1084 WILD RICE GATHERERS OF UPPER LAKES (ETH. ANN.19 
Some of the dishes of which wild rice forms a part, however, are 
not so suggestive of satisfaction to the palate of the white man; and 
yet, most white people have eaten food less palatable than a stew or 
soup of wild rice and dog meat, notwithstanding its suggestiveness. 
It is a favorite dish with the Indian. After some of the customary 
conflicts between the Ojibwa and Dakota in the wild-rice district, the 
following was recorded in 1840: ‘*The savage party [Ojibwa] also 
cooked some of the flesh of the Sioux with their rice.”’ The Sandy 
lake Indians, according to Doty, have boiled the excrement of rabbit 
with their rice to season it, and they esteem it a luxury. To make 
this dish still more palatable—in fact, one of their highest epicurean 
dishes—they occasionally took a partridge, and, after having picked 
off its feathers, but made no further preparation, they pounded it to 
the consistency of jelly. It was then thrown into the dish and the 
whole was boiled.” 
The following dish is not only palatable, but also very nutritious: 
‘*The Indian women used to make a favorite dish of wild rice, corn, 
and fish boiled together, and called Zass¢manonny. I remember it 
to this day as an object of early love.”* Marquette wrote that after 
winnowing the grain ‘‘they pound it to reduce it to meal, or even 
unpounded, boil it in water seasoned with grease, and in this way, wild 
oats [wild rice] are almost as palatable as rice would be when not 
better seasoned.”! Traill wrote of the Indians about Quinto bay, 
Ontario, as follows: ‘*That night . . . cooked some of the parched 
rice, Indian fashion, with venison, and they enjoyed the novelty very 
much. It made an excellent substitute for bread, of which they had 
been so long deprived.”° 
The cooked grain is eaten plain, and is also a great favorite with the 
Indian when eaten with sweets, especially with maple sugar. School- 
craft tells us that it was boiled in water to the consistency of hominy and 
was eaten, unseasoned, with spoons. It is also sometimes roasted and 
‘aten dry. He stated that it contains more gelatinous matter than the 
southern rice, and is very nutritious.° Hennepin said that the Indians 
used to boil their rice except during the time of hunting. ‘' Les 
Sauvages en font leur provifion pour fubfifter une partie de l'année en 
la faifant cuire en maniere de bouillie hors du temps de leur Chaffe.”? 
Flint wrote *‘ The grain, that we have eaten, was as white, as the common 
rice. Puddings made of it tasted to us, like those made of sago.”* 
Carver stated that the Dakota ‘‘ boil it and eat it alone”; that they also 

1 Neill, The Beginnings of Organized Society, p. 64. 
2Doty, Wisconsin Historical Collections, vol. v1, p. 199. 
8 Biddle, Wisconsin Historical Collections, vol. 1, p. 63. 
4Shea, Discovery, p.9. 
6 Traill, Canadian Crusoes, p. 185. 
Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, vol. 11, p. 63. 
7 Hennepin, Nouvelle Decouverte, p.318* (fol. O*4). 
§Flint, Geography and History, vol. 1, p. 85. 
