Big Chief Stinky Feet Scot Walker   © Copyright 2026 by Scot Walker

Big Chief Stinky Feet was my grandfather’s favorite name for himself and his favorite game was hunting the Easter rabbit. Other than these occasional sadistic excursions, however, the Big Chief was as kind a man as I’ve ever met. Each summer, he’d entertain his tribe of grandchildren at his beach cottage on Colton’s Point at the tip of St. Mary’s peninsula in southern Maryland. Mom-Mom, my grandma, would cook curb-stoners (fried yeast bread), eggs, bacon, ham, grits, soft shell crabs and freshly caught eels, as Big Chief Stinky Feet would gather all of us grandchildren together at his huge country table, feeding us his version of country lore while we stuffed our faces with Mom-Mom’s home cooking.

“Did I ever tell you about the time the Pale Face came into my village and offered to trade beads for your grandmother?” the Big Chief asked, as all of us grandkids stared with glassy eyes, and Mom-Mom grinned while cooking food enough to feed the fifteen of us.

“No, granddaddy,” we’d all reply at once. “What happened when the Pale Face came to your village and offered to buy Mom-Mom for some beads?”

“Well, I sold her to them,” the Big Chief said “but after they put up with her for a week, they brought her back and told me they couldn’t stand her cooking!”

“No,” we all screamed. “Mom-Mom is the bestest cook in the world. No one would bring her back for that.”

“Your grandmother is a good cook now,” the Big Chief said “because I taught her everything she knows, but when we were first married, she didn’t know how to boil water.”

“Not know how to boil water,” we all howled as Mom-Mom kept on grinning and winking at us.

“Your granddaddy just makes these stories up as he goes along,” Mom-Mom said as she grinned some more.

“Well, I told the Pale Face I’d never take her back—even if they begged me. ‘She eats like a cow,’ they said, ‘and she doesn’t know how to clean our cabin or cook a squirrel.’”

“Come on granddaddy,” I screamed. “Mom-Mom is the best cook and the best cleaner-upper in the world. No one would ever say that about her.”

“But they did,” the Big Chief said. “And they were right. I taught your grandmother how to cook and how to clean. Before that she was nothing—she was just a squaw—worthless like most other women.”

“But granddaddy,” we howled. “Mom-Mom isn’t a squaw; she’s just like you and me.”

“Now she is!” Big Chief Stinky Feet said, “Because I taught her everything she knows.”

Mom-Mom continued to smile as she winked and grinned, “He’s right, you know, land o’ gracious, your granddaddy done taught me everything I know!”

“When did you teach her, granddaddy?” my Cousin Leta Jeanne asked.

“When the pale face brought her back and I told them they’d have to pay me plenty wampum to take her off their hands,” the Big Chief said with his toothless grin. “When they told me how much she ate, I figured they were hard up and I told them they’d have to pay me one hundred US dollars to take her off their hands.”

“And did they pay you?” Sandy, my littlest cousin, asked as her jaws dropped to her knees in disbelief.

“You see Mom-Mom working in the kitchen, dontcha?” the Big Chief said “that’s proof positive they brought her back and paid me to take her off their hands.”

Mom-Mom grinned as she shook her head no, but most of his kids believed the Big Chief more than the squaw.