DENSMORE] PLANTS AS FOOD 313 
cool during the summer so that it would neither become sour nor 
freeze. Makuks of this substance were often placed in the storing 
lodge of a sugar camp where the women could get them at any time. 
Tf left an entire year, the women, on returning to the sugar camp, 
found it as fresh as when placed in storage. 
The uses of maple sugar were many and varied. It was used in 
seasoning fruits, vegetables, cereals, and fish. It was dissolved in 
water as a cooling sammer drink and sometimes made into sirup in 
which medicine was boiled for children. The granulated sugar and 
the sugar cakes were commonly used as gifts, and a woman with a 
goodly supply of maple sugar in its various forms was regarded as 
a thrifty woman providing for the wants of her family. 
A pleasing diversion of the young people was the making of birch- 
bark transparencies, described on pages 390-396. 
A Chippewa living in Canada where there are few maple trees 
said that his people tap the white birch trees and boil the sap into 
sirup. He said that the sap of these trees does not run as long as 
maple sap. 
GatHertne Witp Rice 
Wild rice constitutes the chief cereal food of the Chippewa. It 
abounds in certain lakes, ripening earliest in the shallow lakes fed by 
streams and later in the lakes fed by springs. The soil of some lakes 
seems to produce more rice and larger kernels than that of other lakes. 
By a wise provision of nature the seed of the rice is carried by wild 
ducks, which also afford food for the people at the season when the 
rice is ripe. 
In the old days each family or small group of families had a por- 
tion of a rice field, as it had a “sugar bush” for making its maple 
sugar. The portion of a rice field was outlined by stakes, and a 
woman established her claim to it by going to the field about 10 days 
before the rice was ripe and tying portions of it in small sheaves. 
Basswood fiber is used without twisting for the tying of rice. One 
length is tied to another, making a large hard ball that unwinds from 
the middle. The ball is placed in a tray behind the woman as she 
sits in the canoe. For this work she wears a special waist (pl. 36, a), 
which, with the care of Chippewa women, is reenforced on the shoul- 
der where the basswood fiber passes through a little birch-bark ring. 
"This method of carrying the “ twine ” keeps it ready to her hand and 
free from becoming tangled. (PI. 36,6.) She draws a little group of 
rice stalks toward her with the “rice hoop” (pl. 37) and winds the 
fiber around them, bending the tip of the sheaf or bundle down to 
the stalks. The process in detail is shown in Plate 38. The rice is 
left standing until ripe, when the sheaf is untied, the rice shaken out, 
55231°—28——21 
