The past and future world we thirst for

A Maskoke ecovillage in rural Alabama

by Andrew Kang Bartlett, Presbyterian Hunger Program | Special to Presbyterian News Service

Marcus Briggs-Cloud is shown with his nephew. (Photos courtesy of Ekvn-Yefolecv)

Two rampaging squirrels break the silence of the thick forest as our group of 30 walk on a road made from tens of thousands of hand-laid bricks recovered from a landfill.

Ahead of us, on the crest of the road, stood another group. Under a canopy of long-leaf pines and hardwood trees was an old woman in a wheelchair, a young girl, three adult women, a boy, two young men, and Marcus Briggs-Cloud, who I had only met virtually before. All were wearing clothing incorporating multi-colored Maskoke patterns.

The two young Maskoke men held their two-foot-long wooden stickball sticks in front of our group, gently enforcing an invisible barrier. Across the gap between our groups, Marcus gave a traditional welcome speech in the Maskoke language for 10 minutes. Then we were asked to state the intentions behind our presence on their land. Two women leaders from our group who had visited before explained our purpose — to humbly learn about their ecovillage and them, and to explore ways to create and strengthen our relationships. We were a group of 30 individual and institutional funders with a history of directing funds to the Ekvn-Yefolecv ecovillage over the past years, some newer and others like the Presbyterian Hunger Program going back to 2018.

After our intentions were expressed, Marcus and the group welcomed us, and the children came forward to share with us three small bowls of buffalo meat, egg and corn (the buffalo, egg and corn all being from the land). Our groups merged and we mounted the cabs and beds of three all-wheel drive pickup trucks. The trucks would need all those wheels as we traversed the many rugged, non-brick roads over that day and the next.

Traditional and new technologies

On that sunny mid-October morning, we were welcomed onto their ancestral land and into their village, to learn, among many other things, about the appropriate technologies they are using to build houses and the community building, which, when finished, will have the largest earthen floor in North America.

The community building was iced with a huge array of solar panels. From each tree felled for the timber-framed structures permission was sought and, if given, it was blessed before cutting and debarking. The 10-20-foot diameter logs were secured on small concrete footings. Marcus spoke of the high level of embodied energy in concrete, so the footings were the only concrete being used on the buildings.

After saying a prayer for each tree felled, residents mill logs onsite for timber frame buildings.

When they prepare the wood, they move the wood in a counterclockwise direction from the initial milling to sawing studs and decking, just as we moved counterclockwise around the center firepit of the roundhouse. Rituals are woven into each day.

The temperature of one small building (with a footprint of about 26 feet x 40 feet), where they store the feed for the fish, chickens, goats, and sheep, was maintained perfectly with the help of 18” strawbale walls covered with earthen plaster coating (with an amazing R value of 40!) and an ingenious lake-loop geothermal HVAC system that pumped 55 degree water from the depths of the adjacent lake through a giant pipe running below the ceiling.

A woman applies earthen plaster to the inside of a strawbale wall.

The second floor had craft rooms, lofts, and a composting toilet, with a beautifully carved wooden seat, whose nutrients were collected below, via a wide pipe, on the first-floor feed room.  They are experimenting with hempcrete (natural ‘concrete’ made from hemp) for some of the walls as well.  [Check out their Natural Building & Integrated Systems webpage!]

Returning

Ekvn-Yefolecv has a double meaning: returning to the Earth and returning to our homelands. And that is exactly what they are doing. The number of Maskoke living there since 2018 hovers around 16 as they build houses and other infrastructure, which will accommodate increasing numbers of Maskoke people in the future.

Ekvn-Yefolecv is an intentional community where income is shared and each resident is provided with food, a place to live, and $400 monthly.  They work long days building their vision and they have created so much already! And their vision has inspired so many people, including timber framers from around the country who have periodically joined to construct buildings in enormous barn raising events. Among many others, my friend, Blain Snipstal, co-owner of Earth-Bound Building in Maryland, has come down to build, the latest trip to help with the pillars of one of the buildings.

But let us back up a bit. The Maskoke were forcibly removed from the land we were standing on and much of the southeast in 1836, as a result of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The Maskoke people resisted, especially during the Creek War of 1813-1814, but inevitably the land was stolen to make room for European settlers. The forced removal pushed them onto the Trail of Tears, and many Maskoke lives were lost on that cold, harsh journey to Oklahoma. Other Maskoke People were removed to the Florida Everglades and some to the Tensaw River on the Alabama/Florida border.

Cultural revitalization

Marcus has been committed to revitalizing the Maskoke language as part of cultural survival and he started a Maskoke language immersion school in Florida after getting a doctorate in ecology. Dreams, visions, and messages from the ancestors set them on a mission to resettle their traditional lands and this spot in rural Alabama in the rolling hills halfway between Montgomery and Birmingham called out to them. They eventually bought some land and over the years were able to buy more. They inspired other people and bought still more. And in the week before we got there, they closed on about 4,163 acres, purchased right before a graphite mine was able to buy the mining rights. Those millions were raised in mere weeks with the help of Solidaire members, including some in our group. They have now rematriated more than 6,824 acres of their ancestral land!

Revitalizing the Maskoke language is no small chore. Only 18 Maskoke east of the Mississippi speak the language and most of them are 70 years old or more. Restoring and maintaining the health of the Maskoke “language bearers” is essential to keeping the language alive, so a healthy diet and lifestyle is of utmost importance. The language, Marcus stressed, is best (or maybe only) learned while immersed in Maskoke culture and lifestyle. One member of our group said they’d never witnessed so many fluent speakers as we found in this small community. Both of Marcus and Tawna’s children, 10 and 12, are fluent, and we were not to speak English around them. Marcus proudly told us that recordings of their kids speaking in Maskoke are piped through a rock in the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park in Montgomery, which begins with sculptures showing the history of the Indigenous Peoples.

Sturgeon

Nor were we to speak in English around the sturgeon! Part of the cultural revitalization is introducing traditional animals to the land, notably buffalo and sturgeon – sacred animals. They are breeding and reintroducing sturgeon to the creeks, rivers, and lakes on Maskoke land. If I heard right, they are caring for two sturgeon species: lake and shortnose.

Challenged by pollutants, habitat degradation, and climate change, sturgeon are endangered in North America and around the world. But they’re making a comeback in Alabama.

Marcus holds up a Lake Sturgeon.

The sturgeons were a highlight! They breed sturgeon in tanks before reintroducing them into rivers and lakes on the land, and Marcus, after reminding us that only Maskoke is spoken to and around the fish, captured a three-foot-long male in a cloth mesh net. It thrashed and splashed, arching its body and flinging its spiky tail. Marcus stroked its torso slowly and steadily for many while speaking the Maskoke language.

Then. Finally. It was still.

One by one we took turns, cupping a little water in our hand and stroking the sturgeon’s side. Viewing its long snout and bony plates, I stroked its smooth flesh and found myself unable to hold back tears. I was moved by the beauty, wisdom, and resilience of this fish whose ancestors stretch back around 200 million years! His ancestors swam in the age of the dinosaurs. Marcus said the sturgeon is one of the only living species in our world who is morphologically identical to its earliest ancestors — truly a living fossil.

And the tears were full of many emotions including amazement at the courage and clarity of vision, gratitude, and hope. To witness this determination to revitalize Maskoke ways and culture with so many tangible achievements! Even now, in a rural environment full of ignorance, white supremacists, and guns — and despite my settler ancestors’ attempt to wipe out the Indigenous People of the old, “new world,” the Maskoke people were here and — like the sturgeon in water tanks, lakes, and flowing rivers — thriving in 21^st century Alabama.

Threatened species

In the ecovillage, they raise various types of animals and foremost among them are the buffalo. Buffalo have great cultural and ecological significance for the Maskoke, and at Ekvn-Yefolecv their manure along with kitchen scraps are made into methane in the biodigester behind the roundhouse and school/kitchen building. They also raise American Guinea Hog, San Clemente Goats, and Australorp Chickens and, while I typically avoid pork, I really enjoyed a Guinea Hog chop for dinner.

Refugia

My old friend, Peter Forbes, in our closing circle beside the lake, talked about how in his part of the country – Vermont and Maine – giant glaciers covered the land during the Ice Age, nearly wiping out all the plants and animals. Miles of flowing ice and rock destroyed everything in its path. But inevitably, the glacier would miss small spots where life could survive. Seeds would sprout and plants would re-emerge. Such places are called refugia. Refugia is a safe haven; a place of new beginnings.

Today, the glacier the Maskoke face are things like settler-colonialism, racism, and capitalism, which attempt to wipe out them and the people and cultures of the Indians of North America. And yet, they persist and are creating a refugia in the heart of Alabama — a place of new beginnings!

I certainly was and I think all of us were humbled to be welcomed with such radical hospitality by a people upon whom genocide was inflicted, one which almost succeeded if not for the resistance, resilience, cultural strength, perseverance, courage, sweat, and tears of their ancestors. The courage and commitment of these descendants are extraordinary, especially when considering how they are surrounded by great swaths of racist ignorance and potential violence. They are holding so much: the callings from their ancestors, the urgency to protect Maskoke culture and language, and a dedication to live out reverential relationships and sustainability with the more-than-human world and with people near and far.

Growing vegetables sustainably using nutrients from the sturgeon tanks in an aquaculture hydroponics system.

The Maskoke are living out and building a world on their homeland, one that charts a beautiful path that they are sharing with other Indigenous communities — and with all of us. Given the enormity of their vision and ambition, they know to ask for assistance. This year, that means asking for monetary support for Vlahoke, named after Vlahoke Patti Hall, their late community matriarch.

Where you fit in

Opening Ekvn-Yefolecv up to the public is key to their economic sustainability, and Vlahoke will be an off-grid eco-lodge, that will host a retreat center, a farm-to-table restaurant, a museum, and community/meeting spaces. Vlahoke will be part of the civil rights tourist trail in Alabama, putting Indigenous history and present back into the narrative for Alabama and the country. They are working in close collaboration with the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, who recognize the national significance of Ekvn-Yefolecv’s vision to be a place of learning about past and present Indigenous struggles for justice.

Fundraising for A Place of Learning continues.

Already they have raised over half of what is needed to bring this vision of Vlahoke into reality, and they are hoping to secure the remainder this winter. Your gifts to the Hunger Program and One Great Hour of Sharing are helping a tiny bit, but you have the opportunity to give directly here (for gifts less than $500) or by check to Ekvn-Yefolecv, P.O. Box 148, Weogufka, AL 35183. The EIN for giving, if needed, is 81-2293314. You can contact info@ekvn-yefolecv.org with any questions or other needs.

Learn more on the webpage and be inspired to invest in the future by watching this beautiful intro to Vlahoke video.

Andrew Kang Bartlett is the Associate for National Hunger Concerns with the Presbyterian Hunger Program.