Harvesting Manoomin

     It looks like Chogan and Kanti are preparing a treat for the village bullies—and it won’t be the wild rice Chogan and Kanti worked so hard to gather! But before we go any further, lets learn more about this wild rice stuff Chogan and Kanti have been gathering.

 

Rice Fields

 

 

 

     We call it wild rice; Chogan’s people called it manoomin; scientists call it Zizania palustris. It is not the same as the commercial white rice we find in the grocery store. Wild rice grows in the shallow waters of lakes and slow-flowing streams. In Chogan’s time they formed large fields like the picture to the left, but now cottages and summer homes have replaced most of the rice fields.

 

 

 

Gathering Wild Rice

 

 

 

     Wild rice ripens in late August or early September. Since it is an aquatic plant, early Native Americans harvested the rice by canoe as seen in the drawing at the right. The rice fields were too thick to paddle a canoe, so the person kneeling in the back of the canoe pushed the canoe forward with a pole. The person in the front of the canoe pulled the rice plants over the canoe using a curved stick. A few whacks with a paddle and the rice grains fell into the canoe.

 

 

Grains of Wild Rice

 

 

    

     If rice is not dried immediately after harvest, the grain can become moldy. Chogan’s mother prevented this by spreading the grain over birch bark slabs in a sunny location. This removed most of the moisture. After a day in the sun, the rice was parched by roasting the grain over a fire. Parching not only removes the remaining moisture, but also loosened the outer inedible hull. After parching, children gently walked on the rice with soft moccasins to separate the rice from the hulls. As a final step, Ojibway women gently tossed the rice and hulls into the air, which allowed the wind to blow away the hulls. The finished product looked like the processed rice pictured on the left. Wild rice is about twice the length of white rice.

 

     Now it is time to get back to Chogan and Kanti to see what they are planning to do with the snakes. I'm sure it will be interesting.

 

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