| Wild rice was harvested in the fall in family groups. The men poled through the rice field as the women harvested it, bending down the stalks with one stick and knocked the ripe kernels of rice off with another, until the canoe was filled with rice kernels. They spread the rice out on sheets of birch bark to dry, then parched it in a kettle to loosen the husk. It was then pounded with long wooden pestles in a barrel that was sunk in the ground by several people. To remove the husks, the rice was winnowed. Finally, it was treaded, usually by men wearing clean moccasins. It was stored in woven bark bags.
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