THE WILD-RICE INDIANS. 73 



rows are formed of tied up rice, still standing in the wa- 

 ter to ripen. 



A few weeks later, along in September, when the rice 

 has ripened, the women go in their canoes between the 

 rows of bunches, and while one paddles slowh', the other 

 beats the heads over the edge of the canoe with a sharp 

 piece of wood, thrashing off the hulls with the kernels of 

 rice in them. When a canoe load is thus secured, it is 

 taken ashore and emptied. 



Of course the kernels must be separated from the hulls, 

 and this part of the work is all that is done by the men 

 in the whole process of rice gathering. A hole is dug in 

 the ground, the rice is put in it, and an Indian treads 

 upon it until' the threshing is completed. Then the wo- 

 men winnow the kernels from the chaff in the wind. It is, 

 on the whole, a rather laborious process, but is a much 

 simpler method of obtaining food than preparing the 

 ground, planting, and caring for a crop, as the eastern 

 Indians did in growing their maize, or Indian corn. 



Of course there was, in the early days, before the white 

 man came, terrible fighting among the tribes for the pos- 

 session of the rice-fields. The Menomini Indians were 

 hardy, and appear to have held their own, by constantly 

 fighting for it. But the Ojibwa or Chippewa Indians 

 came from the east and drove away the Sauks and P'oxes ; 

 and then the Dakota, or Sioux, came and tried to drive 

 the Ojibwa away. But these bought guns of the white 

 men and learned to use them, and thus drove the Sioux to 

 the plains to the westward, to hunt buffalo, while the 

 Ojibwa remained to harvest and eat the rice, which the 

 remnant of their tribe, on their reservation, continue to do 

 to this day. 



We comprehended and we loved one another ; we interchanged 

 onr languages. I spoke for the Bird, and the Bird sang for me, 

 —Michelet, 



