Sentence:  But the people to whom he brought the life-giving stuffs were <WSD>rice-eaters</WSD>. They knew how to hull rice in their mortars, but they knew nothing of the heavy stone querns of the North, and less of the material that the white man convoyed so laboriously. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  One whose diet uses rice as a staple, as opposed to wheat or some other grain.