For a long time now I’ve been interested in folk-tales from around the world. At first they just seemed interesting. There were so many stories I had never heard before. With television, new story books, and the oversaturation of Disney it no wonder these stories are slowly being forgotten. If find this to be a real shame as it is not only the story that’s dying but the culture from which it came from dies a little too. Globalization has made sure of that.

After a while I started to become more interested in the cultures that produced these stories. They also became the only thing I could read in its entirety in between my normal work load of class readings. So when the opportunity to delve deeper into this genre presented itself I jumped at it.

I was interested in looking further into the stories told by African-American slaves. To be more specific, the stories that caught my interest the most where the animal stories and their role in the slave society. The collection of “Uncle Remus” tales seems to be the most well-known collection of these kinds of stories. As a first step in investigating these them, I went to the library and got several copies of the Uncle Remus tales. I also did a quick search on Wikipedia. Though this source may not be considered the most scholarly, it does however give a good jumping off point.

The search,“Uncle Remus Tales”, confirmed the fact that they were compiled by Joel Chandler Harris. He published them in book format in 1881. Seven Uncle Remus books were published in total. Many of the stories are didactic in nature. Wikipedia compares them to Aesop's Fables and the stories of Jean de La Fontaine. I would agree with the former but cannot bauch for the latter as I do not believe I am familiar with any of Jean de La Fontaine’s stories. At least, his name does not sound familiar.

Probably the most recognizable character of the Uncle Remus tales is Brer Rabbit. When I did a search on him, (again in Wikipedia), I was surprised to find very little about him. Wikipedia describes him as “a trickster who succeeds by his wits rather than by brawn, tweaking authority figures and bending social mores as he sees fit.” This is plainly evident in the stories.

My next step was to turn to the academic databases available to us through the library’s website. Through my findings there I discovered four topics that appeared regularly within the articles I found. It is these topics that I ended up following and of which this journal is comprised.

The first and second is the contention in the origin of the Uncle Remus stories. While some sources argue that the tales are modified African stories others believe that they are Native American tales adopted by the slaves and retold in plantations. Personally I believe both sides make good arguments and therefore I am unable to decide who the credit should belong to. The third is the idea of the trickster tale, which Brer Rabbit is definitely a part of. Finally, I found it fascinating how the rabbit appears all over the world and in many cases its image carries the same meaning despite the fact that it is difficult to imagine the cultures ever meeting.

Origin

As I mentioned previously, Harries did not write the Uncle Remus tales. He was only the one to gather them up and consolidate them into a collection. For a long time, scholars believed that these stories were purely African-American. Today, however, scholars seem to be divided as to where they came from. In the same way as Jacob and Wilhelm  Grimm collected the folk-tales of Germany, and as Bishop Percy, in the eighteenth century, gathered up the old English ballads, Harris was key to the growth of American folk-lore. These tales became an integral part of the literature of the Southern United States. [McBryde  p. 186]

But where exactly did these tales come from?

Africa. This, for a long time, seemed to be the answer. As the stories were told by the slaves and the slaves came from Africa it was a logical conclusion. In the past folk-tales weren’t considered something truly important. They were entertainment and they may have even been considered educational at points. Some, like Harris, thought of putting them together. But the idea of going further and investigating their origins did not become popular until much later. So, Africa remained as the origin to the tales and in many cases the idea has remained just because of where and from whom they were gathered from.

While there are arguments, such as that Africa is full of animal tales and that Brer Rabbit and his companions are merely new world substitutes for the stories of Africa, such as the Anansi tales. The arguments I found through my research did not seem to be very solid. Having said this, I must admit that I did not do an in-depth investigation on the African heritage of Uncle Remus. Most of the articles I encountered seemed to point to America as the birth place of Brer Rabbit, so it was that rabbit trail I followed.

In his work, From Bobtail to Brer Rabbit Native American Influences on Uncle Remus, Jay Hansford C. Vestargued quite vehemently on the American origin of the Brer Rabbit stories. His argument is centered around his own genealogy. While this might be considered bias, Vest also brings up some good points that have nothing to do with his family and everything to do with the people telling the stories.

His argument starts with his own Native oral tradition. His father who was born in 1919 heard stories very similar to the Brer Rabbit tales from his great-grandmother's younger brother who was born in 1825. This man spoke Saponi, so the tales were translated to him by his great-grandmother who was born in 1818. Vest head the stories from his grandparents (b. 1886 and 1888), who could trace the narratives to a great-grandmother (b. 1784) and from her to another relative born around 1700. [Vest p. 20]

Vest’s father is reported to have been born at the tribal settlement of Hico, Virginia, located atop the Blue Ridge divide near Buena Vista, Virginia. Racial codes made elders wary of outsiders and towns. According to Vest, the elders did not assimilate stories from outsiders and did not read a lot. And they had no contact with any of Harris’ books (1881). He also claims that there was no known or suspected African ancestry within their heritage. [20]

The, English may have established their first colony in Jamestown in 1607 but they were not the first to settle in what is now the United States. According to a Wikipedia search on “Slaves in Colonial United States” the first enslaved Africans arrived in what is now South Carolina as part of the San Miguel de Gualdape colony established by Spanish explorer Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón in 1526. After Ayllón died the slaves, reportedly, revolted and fled to seek refuge among local Native Americans.This escape occurred a good 175 years before Vest’s last tracked relative to know the stories.

There is only one state between Virginia and South Carolina so it might be argued that through Western Expansion, the descendants of these escaped African slaves might have at one point come in contact with Vest’s people. They would not even have to be related to them to pick up the tails.

Vest’s second argument comes from Nature and the difference between the slaves' and Native Americans' interaction with it. African slaves, like Europeans settlers, were confronted with a very different environment when they arrived in the New World. In addition, according to Vest, African slaves were seldom permitted to leave the domesticated plantations. The land for these plantations was altered radically from its native state. So, Vest points out,slaves had very little contact with indigenous wildlife. Given this situation, he finds it interesting that plantation slaves would have devoted so many narratives featuring creatures such as the wolf, the panther, the wildcat, and the bear, the opossum, the raccoon, and the rattlesnake who do not have African counter parts. Vest sites folklorist Richard Dorsonas being surprised at the "prominence of the buzzard as a folk character" in Harris's "field" collection juxtaposed with the "known Negro repertoire."' Vest claims that it is simply illogical to assume that African slaves would choose wild animals with which they had little familiarity over their own folk-motif characters. He argues that given the specific understanding of animal behavior and ecological knowledge evident in the Uncle Remus narratives could only have come from the Natives. [21]

What Vest seems to have forgotten, is that not all African slaves came to America as adults. Some were too young to remember their homeland while other were born in America. Therefore, having chosen American animals for their stories does not seem all that farfetched to me. Furthermore, even though plantation lands were very different than the wilderness, animals still ventured into them. It is because of these animal “intrusions” that many species were over hunted and eventually ended up in the endangered animals list.

Another point that he seems to have neglected is that fact that African my not have had the wolf, the panther, the wildcat, the bear, the opossum, the raccoon, or the rattlesnake but they were not devoid of their own animals. Africans had to contend with many of the big cats, wild dogs and hyenas, and their own varieties of large rodents and venomous snakes. Africans, like the Natives knew about animals. It seems to me that this knowledge would not have disappeared just because they crossed an ocean; it would have just adapted to the new species they were dealing with.

Vest claims that the dissemination of Native American narratives in the South started in the 17^th century through explorers and traders. These people were in constant contact with the Indian fur trade. At this time, the primary overland trade center among the Indians would have been, according to Vest, the Occaneechi (Saponi-Monacan) island. “All traders departed from this village when traveling over the Catawba trail, which then branched out to the various Native centers.” [34] Oral entertainmentplayed a large part in Native hospitality. Therefore, stories were exchanged and then transported by travelers to new locations.

Another argument Vest brings up is that the removal of the Yuchi from Georgia to Oklahoma  along with their mythology, also has a role in establishing the Native American authenticity of the narratives.

Western Expansion strikes again.

Yuchi narratives were reportedly collected by W. O. Tuggle.

Harris is quoted on many occasions throughout the sources I found. However, I do not believe that dates for those quotes were readily available. However, there is a consensus that, at least at first, Harris was entirely of the opinion that the tales he’d collected from plantation slaves were entirely African in nature. He seems to contradict himself in this point.

Vest quotes Harris in saying, "Mr. Tuggle's collection of Creek legends probably will be published under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution, and will serve a note- worthy contribution to the literature of American folklore." Harris acknowledgedthat a collection of "Creek" Indian narratives existed. And among Tuggle’s work are several stories that resemble Harris’s own.  [Vest p. 30-1] So if both men were collecting stories from two different sources, and the stories seem to be similar in nature, what does that mean?

Today, through our information supper highway and large collections in libraries, we are able to determine that more than one people held the rabbit to similar standards. Back then however, that was not the case, but it should have started the suspicion when the same thing kept popping up in different places.

Vest relates that Rabbit-Trickster tales were integrated across four major language groups - Algonquian, Siouan, Muskogean, Iroquoian - and geographically from the Arctic to the tropics and from the Great Plains to the Atlantic shores, as well as Mesoamerica and northern South America. Accordingly, suggesting that ethnologist James Mooney exaggerated a Cherokee Rabbit-Trickster when speaking of a "Great White Rabbit who he claimed was the hero-god, trickster, and wonder-worker of all the tribes east of the Mississippi from Hudson bay to the Gulf." Moreover, in a contemporary report with Mooney's, Hendron (1895) likewise declares that among the Virginia Algonquians - Powhatan confederacy, Pamilco, and others - "a mighty great hare" appeared as their "chief god." [Vest  p. 34-5]

Just like Vest, John M. McBryde relates his own encounters with the Trickster Rabbit figure in the New World in his article, Brer Rabbit in the Folk-Tales of the Negro and Other Races.

“Among the Algonquians, for example, the Ancestral Hare, from whom all their tribes claim a common origin, is the grandson of the Moon and son of the West Wind. Michabo (from Michi, great, and wabos, rabbit), with its variants Manabush and Manabozothe great White Hare, is the semi-divine ancestor of the tribe, the culture hero, who, like Hiawatha, taught his people all the arts of peace. Through etymological confusion of Wabos, rabbit, and wabun, dawn, it is believed by some that this great White Rabbit was no less than the incarnation of the eastern dawn. At all events, he is identified with both light and fire, and in some myths is, like Prometheus, the Fire-Bringer, and is the great "Wonder worker of all the tribes east of the Mississippi from Hudson Bay to the Gulf." He even creates fire and light for his people. Even more than that, he it is who, left by a great flood floating on a raft with a few other animals, is the recognized captain and chief of them all, and out of tiny pieces of mud brought up from the bottom by the muskrat on her paws, created the world itself ; then formed men out of the drowned bodies of the animals, which afterwards became the totems of the tribes; next shot his arrows into the soil, so that they grew into tree trunks ; and, finally, by watching the spiders weaving their webs, taught his people how to make nets with which to catch fish.” [McBrydep. 193-4]

Among the Utes there is a myth of a fierce conflict between Ta-vwats, the Hare God, and Ta-vi, the Sun God, in which the Hare God, by means of a magic arrow, shivers the sun into a thousand fragments and causes a general conflagration.

The Iriquoian cosmology relates how the Hare, in company with Sapling (Hero-Sprout), Beaver, and Otter, goes to capture the Sun, and how the Hare seizes the great luminary and flees away with him in his canoe.

In  British Columbia, the Thompson River Indians, like the Buddhists, see the shape of a hare in the moon. The explanation tale relates , which relates how the Moon, formerly a white-faced, handsome young Indian, invites all the stars to his house. When the guests arrived he sent his younger sister, the Hare, to fetch water. When she returned with a bucket in each hand she found no place left to sit. This prompted her brother, whether in jest or seriously, I’m not sure, to say, "Sit here on my face, for there is no room elsewhere." His sister, taking him at his word, jumped on his face and is still sitting there. [McBryde p. 194]

Vest does note that all of the Joel Chandler Harris’ narratives are Native American. He suspects that only one-third are derived from Native American sources. These include the Brer Rabbit tales. The remainder are likely original to African and European narrative traditions. [Vest p. 35]

Like the early epic of a race and like other folk-tales of a people, they are the result of long and gradual growth, having been handed down orally from one generation to another, and, in their present form at least, not committed to writing till the genius of Mr. Harris discovered them and preserved them to posterity.  [McBryde p. 186]

I would like to keep sighting all these arguments on why Brer Rabbit should have a green card as his tales seem to be Native American in origin and not African. However, I’m afraid if I did that I’d never end this paper. In any case, what I’m most interested in is not the fact of when the stories were first heard and sighted which is one of the things Vest leans on the most. What I want to focus on is the Americanness of the stories, be them Native American or African American.

Going back to the 175 years between Vest’s relatives and the escaped settlement slaves in South Carolina; there is a three to four generation gap between them. It seems to me that it is very much possible that similar stories might have been traded at some point before any actual collecting took place. And with that time frame to consider, shouldn’t the stories just be called American in origin?

Trickster

“The oldest teachers of human beings are the animals, and none are more clever or venerable instructors than the tricksters.” John and Caitlin Mathews

So far we’ve focused on the Uncle Remus stories as a whole with Brer Rabbit at the center of the argument. Now I’d like to focus on Brer Rabbit himself and his role as a Trickster figure. But what does that mean exactly? In his introduction to More Tales of Uncle Remus: Further Adventures of Brer Rabbit, His Friends, Enemies, and Others (1988), Julius Lester gives an excellent description of the Trickster and what it means to be one.

Lester believes that the Trickster is us – all of us. He cannot be explained merely by looking at his sociopolitical origins. If that were the case, we might expect to find these kinds of stories in a certain group of people. However, what we have come to find is that these tales are among practically every nation, regardless of the political circumstances. [Lester xii]

The universality of Trickster tales is not the result of cultural borrowings, but of the universality in what it is to be human. [Lester ix] This means that all humans have the need for a Trickster figure. Humans have the same range of emotions, and while they may affect us slightly differently as individuals, they are still culturally unbounded and are the same.[ Lester ix] For this reason characters like Brer Rabbit are universal. Every culture has one.

The Tricksters that appear as the heroes of tales differ greatly in various parts of the continent. While in Alaska and northern British Columbia the Raven is the hero of a large cycle of tales, the farther south, the Mink, then the Bluejay, takes his place. On the Western Plateaus Coyote is the hero, and in many parts of the Plains the Rabbit is the important figure. In other regions the heroes take the shapes of humans. These occur sporadically along the Pacific coast, but is much more pronounced on the Great Plains and in the Mackenzie area, without, usurping the animal heroes entirely. Owing to these differences in the shapes of Tricksters, we find the same tales told of Rabbit, Coyote, Raven, Mink, and Bluejay, but also of such beings as culture-heroes or human Tricksters among the Algonkin, Sioux, Ponca, and Blackfeet. There is almost no limit to these transfers from one Trickster to another. [Boasp. 387]

The Trickster is charming and likeable, he is surrounded as by an aura of innocence and vulnerability. [Lester, xii] As John and Caitlin Mathews put it in the introduction to their book, “Trick of the Tale: A Collection of Trickster Tales”, “The appeal of the trickster is simple -  whether hungry wolf or helpless frog, the trickster finds a way to win out when all seems hopeless. Whatever its size, each trickster animal draws upon its own intelligence, abilities, and cunning resilience to bluff, cheat, dodge, or decoy – and so to escape from present danger and gain its freedom.”

A lot of times the Trickster has been known to use methods that we would not agree on to get what he wants. Or own morality often prevents us from being a Trickster. Yet we are still drawn to them. The reason for this, according to Lester is that, trickster keeps us in reality. This is where Trickster’s amoral morality is superior to our moral posturing, our certitude that we know, absolutely, what is right and what is wrong. The more we attempt to separate ourselves from Trickster, the more likely we are to believe the egocentric ideas we have about ourselves. [Lester xii-xiii]

All we have to do to confirm this is look at any Trickster tale. Brer Rabbit always exploits the other animals’ images of themselves. He appeals to their vanity, their pride, their posturing egos, and invariably they believe him. The instant they do, they are in his power and lost to themselves. [Lester xiii]

“Trickster’s function is to keep Order from taking itself too seriously.  . . .” (Lester xiii)

World of Rabbits

McBryde  said, “Yet the choice of the hero lay not with Mr. Harris himself, nor was any individual negro responsible, for only a casual examination of the folk-tales of Africa, of the Indians of North America, and even of distant Asia, will reveal the fact that the rabbit is the hero common to them all.”  What was it about the rabbit that made him so appealing to everyone around the world? Why is he still?

 McBryde’s own description might hold the answer. “ Though his great staring eyes might have suggested stupidity (of which he is taken as a type by Chaucer and other English poets), his wonderful swiftness in running, his constant vigilance, his skill in dodging his pursuers, his tendency to appear suddenly and silently at unexpected moments, either in the early dawn or in the gathering dusk, these and other characteristics, in the eyes of ignorant and superstitious folk, served to invest him with un canny and preternatural powers.”

Some of these powers included the use of hare in auguries to indicate the outcome of a war by the ancient Druidical. In Scottish and Irish folk-lore the rabbit is associated with witches. It might because of this association that in certain parts of Brittany and Russia he has become an object of aversion and disgust. And apparently (though I had never heard of this one) the superstition that it is unlucky for a hare to cross a person’s path is widespread, being found not only among African-America and Africans themselves, but also among the Indians, Laplanders, and Arabs, and in parts of England. 4 [McBryde p. 188]

I wonder if the superstition from the African-Americans came before or after hearing the Brer Rabbit tales. That little rodent did tend to cause a lot of trouble wherever he went.

These “magic” powers have catapulted the rabbit/hare into a central place in the myths and folk-tales of many different countries. Even today, throughout Germany and other parts of Europe and in America, the rabbit has become firmly attached to one of the greatest festivals of the church. The Easter Bunny, whether people like it or not, is here to stay. Many children see him like a second Santa Claus and expect to receive gifts from him on Easter morning. This association of the rabbit and the eggs might have started through secular believes but like with everything else, companies grabbed hold and are iconizing the little animal with the time of year.

Now, let’s not forget about the power of the rabbit's foot. It is said that it bringing good luck to whoever carries it on his person. This is a common belief in America, as well as in England. [McBryde p. 188-9] What I don’t get is if it’s supposed to be unlucky to have a rabbit cross your path, how is it lucky to carry its foot? I spot another rabbit trail in that but unfortunately I need to stay on this one or I’ll never finish this journal.

Back to the rabbit and the world . . . .

The Buddha birth-stories , the Jataka, have several stories relating to rabbits. Other nations with this same theme would include, but are not limited to, China, Japan, Korea, Europe (as a whole) the Americas, and Africa. In fact the only place from which I have not seen a rabbit story is Australia and Antarctica. I don’t doubt that Australia might have some but if Antarctica as them I’ll be even more impressed at the rabbit’s ability to infiltrate itself into almost every nation in the world.

 “Thus, in the folk-tales of India, Asia, Africa, and North America, the hare, or rabbit, originally a god, degenerated into the popular hero of the beast-epic (though supplanted in Europe by the fox), and in almost every instance exhibits the very same characteristics: lazy, shiftless, greedy, selfish, unscrupulous, cunning, deceitful, boastful, delighting in practical jokes (often of a coarse nature), a leader in all mischief, even diabolical at times, frequently caught in the trap he has prepared for others, but always resourceful, and rarely failing to outwit all the other an imals combined and in the end to avoid triumphantly every pit fall placed in his path. Such a character as this must owe its origin to primitive conditions when moral standards were low, and when roguery and trickery were recognized as the best means of getting on in life.” [McBrydep. 206]

Conclusion

I’ve only just started to scratch the surface on this. I knew that a lot of cultures had rabbit stories but I had never made the connection that the character depicted in one often acts like the character in the others. I believe I’ve just started to scratch the surface on this subject. From this project, I’ve seen a lot of topics I would like to investigate further. However, for the purposes of this assignment I find that I cannot.

From this project I was however able to come to a few conclusions.

For starters, While it has long been thought that the Brer Rabbit tales paralleled the struggle slaves had with their masters, and that Brer Rabbit would (as the representative hero) always  come out on top by virtue of being himself, we must remember that he got as good as he gave. While it might be true that slaves might have associated themselves to the rabbit at times, I don’t think he was entirely meant to stand in as the slaves themselves with his adversaries always being the white man.

As with all cases, there are no absolutes. Some stories might have alluded to the struggle, while others were meant to warn or educate. But, I believe that some of the stories might have just been meant for entertainment.

According to Julius Lester, “The tales were not psychological compensations for the obvious lack of power in the slaves’ lives. Rather, they represented an extraordinary effort to balance the totalitarian order of the slave system with archetypal disorder and thereby become whole.” (Lester xiv)

With regards to the question or origin; the fact that so many cultures all over the world had stories similar to Brer Rabbit stories makes it hard to pinpoint the birth of that particular Trickster. It is especially difficult to do so within the timeframe and constraint of this assignment. However, I believe scholars are partly right. Some of the stories might have been brought from Africa and adapted to the New World while others may have already been there and pick up from the Natives.

However, the part that I must argue on if the fact that after so many years of being told and retold by the slaves these stories are no longer African or Native American, they are just American. Through the years details of the stories must have changed to fit the purpose of the story teller. After these changes have occurred the story is no longer the same as the original, only similar. Also, having had an established cast of characters, it is very possible that plantation slaves created their own stories to supplement what they already had.

As an Americanist, Dorson (who Vest cites) comes close to recognizing this principle when dealing with African American folklore as basically American, regardless of origins. For Dorson, the New World African lore of Brazil, Surinam, or the West Indies shows little correspondence with that of the black South. He says, "Southern slave lore developed along its own lines under the particular conditions of the cotton economy." I agree with Dorson on this point

A story passed on purely through word of mouth is entirely different than a written one. When the story is told and retold it can almost be considered to be alive because the story teller adjusts to his audience. One a story has been put into print it is forever fixed. The text on the page is unable to interact with the reader nor is the author able to explain himself.

That is the magic of the spoken tale. Unfortunately it’s rare to see that in our everyday society these days. However, as the next best thing, and as a way not to loose the old stories, we can still rely on the written word.

Work Cited

Boas, Franz. " Mythology and Folk-Tales of the North American Indians." Journal of American Folklore. 27.106 (Oct. - Dec., 1914): 374-410. Print.

Lester, Julius. More Tales of Uncle Remus: Further Adventures of Brer Rabbit, His Friends, Enemies, and Others. New York, New York, USA: Dial Books, 1988. ix-xiii. Print.

Mathews, John and Caitlin . Trick of the Tale: A Collection of Trickster Tales. 1st US. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Candlewick Press, 2008. Print.

McBryde, John M. Jr. "Brer Rabbit in the Folk-Tales of the Negro and Other Races." Sewanee Review. 19.2 (Apr., 1911): 185-206. Print.

Vest, Jay Hansford C. "From Bobtail to Brer Rabbit Native American Influences on Uncle Remus." American Indian Quarterly. 24.1 (Winter, 2000): 19-43. Print.