JENKS] THE MENOMINI 1047 
first was east of the Mississippi and about 4+ miles from the Minnesota river. The 
second was on the Mississippi river. The third was on both sides of the Minnesota, 
about 6 miles from its mouth. Lying near the intersection of the roads between 
these three villages were the low grounds and marshes of sugar maple and wild rice, 
and here the villagers assembled to make sugar in the spring and to gather rice in 
the autumn. 
The fierce struggle of the Dakota with the Ojibwa at the rice fields 
is a measure of the value they put upon them. Among them, as 
among the Ojibwa, there were rice villages. La Harpe mentions 
three such, as follow: ‘*Les Psioumanitons, village des chercheurs 
de folle avoine” (village of wild rice gatherers), ‘‘les Psinchatons, 
village de la folle avoine rouge” (village of the red wild rice), and 
“Jes Psinontanhinhintons, village de la grande folle avoine” (the great 
wild-rice village).” He mentions nine Dakota villages west and seyen 
east of the Mississippi. It has been asserted that from the year 1800 
until 1851, when they were removed to Redwood reservation in western 
Minnesota, the Dakota east of the Mississippi, to the number of 2,000, 
used wild rice largely. ‘* Even after that a considerable number would 
visit the rice fields every fall to gather what they could *til 1862, 
when the Minnesota massacre occurred, and they were remoyed to the 
Minnesota river. A few stragglers remaining in Minnesota still gather 
some.”* The above letter does not speak of rice gathering by the 
western Dakota, but two of the wild-rice villages mentioned by 
La Harpe were west of the Mississippi, and, as has been shown and 
will be shown later from the testimony of maps, Minnesota river had 
immense wild-rice fields, while a few bodies of water west of the Mis- 
sissippi bear the Dakota name for wild rice. 
Considering all the data presented, it is probable that the estimate of 
2,000 wild rice producing Dakota Indians is too conservative for the 
earlier part of the nineteenth century; and it is believed that between 
5,000 and 7,000 Dakota Indians used wild rice at the time the Ojibwa 
were nominally in control of the territory east of the Mississippi. 
None of the Dakota Indians on reseryations have access to wild rice 
at the present time. 

The MErNOMINI 
From the point of view of the present memoir the Menomini Indians 
are unique. From the year 1634 they have consumed wild rice in 
large quantities. Unlike other Indians who, for short periods, have 
been named because of their intimate relations with the grain, the 
Menomini have always been known, so far as Indian tradition and 
authentic history are concerned, as the ** Wild-rice Indians” par 
excellence. 


1Schooleraft, Indian Tribes, vol. IT, p. 97. 
*La Harpe, Journal Historique, pp. 69, 70. 
Letter of Reverend John P. Williamson, Greenwood, South Dakota, January 21, 1899. Mr Wil- 
liamson and his father before him have been lifelong missionaries to the Dakota Indians. 
