A Tradition of the Past – By Ber Yang

Like many traditions that have been passed down for the elders, hunting is one that still remains highly practice. For generations the Hmong have hunted to bring food to the home. In the United States today, where better to hunt than on the Rock Mountains. Here in Missoula, Montana, the local Hmong community has kept the tradition alive with regular season hunters who not only hunt as a sport but bring home as much of the meat as possible as an alternate food source.

Back in Laos, the men usually do the hunting as the women tend to the fields. I remember in stories that my parents told that the men would head out in the deep of night to hunt for squirrels and other small rodants on the regular and then for the big game in groups. Many families had their own farms of a couple chicken, pigs, and cows but those animals were to provide for special occasions or other things like milk and eggs so they too were saved. But when an animal was slaughter, nothing was wasted. The same goes for the hunted game. The men who brought back the game would bring back everything from all the internal organs, to the intestines, to the (believe it or not) digested food in the stomach and intestines. A delicacy that is served in celebration of a victory of the chase was something called “kua quav” which litterally translated means “poop juice”; everyone would hurry in for their share of the dish.

Kua quav is not as bad as the name brings it out to be. It is prepared with the scraped out “poop” from inside the intestines of the animal. First the substance is taken and boiled in hot water, than it is drained and the main ingredient of the dish is just the remaining juice, whatever other matter was thrown out. Then in this “broth” meat and other organ parts like the intestines, and livers would be added with an array or herbs and seasoning. In Missoula, there must be at least one kua quav party every so weekend if a hunter from a family was so lucky to chase down big game like elk or deer during the hunting season in the fall. Sometimes some of the juice would be frozen in order to cook a similar dish with beef during the warmer weather at a gathering or family social.

The local Hmong hunters have created a small sport club that makes the hunt a little more exciting for everyone called the Hmong Montana Achery Club. Everyone in the community is invited to join in an effort to promote more ethical hunting because the way it works is that each year, the guys would get together and annonymously vote for a leader to hold a pot where everyone would put in about $50. Then everyone would go hunting for the season and the person who returns with the biggest “fair chase” elk would get a portion of the pot so that they can use it towards mounting that elk since it would be a Pope and Young bull, meant for mounting. There is a first, second, and third place winner; and this promotes ethical hunting because each hunter would not want just shoot a spike or cow as they all have their eye on the pot.

Aside from the fun and sport, the elk or deer is always butchered and froze to eat throughout the year. You’ll find in many local Missoula Hmong Families, big freezers filled with game meat and frozen vegetables that they have prepared from their gardens. Missoula Hmong are perhaps one of the most traditional Hmong you’ll find in the states as they still hunt and farm for a living.