Maskoke Hompetv Hayv
by Rita Williams
Over the weekend I attended a wild onion dinner at Concharty Methodist Church along with my 2 year old granddaughter, Tihen. She ate her first wild onions, cabbage rolls and salt meat without distaste. I didn’t realize at the moment that she had the attention of a few adults at the table, with every bite of onions, then cabbage and salt meat they would smile quietly, as if they were blessing her for not spitting it out or making a face. I had just realized my granddaughter had her first holy communion of wild onions!!
Pictured left to right - Rachael Barnett and Florence Brown
Concharty Church holds a special place in my heart, this is where my mother and father first met while attending an annual church event and now Tihen with her first wild onion tasting.
I had the opportunity to visit with two sisters Rachel (Wilson) Barnett and Florence (Wilson) Brown at their camp house. They are both up in years but still do their part in cooking. At this camp house they are the head hompetv-hayv’s . When planning for an event that calls for a big meal, they plan in advance how much they are going to need, who they are going to buy their supplies from and who is going to assist them. The protocol of any camp house is to go through these ladies first. They also delegate who is going to make the fry bread. Everyone was busy at their station, women on the inside cooking ,as well as one lady cooking frybread outside over a fire pit.
Raised in a family of four sisters and five brothers, there was a lot to do, like most neighbors during their time they had chickens, a milk cow, horses , pigs and a garden. The girls had to cook, clean and wash dishes. “ We would butcher our own pork, and put it in our smoke house and mom would can, I remember her canning pork and gravy, but I could never turn mine out the way she did it.” Said, Rachel. “ We still cook the way our mother Nicey and grandmother, Emma Tecumseh cooked their foods.”
Rachel said she never acquired the taste for salt meat like everyone else. “ These days you can hardly keep salt meat in the refrigerator for so long without it spoiling, not like our old smoke houses, you could keep for months. I think its all the chemicals in the processed meat that does it.”
Samaria (Wilson) Tiger, the younger of the four girls said her chore was to aka`ske(shave) fresh corn off the cob to make corn bread, you would shave it into a batter with sugar, baking powder and milk if you had it, or water.
Florence, known to many as “sukey” still camps at Duck Creek Ceremonial ground. Her husband Felix Brown, now deceased, was their Chief at the time of his death. Her sons remain faithful to their traditional ways of Duck Creek and Florence remains faithful to keep the camp open for them and their families.
To know these ladies is to admire them for the respect their grown children show them. One of the values our Creek women possessed was the way to her families heart and that was cooking, she nurtured love, happiness, stability, and contentment.