1070 WILD RICE GATHERERS OF UPPER LAKES (ETH, ANN. 19 
when the grain was roasted on hot, flat stones, thus causing the hulls 
to crack and loosen, after which they were rubbed off. The other 
method was to wait until the grain was ready to be consumed, when 
the kernel, inclosed in its hull, was pounded. This pounded mass was 
then put into a vessel of water. The hulls, which would remain on 
the surface of the water, were then skimmed off, and the water and 
pounded kernels made into a very palatable soup.* 
The implements for thrashing are neither varied nor numerous. 
Holes dug in the ground are lined with skins and slabs of wood. 
Wooden troughs, blankets or mats, bags of skin, and bags of woven 
bark are all used to hold the grain while being thrashed. Stakes are 
sometimes used to steady the laborer; he usually wears moccasins 
while treading the grain. Cloth and mats are used as screens. Sticks 
used like flails and like churn-dashers are also employed. The grain 
is at times pounded on flat stones, and again it is shaken in large open 
baskets. 
WINNOWING 
It is not difficult to draw sharp lines separating the various processes 
which have been described thus far in the harvesting of wild rice. 
The entire winter, the spring, and most of summer intervene between 
the sowing and the tying. Between the tying and the gathering from 
several days to several weeks elapse; and though the gathering and the 
curing may be done on the same day, and even at the same time by 
different women, the gathering is on the water, while the curing is on 
the land. The curing and the thrashing are plainly distinct proc- 
esses; but it is only because of division of labor that a sharp line 
may be drawn between the thrashing and the winnowing. The Indian 
silently stalks into the labors of rice harvesting when the thrashing 
begins, and when it is completed he silently stalks out again, leaving 
the woman to lift up the pile of mixed kernels and chaff in order that 
the wind—nature’s fanning mill—may separate them. If the wind 
does not blow when the grain is ready to winnow, the cleaner uses 
a fan. 
Ellis wrote that in Green Bay county, Wisconsin, the hulls were 
blown off by the wind.* The Ojibwa women of Fond du Lac reser- 
vation, Minnesota, and Bad River reservation, Wisconsin, all winnow 
their wild rice by means of the wind.* Mr Phalon writes of Fond du 
Lac, *‘A blanket or birch bark is spread on the ground, and with the 
help of a good stiff breeze the grain is fanned out.” The women at 
Lac Courte Oreille reservation, as I saw the process in the autumn 
of 1899, put a peck of the thrashed grain into a birch-bark tray 

1 Paddock, letter, January 20, 1899. 
2 Ellis, Recollections, p. 266. 
%Phalon, letter, December 27, 1898; Patterson, letter, November 13, 1898. 
