Manoomin (Wild Rice): Ojibwe Spirit Food

Many Ojibwe youth are losing the ricing traditions of their ancestors due to the deaths of knowledgeable elders and the harmful environmental pressures impacting their rice beds. A cultural dispute rages between the Ojibwe and some lake property owners disdainful of “ugly lake weeds,” and those impervious to the harm caused by their antiquated and leaking septic systems.

Other threats are hydroelectric power companies who want lake levels controlled to generate maximum power and genetically modified rice that may contaminate indigenous rice beds. Manoomin… reveals the traditional practices of planting rice boat building, harvesting, parching, dancing, winnowing, cooking and finally eating wild rice at a feast. We show the wild ricing traditions and the teaching of these traditions to Ojibwe children.

The opening sequence features the late Spiritual Elder (Niigaanosh) Archie McGeshick, Sr. While dying of cancer, Archie continued to plant and harvest. He took filmmaker Michael Loukinen out to record these practices hoping that through this video more people will understand, appreciate and want to protect indigenous wild rice beds. The opening scene shows him offering Ojibwe-language prayers and tobacco to the Water, Shore and Great Spirits as he surveys the rice bed that he is trying to restore. 

The film is dedicated to him and all the Ojibwe Elders who have tried to pass on their ricing traditions to younger generations.

This film was released in 2004 and is 90 minutes long.