1062 WILD RICE GATHERERS OF UPPER LAKES [ETH. ANN. 19 
General Ellis wrote that the Indians in Green Bay county, Wiscon- 
sin, in pushing the canoe used a **long, light, slender pole, provided 
with a fork at one end, to prevent its sinking too deep into the soft 
muddy bottom.” ’ 
Catlin said of the Dakota that one woman paddled the canoe while 
the other bent the stalks over and beat out the grain, as is told above.” 
The Dakota used to gather the grain and carry it home in sacks.* 
The Potawatomi Indians, of southwestern Michigan, gathered the 
grain as follows: They * would push the boat into the thick rice, bend 
the tops over the boat, and pound it out with *rawagikan,’ a stick for 
the purpose.” * 
The Ojibwa women of Bad river, Wisconsin, bend the tied bunches 
over the side of the canoe, untie the bark band, and beat out the grain 
with a short stick.” It is customary to untie the bunches before beat- 
ing them. 
At Fond du Lac (Lake Superior), Minnesota, two persons of either 
sex, or both, go out in a canoe, the fo-ward person working it ahead 
with either a paddle or a forked pole. The one in the stern beats the 
rice out, using two sticks, one to bend the rice over and the other to 
beat the heads.° Harmon saw the Indians gathering the grain ** with 
a hooked stick, in one hand, and a stright one in the other.” ‘ 
Again we read that the ‘* Fols Avoines” (Menomini) west of Green 
bay, Wisconsin, beat the grain off into a canoe lined with blankets.* 
Another variation is found in that after the band about the stalks was 
cut and removed one of the harvesters bent the heads down over the 
‘anoe with a stick while the other with a pole beat off the grain." 
Dr Hoffman, in his monograph, The Menomini Indians, wrote that, in 
1892, ‘tat the proper season the women, and frequently the men as 
oe 
well, paddle through the dense growth of wild rice along the shores of 
the lakes and rivers, and while one attends to the canoe, the others grasp 
with one hand a bunch of rice stalks, bend it over the gunwale into the 
boat, and beat out the ears of rice.” In 1899-the Memomini still gath- 
ered most of their rice in canoes from untied stalks, but where the 
water was too shallow for canoes, the stalks were tied, and the grain 
was beaten out on mats spread upon the water between the rows. 
The stick with which they beat the heads is called ** pawa’qikan.” 
1 Ellis, Recollections, p. 266. 
2Catlin, North American Indians, vol. 11, p. 208. 
Williamson, letter, November 30, 1898. This letter reads as though the grain was taken home 
before it was cured and hulled. Because of the danger from the Ojibwa, who dominated the rice 
fields during the period covered by the letter, it is not improbable that such was the case. 
4 Pokagon, letter, November 16, 1898. 
Patterson, letter, November 23, 1898, 
* Phalon, letter, December 27, 1898. 
7 Harmon, Journal, p. 142. 

“Brown, Western Gazetteer, p. 267; also Flint, Geography and History, vol. 1, p. 85. 
Seymour, Sketches of Minnesota, p. 188; see also Schooleraft, Indian Tribes, vol. 111, p. 62 et seq. 
10 Hoffman, The Menomini Indians, p. 291. 
