September 5, 2019 • 54 mins
The sacred wild rice that grows on the water. Hundreds of years ago, the people called the Anishinabek, were visited by several prophets, two of which told them that people with white faces were going to be coming across the ocean and they needed to leave their homeland and travel westward to the place where the food grows upon the water, or risk being destroyed. So they followed those prophecies, and though it took a few hundred years, they made their way down the Saint Lawrence River and then into the Great Lakes region where they found wild rice. See more.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome back to Point of Origin, the podcast about the
world of food from around the world. I'm your host,
Stephen Saderfield. Our next story is about Monomon wild rice
harvested by the Initiaabe tribes of the Great Lakes. I
first encountered this story on Civil Eats, so I need
(00:33):
to go ahead and shout them out. But it was
the headline that got my attention. Wild rice is feeding
Indigenous communities in Detroit and beyond. So I wanted to
(00:54):
talk to the woman who literally wrote the book on
wild rice and Indigenous communities from this area. And so
we did just that, and soon you'll hear from Barbed Barton,
who is the author of the story of Manomon wild
Rice in Michigan. We'll also talk to Wassan Dillard, an
(01:17):
award winning natural fiber weaver and basketmaker. She's also a
teacher of a Nisia nabiwan and a culture bear. She
is on the Tribes Natural Resources Commission and is also
crucially involved in the Monoman restoration and cultural preservation. We'll
also hear from Shiloh Maples, program director for the American
(01:40):
Indian Health and Family Services in Detroit. Shiloh is also
a program manager for Food and Sovereignty Wellness Initiatives. Her
work in the tribal community includes promoting traditional native foods
for a healthy diet and also traditional dance as a
means of physical activity. This spark, Hi, Barb, This is
(02:09):
Steven Sadderfield from Whetstone. Thanks for joining us, Barb. Oh,
You're welcome, Steve, and I'm really happy to be with
you today. So I was fascinated. I came across your
work through an article from Civil Eats which was entitled
wild Rice is feeding Indigenous communities in Detroit and beyond,
(02:30):
And even in that headline alone, there's so many things
that I would like to unpack, but starting with the
Indigenous communities in Detroit, because I think, you know, one
of the prevailing narratives that people have about Detroit is
urbanism and blight and predominantly African American, and there seems
(02:55):
to have been sort of a cultural erasure of Indigenous
communities in that area. And so I was wondering if
you could speak to that at all, um, if you
agree or not, and if so, just kind of what
is the current status with these communities in the Detroit area.
That's a really great observation. We have twelve severally recognized
(03:19):
tribes in Michigan and there are no seerally recognized tribes
in the Detroit area. Over the centuries, there were different
tribes who had occupied the region, but right now they're
mostly communities that are associated with the American Indian Health Center,
(03:42):
and that seems to be a place where they are
able to come together and do cultural practices, learn about
food traditions. You know. It's the displacement of the people.
They were put on reservations and a lot of them
moved away from the lands of the hatory slowly lived
on and the Detroit area is one of those where
(04:04):
people were moved off. And how did you get into
writing about these communities? I get involved in writing about
Honest Navic culture was the book because that was my
introduction to wild rice firm a moment. It's very much
tied to their culture here based on a migration story,
(04:26):
and I was able to help get a grant to
fund a traditional rice camp back in two thousand and
eight at the lock newges Air tribe in the western
Upper Peninsula of Michigan. And the person who I worked
was was Roger will have been and been a tribal
member there, and he taught me all about wild rice
(04:47):
from the traditional perspective. And I've been an endangered species
biolli most of my career. I never knew that wild
rice grew in Michigan, which was kind of surprising to meet.
So that kind of sparked my interest in learning more
about the ecology and distribution of rice. But it also
(05:09):
set me on a path of learning a lot about
the cultural teachings and traditions associated with it, and providing
support and systems for Roger for his work and trying
to bring those traditions back to the tribes here. So
you really kind of came to this work more from
the point of view as a preservationist, and then it
(05:30):
brought you into this much larger and deeper world around
rice and tribal communities. Is that right? Yes? Yes? And
this word manuman, what is it mean exactly? It's a
word in the language of the native people here, which
is called a samo in, and it means good bery.
(05:51):
Mano means good and then means berry. He used to
describe the wild rice as a good berry. It's a
very important food culturally, be as of the migration story
as it was told to me by tribal elders hundreds
and hundreds of years ago. The people called the Honest Nabic,
which would be the Ojibwe, Patawatamie and Odawa, lived in
(06:14):
what is now northeastern United States and then a little
bit into Canada and were visited by several profits, and
they were given prophecies, two of which told them that
people with white faces were going to be coming across
the ocean and that they needed to leave their homeland
(06:35):
and travel westward to the place where the food grows
upon the water, and if they didn't, they would be destroyed.
So they followed those prophecies, and it took a few
hundred years, but they made their way down the St.
Lawrence River and then into the Great Lakes region where
they found wild rice. They're very culturally tied to that grain.
(06:59):
It's these the lot in traditional gatherings such as beasts.
It's used in the funerals. It's been a staple of
their diet since they've been here. Also, it's used as
medicine as well. And is it a particular variety of rice,
Uh No, it's actually there's two species of wild rice
(07:21):
that grow in the Great Lakes area. One is the
Lake Rice Zivania blustris and the other is River Rice
Zizania aquatica. But you can find the Lake Rice and
the River Rice in the Great Lakes region across the
eastern United States, even down into the Gulf. But it's
(07:42):
the hot that of it is in the Great Lakes area.
You know, from a preservationists point of view, obviously in
talking about indigenous communities, there will be presumably some inherent
understanding around a loss of culture or some kind of
physical displacement. But from a preservations view, from the rice,
(08:03):
what are the biggest threats and challenges to the proliferation
of these rivers and lake rices. That's it's a really
great question, and it requires this one to step back
and look at the historical impact that happened here. Michigan,
believe it or not, at one time had a lot
of wild rice. It's not really known for wild rice,
(08:26):
or people don't generally think of it as a wild
rice state, but we actually had very large wild rice buds,
thousands of acres in size, and historically we started experiencing
losses in the eighteen hundreds and probably by the mid
nineteen hundreds, most of the buds that were going to
(08:47):
be lost were lost, and that was due to things
like the logging era. We got a malaria outbreak in
the eighteen hundreds which result into a lot of draining
of marshlands because they believe that the malaria was tied
directly to marsh land. And when we lost a lot
of wetlands and marshes because of draining, it was over
(09:08):
three miles long and it was completely drained to turn
it into a muck farm, and of course the rice
disappeared with it. And at the mouth of all these rivers,
particularly like Kieran and Lake Erie, there are lots of
wild rice beds at the mouth. And the Army Corps
of Engineers came in the eighteen thirties. They started doing
(09:32):
a lot of channelization and dredging to facilitate shipping to
go up the rivers. What we're looking at today in
terms of threats, and the first thing is people don't
know about rice. And when you don't have any education
or information about then you may have opinions about it
that aren't correct. So oftentimes if there's a lake that
(09:56):
might have rice growing on it, it can get pretty prolific.
If it's well established, people will look at it as
a weed and it impedes their open water boating, and
so they'll want to put in chemicals to remove it
or put in machines to cut it down. There are
some animals that make conservation efforts challenging at times. So
(10:22):
for instance, carp which is a non native species here.
They're very very active on the bottom and they turn
up a lot of sediments which the seeds of rice
are done in the sediment in the winter time. You know,
they fall from the plant in the fall because they
will dislodge new shoots that might be coming up. They
like to eat wild rice seeds as well. What an
(10:44):
unbelievable slew of challenges for the sustainability of this rice
and dating back to the onset of industrialization. It was
very heartbreaking. When I was starting to write the book
and doing a lot of research, I was real you know,
the surveyors notes, almost reading a lot of the early
(11:06):
European explorers written accounts of what the land looked like,
and then going through and looking at maps, you know,
like the earliest maps up through today and to see
has been to the land visually with the maps, you
know where you have this wild area with no towns,
no roads, nothing, and within sixty years during the logging era,
(11:32):
JA go down almost every tree and seeing the devastation
that happened to the rice and and all being set
live in the rice beds with heartbreaking. So is your
motivation now kind of more from this environmental perspective. Is
it about introducing rice back into the landscape for environmental
(11:55):
outcomes or is this actually about a food source. I
don't really separate those two. I try to remember that
we are part of the environment. The conservation and restoration
of wild rice to me is trying to bring back
into balance the landscape because it was a very important
(12:15):
part of Michigan's landscape at one time. All of those
things are tied together that I think my biggest drivers
is really to help make sure that this culture doesn't disappear.
This this tradition of rice harvesting doesn't disappear. And if
you don't have the rice beds two go right thing
(12:36):
and you're going to lose that which happened to some
of the tribes here and a lot of the native
people will tell you that the rice wants to be harvested.
It needs the people as much as the people needed.
That is very much in keeping with a relationship to
nature before industrialization. No doubt can explain to us what
(13:02):
the rice harvest process is like, because basically, you have
a couple of people go out into a rice bed
in a Canoe's going to get done loop is actually
going to be or not. One person and is what
we call the polar and the other persons is the knocker,
(13:25):
and the person who is the pooler stands up in
the canoe and uses a long push pole to propel
the bolt through the rice days right here. And the
reason that you use a pole is so that you
don't damage the plants. The plants when they produce the
ripe grains of rice, those grains all ripen at different
(13:49):
times on the same plant, so that's why the harvest
will go on for two or three weeks or sometimes longer.
If you were to damage one of the plants, you
would shorten the harvest season. And also you want the
rice to be able to reproduce itself. It is a grass,
so at an annual plant testor re seed every year.
(14:10):
But that person in the back of the canoe will
stand up. The person in the front of the canoe
spins around so they're facing the polar and they use
two feeder sticks that are around three ft long or so.
It almost looks like the end of a pool stick,
and they reach over and I'll pull some rice plants
(14:30):
over the canoe, and then they knock on that stick
with the other stick, which is where the term knockers
come from, and that vibration will knock the grains of
rice that are right into the bottom of the canoe.
When you start this at home, what I would grow
probably going on a pipe. No, you're start getting used
(14:52):
to it, and it's just the most wonderful sound. It's
it's almost like rain falling when you're in the peak
of the of the harvest. And then they'll switch to
the other hand and it's almost like seeing someone do
the backstroke, but you're pulling rice plants over the boat
every time until you'll move through that right spud. You
(15:16):
go down and you'll do see passes. On a good day,
if you're out for a couple of hours, you could
get sixty seventy pounds of unprocessed rice. And then you
take that rice back to shore and at the camps
that we used to hold up north. You would lay
it out on tarps to dry in the sun for
(15:38):
a few days, stirring it up, because the whole goal
is you have to get to the seed that's inside
of the hall. So you want to get that hull
dried up as much as possible. And after you've got
an air dried pretty well, then you go through a
step called parching, and that it was placing the dried
(16:00):
ice into a tub that's over the fire and stirring it.
And so depending on how how your fire is, it
can take ten to fifteen minutes or so. And what
you're trying to do there is again dry that haul
up and get it to pull away from the grain,
and then also to dry the grain because you're going
to be storing your rice, you know, for a year
(16:21):
or so. So when you get that part done, then
you have to remove the hull. The traditional way is
to dance on the rice. So a bowl shaped hole
is dug into the ground, making sure there's no stones,
any tiny little thing. You don't want any stone. That
has to be perfectly smooth, and then you lay a
(16:43):
covering over it like a tar but your high canvas
whatever you have available and find something to brace yourself.
Oftentimes it will be two poles tied to a tree,
or sometimes people hold onto a chair. But you put
on a pair of ricing moccasins that are used exclusively
for dancing on the rice, and you step into that
(17:04):
pit and you start doing what it kind of looks
like the twist where you're feet. The motion of your
feet are going back and forth on the balls of
your feet, so that motion rubs the halls off with
the grain. It's a workout. Let me tell you. It's
(17:26):
all workout. So once you get that done, then you
have to winno it. So they are oftentimes the tribal
people use birch bark baskets. They're kind of like a
flat tray called the winnowing basket. So you'll winnow window
window until you can get a nice tray full of
(17:49):
really beautiful wild rice. And it's pretty much like any
other wild food. And I'm always kind of preaching about
this too, people. I'm a lifetime wild foods gatherer, and
you know, the way I view wild foods is that
they're a gift from Creator or whoever you believe in.
(18:09):
If you believe in anything, there a gift from the
earth to us to provide us with nutrition to keep
us alive. And that's very different than a corner field
or a soy being field, or even a garden. There's
not the density or numbers volume when you're looking at
(18:30):
wild foods as there are in monocultures or monocrops. But
for the most part, at least in Michigan, it's not
really a commodity. And I'm very grateful for that, because
once you start interjecting money into the picture, I feel
(18:51):
that rice will be threatened. Great advice even more broadly
speaking around advocacy and solidarity. So thanks for came that
down for us. This has been a great chat with
Barbara Barton, author of Monoman, The Story of Wild Rice
in Michigan. We really appreciate your time. Thanks for joining
(19:12):
us on point of origin. Oh, thank you, Stephen. I've
had a wonderful visit with you. As of I thanks.
I hope to talk to you again soon. Alright, alright,
take care. Obviously you are the keeper of many important
(19:42):
tribal traditions. Can you say more about where you're from
and your upbringing and some of the formative ancestors who
have shared this knowledge with you. My native name is
Watson and my legal name is Rene Dillard, and I
was born in a Washington long area of the Grand
(20:04):
Mepids area and at the center of the mit of
the Lower Peninsula. My grandfather comes from Good Heart, my
grandmother came from Northport, which are both Odawa territories or
in English Odawa, and my father raised us down towards
(20:28):
Grand Rapids Granville area, and then recently, like in the
last I don't know, twelve years or so, I came
home and I live in tribal housing now. And I've
been a natural fiber weaver all my life. So that
(20:50):
might not make a lot of sense to a lot
of people that don't understand what I'm doing, But it's
mostly about keeping connected with Schuck mcclad or our mother
the earth, and keeping that relationship in that barn very close.
(21:11):
And so I spent a lot of time in wilderness
areas checking on the plant, harvesting the plant, praying and
meditating with the plant and acknowledging their presence and they're important,
and then whenever possible, bringing them home and only in
(21:36):
a prayerful and careful respectful way and weaving them into
cultural items for our community to once again enjoy. Maybe
around six years ago when we first harvested a very
small portion of manomon or wild right from one of
(21:58):
the lakes that we've re seated, and it was just joyous,
wonderful event, because in most recent times, no one can
remember when we've been able to do that. Within the
Little Traverse bab And territory. We've been reseating the area
first primarily for the birds to put the rice back
(22:21):
to where it once was. Hopefully another outcome would be
that the rice will take hold once again in the
lakes where we've put it. Because of tourism and the
resort people that live up here, they don't really appreciate
the rice the way the indigenous people always have, so
(22:42):
they figure it bothers some on the lake. What kind
of tourism are you referring to. I live in northern
Michigan about thirty miles from the mackinaw Bridge, and so
a lot of people have their summer homes and resorts here,
and people come to camp and fish and enjoy what
(23:03):
Michigan has to offer up here, and some wilderness areas
and beautiful areas. So yeah, a lot of people come
up here and enjoy the state parks and all of that,
and they really don't want the rice tangling up their motor.
So that kind of clauses a a situation, and it
(23:24):
always has well. As you know, Michigan has a lot
of water and a lot of fresh water and beautiful,
pristine lakes, and so we're looking for the less popular,
known not resort areas and been reseating the rice there
for fifteen plus years. So we've been going to both
Minnesota and Wisconsin and getting rice and then hurrying back
(23:49):
here because it's rather delicate in that stage to recede
and getting it back here and reseating in these areas
out here. It's been a long, long struggle, and we
do have a couple of lakes that have taken hold
of the race has once again been established there, but
(24:11):
not to the point where we can go in harvest
once again. It's mostly for the wild birds at this point,
but we go out and sing to it and pray
with it and acknowledge it and check on it and
sort of like you do, uh a newborn, you know
what I mean. And so you're in tribal housing. We
(24:35):
created a monument processing event where we were singing to
the right, dancing on the right. We made a little
video about it. It roll into lots on the director
of the Center for Native American Studies, but none of
Michigan University and we're cleaning rice right now, which and
(24:56):
the youth came out and the elders came out, and
this went on for like two weeks. So we were
dancing the right and scorching the rice, which is part
of the process of getting the conash for the usk coffit,
and then winning the rice and re teaching, relearning and
re establishing that connection with our man Oman and with
(25:18):
that particular man Oman. The women in the community here
put together a dish of cooked rice and we brought
it ceremoniously to our tribal council. This is all grassroots effort.
It wasn't like a program behind it. And then we
fed it to him. We all brought wooden balls, and
(25:41):
it was kind of a curious thing in a contemporary
way inside council chambers because they were they were going, wow,
this is great. What do you want? Do you want money?
What do you want? You know, we don't understand why
you're doing this, and we had to explain to them,
we don't want anything from you. We we want the
(26:02):
rice to be part of you. And we had mixed
what rice that we had harvested from the lake within
our territory with rice from outside our territory, and we
mixed it all together and created this dish so that
the rice is now part of you, our decision makers,
to help guide this community into understanding and find the
(26:29):
importance in the restoration that we're doing. And since then
it had been extremely productive. People are making ricing stick
and push paul and it's really a beautiful, rhythmatic, wonderful
feeling to be in the rice again, making the motion
(26:51):
that our ancestors all once enjoyed regularly. And so we
wanted to help our tribal council, who helped make legislation
and and decisions for our community. We needed that rice
to be part of them to help guide them. Whether
they really understood that or not, it didn't matter. The
(27:15):
right knew what it had to do, and it became
part of their bodies. It helped create a stronger bond
between them and the earth, and all of these beautiful
creations that the Creator gives us through our mother and
so a lot due to Barton's efforts and her passion
(27:36):
for the rights and really understanding that connection as a
non native woman, you know, you don't have to be
Native to understand and appreciate the beauty of what creation
has to offer us. And like a pebblin upon kind
of effect, the ripples will be felt for generations and
that's what we're we're out doing. In Barb's book is
(27:58):
absolutely I mean you seeing what she's done, I mean
she's she's really brought this to the forefront and help
people understand exactly how important rice is not only to
the Indigenous people, but to the balance of our water.
And you know the plants that live there, and we
(28:21):
know as Indigenous people that they're sacred beings inside of there.
And some of those are most water protectors, such as
the plant like rice and cat tails and bulrush which
I I weeze and make things out of. Those are
our first water protectors and they cleanse and it's just
a beautiful psycho when you people take the time to
(28:45):
quiet down the white noise in their head. You know
of daily life and bills that need to be paid,
and jobs that have to be done, and deadlines that
have to be made. Sometimes it's good too, I think
they say slow down and the roses take the time
to notice the beauty of Little travers Day and the
(29:08):
inland lakes where our ancestors took refuge in the winter,
and understand that the plants that were once there aren't
there as much anymore. There's invasive species and all of
these things going on. But to slow down and to
notice just Creator's creation, and that's kind of solidifies everything
(29:35):
that the Nator people understand within their own blood memory.
And what when did you personally come into the awareness
of the manomon practice in your your ancestry. Well, we've
always had manomon in ceremony. When we have beasts. Minomon
(29:59):
is a crucial part, along with of course the three sisters,
corn beans and squash and any kind of wild meat
or fish. Those kinds of foods are extremely important because
when we have those foods there, then we also make
offerings to the passed aways, the ones that have come
before us and have since left this world until we
(30:22):
feed them ceremoniously, and the noman needs to be a
really important part of that. So we've been getting the Noman,
but not from our own area, from outside the areas
wherever it's possible. I also became aware because I was
working a lot teaching weaving to the Wisconsin tribe, and
(30:46):
I noticed that they all still had man Omen within
their area, and they carried with them some of the
old traditions. And so I was asking about the rice
chet and the grandmother said things, songs through prayer open
up the lakes sort of speak, and the race cheap
announces the date that Mnoman harvesting can begin safely for
(31:10):
the plant. And so there's a whole traditional system that's
still intact over in Wisconsin. And I started to ask
about that here at Little Traverse. You know, what traditions
are happening, and how are you planting the rice? And
you know, our guys were We're going through all the
(31:32):
scientific motions, and they said, well, maybe we need to
sing and pray for that rice as well. And so
that's when all of those kinds of efforts on a
spiritual level began happening, so that we could let that
rice know how much we loved and appreciate it, and
(31:52):
it's needed here in this area, and we need to
bring it back, and today in nineteen the rice that
answered the call, there's enough rice for us to continue
to have ceremony with it. It's not part of our
winter diet. There's not enough of it right now, but unhopeful.
It's pretty optimistic, but at least we have rice that's
(32:15):
harvested from our area that we can continue to have
ceremony with. Wow. Well, thank you so much with so
on for sharing that. I really really appreciated, so grateful
for the restoration and preservation work that you're engaged in,
and I wish you and all of your elders and
(32:38):
community continued luck and success with the Monomon project. It's
really incredible. So thanks for taking time to I know
this wasn't on your agenda for this morning, but I
really appreciate you talking to me. Well. I hope helps
you understand about what's going on and how important allies
like bar Barton really are to our community. Truly truly
(33:01):
special woman who's gone way out of her way to
make sure that Indigenous knowledge is recognize and for that
I'm very proud to call her my friends. And I
hope that this podcast can play a small part in
helping to amplify your extremely important and sacred work. Thank you.
(33:23):
I think that any word that goes out that doesn't
focus primarily on Native people just being a casino. I've
gone into the universities and schools and have done in
services for staff that work with Native people in a
lot of different areas, and I usually do a little
(33:43):
pre and post test to find out where their knowledge
based about the Indigenous people in their area, what their
knowledge bass, and the number one answer when I asked
them one or three things that Native people have contributed
to your community, to the non native community, the number
one answer has always been castino. Heartbreaking. That's what people
(34:10):
see us as as the casino. And it's like, man,
we're so much more than that. The food that we
eat on the world's table today, a lot of that
comes from Indigenous people right here. So like, we're just
so much more than a casino. But a lot of
people don't know that because we haven't gotten the word out.
(34:32):
So I'm sure your your efforts will help reach some
of those some of those people so that they understand
better about the Indigenous. We'll do the best we can,
and I again thank you for your time and hope
to be in touch with you over the course of
your continued work. Okay, well you have a good day.
Thanks for us On YouTube M you've reached American Indian
(35:07):
Health and Family Services. Please hold for the operator American
Indian how is how can to help you? Hi? Shiloh available? Please? Yes,
this is Steven Saderfield from wet Stone Magazine. Welcome back
to Point of Origin. Our next guest is Shilo Maples.
She is the program manager for Food Sovereignty and Wellness
(35:29):
Initiatives at the American Indian Health and Family Services. Shiloh,
thank you so much for joining us today on Point
of Origin. Thank you for having me. I came across
your work recently through an article on civil eats, and
we've been talking about monoman here on Point of Origin.
(35:50):
But I was really interested in your work, in particular
because you're working on food sovereignty in the city of Detroit,
which is obviously, both culturally and socially much different than
a lot of the indigenous communities who were working in
Traverse City. I wondered if you could just first give
us some grounding context about what food sovereignty is and
(36:14):
also what led you into this work. Yeah, so for me,
you know, from sovereignty is really about the right of
people to have healthy and culturally appropriate food and for
them to be able to decide the methods that that
food is grown and how they really define and relate
to their food system. For a really long time, Indigenous
(36:35):
people have been dispossessed for homelands, separated from traditional food systems,
disenfranchised from decision making processes that impact our communities, and
for a long time, our practices, our traditional practices have
been illegal. So many of them were illegal until nineteen
seventy eight when the American Indian Religious Freedom Act was past.
(36:57):
And so really just being able to of our lives
as Indigenous people is very much tied to these land
based practices and our food ways, and so food sovereignty
is about reclaiming all of that, claiming our culture and
identity and right just to live our lives as Indigenous people.
Can you give an example of some of the agricultural
(37:21):
ways of life that were once illegal, Well, for one,
just you know, Indigenous people being moved onto reservation lands,
and there were periods of time where it was even
illegal for Indigenous people to leave those reservations, and so
they lost access to their hunting, fishing, and foraging lands,
lands that they're spiritually our teachings make us responsible for
(37:44):
looking after and stewarding and places that have really deep
significance to our cultures. So it was even illegal for
us to access them at certain periods of time. But
also ceremonial feasts our language that's very tied into land
and food gift giving practices that often unincorporated foods were
(38:05):
made illegal after a different periods of time, but especially
during the late eighteen hundreds until the nineteen seventies, many
of them were illegal. And your work and food sovereignty,
is it based on like a community practices? Is it
based on advocacy? How do you actually manifest that work?
(38:25):
The program that I manage is called Sacred Roots, and
we got started about five years ago. We had received
a grant from the Centers for Disease Control to address
the major causes of chronic illness in Indian country, one
of them being the inaccessibility of healthy traditional foods. And
so after different community assessments and town hall meetings and
(38:48):
this really participatory community engagement process, we came up with
the strategies are what later became our program in those
initial conversations community members that they wanted better access to
traditional foods, support growing those foods and processing them, and
they really cared a lot about the ethics of how
(39:10):
their food was grown and where it came from, and
that tradition and culture remained being a part of those things.
And so we established what we call the Food Sovereignty Alliance,
which is really the decision making body over our project
and our work here, and the staff team is really
(39:31):
just facilitators of that. And then community members come and
they are telling us what their priorities are and where
we can support them and being more food sovereign in
the city. You know, it looks really different when you
don't have a land base or legal autonomy like some
of our tribal relatives do. They had to figure out
what food sovereignty look for themselves. Can you explain what
(39:55):
some of the nuances are for different indigenous communit these
who may or may not be land based. I guess
some of the both challenges and opportunities here in the
urban landscape is one, like I said, not having that
land base that tribal community wouldn't and we've been trying
to use public land and support people growing at home
(40:19):
as well. But then there's also this legal autonomy. So
in a tribal community, you would go through tribal council
or other decision making bodies to get approval for different projects.
But in the city, I mean we have the Food
Policy Council, we have City Council, all these different departments.
(40:39):
You have to get permission to try to start some
type of land based initiative and the whole completely different
way of approaching the work when you don't have access
to land or any legal right to be doing the
work or to land. But I think one opportunity or
(41:01):
real strength that our community has going for it is
that there is a huge food sovereignty movement already happening
in the general community throughout Detroit, huge urban agricultural community
that's really supportive and connected with one another. And so
we just kind of bring a different facet to that
movement that's already happening. And how did you get into
(41:25):
this work? Oh man, it's been a lifetime in the making.
So you know, on my maternal side of the family,
because of the historical trauma in Native communities, I'm actually
the first generation over a hundred years to be raised
by their parents. So my mom, my grandma, and my
(41:46):
great grandparents were all raised outside of their family and
outside of the culture. And so it's been a thirty
three year process of me coming home. You know, when
I was in college, I always started asking myself some
really deep questions about what does it mean to be
an indigenous person of the Great Lakes. And as I
(42:06):
started searching for those answers, it eventually led me to
food and I really saw the potential that food and
food systems work had for healing for communities and for individuals,
and I just it's been so powerful for myself and
now to be part of that healing process for other
(42:27):
people in our community is just amazing. And you know,
I feel like it's where I'm supposed to be and
doing this work, well, yeah, it is pretty unequivocally the
most powerful organizing tool that we have because it is
the only true shared experience that we all have. So
I applaud you for not only making that connection but
(42:50):
living in that. I wonder what role policy and perception
plays into the work that you're doing, And by that
I mean often times in these marginalized communities, we see
heavily industrialized foods that have been subsidized that upend and
displace native and traditional diets. And so I wonder like
(43:14):
what your feelings are about both policies enacted and also
policies that you all might be trying to have enacted
to better support your food sovereignty work. There are so
many policies and you know, decisions that are made to
impact our food system that everyday people are often left
out of those conversations, and especially communities of color and
(43:38):
low income communities. And it's definitely a conversation that's being
had in many different spaces throughout Detroit. You know, I'm
really privileged to sit on the Detroit Food Policy Council.
You know, it really provides me an opportunity to amplify
the needs or the concerns of the indigenous community and
(43:59):
the community that we serve. You know, there are some
policies that are underworks right now being revised. We recently
as a city revised our Urban Agriculture Ordinance, which changes
the context of how people are able to grow food
in the city and where and how. They're also in
(44:19):
the process of revising land based projects, process of getting
permits or the purchasing of land because the process hasn't
been really clear in the past, and there's all this
vacant land. But there's a lot of community concerned to
make sure that whatever process comes out of this new
(44:41):
policy is really fair to community members and community organizations
because there are a lot of developers coming into Detroit
and scooping up land and at this really below market value,
and then community groups or individuals are trying to purchase
similar pieces of land and have to pay more get value,
and that's not fair for people that are you know,
(45:03):
trying to provide these accessenance to their family and community.
And so it's you know, it's bringing up concerns like
that during the policy process that the Food Policy Council
really tries to uplift and tries to work to make
sure that those decisions that aren't made are equitable. And
really that's what food justice and food sovereignty are really about,
is making sure that you know, everyday people have a
(45:25):
voice in that process and defining their food system and
what that looks like, you know. But there there are
so many different ways that policy can both prohibit or
enable people's access to traditional or cultural foods, and it
would seem that you all have taken the right approach
in terms of policy, which is to take care of
(45:47):
your own backyard first and foremost, and hopefully that can
become a model that other cities can follow. I hope. So,
you know, Detroit's pretty I think our good food community
or movement is really pretty special. Like we've seen earlier,
it's very connected. We have amazing things happening all across
the city and even you know, our Food Policy Council
(46:12):
was started by the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network
years ago, and it's not very often that you find
a city food policy council that was started by a
community group. Usually there you know, initiative that starts within
city government. This was really started by the people, and
I think that's pretty awesome, definitely. So I want to
(46:33):
continue to put you on this because I think it's
really interesting and important. But I want to ask you
around this matter of perception because there is so much
learning and teaching that you're engaged in, but a part
of the learning and teaching is also and so what
has that been like for the people that you are
(46:55):
trying to serve? You know, when we first started this
work about five years years ago. I noticed that a
lot of our community members really look to staff and
our organization to make the decisions for them and for
us to set the agenda, and that's not at all
what it was about. And I had to really emphasize
that to them that this belongs to them and to
(47:18):
really enjoy the benefits of what this could become, they
have to take on some ownership and responsibility and like
really voice their concerns and become active participants in the
work and in the process. And so over time, you know,
we've really seen people, I think, change the way that
they see themselves. They've gone from being kind of just
(47:41):
service recipients that might get snap benefits or visit a
food pantry, and some people have really transformed into these
active change agents. They see that they have value to
offer to the work and to their community members, skills
that they can share. They want to take on leadership roles.
(48:03):
And that's just such a powerful thing too, for people
that have been really disenfranchised for so long to start
seeing themselves as active change agents. And have you been
involved in the Man Project? Not a whole lot. I
would like to get more involved, you know, it's really
unfortunate though that in the Detroit area are waterways are
(48:26):
really poor quality, and so the rice don't grow in
a lot of places anymore and it's really not safe.
So we have to have those relationships with our tribal
partners and people outside the city to really engage in
that part of the work. And I saw that you
were lecturing sometimes in Ipsilante. Yeah, there is a farmer
(48:46):
there named Melvin Parsons. Melvin m hm. He's fantastic. What
a cool dude. I love. But anytime I see someone's
in Ipsilante, I have to shout out we the People's
Growers Association Rack melvinel Yeah, he's awesome, and that's a
good problept for us as well. I'm really interested how
(49:09):
people who are listening to this can be more involved
in supporting food sovereignty and indigenous communities wherever they live.
One thing for sure is just get really acquainted with
your local plants and having that really intimate or close
relationship with your local environment. It's very important, and learning
(49:32):
to live seasonally and hyperlocally is really important to this work.
But also supporting tribal communities when they a lot of
them have tribally produced goods such as hand harvested and
processed wild rice, maple syrup, different seeds, and some of
them are selling produce and really supporting their economies. So
(49:55):
when you want wild rice or maple syrup by from
one of those community, it is because it helps support
their local economy, and it also helps to create sustainability
for jobs that are more based in traditional lifestyles and
help people preserve those life ways that are typically you know,
those people have also have that ecological knowledge that really
(50:17):
allows them to do this food work more sustainably, and
so you know, it's kind of works out for everyone.
People get ethical food and you get to support someone's
way of life, you know. I think there's also some
really awesome work that I don't know if you're familiar
with the Sioux Chef. Yeah, out of the Twin Cities,
(50:38):
UM is doing some really awesome work and in the
process of starting a nonprofit and the Indigenous Food Lab
that's really going to serve as a training center and
a support to indigenous communities everywhere and their food system work.
I'm really excited to see what comes out of that. Absolutely. Yeah,
he's been amazing what he's been able to for getting
(51:01):
people in the food media to really start to finally
pay attention to Indigenous foods that actually reminds me. I
have a somewhat random question for you around language. In
the course of this conversation alone, I believe that we
have used the words Indian, Native, Indigenous. Obviously, language is
(51:21):
important and we want to be mindful of it. Is there,
in your mind a consensus or an appropriate way to
talk about these communities. I don't think that there's consensus
Indigenous communities, no, you know, And I think a lot
of the different terms that are often used how people
(51:42):
identify are very generationally based depending on what was being
used in the kind of the political climate of their times.
Like my grandma's generation really uses Indian. When I was
growing up, it was Native American or American Indian, And
you know, today I'm hearing more and more Indigenous or
(52:02):
people using specific tribal affiliation. So I think it just depends.
But I think all of those are pretty acceptable terms.
I don't think anyone's going to go out set because
even we talk about across Turtle Island or North America,
we talked about that as Indian country, and so okay,
I think they're all they're all okay, Yeah, very useful.
(52:25):
Framework always want to ask, Shilo, I have really so
much enjoyed our talk, and I hope I can meet
you the next time I'm in Detroit. I'm there a lot. Yeah,
please please connect with me when you're here. Okay. That
was Shilo Maples, program manager for Food Sovereignty and Wellness
Initiatives at American Indian Health and Family Services. Thanks Shilo,
(52:48):
thank you all right, take care. When first I came
to town, they called me the Robe and do well.
Now they changed my name and they called me Katie Coo.
Welcome to the Little Day. Hi, little Diode. That it
was where it would be. Then I would be where
I am, not here, I am where I must be, Hide,
little Diode. That it was where it would be. Then
(53:11):
I would be where I am, not here, I am
where I must be, Where I would be. I cannot come,
little little Day, hide, little Diode. Oh oh oh, oh
oh oh oh. And that's it for this episode. Point
(53:33):
of Origin is a podcast from My Heart Media and
wet Stone Magazine, Executive produced by Christopher Hasciotas and hosted
by me Stephen Saderfield. Special thanks to Cat Hong for editing,
supervising producer Gabrielle Collins, and a very special thanks to
my business partner, wet Stone co founder Melissa she who
(53:54):
helped produce this podcast. Thanks mel I, hope you've enjoyed
today's very very special episode on Rice. We'd like to
thank our guest for making it possible, Bar Barton, author
of Mnoman was San Dillard, natural fiber weaver, culture bear
and teacher from the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Ottawa
(54:15):
Indians and Shiloh Maples, program director for American Indian Health
and Family Services in Detroit. And thanks to all of
you for supporting wet Stone and listening to the Point
of Origin podcast for all of the latest on all
things point of Origin. You can follow us on Instagram
at wet Stone Magazine or online at wet Stone Magazine
(54:38):
dot com. We'll see you next week at the Point
of Origin.
Welcome back to Point of Origin, the podcast about the
world of food from around the world. I'm your host,
Stephen Saderfield. Our next story is about Monomon wild rice
harvested by the Initiaabe tribes of the Great Lakes. I
first encountered this story on Civil Eats, so I need
(00:33):
to go ahead and shout them out. But it was
the headline that got my attention. Wild rice is feeding
Indigenous communities in Detroit and beyond. So I wanted to
(00:54):
talk to the woman who literally wrote the book on
wild rice and Indigenous communities from this area. And so
we did just that, and soon you'll hear from Barbed Barton,
who is the author of the story of Manomon wild
Rice in Michigan. We'll also talk to Wassan Dillard, an
(01:17):
award winning natural fiber weaver and basketmaker. She's also a
teacher of a Nisia nabiwan and a culture bear. She
is on the Tribes Natural Resources Commission and is also
crucially involved in the Monoman restoration and cultural preservation. We'll
also hear from Shiloh Maples, program director for the American
(01:40):
Indian Health and Family Services in Detroit. Shiloh is also
a program manager for Food and Sovereignty Wellness Initiatives. Her
work in the tribal community includes promoting traditional native foods
for a healthy diet and also traditional dance as a
means of physical activity. This spark, Hi, Barb, This is
(02:09):
Steven Sadderfield from Whetstone. Thanks for joining us, Barb. Oh,
You're welcome, Steve, and I'm really happy to be with
you today. So I was fascinated. I came across your
work through an article from Civil Eats which was entitled
wild Rice is feeding Indigenous communities in Detroit and beyond,
(02:30):
And even in that headline alone, there's so many things
that I would like to unpack, but starting with the
Indigenous communities in Detroit, because I think, you know, one
of the prevailing narratives that people have about Detroit is
urbanism and blight and predominantly African American, and there seems
(02:55):
to have been sort of a cultural erasure of Indigenous
communities in that area. And so I was wondering if
you could speak to that at all, um, if you
agree or not, and if so, just kind of what
is the current status with these communities in the Detroit area.
That's a really great observation. We have twelve severally recognized
(03:19):
tribes in Michigan and there are no seerally recognized tribes
in the Detroit area. Over the centuries, there were different
tribes who had occupied the region, but right now they're
mostly communities that are associated with the American Indian Health Center,
(03:42):
and that seems to be a place where they are
able to come together and do cultural practices, learn about
food traditions. You know. It's the displacement of the people.
They were put on reservations and a lot of them
moved away from the lands of the hatory slowly lived
on and the Detroit area is one of those where
(04:04):
people were moved off. And how did you get into
writing about these communities? I get involved in writing about
Honest Navic culture was the book because that was my
introduction to wild rice firm a moment. It's very much
tied to their culture here based on a migration story,
(04:26):
and I was able to help get a grant to
fund a traditional rice camp back in two thousand and
eight at the lock newges Air tribe in the western
Upper Peninsula of Michigan. And the person who I worked
was was Roger will have been and been a tribal
member there, and he taught me all about wild rice
(04:47):
from the traditional perspective. And I've been an endangered species
biolli most of my career. I never knew that wild
rice grew in Michigan, which was kind of surprising to meet.
So that kind of sparked my interest in learning more
about the ecology and distribution of rice. But it also
(05:09):
set me on a path of learning a lot about
the cultural teachings and traditions associated with it, and providing
support and systems for Roger for his work and trying
to bring those traditions back to the tribes here. So
you really kind of came to this work more from
the point of view as a preservationist, and then it
(05:30):
brought you into this much larger and deeper world around
rice and tribal communities. Is that right? Yes? Yes? And
this word manuman, what is it mean exactly? It's a
word in the language of the native people here, which
is called a samo in, and it means good bery.
(05:51):
Mano means good and then means berry. He used to
describe the wild rice as a good berry. It's a
very important food culturally, be as of the migration story
as it was told to me by tribal elders hundreds
and hundreds of years ago. The people called the Honest Nabic,
which would be the Ojibwe, Patawatamie and Odawa, lived in
(06:14):
what is now northeastern United States and then a little
bit into Canada and were visited by several profits, and
they were given prophecies, two of which told them that
people with white faces were going to be coming across
the ocean and that they needed to leave their homeland
(06:35):
and travel westward to the place where the food grows
upon the water, and if they didn't, they would be destroyed.
So they followed those prophecies, and it took a few
hundred years, but they made their way down the St.
Lawrence River and then into the Great Lakes region where
they found wild rice. They're very culturally tied to that grain.
(06:59):
It's these the lot in traditional gatherings such as beasts.
It's used in the funerals. It's been a staple of
their diet since they've been here. Also, it's used as
medicine as well. And is it a particular variety of rice,
Uh No, it's actually there's two species of wild rice
(07:21):
that grow in the Great Lakes area. One is the
Lake Rice Zivania blustris and the other is River Rice
Zizania aquatica. But you can find the Lake Rice and
the River Rice in the Great Lakes region across the
eastern United States, even down into the Gulf. But it's
(07:42):
the hot that of it is in the Great Lakes area.
You know, from a preservationists point of view, obviously in
talking about indigenous communities, there will be presumably some inherent
understanding around a loss of culture or some kind of
physical displacement. But from a preservations view, from the rice,
(08:03):
what are the biggest threats and challenges to the proliferation
of these rivers and lake rices. That's it's a really
great question, and it requires this one to step back
and look at the historical impact that happened here. Michigan,
believe it or not, at one time had a lot
of wild rice. It's not really known for wild rice,
(08:26):
or people don't generally think of it as a wild
rice state, but we actually had very large wild rice buds,
thousands of acres in size, and historically we started experiencing
losses in the eighteen hundreds and probably by the mid
nineteen hundreds, most of the buds that were going to
(08:47):
be lost were lost, and that was due to things
like the logging era. We got a malaria outbreak in
the eighteen hundreds which result into a lot of draining
of marshlands because they believe that the malaria was tied
directly to marsh land. And when we lost a lot
of wetlands and marshes because of draining, it was over
(09:08):
three miles long and it was completely drained to turn
it into a muck farm, and of course the rice
disappeared with it. And at the mouth of all these rivers,
particularly like Kieran and Lake Erie, there are lots of
wild rice beds at the mouth. And the Army Corps
of Engineers came in the eighteen thirties. They started doing
(09:32):
a lot of channelization and dredging to facilitate shipping to
go up the rivers. What we're looking at today in
terms of threats, and the first thing is people don't
know about rice. And when you don't have any education
or information about then you may have opinions about it
that aren't correct. So oftentimes if there's a lake that
(09:56):
might have rice growing on it, it can get pretty prolific.
If it's well established, people will look at it as
a weed and it impedes their open water boating, and
so they'll want to put in chemicals to remove it
or put in machines to cut it down. There are
some animals that make conservation efforts challenging at times. So
(10:22):
for instance, carp which is a non native species here.
They're very very active on the bottom and they turn
up a lot of sediments which the seeds of rice
are done in the sediment in the winter time. You know,
they fall from the plant in the fall because they
will dislodge new shoots that might be coming up. They
like to eat wild rice seeds as well. What an
(10:44):
unbelievable slew of challenges for the sustainability of this rice
and dating back to the onset of industrialization. It was
very heartbreaking. When I was starting to write the book
and doing a lot of research, I was real you know,
the surveyors notes, almost reading a lot of the early
(11:06):
European explorers written accounts of what the land looked like,
and then going through and looking at maps, you know,
like the earliest maps up through today and to see
has been to the land visually with the maps, you
know where you have this wild area with no towns,
no roads, nothing, and within sixty years during the logging era,
(11:32):
JA go down almost every tree and seeing the devastation
that happened to the rice and and all being set
live in the rice beds with heartbreaking. So is your
motivation now kind of more from this environmental perspective. Is
it about introducing rice back into the landscape for environmental
(11:55):
outcomes or is this actually about a food source. I
don't really separate those two. I try to remember that
we are part of the environment. The conservation and restoration
of wild rice to me is trying to bring back
into balance the landscape because it was a very important
(12:15):
part of Michigan's landscape at one time. All of those
things are tied together that I think my biggest drivers
is really to help make sure that this culture doesn't disappear.
This this tradition of rice harvesting doesn't disappear. And if
you don't have the rice beds two go right thing
(12:36):
and you're going to lose that which happened to some
of the tribes here and a lot of the native
people will tell you that the rice wants to be harvested.
It needs the people as much as the people needed.
That is very much in keeping with a relationship to
nature before industrialization. No doubt can explain to us what
(13:02):
the rice harvest process is like, because basically, you have
a couple of people go out into a rice bed
in a Canoe's going to get done loop is actually
going to be or not. One person and is what
we call the polar and the other persons is the knocker,
(13:25):
and the person who is the pooler stands up in
the canoe and uses a long push pole to propel
the bolt through the rice days right here. And the
reason that you use a pole is so that you
don't damage the plants. The plants when they produce the
ripe grains of rice, those grains all ripen at different
(13:49):
times on the same plant, so that's why the harvest
will go on for two or three weeks or sometimes longer.
If you were to damage one of the plants, you
would shorten the harvest season. And also you want the
rice to be able to reproduce itself. It is a grass,
so at an annual plant testor re seed every year.
(14:10):
But that person in the back of the canoe will
stand up. The person in the front of the canoe
spins around so they're facing the polar and they use
two feeder sticks that are around three ft long or so.
It almost looks like the end of a pool stick,
and they reach over and I'll pull some rice plants
(14:30):
over the canoe, and then they knock on that stick
with the other stick, which is where the term knockers
come from, and that vibration will knock the grains of
rice that are right into the bottom of the canoe.
When you start this at home, what I would grow
probably going on a pipe. No, you're start getting used
(14:52):
to it, and it's just the most wonderful sound. It's
it's almost like rain falling when you're in the peak
of the of the harvest. And then they'll switch to
the other hand and it's almost like seeing someone do
the backstroke, but you're pulling rice plants over the boat
every time until you'll move through that right spud. You
(15:16):
go down and you'll do see passes. On a good day,
if you're out for a couple of hours, you could
get sixty seventy pounds of unprocessed rice. And then you
take that rice back to shore and at the camps
that we used to hold up north. You would lay
it out on tarps to dry in the sun for
(15:38):
a few days, stirring it up, because the whole goal
is you have to get to the seed that's inside
of the hall. So you want to get that hull
dried up as much as possible. And after you've got
an air dried pretty well, then you go through a
step called parching, and that it was placing the dried
(16:00):
ice into a tub that's over the fire and stirring it.
And so depending on how how your fire is, it
can take ten to fifteen minutes or so. And what
you're trying to do there is again dry that haul
up and get it to pull away from the grain,
and then also to dry the grain because you're going
to be storing your rice, you know, for a year
(16:21):
or so. So when you get that part done, then
you have to remove the hull. The traditional way is
to dance on the rice. So a bowl shaped hole
is dug into the ground, making sure there's no stones,
any tiny little thing. You don't want any stone. That
has to be perfectly smooth, and then you lay a
(16:43):
covering over it like a tar but your high canvas
whatever you have available and find something to brace yourself.
Oftentimes it will be two poles tied to a tree,
or sometimes people hold onto a chair. But you put
on a pair of ricing moccasins that are used exclusively
for dancing on the rice, and you step into that
(17:04):
pit and you start doing what it kind of looks
like the twist where you're feet. The motion of your
feet are going back and forth on the balls of
your feet, so that motion rubs the halls off with
the grain. It's a workout. Let me tell you. It's
(17:26):
all workout. So once you get that done, then you
have to winno it. So they are oftentimes the tribal
people use birch bark baskets. They're kind of like a
flat tray called the winnowing basket. So you'll winnow window
window until you can get a nice tray full of
(17:49):
really beautiful wild rice. And it's pretty much like any
other wild food. And I'm always kind of preaching about
this too, people. I'm a lifetime wild foods gatherer, and
you know, the way I view wild foods is that
they're a gift from Creator or whoever you believe in.
(18:09):
If you believe in anything, there a gift from the
earth to us to provide us with nutrition to keep
us alive. And that's very different than a corner field
or a soy being field, or even a garden. There's
not the density or numbers volume when you're looking at
(18:30):
wild foods as there are in monocultures or monocrops. But
for the most part, at least in Michigan, it's not
really a commodity. And I'm very grateful for that, because
once you start interjecting money into the picture, I feel
(18:51):
that rice will be threatened. Great advice even more broadly
speaking around advocacy and solidarity. So thanks for came that
down for us. This has been a great chat with
Barbara Barton, author of Monoman, The Story of Wild Rice
in Michigan. We really appreciate your time. Thanks for joining
(19:12):
us on point of origin. Oh, thank you, Stephen. I've
had a wonderful visit with you. As of I thanks.
I hope to talk to you again soon. Alright, alright,
take care. Obviously you are the keeper of many important
(19:42):
tribal traditions. Can you say more about where you're from
and your upbringing and some of the formative ancestors who
have shared this knowledge with you. My native name is
Watson and my legal name is Rene Dillard, and I
was born in a Washington long area of the Grand
(20:04):
Mepids area and at the center of the mit of
the Lower Peninsula. My grandfather comes from Good Heart, my
grandmother came from Northport, which are both Odawa territories or
in English Odawa, and my father raised us down towards
(20:28):
Grand Rapids Granville area, and then recently, like in the
last I don't know, twelve years or so, I came
home and I live in tribal housing now. And I've
been a natural fiber weaver all my life. So that
(20:50):
might not make a lot of sense to a lot
of people that don't understand what I'm doing, But it's
mostly about keeping connected with Schuck mcclad or our mother
the earth, and keeping that relationship in that barn very close.
(21:11):
And so I spent a lot of time in wilderness
areas checking on the plant, harvesting the plant, praying and
meditating with the plant and acknowledging their presence and they're important,
and then whenever possible, bringing them home and only in
(21:36):
a prayerful and careful respectful way and weaving them into
cultural items for our community to once again enjoy. Maybe
around six years ago when we first harvested a very
small portion of manomon or wild right from one of
(21:58):
the lakes that we've re seated, and it was just joyous,
wonderful event, because in most recent times, no one can
remember when we've been able to do that. Within the
Little Traverse bab And territory. We've been reseating the area
first primarily for the birds to put the rice back
(22:21):
to where it once was. Hopefully another outcome would be
that the rice will take hold once again in the
lakes where we've put it. Because of tourism and the
resort people that live up here, they don't really appreciate
the rice the way the indigenous people always have, so
(22:42):
they figure it bothers some on the lake. What kind
of tourism are you referring to. I live in northern
Michigan about thirty miles from the mackinaw Bridge, and so
a lot of people have their summer homes and resorts here,
and people come to camp and fish and enjoy what
(23:03):
Michigan has to offer up here, and some wilderness areas
and beautiful areas. So yeah, a lot of people come
up here and enjoy the state parks and all of that,
and they really don't want the rice tangling up their motor.
So that kind of clauses a a situation, and it
(23:24):
always has well. As you know, Michigan has a lot
of water and a lot of fresh water and beautiful,
pristine lakes, and so we're looking for the less popular,
known not resort areas and been reseating the rice there
for fifteen plus years. So we've been going to both
Minnesota and Wisconsin and getting rice and then hurrying back
(23:49):
here because it's rather delicate in that stage to recede
and getting it back here and reseating in these areas
out here. It's been a long, long struggle, and we
do have a couple of lakes that have taken hold
of the race has once again been established there, but
(24:11):
not to the point where we can go in harvest
once again. It's mostly for the wild birds at this point,
but we go out and sing to it and pray
with it and acknowledge it and check on it and
sort of like you do, uh a newborn, you know
what I mean. And so you're in tribal housing. We
(24:35):
created a monument processing event where we were singing to
the right, dancing on the right. We made a little
video about it. It roll into lots on the director
of the Center for Native American Studies, but none of
Michigan University and we're cleaning rice right now, which and
(24:56):
the youth came out and the elders came out, and
this went on for like two weeks. So we were
dancing the right and scorching the rice, which is part
of the process of getting the conash for the usk coffit,
and then winning the rice and re teaching, relearning and
re establishing that connection with our man Oman and with
(25:18):
that particular man Oman. The women in the community here
put together a dish of cooked rice and we brought
it ceremoniously to our tribal council. This is all grassroots effort.
It wasn't like a program behind it. And then we
fed it to him. We all brought wooden balls, and
(25:41):
it was kind of a curious thing in a contemporary
way inside council chambers because they were they were going, wow,
this is great. What do you want? Do you want money?
What do you want? You know, we don't understand why
you're doing this, and we had to explain to them,
we don't want anything from you. We we want the
(26:02):
rice to be part of you. And we had mixed
what rice that we had harvested from the lake within
our territory with rice from outside our territory, and we
mixed it all together and created this dish so that
the rice is now part of you, our decision makers,
to help guide this community into understanding and find the
(26:29):
importance in the restoration that we're doing. And since then
it had been extremely productive. People are making ricing stick
and push paul and it's really a beautiful, rhythmatic, wonderful
feeling to be in the rice again, making the motion
(26:51):
that our ancestors all once enjoyed regularly. And so we
wanted to help our tribal council, who helped make legislation
and and decisions for our community. We needed that rice
to be part of them to help guide them. Whether
they really understood that or not, it didn't matter. The
(27:15):
right knew what it had to do, and it became
part of their bodies. It helped create a stronger bond
between them and the earth, and all of these beautiful
creations that the Creator gives us through our mother and
so a lot due to Barton's efforts and her passion
(27:36):
for the rights and really understanding that connection as a
non native woman, you know, you don't have to be
Native to understand and appreciate the beauty of what creation
has to offer us. And like a pebblin upon kind
of effect, the ripples will be felt for generations and
that's what we're we're out doing. In Barb's book is
(27:58):
absolutely I mean you seeing what she's done, I mean
she's she's really brought this to the forefront and help
people understand exactly how important rice is not only to
the Indigenous people, but to the balance of our water.
And you know the plants that live there, and we
(28:21):
know as Indigenous people that they're sacred beings inside of there.
And some of those are most water protectors, such as
the plant like rice and cat tails and bulrush which
I I weeze and make things out of. Those are
our first water protectors and they cleanse and it's just
a beautiful psycho when you people take the time to
(28:45):
quiet down the white noise in their head. You know
of daily life and bills that need to be paid,
and jobs that have to be done, and deadlines that
have to be made. Sometimes it's good too, I think
they say slow down and the roses take the time
to notice the beauty of Little travers Day and the
(29:08):
inland lakes where our ancestors took refuge in the winter,
and understand that the plants that were once there aren't
there as much anymore. There's invasive species and all of
these things going on. But to slow down and to
notice just Creator's creation, and that's kind of solidifies everything
(29:35):
that the Nator people understand within their own blood memory.
And what when did you personally come into the awareness
of the manomon practice in your your ancestry. Well, we've
always had manomon in ceremony. When we have beasts. Minomon
(29:59):
is a crucial part, along with of course the three sisters,
corn beans and squash and any kind of wild meat
or fish. Those kinds of foods are extremely important because
when we have those foods there, then we also make
offerings to the passed aways, the ones that have come
before us and have since left this world until we
(30:22):
feed them ceremoniously, and the noman needs to be a
really important part of that. So we've been getting the Noman,
but not from our own area, from outside the areas
wherever it's possible. I also became aware because I was
working a lot teaching weaving to the Wisconsin tribe, and
(30:46):
I noticed that they all still had man Omen within
their area, and they carried with them some of the
old traditions. And so I was asking about the rice
chet and the grandmother said things, songs through prayer open
up the lakes sort of speak, and the race cheap
announces the date that Mnoman harvesting can begin safely for
(31:10):
the plant. And so there's a whole traditional system that's
still intact over in Wisconsin. And I started to ask
about that here at Little Traverse. You know, what traditions
are happening, and how are you planting the rice? And
you know, our guys were We're going through all the
(31:32):
scientific motions, and they said, well, maybe we need to
sing and pray for that rice as well. And so
that's when all of those kinds of efforts on a
spiritual level began happening, so that we could let that
rice know how much we loved and appreciate it, and
(31:52):
it's needed here in this area, and we need to
bring it back, and today in nineteen the rice that
answered the call, there's enough rice for us to continue
to have ceremony with it. It's not part of our
winter diet. There's not enough of it right now, but unhopeful.
It's pretty optimistic, but at least we have rice that's
(32:15):
harvested from our area that we can continue to have
ceremony with. Wow. Well, thank you so much with so
on for sharing that. I really really appreciated, so grateful
for the restoration and preservation work that you're engaged in,
and I wish you and all of your elders and
(32:38):
community continued luck and success with the Monomon project. It's
really incredible. So thanks for taking time to I know
this wasn't on your agenda for this morning, but I
really appreciate you talking to me. Well. I hope helps
you understand about what's going on and how important allies
like bar Barton really are to our community. Truly truly
(33:01):
special woman who's gone way out of her way to
make sure that Indigenous knowledge is recognize and for that
I'm very proud to call her my friends. And I
hope that this podcast can play a small part in
helping to amplify your extremely important and sacred work. Thank you.
(33:23):
I think that any word that goes out that doesn't
focus primarily on Native people just being a casino. I've
gone into the universities and schools and have done in
services for staff that work with Native people in a
lot of different areas, and I usually do a little
(33:43):
pre and post test to find out where their knowledge
based about the Indigenous people in their area, what their
knowledge bass, and the number one answer when I asked
them one or three things that Native people have contributed
to your community, to the non native community, the number
one answer has always been castino. Heartbreaking. That's what people
(34:10):
see us as as the casino. And it's like, man,
we're so much more than that. The food that we
eat on the world's table today, a lot of that
comes from Indigenous people right here. So like, we're just
so much more than a casino. But a lot of
people don't know that because we haven't gotten the word out.
(34:32):
So I'm sure your your efforts will help reach some
of those some of those people so that they understand
better about the Indigenous. We'll do the best we can,
and I again thank you for your time and hope
to be in touch with you over the course of
your continued work. Okay, well you have a good day.
Thanks for us On YouTube M you've reached American Indian
(35:07):
Health and Family Services. Please hold for the operator American
Indian how is how can to help you? Hi? Shiloh available? Please? Yes,
this is Steven Saderfield from wet Stone Magazine. Welcome back
to Point of Origin. Our next guest is Shilo Maples.
She is the program manager for Food Sovereignty and Wellness
(35:29):
Initiatives at the American Indian Health and Family Services. Shiloh,
thank you so much for joining us today on Point
of Origin. Thank you for having me. I came across
your work recently through an article on civil eats, and
we've been talking about monoman here on Point of Origin.
(35:50):
But I was really interested in your work, in particular
because you're working on food sovereignty in the city of Detroit,
which is obviously, both culturally and socially much different than
a lot of the indigenous communities who were working in
Traverse City. I wondered if you could just first give
us some grounding context about what food sovereignty is and
(36:14):
also what led you into this work. Yeah, so for me,
you know, from sovereignty is really about the right of
people to have healthy and culturally appropriate food and for
them to be able to decide the methods that that
food is grown and how they really define and relate
to their food system. For a really long time, Indigenous
(36:35):
people have been dispossessed for homelands, separated from traditional food systems,
disenfranchised from decision making processes that impact our communities, and
for a long time, our practices, our traditional practices have
been illegal. So many of them were illegal until nineteen
seventy eight when the American Indian Religious Freedom Act was past.
(36:57):
And so really just being able to of our lives
as Indigenous people is very much tied to these land
based practices and our food ways, and so food sovereignty
is about reclaiming all of that, claiming our culture and
identity and right just to live our lives as Indigenous people.
Can you give an example of some of the agricultural
(37:21):
ways of life that were once illegal, Well, for one,
just you know, Indigenous people being moved onto reservation lands,
and there were periods of time where it was even
illegal for Indigenous people to leave those reservations, and so
they lost access to their hunting, fishing, and foraging lands,
lands that they're spiritually our teachings make us responsible for
(37:44):
looking after and stewarding and places that have really deep
significance to our cultures. So it was even illegal for
us to access them at certain periods of time. But
also ceremonial feasts our language that's very tied into land
and food gift giving practices that often unincorporated foods were
(38:05):
made illegal after a different periods of time, but especially
during the late eighteen hundreds until the nineteen seventies, many
of them were illegal. And your work and food sovereignty,
is it based on like a community practices? Is it
based on advocacy? How do you actually manifest that work?
(38:25):
The program that I manage is called Sacred Roots, and
we got started about five years ago. We had received
a grant from the Centers for Disease Control to address
the major causes of chronic illness in Indian country, one
of them being the inaccessibility of healthy traditional foods. And
so after different community assessments and town hall meetings and
(38:48):
this really participatory community engagement process, we came up with
the strategies are what later became our program in those
initial conversations community members that they wanted better access to
traditional foods, support growing those foods and processing them, and
they really cared a lot about the ethics of how
(39:10):
their food was grown and where it came from, and
that tradition and culture remained being a part of those things.
And so we established what we call the Food Sovereignty Alliance,
which is really the decision making body over our project
and our work here, and the staff team is really
(39:31):
just facilitators of that. And then community members come and
they are telling us what their priorities are and where
we can support them and being more food sovereign in
the city. You know, it looks really different when you
don't have a land base or legal autonomy like some
of our tribal relatives do. They had to figure out
what food sovereignty look for themselves. Can you explain what
(39:55):
some of the nuances are for different indigenous communit these
who may or may not be land based. I guess
some of the both challenges and opportunities here in the
urban landscape is one, like I said, not having that
land base that tribal community wouldn't and we've been trying
to use public land and support people growing at home
(40:19):
as well. But then there's also this legal autonomy. So
in a tribal community, you would go through tribal council
or other decision making bodies to get approval for different projects.
But in the city, I mean we have the Food
Policy Council, we have City Council, all these different departments.
(40:39):
You have to get permission to try to start some
type of land based initiative and the whole completely different
way of approaching the work when you don't have access
to land or any legal right to be doing the
work or to land. But I think one opportunity or
(41:01):
real strength that our community has going for it is
that there is a huge food sovereignty movement already happening
in the general community throughout Detroit, huge urban agricultural community
that's really supportive and connected with one another. And so
we just kind of bring a different facet to that
movement that's already happening. And how did you get into
(41:25):
this work? Oh man, it's been a lifetime in the making.
So you know, on my maternal side of the family,
because of the historical trauma in Native communities, I'm actually
the first generation over a hundred years to be raised
by their parents. So my mom, my grandma, and my
(41:46):
great grandparents were all raised outside of their family and
outside of the culture. And so it's been a thirty
three year process of me coming home. You know, when
I was in college, I always started asking myself some
really deep questions about what does it mean to be
an indigenous person of the Great Lakes. And as I
(42:06):
started searching for those answers, it eventually led me to
food and I really saw the potential that food and
food systems work had for healing for communities and for individuals,
and I just it's been so powerful for myself and
now to be part of that healing process for other
(42:27):
people in our community is just amazing. And you know,
I feel like it's where I'm supposed to be and
doing this work, well, yeah, it is pretty unequivocally the
most powerful organizing tool that we have because it is
the only true shared experience that we all have. So
I applaud you for not only making that connection but
(42:50):
living in that. I wonder what role policy and perception
plays into the work that you're doing, And by that
I mean often times in these marginalized communities, we see
heavily industrialized foods that have been subsidized that upend and
displace native and traditional diets. And so I wonder like
(43:14):
what your feelings are about both policies enacted and also
policies that you all might be trying to have enacted
to better support your food sovereignty work. There are so
many policies and you know, decisions that are made to
impact our food system that everyday people are often left
out of those conversations, and especially communities of color and
(43:38):
low income communities. And it's definitely a conversation that's being
had in many different spaces throughout Detroit. You know, I'm
really privileged to sit on the Detroit Food Policy Council.
You know, it really provides me an opportunity to amplify
the needs or the concerns of the indigenous community and
(43:59):
the community that we serve. You know, there are some
policies that are underworks right now being revised. We recently
as a city revised our Urban Agriculture Ordinance, which changes
the context of how people are able to grow food
in the city and where and how. They're also in
(44:19):
the process of revising land based projects, process of getting
permits or the purchasing of land because the process hasn't
been really clear in the past, and there's all this
vacant land. But there's a lot of community concerned to
make sure that whatever process comes out of this new
(44:41):
policy is really fair to community members and community organizations
because there are a lot of developers coming into Detroit
and scooping up land and at this really below market value,
and then community groups or individuals are trying to purchase
similar pieces of land and have to pay more get value,
and that's not fair for people that are you know,
(45:03):
trying to provide these accessenance to their family and community.
And so it's you know, it's bringing up concerns like
that during the policy process that the Food Policy Council
really tries to uplift and tries to work to make
sure that those decisions that aren't made are equitable. And
really that's what food justice and food sovereignty are really about,
is making sure that you know, everyday people have a
(45:25):
voice in that process and defining their food system and
what that looks like, you know. But there there are
so many different ways that policy can both prohibit or
enable people's access to traditional or cultural foods, and it
would seem that you all have taken the right approach
in terms of policy, which is to take care of
(45:47):
your own backyard first and foremost, and hopefully that can
become a model that other cities can follow. I hope. So,
you know, Detroit's pretty I think our good food community
or movement is really pretty special. Like we've seen earlier,
it's very connected. We have amazing things happening all across
the city and even you know, our Food Policy Council
(46:12):
was started by the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network
years ago, and it's not very often that you find
a city food policy council that was started by a
community group. Usually there you know, initiative that starts within
city government. This was really started by the people, and
I think that's pretty awesome, definitely. So I want to
(46:33):
continue to put you on this because I think it's
really interesting and important. But I want to ask you
around this matter of perception because there is so much
learning and teaching that you're engaged in, but a part
of the learning and teaching is also and so what
has that been like for the people that you are
(46:55):
trying to serve? You know, when we first started this
work about five years years ago. I noticed that a
lot of our community members really look to staff and
our organization to make the decisions for them and for
us to set the agenda, and that's not at all
what it was about. And I had to really emphasize
that to them that this belongs to them and to
(47:18):
really enjoy the benefits of what this could become, they
have to take on some ownership and responsibility and like
really voice their concerns and become active participants in the
work and in the process. And so over time, you know,
we've really seen people, I think, change the way that
they see themselves. They've gone from being kind of just
(47:41):
service recipients that might get snap benefits or visit a
food pantry, and some people have really transformed into these
active change agents. They see that they have value to
offer to the work and to their community members, skills
that they can share. They want to take on leadership roles.
(48:03):
And that's just such a powerful thing too, for people
that have been really disenfranchised for so long to start
seeing themselves as active change agents. And have you been
involved in the Man Project? Not a whole lot. I
would like to get more involved, you know, it's really
unfortunate though that in the Detroit area are waterways are
(48:26):
really poor quality, and so the rice don't grow in
a lot of places anymore and it's really not safe.
So we have to have those relationships with our tribal
partners and people outside the city to really engage in
that part of the work. And I saw that you
were lecturing sometimes in Ipsilante. Yeah, there is a farmer
(48:46):
there named Melvin Parsons. Melvin m hm. He's fantastic. What
a cool dude. I love. But anytime I see someone's
in Ipsilante, I have to shout out we the People's
Growers Association Rack melvinel Yeah, he's awesome, and that's a
good problept for us as well. I'm really interested how
(49:09):
people who are listening to this can be more involved
in supporting food sovereignty and indigenous communities wherever they live.
One thing for sure is just get really acquainted with
your local plants and having that really intimate or close
relationship with your local environment. It's very important, and learning
(49:32):
to live seasonally and hyperlocally is really important to this work.
But also supporting tribal communities when they a lot of
them have tribally produced goods such as hand harvested and
processed wild rice, maple syrup, different seeds, and some of
them are selling produce and really supporting their economies. So
(49:55):
when you want wild rice or maple syrup by from
one of those community, it is because it helps support
their local economy, and it also helps to create sustainability
for jobs that are more based in traditional lifestyles and
help people preserve those life ways that are typically you know,
those people have also have that ecological knowledge that really
(50:17):
allows them to do this food work more sustainably, and
so you know, it's kind of works out for everyone.
People get ethical food and you get to support someone's
way of life, you know. I think there's also some
really awesome work that I don't know if you're familiar
with the Sioux Chef. Yeah, out of the Twin Cities,
(50:38):
UM is doing some really awesome work and in the
process of starting a nonprofit and the Indigenous Food Lab
that's really going to serve as a training center and
a support to indigenous communities everywhere and their food system work.
I'm really excited to see what comes out of that. Absolutely. Yeah,
he's been amazing what he's been able to for getting
(51:01):
people in the food media to really start to finally
pay attention to Indigenous foods that actually reminds me. I
have a somewhat random question for you around language. In
the course of this conversation alone, I believe that we
have used the words Indian, Native, Indigenous. Obviously, language is
(51:21):
important and we want to be mindful of it. Is there,
in your mind a consensus or an appropriate way to
talk about these communities. I don't think that there's consensus
Indigenous communities, no, you know, And I think a lot
of the different terms that are often used how people
(51:42):
identify are very generationally based depending on what was being
used in the kind of the political climate of their times.
Like my grandma's generation really uses Indian. When I was
growing up, it was Native American or American Indian, And
you know, today I'm hearing more and more Indigenous or
(52:02):
people using specific tribal affiliation. So I think it just depends.
But I think all of those are pretty acceptable terms.
I don't think anyone's going to go out set because
even we talk about across Turtle Island or North America,
we talked about that as Indian country, and so okay,
I think they're all they're all okay, Yeah, very useful.
(52:25):
Framework always want to ask, Shilo, I have really so
much enjoyed our talk, and I hope I can meet
you the next time I'm in Detroit. I'm there a lot. Yeah,
please please connect with me when you're here. Okay. That
was Shilo Maples, program manager for Food Sovereignty and Wellness
Initiatives at American Indian Health and Family Services. Thanks Shilo,
(52:48):
thank you all right, take care. When first I came
to town, they called me the Robe and do well.
Now they changed my name and they called me Katie Coo.
Welcome to the Little Day. Hi, little Diode. That it
was where it would be. Then I would be where
I am, not here, I am where I must be, Hide,
little Diode. That it was where it would be. Then
(53:11):
I would be where I am, not here, I am
where I must be, Where I would be. I cannot come,
little little Day, hide, little Diode. Oh oh oh, oh
oh oh oh. And that's it for this episode. Point
(53:33):
of Origin is a podcast from My Heart Media and
wet Stone Magazine, Executive produced by Christopher Hasciotas and hosted
by me Stephen Saderfield. Special thanks to Cat Hong for editing,
supervising producer Gabrielle Collins, and a very special thanks to
my business partner, wet Stone co founder Melissa she who
(53:54):
helped produce this podcast. Thanks mel I, hope you've enjoyed
today's very very special episode on Rice. We'd like to
thank our guest for making it possible, Bar Barton, author
of Mnoman was San Dillard, natural fiber weaver, culture bear
and teacher from the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Ottawa
(54:15):
Indians and Shiloh Maples, program director for American Indian Health
and Family Services in Detroit. And thanks to all of
you for supporting wet Stone and listening to the Point
of Origin podcast for all of the latest on all
things point of Origin. You can follow us on Instagram
at wet Stone Magazine or online at wet Stone Magazine
(54:38):
dot com. We'll see you next week at the Point
of Origin.
Host
Stephen Satterfield
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