1114 WILD RICE GATHERERS OF UPPER LAKES [ETH. ANN. 19 
Indians of the Siouan stock, and the Miami, Potawatomi, Sauk, Fox, 
Maskotin, and Kickapoo Indians of the Algonquian stock used rice to a 
certain extent while still surrounded by small game and even by but- 
falo, The powerful and numerous Ojibwa Indians came into posses- 
sion of wild rice during the first period of the fur trade; consequently 
theirs also was not a choice between starvation or the use of rice. 
This fact is attested by the Annual Report of the Commissioner of 
Indian Affairs for 1864, in which year $40,000 worth of furs were 
gathered. But inasmuch as the rice fields where rice is harvested are 
annually failing, but where it is not harvested rice still grows luxuri- 
antly, it is probable that in most of the wild-rice district the grain has 
been gathered only a few hundred years, say from three to five, in 
such quantities as are shown by the tables on page 1075 and following.' 

1 The following is from White Earth agency, Minnesota, in 1894; ‘‘ A good many on the different 
reservations have, in their proper seasons, gathered wild rice, blueberries, cranberries, and snake- 
root, and made considerable quantities of maple sugar; but these are now mere incidents to their 
suppert. The lakes in which the wild rice once grew in such abundant quantities have become 
almost barren’’ (House Ex. Doc., 3d sess., 53d Cong., 1894-95, vol. Xv, p. 150). 
