1005 WILD RICE GATHERERS OF UPPER LAKES (ETH. ANN.19 
True, we may find a little rice and a few fish, but not sufficient for my 
people, not enough to save them from starvation.” ? 
In 1865 the agent speaks of the impracticability of moving the Mis- 
sissippi and Mille Lacs bands of Chippewa to the Red lake country. 
After speaking of the scarcity of good land and sugar trees, he con- 
tinued: ** There is another great item which must not be overlooked; 
that is, there are no rice fields in that country, . . . or fishing 
lakes.” * 
A letter from La Pointe agency, Ashland, Wisconsin, September 10, 
1891, is as follows: 
In many of the streams and lakes of these reservations wild rice grows luxuriantly. 
This important cereal is carefully harvested by the Indians, and constitutes an 
important part of their subsistence stores. It is palatable and nutritious, and by 
many white people is preferred to the white rice of commerce. The rice fields are 
the resort of numerous wild fowl, which are captured by the Indians and either con- 
sumed at home or sold in the neighboring towns. The revenue thus derived from 
the rice fields renders them a very important part of the Indian domain.* 
This recent testimony of the value of wild fowl to the Indian sug- 
gests their much greater utility in past years; and such in fact the 
following citations prove. When it is remembered that wild fowl are 
to-day relatively scarce, that through the Central States the sight of 
any considerable number of wild pigeons is rare, even to one skilled in 
wooderaft, but that our fathers yet living saw them in such flocks that 
they shut out the light of the sun, a better perspective will be obtained 
for judging of the number and value of wild fowl when the Indian and 
his natural foods were undisturbed by the white man. We read of 
the Indians of White Earth reservation in 1890, that from August to 
December they hunt duck, which are found in countless numbers 
around all the wild-rice lakes. Near the middle of the century wild 
fowl, as geese, duck, teal, ete., were reported in vast quantities, feed- 
ing on wild rice along Green bay,’ Minnesota river,’ Winnipeg river,’ 
and Lake Winnebago* and vicinity. 
Carver," in 1766, °67, 68, says the ‘‘geefe, ducks, and teal... . 
which refort to it [Lake Winnebago, Wisconsin] in great numbers, are 
remarkably good and extremely fat, and are much better flavored than 
thofe that are found near the fea, as they acquire their exceffive fatnefs 
by feeding on the wild rice.” 

1Jndian Affairs Report, 1863, p. 329 et seq. 
2Tbid., 1865, p. 446. 
8Indian Affairs Report, 1891, p. 471. 
‘Eleventh Census of the United States: Indians, 1890. See also Grasses and Forage Plants of the 
Dakotas, by Thos. A. Williams, p. 17. 
5 Biddle, Recollections of Green bay in 1816-17, in Wisconsin Historical Collections, vol. 1, p. 63. 
6Featherstonhaugh, Canoe Voyage, pp. 331, 335, 336. 
7Henry Youle Hind, Narrative, pp. 115, 116. 
®Caleb Atwater, Indians of the Northwest,-p. 181; see also Life of George Copway, p. 65, for 
immense flocks of duck feeding on the wild rice each fall in Rice Lake, Ontario, Canada; also Ellis, 
Recollections, concerning wild fowl in Wisconsin rice fields, 
’Carver, Travels, pp, 87-88; see also p, 522, 
