Tafv Tahdooahnippah

Every legend has an origin story, and this one begins on a Sunday afternoon at the HiLo: a smoky bar room with dim lighting and cheap thrills provided by bourbon and a jukebox, typically the cliched setting of pulpy detective novels. But this introductory scene is not about a hard-boiled detective drowning out the rough life that his job demands - it’s about cheerleading. And fry bread. Mostly fry bread. More on that in a bit.

Tafv Tahdooahnippah has been a presence in the Oklahoma City scene for decades now. Whether she’s popped the top of your beer at a roaringly loud rock venue, served you at the First Americans Museum, or you’ve attended one of her Indian taco fundraisers to enjoy that greasy, greasy fry bread, there’s a chance you’ve been in Tafv’s presence.

When the now-defunct music venue The Conservatory opened (formerly The Green Door, currently 89th St), owner Dustin Wallace was looking for help behind the bar. He approached his old friend Tafv about slinging drinks. There was a little apprehension on her end, as it was an entirely new job for her.

“I had zero idea how to even do anything. I told Dustin that I was really nervous because I had never done it before,” Tafv states. “He says, ‘You like to drink and you go to bars, just do what you like, what you see other people do.’ I’d work sold-out shows by myself and I had no help. There was one bartender, no barback. Wash all my own glasses and stock my own stuff, get my own ice, and all of that.”

Eighteen years and a change of ownership since, Tafv is still behind the bar in that same building, pouring drinks for thirsty musicians and fans alike. The sheer number of wild incidents she’s witnessed day in and day out have almost become mundane. The bar is the backdrop of her family’s life.

“It’s really weird. My daughter told me once that she doesn’t remember life when I didn’t work there. She was really young. People remember seeing my kids hanging out there because sometimes I had to take them to work with me. I worked at my kid’s elementary school during the day and then at night I started working at the club just to make some extra money for something. I don’t even remember what because I’m still there now. It was supposed to be a very temporary thing and I got sucked in.”

Another of her side hustles she’s famous for is the aforementioned fry bread that is the anchor of her Indian tacos. When her daughter began cheerleading, the costs racked up quickly. Tafv wanted to support her child’s endeavour, but needed a new scheme to find the money for it.

“When my daughter started cheering, that shit is expensive. Buying trips and uniforms, competitions and bows - oh my god $50 bows - are you kidding me?” Tafv laughs. “Makeup and hair, all that. So, when she started doing that my idea was ‘I can make fry bread, and people like Indian tacos, so let’s just me see if this will work.’”

The treat of fry bread, beans, lettuce, tomato and cheese is a delicacy generally relegated to the Oklahoma State Fair or carnivals, served from the window of a truck in a labyrinth of corn dog and cotton candy vendors, best enjoyed with a $12 aluminum bottle of Bud Light amidst the rattling of generators. Tafv would sometimes host Indian taco dinners at her house and invite friends over. Soon, the parties grew and grew as word got out about them. She realized that by hosting Indian taco dinners at the HiLo, an establishment with a tight-knit community of regulars who all know each other, paying for cheer necessities would become much easier.

Tafv doesn’t remember how or when she learned how to make fry bread. She’d help her dad make breakfast or simple things as a kid, but the bread somehow came naturally.

“It’s a lot of work to do the bread. Some people have a recipe. When I tell people [I don’t], they don’t believe me because they’re like, ‘It’s so good,’” Tafv says with a smile. “The easiest quickest tip ever: use self-rising flour and hot water. That’s it. The trick is getting the right consistency, the amount of water to flour. I can’t tell you unless you’re next to me, I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like a touch thing.”

Tafv was raised Creek and a member of the Comanche nation. Growing up, she spent a lot of time going to an Indian church with a campus of camp houses with no running water. The churches were built as cultural assimilation tools that went along with the pressure to speak English and change their names. After the sermons, there were big dinners with the congregation, many of whom were first speakers, and there would often be traditional Creek foods like blue grape dumplings, wild onions, squirrel, and a corn drink called softe.

“Fry bread came from being forced onto reservations and given commodity foods. I don’t know about Indians anywhere else, but with my family it’s more like a treat food,” Tafv states. “We don’t eat it with every meal, but when we have big get-togethers. At our family reunion, we had a fry bread contest. We definitely like it a lot.”

Now that Tafv’s daughter has graduated and gone off to college, the urgency of Indian taco fundraisers for cheer trips has subsided. However, Tafv still cooks them sometimes for other fundraisers or charity events. She’s even started passing off the skill to her daughter, just in case she needs to use it one day.

“Y’all, I’m just really proud of her and greasy, greasy fried bread is what’s helping her fulfill her dreams.”