THE WILD RICE INDIANS. 71 



The plant blossoms in June, and by September the seeds 

 are mature. The stalks vary in length from two to twelve 

 feet, and will grow and mature in water from one to eight 

 feet in depth. It is believed that it grows in suitable lo- 

 cations in every State east of the Rocky Mountains. In- 

 deed, it has been reported from all but two of them — Ten- 

 nessee and West Virginia. But it is in the ponds and 

 lakes spread out over Wisconsin and Minnesota, where 

 the last glacier left numerous mud-bottomed, water- filled 

 hollows, that it grows most abundantly, and it was there 

 that the Indians learned to depend upon it for a consider- 

 able portion of their food supply, and fought many terrible 

 battles among themselves for the possession of the rice 

 beds. 



The story how the facts concerning the wild-rice gather- 

 ers came to be collected and published is itself interesting, 

 and shows how great opportunities sometimes lie about, 

 waiting for someone to improve them. It had long been 

 known that certain tribes of Indians, gathered, stored and 

 used wild rice for food, but the knowledge was exceeding- 

 ly vague until Dr. Albert E. Jenks, an advanced student 

 in the University of Wisconsin, undertook to collect the 

 references to the use of wild rice scattered through early 

 and rare literature pertaining to the Indians, which he 

 found in the library of the Wisconsin Historical Society. 

 He had found something worth doing. His interest grew, 

 and he began making inquiries about the use of the plant 

 by Indians now living. He also got a chemist at the uni- 

 versity to make a thorough analysis of the rice, to deter- 

 mine its food value, which is very high, for wild rice con- 

 tains just the substances which the human body needs to 

 nourish and strengthen it. Then the Bureau of Ethnolo- 

 gy at Washington heard what Dr. Jenks was doing, and 

 commissioned him to go to northern Wisconsin and Min- 

 nesota, where the wild-rice crop is still harvested annually. 



