On Thursday, Oct. 17, Professor of Religious Studies Michael McNally and Professor of History Susannah Ottaway brought students in their classes — Native American Religions (Religion 130) and Food and Public Health: Why the Brits Embraced White Bread (History 100) — to visit the Prairie Island Indian Community, near Red Wing, Minn. As the students walked out of the vans towards the intersection of the Mississippi and Vermillion rivers, they were greeted by tribal members where they were handed shovels and buckets. The goal: harvest psincinca.
Psincinca, also referred to as Arrowhead or Rat Potato, is a tuber that’s commonly found in the rivers around Minnesota. As the Carleton students stood in the muddy water, several members of the Prairie Island Indian Community spoke about the significance of psincinca.
“Psincinca is a word that means ‘children of the rice,’ because as you can see they grow underneath the wild rice around you,” said one elder at Tinta Wita, the Dakota name for Prairie Island Indian Community. “This was a tradition that we started four years ago. The first year it was cold and we didn’t have many people. The next year, it was also cold. Last year, it was alright, but look at what a beautiful day we have been blessed with.”
Students walked along the rivers’ intersection, referred to as a bdote in Dakota —- not to be confused with Bdote in the Twin Cities which many Dakota believe to be sacred —- to a muddy landscape with the Treasure Island Casino and Prairie Island Nuclear facility in the background. As youth members of the community demonstrated the proper way to extract psincinca, an elder chanted gratitude for a beautiful day.
For many Carleton students, it was their first time on a Native American Reservation. “[Visiting] the [Prairie Island Indian Community] was a unique experience where I had no notion or semblance of what to expect,” said Pranit Bhuvan ’28, a freshman in Food and Industrialization, an Argument and Inquiry course. “The entire community was incredibly warm and welcoming, especially when explaining their cultural practices such as offering medicine to the land that they were sharing their lives with.”
Though the students’ hands got a little dirty, many commented on how great they felt the experience was. “I really enjoyed helping with the [psincinca] harvest at Prairie Island,” said Gabe Kaplan ’25, a student in Native American Religions. “I appreciated the community there being so welcoming and willing to let us join in on the process — it was nice to get into the mud with everyone else and pull out bulbs.”
The harvest marks a two day harvest of the psincinca. While Thursday was focused on harvesting the potatoes, on Friday students will assist the community in cleaning, preparing and cooking the psincinca for a feast for the members of the Prairie Island Indian Community.
Though the purpose of the trip was to help facilitate a feast for the community, students commented that the trip down to Prairie Island was a great experience. “Being with such a spiritual community in touch with nature felt incredibly rejuvenating, especially on a beautiful sunny October day,” said Bhuvan. “While we did get especially muddy, and had a couple of mishaps near the river, it was ultimately a really fun and unforgettable experience!”
