't have a mate. "Maybe I'm too old to go," he said. But he wanted to go, so he decided to tie rice. Tying the wild rice together in sheaves is called mah-no-men dak-o-bi-du. Ya, that's tying it together so the boat can go backwards. That's the way the old folks harvested rice in the old days, especially if they were in the canoe by themselves. If the old man or old woman wants to tie rice he picks a lot of basswood, which we use as a string, as twine. This old person says, "I'm gonna get some rice. I'm gonna get just as much, and maybe better rice. I'm gonna get heavy rice." So he takes his boat and he goes backwards with sticks. He doesn't rice, he just pulls the rice stalks in with kind of a hook on the stick. Then he takes the rice on the other side of the boat and pulls it in, and those heads meet together. He takes his hand and presses the ends where the green rice is still growing. Then he wraps that rice with the basswood bark and gives it a knot so that it would hang together. He would wrap the rice with that bark, or anything -- a string even.
Those tying rice would tie enough so they could take care of it in one day. They may have two or three places where they tied. They might tie, say, a hundred fifty feet of a rice field. I think they'd have about sixty or sixty-five sheaves tied. But they weren't all doing that. Tying rice was too much exercise. That was too much trouble. It wasn't hard work, but the others didn't want to take all the rice away from the old people. Tying rice like that was the only means many of the old people had to get rice. The old people didn't get in the way. They stayed by the lake shore where the rice ripens quicker. Rice matures quicker where the lily pads are. The reflection on the lily pads and the sweat of the moisture of the rice helped it mature faster. Rice used to be good; it used to be better. The rice heads weren't as short as they are now. In them days rice had about an eight-inch head hanging on it. Today you have rice fields with only about four inches of rice on top of the stalks. One lick of that short stuff and you're done. Rice heads are shorter now because people club it to death when it's not mature enough. The rice in those days had bigger heads because we took care of our rice. Oh boy there was a lot of rice! We figured that storms and wind might hit the rice, but it always stayed together when it was tied good. And everybody went around that tied rice. They didn't bother it. The people always thought that this person that cut the rope and had to tie the rice right in order to get what he was entitled to should not be bothered. When the old folks tied rice like that they got all the rice they wanted, when time came to harvest it. Tied rice ripens well. After so many days the rice gets pretty ripe. Tied up it ripens fast. They'd wait two, three days sometimes, when they'd go back there to begin harvesting the rice. After a few days the old man who tied the rice says, "If it isn't all ripe, that's all right. If I wait until it's all ripe, it'll be too late. I'll leave certain percentage of it. If I get the most of it, that will be enough." Then he goes out and goes forward with his boat. At the rice field he unties the knots holding the rice together. Then all he has to do is shake it with his hands. He shakes it and all the rice falls in the boat. It doesn't take him long until he gets quite a bit. Maybe he'll get a boatfull if he has runs tied up a hundred and fifty feet long. For sure, from one strip -- oh about, we'll say, about a half-a-block long -- they'd fill a canoe full of rice. Those folks, those old timers, would come in with a whole load from one strip. And they got all well-matured rice from those places. They got very, very good rice. They got the ripe rice when they do that. That was ripe. Ya. So the older class made good because they went and got that rice when it was well-matured. Tieing it proves itself. And, never hurt the greens any. Oh, yes, I've seen that. I used to do that too. We all had to do that at one time, but we didn't have to do that every day or even every season. We did many things in the old days, to help the rice crop. I was experimenting one time, just to see what the rice does as it's growing. I was paddling along and by gosh I came across old Grandma White all alone in the canoe. She had a bunch of birch bark before her, cut about two and three feet long. She'd take a club, bend a section of rice over, then take the other club, the other rice knocker, bend another cluster of rice over, and she'd put them all together and tie them. She'd put one strap around the rice, like a cloth strap, and then put a piece of birch bark over the rice heads, over the rice kernels. Then she would tie that birch bark down, with a couple strings on each end. You see, during the day the heat of the sun warmed the birch bark and helped the rice mature faster. Even if the night was cool, the rice was still ripening. We stopped tying the rice in bundles about 1918. It slowed up in 1918, and quit by 1920. In '20, the white people were rushing in. Then we didn't have time to tie rice, and we didn't trust to tie it because the white people would probably go in the rice fields. There's a lot of work to tying rice, and we didn't want to lose that. The whites wouldn't know what the tied sheaves were for, and they might knock the rice and damage it. They wouldn't know what tied up rice was. They wouldn't know that it belonged to somebody. They were watching the Indian to see how we do it, but they didn't see how it was tied up. See, we didn't trust the new ones who came in to harvest rice. And we had a lot of young people coming in, just making a sport of it, ricing. Before the white people started rushing in, most of the time the women would do the wild ricing and the men just gambled. At least that's the way it was with lots of them. I've seen that too, in 1907, '08. The men just gambled while the women and their daughters went off ricing.
You know why? The women like to go with their daughters because if they have to stop along the shore they cannot be accused of anything. They would get out of the canoes to look for a resting place or they would have a lunch by the lake shore, or maybe they had to get out of the boat for a nature call. So they would rather go with their daughters mostly.
The menfolks were supposed to stay home and jig rice that night, when it cools off. They finish the rice in the evening. Probably they parched rice too. Before we begin parching the rice we usually dried it out a little. After they get the rice, they come in. When the harvesters come back, there is a warm supper ready. When they come back they pull the canoes up. They're tired and hungry. They take off their rice clothes, hang them up somewheres, cover them up, and they take clean clothes again. They wash their hands, wash up, then they eat their supper -- a good warm supper.
After supper, when we have new green rice to work on, that'll be taken care of right now. We scatter it out to cure and dry, and then we jig it. Not long after we take the wild rice off of the lake we take that rice out of he canoes and put it out to dry. You cannot pound(19) wild rice and bring it and throw it in a pile and leave it lay and expect it'll keep. Wild rice has to be cured. When you come in you should scatter it out so that it'll surface the top of the grain, so that the kernel will dry. When it's surface-dry, you're able to cure that. So we don't leave it lay around to sour. We don't leave it on the ground to absorb the moisture from the ground. We don't leave it to sour. We take it off the lake, then cure it right now, very carefully. It don't take long to dry. Then we finish that rice right away, so that we can get wild rice to eat.
After they eat, the old people would select the boys or girls to help unload and dry the rice. "You children get up, take the containers and put that rice there to dry." The younger class has to haul that rice. If they are too young they don't let them haul rice, but if they are old enough they could haul it. Oh, they have to be about fourteen, twelve, fourteen years to haul rice, the old people always told us, "You can work, but don't spill. Don't spill the rice. Be careful how you handle that rice, so it don't get on your hands and clothes."
We always had baskets to dip it with. Oh boy that's something. We scattered the green rice out on big sheets of birch bark. We took care of it; we put a cover on that with birch bark so in case it rains, it's sheltered. We would leave it out all night and nobody would touch it. Later on we spread the green rice out on canvas, or whatever we had. Maybe it would take two or three days to parch a boatfull. And we used to get a fill of the boats; there was a crop. And all the time the green rice waited for parching it dried out on the birch bark sheets. We took good care of it.
The first thing you do after the rice is dried a little bit is to heat it, parch it. By heating it you kill the reaction it might later have on anything that's cooked, baked, or roasted. That's why the Indian roasts or parches rice. You also have to parch the rice so that you can knock the hulls off. There's a lot to making wild rice. Well, there isn't as much work to it, if you knohow.
Some of that machine's stuff(20) now doesn't parch rice enough. They figure if they do parch enough they'll lose the weight. So they just parch it enough so that the required weight is there.(21) There's a difference in parching. You have to be careful with wild rice. We always parch all we can parch when the harvesters are out. To parch fast you have to keep the rice dry. Then when you put it in the parcher it parches fast. In my day we parched in a tub or a black iron kettle, usually right on the fire. You can also use a good, a fairly good, coal stove. A coal stove works fine too. We put the rice right on the bottom of the kettle. We were very careful with fire while parching rice.
When we parch we stir the rice with a paddle. Your paddle slips fast when it's almost done. There seems to be an oil in that rice, some kind of vitamin, and you can feel it when it's done. We didn't parch too much. It's tender, it's brittle, when it's done. You take a basket, one of them winnowing baskets and dip the rice with that. Dip it into the jigging tubs. You can't use that little basket to dip on the finisher because it has rice beards in it. This has beards. You're not done until you fan the rice. You can't fan the rice until it's been pounded and jigged. We always knocked the hulls off in two stages. We first put the rice in wooden tubs and pounded it with poles, and then we also did the jigging with our moccasins. At the first stage we used a tub and pounded the rice with sticks, poles. That first stage is for breaking the points and the hulls. The first stage pounding breaks the coarse grade, it breaks the coarse straw. We do that to break the coarse straw out and the beards off. We pound at first with poles because the beards are sharp enough to work through your moccasin.
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Drying Wild rice on birch bark sheets.
