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Nookomis old way of parching rice

I asked her [the old lady]: "What sort of thing did they use [for parching] if they didn't have a kettle?" "Oh," she says, "over at the Mississippi River," she said, "there are lots of those 'iron rushes', as they call them, along the river," she says. They weave those plants together. They won't burn. They weave them carefully so the wild rice won't fall through. On each side (of the fireplace) they put up sticks, then they put the iron rushes on top. Then the rice is put on top (of them). They build the fire there underneath. The iron rushes don't burn, they just get red-hot," she said. "They turn it over and over. Then it gets toasted brown." That's what the old lady told about.
from
Maude Kegg, Nookomis: What my Grandmother Told Me, ed. John D. Nichols, 2nd ed. (Bemidji, Minn.: American Indian Studies Center, Bemidji State University, 1990), 90.

The Ojibwe People's Dictionary is developed and maintained by:
Nora Livesay, Editor
John D. Nichols, Founder and Linguistic Editor

with support and collaboration from the University of Minnesota's Department of American Indian Studies and University Libraries.

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