Br'er Rabbit's dream, from
Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings: The Folk-Lore of the Old Plantation, 1881.
Br'er Rabbit (
/ˈbrɛər/), also spelled Bre'r Rabbit or Brer Rabbit or Bruh Rabbit, is a central figure in the Uncle Remus stories of the Southern United States. He is a trickster character who succeeds by his wits rather than by brawn, tweaking authority figures and bending social mores as he sees fit. The story of Br'er Rabbit, a contraction of "Brother Rabbit", has been linked to both African and Cherokee cultures. Disney later adapted the character for their Song of the South.
African origins
The Br'er Rabbit stories can be traced back to trickster figures in Africa, particularly the hare that figures prominently in the storytelling traditions in Western, Central and Southern Africa. These tales continue to be part of the traditional folklore of numerous peoples throughout those regions. In the Akan traditions of West Africa, the trickster is usually the spider (see Anansi), though the plots of spider tales are often identical to those of rabbit stories.[1]
Many[which?] have suggested that the American incarnation, Br'er Rabbit, represents the enslaved African who uses his wits to overcome circumstances and to exact revenge on his adversaries, representing the white slave-owners. Though not always successful, his efforts made him a folk hero. However, the trickster is a multi-dimensional character. While he can be a hero, his amoral nature and lack of any positive restraint can make him a villain as well.[citation needed]
Br'er Rabbit in Disney's
Song of the South (1946). Disney's version of the character is drawn in a more humorous and lovable style than the illustrations of Br'er Rabbit in Harris's books.
[2]
For both Africans and African Americans, the animal trickster represents an extreme form of behavior which people may be forced to use in extreme circumstances in order to survive. The trickster is not to be admired in every situation; he is an example of what to do, but also an example of what not to do. The trickster's behavior can be summed up in the common African proverb: "It's trouble that makes the monkey chew on hot peppers." In other words, sometimes people must use extreme measures in extreme circumstances.[3]
The American version of the story is said[by whom?] to have originated among enslaved Africans. Br'er Rabbit stories were written down by Robert Roosevelt, uncle of President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt wrote in his autobiography, about his aunt from Georgia, that "She knew all the 'Br'er Rabbit' stories, and I was brought up on them. One of my uncles, Robert Roosevelt, was much struck with them, and took them down from her dictation, publishing them in Harper's, where they fell flat. This was a good many years before a genius arose who, in 'Uncle Remus', made the stories immortal."
These stories were popularized for the mainstream audience in the late 19th century by Joel Chandler Harris (1845-1908), who wrote up and published many of the stories previously passed down by oral tradition. Harris also attributed the birth name, Riley, to Br'er Rabbit. Joel Chandler Harris heard the tales in Georgia. Very similar versions of the same stories were recorded independently at the same time by folklorist Alcée Fortier in southern Louisiana, where the Rabbit character was known as Compair Lapin in Creole French. Enid Blyton, the English writer of children's fiction, retold the stories for children.
Creek Indian origins
Many Native American cultures have oral traditions that involve animals that speak. Throughout eastern North America, it was typically the rabbit, which was the "trickster." However, the Uncle Remus Tales exactly match the ancient children's stories of the Creek Indians of Georgia, the Carolinas and Alabama. Furthermore, Creek farmers made frequent use of pine tar from long leaf pines. It was applied to carved wooden objects and statues, as a means of catching rodents near granaries and barns.
In 1929, the ethnologist for the Smithsonian Institute, John R. Swanton, published a book on Creek folklore. The stories match verbatim with the Uncle Remus Tales. Swanton directly linked the original stories published by Joel Chandler Harris to Creek oral literature that predated the arrrival of Europeans or Africans. Both Joel Chandler Harris and Martha Ann "Minnie" Bulloch Roosevelt grew up in the heart of Creek Indian territory in Georgia. A substantial percentage of the current population in central Georgia (both nominally Caucasian and African) still has Creek ancestry. The Bullochs were a prominent family in Savannah, GA on the Atlantic Coast. Harris began publishing the individual stories as special newspaper columns, immediately after being hired by the Atlanta Constitution. In its archives, the Georgia Historical Society has copies of Creek oral literature that match both Swanton's and Harris's books.
There are two possible explanations for Creek stories being passed on by the Cherokees and African slaves. During the late 1600s and early 1700s, the Cherokees obtained most of their trade income from capturing Native American slaves. Cherokee slave raiding parties ranged from southern Florida to the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River. The territory of the tribe swelled southward as aboriginal populations were wiped out by the slave raids. Cherokee raiders often kept the prettiest of their female captives as concubines or wives. Thus, Muskogean culture was absorbed matrilinearly into Cherokee culture.
The connection between Creek culture and African-American culture is more obvious. Once Muskogean slaves were mixed with African slaves, intermarriage occurred. King George II freed all Native American slaves in the North American colonies in 1752. However, the individual colonial assemblies passed their own laws that classified slaves of mixed racial background as being African, not Native Americans. It was also common for Creek men or women to marry slaves of mixed heritage, then buy their freedom. By the early 1800s, many slaves in Georgia were practicing cultural traditions that mixed those of Africa and the Creeks.
Cherokee origins
Although Joel Chandler Harris collected materials for his famous series of books featuring the character Br'er Rabbit in the 1870s, the Br'er Rabbit cycle had been recorded earlier among the Cherokees: The "tar baby" story was printed in an 1845 edition of the Cherokee Advocate the same year Joel Chandler Harris was born.[4]
Rabbit and Hare myths abound among Algonquin Indians in Eastern North America, particularly under the name Nanabozho. The Great Hare is generally regarded as the supreme deity among tribes in eastern Canada.
In "That the People Might Live: Native American Literatures and Native American Community" by Jace Weaver, the origins of Br'er Rabbit and other literature are discussed. To say that a story only originates from one culture and not another can only be true when a group of people exist in complete isolation from others. Whereas, the Cherokee did live in isolation from Europeans in the far past, it's also true to say that a substantial amount of interaction happened between, not only North American tribes, but also between Europeans and, more often, those from the slave population during the 18th and 19th Centuries. That being understood, it is impossible to ascertain whether the Cherokee story pre-dated, independently, the African American story. Stories are told around communal fires in the evening and would have been told to travellers and visitors - they are the memorable currency of diplomacy.
In the Cherokee tale about the briar patch, "the fox and the wolf throw the trickster rabbit into a thicket from which the rabbit quickly escapes."[5] There was a "melding of the Cherokee rabbit-trickster ... into the culture of African slaves."[6] "In fact, most of the Br'er Rabbit stories originated in Cherokee myths."[7]
Modern interpretations
- For many years, a popular brand of molasses called "Brer Rabbit" was distributed by Penick & Ford Ltd.[9] The brand is currently distributed by B&G Foods of New Jersey.
- In 1984, American composer Van Dyke Parks produced a children's album, Jump!, based on the Brer Rabbit Tales.
- In the popular Hip-Hop band The Flobots, one of Emcees names is Br'er Rabbit.
See also
References
External links
