The Wild Rice Moon - Ojibwe legend about the discovery of wild rice, with related information about wild rice in Minnesota and later in California

Whole Earth, Winter, 1999 by Winona LaDuke

GLOBALOCAL MARKETS AND PRESERVING THE TASTE OF MANOOMIN

As the Anishinaabeg Ojibwe tell the story, Nanaboozhoo, the cultural hero of the Anishinaabeg, was introduced to wild rice by fortune, and by a duck.

... One evening Nanaboozhoo returned from hunting, but he had no game ... As he came towards his fire, there was a duck sitting on the edge of his kettle of boiling water. After the duck flew away, Nanaboozhoo looked into the kettle and found wild rice floating upon the water, but he did not know what it was. He ate his supper from the kettle, and it was the best soup he had ever tasted. Later, he followed in the direction the duck had taken, and came to a lake full of manoomin: wild rice. He saw all kinds of ducks and geese and mud hens, and all the other water birds eating the grain. After that, when Nanaboozhoo did not kill a deer, he knew where to find food to eat....

Manoomin is a centerpiece of the nutrition and sustenance for our community, a gift given to the Anishinaabeg from the Creator. The word manoomin itself contains a reference to the Creator, who is referred to as Gitchi Manidoo. In the earliest of historic teachings of Anishinaabeg, there is a reference to wild rice as the food which grows upon the water; the food the ancestors were told to find so they would know when to end their migration to the West. This profound and historic relationship is remembered in the wild rice harvest on White Earth and other reservations. It is a food uniquely ours, a food used in our daily lives, our ceremonies, and in our thanksgiving feasts.

But manoomin has left its home, its eastern North American wetland bioregion. From its "homegrown" wild market, wild rice production has spun out into a growing national and small international commerce (the primary markets are for wild rice processed as one ingredient in Uncle Ben's, Pillsbury, and Gourmet House specialty products, and for little gourmet bags for specialty shops). There's a Wild Rice Council scouting the expanded markets, particularly in Europe and Eastern Europe. The price no longer varies with rains, drought, hail, wind, and flooding. Commercial competition, especially from paddy "wild" rice grown in California, has entangled our people with the global economy.

Manoominike: Making Wild Rice

It is the wild rice moon, Manoominigiizis, in the north country, and the lakes teem with a harvest. "Ever since I was bitty, I've been ricing," reminisces Spud Fineday of Ice Cracking Lake. This year, Spud, with his wife Tater (a.k.a. Vanessa Fineday), started ricing at Cabin Point and then moved to Big Flat Lake; both lakes are within the borders of the Tamarac National Wildlife Refuge. "Sometimes we can knock four to five hundred pounds a day," he says, explaining that he alternates the jobs of "poling and knocking" with his wife.

The Finedays, like many other Anishinaabeg Ojibwe from White Earth (and other reservations in the region), continue to rice in order to feed their families, to buy school clothes and fix cars, and to get ready for the ever-returning winter. The wild rice harvest of the Anishinaabeg feeds the soul, continuing a tradition generations old.

The crispness of early fall touches my face as we paddle through the rice on Blackbird Lake. Four eagles fly overhead, and a flock of geese moves gracefully across the sky. Through the rice, I can see officers of the law ensconced in their work. They are ricing. Eugene Clark (a.k.a. Beebzo), Ogema mayor and Becker County deputy sheriff, and John MacArthur, a Mahnomen County sheriff, are Anishinaabeg. Today they are continuing the harvesting tradition. As they move swiftly through the rice bed, MacArthur knocks and Clark poles. Clark started ricing at 14, and is 53 now. MacArthur, as well, began ricing as a teenager. "We're out here to eat, not to make money," they tell me; they are ricing for their families. That day they, bring in a couple hundred pounds of green rice.

It's said that there are fewer rice buyers this year on the reservation, although Beebzo maintains that "there were more people at the rice-permit drawing for (Tamarac Lakes) than vote in most elections." By two weeks into ricing season, Native Harvest (White Earth Land Recovery Project; producer and distributor of Native products) had bought from thirty or forty ricers.

Globalocal Rice

Although new varieties of wild rice have been under study by the University of Minnesota since the 1950s, industrialized "wild" rice did not take off until the late 1960s and early 1970s. Minnesota's paddy wild rice production became aggressive in 1968 (about 20 percent of the market). By 1972, government-supported research led to varieties that wouldn't prematurely shatter when combines harvested drained "lakes." Minnesota's 1973 yield was some four million pounds. The increase in production attracted large corporations (Uncle Ben's, Green Giant, and General Foods), began to skew the perceptions of what was "wild" about "wild rice," and altered the market by representing paddy wild rice as hand-harvested lake-grown.