Explores in detail the technology of harvesting and processing the
grain, the important place of wild rice in Ojibway ceremony and legend,
including the rich social life of the traditional rice camps, and the
volatile issues of treaty rights.
Wild rice has always been essential to life in the Upper Midwest and
neighboring Canada. In this far-reaching book, Thomas Vennum Jr. uses
travelers' narratives, historical and ethnological accounts, scientific
data, historical and contemporary photographs and sketches, his own
field work, and the words of Native people to examine the importance of
this wild food to the Ojibway people. He details the technology of
harvesting and processing, from seventeenth-century reports though
modern mechanization. He explains the important place of wild rice in
Ojibway ceremony and legend and depicts the rich social life of the
traditional rice camps. And he reviews the volatile issues of treaty
rights and litigations involving Indian problems in maintaining this
traditional resource.
A staple of the Ojibway diet and economy for centuries, wild rice has
now become a gourmet food. With twentieth-century agricultural
technology and paddy cultivation, white growers have virtually removed
this important source of income from Indigenous hands. Nevertheless, the
Ojibway continue to harvest and process rice each year. It remains a
vital part of their social, cultural, and religious life.
