JENKS| METHODS OF GATHERING 1061 
The bunches are made with great uniformity and regularity. A 
row is tied on both sides of the canoe, and when the limit of the field 
is reached the laborer turns around in the canoe, and returning, ties 
two other rows by the side of and parallel to the last. The fields at 
this period are very attractive. The graceful bunches and regular 
rows, either straight or following the outer limits of the beds, are 
extremely pleasing to see. 
At present the Menomini Indians tie their rice only where the water 
is too shallow to allow canoes to travel. 
The mechanical means necessary in the process of tying are very 
simple. The canoe (see plate Lxxmt) is indispensable. The only mate- 
rial spoken of which is used to tie the stalks is basswood bark in strings 
or strips. It has also been noticed that at times the stalks were held 
together by being twisted to form a bunch. A sickle-shaped stick, 
about 34 feet long, is used to draw the stalks within reach for tying. 
GATHERING 
The previous process, that of tying, is not an essential one in the 
harvest of wild-rice grain, though, as has been shown, it is not uncom- 
mon. The first necessary step in the entire harvest is the gathering 
of the seed, and, while the grain is always gathered in canoes or other 
craft (there is a minor exception among the Menomini), there is, in 
the gathering, great variety in means and method. It is usually done 
by women. It is customary for the families which harvest wild rice 
to move to the fields during the harvest period, which lasts about one 
month. 
In the Algonquian language manominikewin means ‘‘the gathering 
ot wild rice.”? Nin manominike ney oY ii gather wild rice;” I manomin ike 
signities ‘‘he gathers wild rice”* (Wilson spells the same term uwn/hoo- 
mineka*). The wild-rice bag used in harvesting is called manominiwaj.* 
In the Dakota language psn at/ means ‘‘to pitch a tent at the rice 
[fields],”° while fate psin is ‘* wild-rice wind.”* 
Radisson wrote of the Dakota: ‘‘They have a particular way to 
gather up that graine. Two takes a boat and two fticks, by w™ they 
gett y* eare downe and gett the corne out of it.”’ 
The following account came from Sandy lake, Aitkin county, Min- 
nesota, in 1820: 
It is now gathered by two of them [women] passing around in a canoe, one sitting 
in the stern and pushing it along, while the other, with two small pointed sticks, 
about three feet long, collects it in by running one of the sticks into the rice, and 
bending it into the canoe, while with the other she threshes out the grain. This she 
does on both sides of the canoe alternately, and while it is moying.® 

1Baraga, Otchipwe Dictionary. 5Riggs, Dakota-English Dictionary. 
2Verwyst, Geographicai Names, p. 393. ®Gordon, Legends of the Northwest, p. 58. 
3Wilson, Manual of the Ojebwa Language. 7 Radisson, Voyages, p. 215. 
4Baraga, op. cit. 8 Edward Tanner, in Detroit Gazette, December 8, 1820. 
