THE OHIO VALLEY-GREAT LAKES ETHNOHISTORY ARCHIVES: THE MIAMI COLLECTION
It is noted that the following work from the Miami Archives should be
read and considered within the historical context in which it was composed and
printed. The opinions expressed and the language used do not reflect the
opinions or standards of the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology, but are,
rather, indicative of thought in that historical moment during which the
document was published.
The Wild Rice Gatherers of the Upper Lakes
19th A.R. -Bureau of American Ethnology
1897-98
(pages 1106-1109)
by E.A. Jenks
INDIAN POPULATION OF THE WILD RICE DISTRICT
(p. 1112) These Indians in the wild-rice district exhibited some social aspects which were quite unique. First, the Winnebago, of Siouan stock, had injected themselves among the Algonquian Indians, and, occupying a strip of land from the Mississippi due east to the foot of Green bay, they lived at peace with the Mernomini, Kickapoo, Maskotin, Miami, Potawatomi, and other Indians of the Algonquian stock. Among the rice fields were villages in which even four different tribes dwelt in barbaric harmony. Early chroniclers frequently spoke of the superior physical manhood of the Indians in this district, as well as of their peaceful dispositions. On the one hand, these facts were probably due to the superior quality of their subsistence, as wild rice and fish, and on the other, to the abundance of such subsistence, and to the accompanying fact that many could dwell near together; and also to the fact that they must be more sedentary than the plains Indians, in order to reap their annual crop. The river influence in general would also tend toward peaceful life. Rivers and lakes with their unnumberable waterways (such as the wild-rice district exhibits probably more completely than any other sect of equal size in America) furnished quick, permanent, and easy means of travel and transportation. Thus, even in canoeing, they would learn the value of mutual help. Canoes were less easily carried long distances by land than were the effects of the plains Indians. Constant connection with wild-rice and maple-sugar areas would lead to the villages within easy access. At such village sites loyalty to kinship in the tribe was planted, and out of it grew patriotism for country, as was noticeable when the Indians demanded lands where were situated their rice fields, their sugar orchards, and the graves of their fathers. Thus were laid two corner stones of civilization, viz, the peaceful massing of various tribes, and love for a common country. Here, however, the foundation ceased . Wild rice, which had led their advance thus far, held them back from further progress, unless, indeed they left it behind them, for (p. 1113) with them it was incapable of extensive cultivation. Its supply was precarious, and there was no way of making it certain. One year the gathering of 3 or 4 percent of the crop gave food for a winter's consumption, another year its failure, which might occur for any one of many reasons, threatened the people with starvation. In civilization one class of people at least must have comparative leisure in which to develop short-cut methods of doing old things, of acquiring the traditions of the race, and of mastering new thoughts and methods. Such leisure is impossible with a precarious food supply. But, in spite of these facts, for barbaric people during the period of barbarism the most princely vegetal gift which North America gave her people without toil was wild rice. They could almost defy natures law that he who will not work shall not eat.
The facts presented in this section prove that the wild-rice district gave natural support to a larger number of Indians (besides many hundred whites) than did the adjoining territory of nearly five times its area. The facts further prove that wild rice was a chief means which made possible this greater population.
The causes which led to the use of wild rice for food are lost to history. Even tradition, with her many volumes written so full of interesting and valuable facts, gives no information on the subject, except that man's hunger caused him to eat the grain. The best evidence now known is that of the Relations des Jesuites. It has been noticed that Ojibwa Indians and early settlers used Ontario, on the north and west shores of Lake Erie, on the east shore of Lake Huron, and on Georgian Bay, as well as on Rice and adjacent lakes in the included point of Canadian territory, now Ontario. The Jesuit fathers lived in Indian wigwams, subsisted on Indian foods, were interested and keen observers and intelligent chroniclers of the entire life of the Indian. Religious, social and economic life received their careful attention. Yet not one word appears to have been written, either by them or contemporaneous chroniclers, about the use of wild rice in this districts. (Miss Emma Helen Blair, assistant editor of the Thwaites; edition of the Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, Cleveland, 1896, I, 73 volumes is the authority for the above statement, made before the volumes were accessible.) Its first mention is that of 1634 in connection with the Menomini Indians, who even then were called "wild-rice men" by their Algonquian kinsmen. It therefore seems probable that in the Ontario district described above the Indians did not use wild rice until scarcity of game, caused by the fur trade with the whites, drove them to it. The menomini Indians, however, did depend upon it extensively before such scarcity. What influence the scarcity of game had upon the use of wild rice by the other Indians in the wild-rice district it is impossible to say. However, the Winnebago and several thousand Dakota 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 buffalo. The powerful and numerous Ojibwa Indians came into possession of wild rice during the first period of the fur trade; consequently theirs was also 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 luxuriantly, it si probable that in most of the wild-rice district hte 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.
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 support. The lakes in which the wild rice once grew in such abundant quantities have become almost barren" (House Ex. Doc. 3d series, 53d Cong., 1894-95, vol. xv, p. 150.)
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