Peggy Derrick

Catalog Number: 2020.009.01

This tool was made in La Crosse in the blacksmith shop of the Hmong Community and Cultural Center.

It is called a Rab Txuas in Hmong. The closest English name is curved brush knife. It is used by men, women and young adults. I was told it’s very popular with Hmong women, who do a lot of the vegetable gardening.

I purchased it because I was immediately attracted to its lightweight size combined with a seriously efficient “business end.”

At the time, I still maintained a large vegetable garden and knew this would make short work of things like corn stalks, so I guess that makes me one of the women with whom it is popular.

It’s just shy of two feet long, but with a heavy, sharp blade. This makes it very adaptable and effective for harvest or for clearing out unwanted growth. The Rab Txuas is the second most used tool beside the Hmong knife.

What does it mean to call this brush hook handmade?

It started out as a piece of recycled scrap steel. This blade probably started life as a lawn mower blade: not just any scrap, but something of high quality, strong yet malleable.

The bar of steel was heated until it glowed red and then shaped into the blade through repeated hammering. This is a slow process that takes a high heat source and a great deal of strength and skill to coax the slab of steel into the desired shape.

After shaping and tempering the steel, the knife’s maker fashioned the handle out of wood and attached it to the knife blade by driving the blade’s tang into the wood.

Purchasing this Rab Txuas gave me a lot of satisfaction. I like to support artisans, I love good tools, and I know who made it. Mr. Tong Khai Vang is a skilled and experienced blacksmith and knifemaker who lives and practices his craft in La Crosse.

I no longer have a large garden, and I have donated my Hmong brush hook to the La Crosse County Historical Society.

This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on October 3, 2020.