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Tawn Kaayaash

Manoomin: not just a Food

5/17/2018

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Medicinal uses of Wild Rice

​The use of wild rice as a food by the Anishinaabe is well established. However, its use as a medicine was a unique distinction. 
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​In some cases, if a mother was unable to nurse her infant, she would give the baby wild rice boiled with meat or fish broth as a milk substitute. This thin porridge could sustain the child and was a widely held Ojibwe health formula that would have reduced infant mortality and infant health.
 
As a medicine, fine, broken rice (manzaan) was boiled and strained to render its “juice”.  This juice was then mixed with certain herbs gathered in the spring or late fall to produce a poultice (or salve) that could be applied to relieve skin infections caused by poison ivy. 
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Urinary tract infections were also treated using the root of the wild rice plant and goldenseal, brewed into a liquid that could be injected into the urethra with a syringe.
 
In terms of spiritual cures, it was noted by some that if a person accidentally tasted the blood of another human being that they should drink nothing but boiled rice broth for a period of time to ensure that they wouldn’t become a windigo. Girls in their puberty rites were also supposed to abstain from all foods except rice in order to ensure a good passage into womanhood.
 
On the flipside, it was believed that a pregnant woman should avoid eating popped rice as eating it would cause her baby to have difficulty breathing when it was born. 

Read more: Vennum, Thomas. 1988. “Wild Rice And The Ojibway People.” St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press.
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