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Micheline's Blog

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Tag Archives: Georgia

More on the Tail-Fisher

01 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada, United States

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Acadian, Évangéline, Cajuns, Deportation of Acadians, Georgia, Gregg Howard, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Pourquoi tales, Reynard, Tail-fisher, Thirteen Colonies, Uncle Remus

How the Rabbit lost His Tail

Photo credit: Google

RELATED ARTICLES:

  • Another Motif: The Tail-Fisher (michelinewalker.com)
  • Reynard the Fox, the Itinerant (michelinewalker.com)
  • Évangéline & the “literary homeland” (michelinewalker.com)
  • Évangéline & the “literary homeland” (cont’d) (michelinewalker.com)
  • Uncle Remus & Tar-Baby (michelinewalker.com)

In a post published in 2011, I traced Reynard the Fox’s steps from various European countries to Georgia, US, where he is featured in Joel Chandler Harris‘ (9 December 1848 – 3 July 1908)[i] Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings: The Folk-Lore of the Old Plantation.  It would be my opinion that deported Acadians told Reynard stories and Æsopic fables to the Black population of Georgia when they were finally allowed to leave the ships in which they sailed down the east coast of the current United States.  With the exception of Georgia, the Thirteen Colonies were not interested in providing a home to Catholics.  Acadians expelled in the second wave of the Grand Dérangement, c. 1857-58, were sent to England and France, but may also have moved to Louisiana.

The expulsion of the Acadians took place during the French and Indian War (1755-1763). British officials posted in Boston deported 11,500 Acadians to prevent this French-speaking population and their Amerindian allies from helping the increasingly dissatisfied citizens of the Thirteen Colonies gain independence from Britain.

Acadians lived in the present day Maritime Provinces of Canada: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.  They also lived in the state of Maine, US.  Many fled to Canada where they lived in “P’tites ‘Cadies” (small Acadies) or were rescued by Amerindians when British soldiers were rounding them up.  Moreover, many of the deportees whose ships sailed down the coast of the eastern US,[ii] found their way back from Georgia to the current Canadian Maritime provinces.[iii]

However, among those who arrived in Georgia, US, a large number travelled to Louisiana, then a French colony, and their descendants are called Cajuns.  These are the Acadians who, in my opinion, told Reynard stories and Æsopic fables to the coloured population of Georgia whose status they shared.  However, in The Tales of Uncle Remus, the trickster ceases to be the fox.  In America, with a few exceptions, the tricksters will be the rabbit (Uncle Remus) and the coyote.  In Uncle Remus, Brer Rabbit is led by Brer Fox into fishing with his tail.  As for our Cherokee tale, told in a video inserted at the bottow of this post, Fox is not only leading the rabbit but trying to play a trick on an American “trickster,” the rabbit.

Old Plantation Play Song, 1881

Old Plantation Play-Song, 1881 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Expulsion of the Acadians WordPress [iii]

Expulsion of the Acadians (Photo credit: Gov. of N.S. & WordPress [iv])

Évangéline, a Tale of Acadie

The deported Acadians were put aboard ships in a pêle-mêle fashion.  Husbands were separated from wives, parents from children and couples from one another.  American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (27 February 1807 – 24 March 1882) immortalized this tragic event in an epic poem entitled Évangéline, published in 1847.  Longfellow‘s poem, Évangéline, a Tale of Acadie is a Gutenberg ebook (number 2039) that one can access by clicking on Évangéline.  Longfellow was motivated to write his Évangéline by American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne (4 July 1804 – 19 May 1864) and he may have been helped by Thomas Chandler Haliburton.

The poem tells the story of a fictional, and now mythic, Évangéline whose family name is Bellefontaine.  She is separated from her betrothed, Gabriel Lajeunesse, during the Great Upheaval (le Grand Dérangement) and spends years looking for him.  She finds him in Philadelphia where, as an old woman, she is working as a Sister of Mercy tending to  the victims of an epidemic.  Her beloved Gabriel dies in her arms.  (See Évangéline, Wikipedia.)

Deportation_of_Acadians_order,_painting_by_JefferysDeportation Order

Charles William Jefferys (25 August 1869 – 8 October 1951)
Photo credit: commons.wikimedia.org 
 

Brer Rabbit replaces Brer Fox as Trickster

But let us now return to Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox.

Interestingly, as mentioned above, the Tales of Uncle Remus include the tail-fisher motif in that a rabbit’s bushy tail is shortened when it gets stuck in the hole through which he is fishing, trying to catch fish, as did Brer Fox.  Although Brer Fox may have intended for Brer Rabbit to lose his tail, in Uncle Remus, the tail-fisher motif is mostly a “pourquoi” tale, the French word for “why.”  Such tales are origin stories or etiological tales.

Joel Chandler Harris devised an eye dialect to represent a Deep South Gullah. To  summarize the story, it tells of Brer (Brother) Rabbit who is.  walking down the road shaking his long, bushy tail when he meets Brer Fox walking along with a string of fish.  They spend time with one another (“wid wunner nudder,”) and Brer Fox says that he got the string of fish at the Baptizing creek.  Brer Fox tells Brer Rabbit that he sat there with his tail in the water and that, in the morning, he discovered he had caught many fish.

“…en drap his tail in de water en set dar twel day-light, en den draw up a whole armful er fishes, en dem w’at he don’t want, he kin fling back.”

(…and dropped his tail in the water and sat there until daylight, and then drew a whole armful of fish, and then those he did not want, he could throw back in the water.)

So Brer Rabbit tries to catch fish in the same manner, but the water freezes and when he tries to pull his tail it is no longer there:  “en lo en beholes, whar wuz his tail?” (and lo and behold, where was his tail?).

“One day Brer Rabbit wuz gwine down de road shakin’ his long, bushy tail, w’en who should he strike up wid but ole Brer Fox gwine amblin’ ’long wid a big string er fish!W’en dey pass de time er day wid wunner nudder, Brer Rabbit, he open up de confab, he did, en he ax Brer Fox whar he git dat nice string er fish, en Brer  Fox, he up’n ’spon’ dat he katch urn, en Brer Rabbit, he say whar’bouts, en Brer  Fox, he say down at de babtizin’ creek, en Brer Rabbit he ax how, kaze in dem days dey wuz monstus fon’ er minners, en Brer Fox, he sot down on a log, he did, en he up’n tell Brer Rabbit dat all he gotter do fer ter git er big mess er minners is ter go ter de creek atter sun down, en drap his tail in de water en set dar twel  day-light, en den draw up a whole armful er fishes, en dem w’at he don’t want, he kin fling back. Right dar’s whar Brer Rabbit drap his watermillion, kaze he tuck’n sot out dat night en went a fishin’. De wedder wuz sorter cole, en Brer Rabbit, he got ’im a bottle er dram en put out fer de creek, en w’en he git dar he pick out a good place, en he sorter squot down, he did, en let his tail hang in de water. He sot dar, en he sot dar, en he drunk his dram, en he think he Gwineter freeze, but bimeby day come, en dar he wuz. He make a pull, en he feel like he comin’ in two, en he fetch Nudder jerk, en lo en beholes, whar wuz his tail?” Chapter XXV 

Conclusion

This particular tale is an example of the tail-fisher motif, Aarne-Thompson: AT type 2.  However, I have also found the tail-fisher motif in a the Cherokee tale, mentioned above and told in the video inserted below.  As is the case in The Tales of Uncle Remus, our Cherokee tale is, first and foremost, an etiological or “pourquoi” tales, rather than a trickster tale but the fox remains the trickster.  However, of particular interest here is that The Tales of Uncle Remus are an American version of the Reynard stories and Æsopic and that they may have been transmitted to the Black population of Georgia, US, by Acadians deported in the first wave of the expulsion, when the ships carrying Acadian deportees sailed down to Georgia.[v]  However, were it not for Joel Chandler Harris, we may never have known why the Black population of Georgia knew about Reynard and various Æsopic tales.

As for our Cherokee tale, it is a Reynard story inasmuch as Fox wants to get back at the Rabbit because the Rabbit is a tricskter.  Moreover, the dramatis personae also includes a Bear, Bruin or Brun, bearing a Cherokee name.  In the Cherokee tale, the Bear helps pull the Rabbit out of the hole in the ice, which is when the Rabbit loses his tail.

It could be, therefore, that the Glooscap myths include one tale about a rabbit who lost its tail.

_________________________

[i] Joel Chandler Harris was an American journalist, fiction writer, and folklorist. (See Joel Chandler Harris, in Wikipedia.)

[ii] To my knowledge, the history of the Expulsion has not been fully investigated.  It would appear that the Acadians were expelled in two waves, rather than all at once, and that some ships sailed towards Europe, to England and France.  Moreover, Paul Mascarène (c. 1684 – 22 January 1760), a descendant of French Huguenots émigrés, may have been among the officers who organized or suggested the Expulsion or Deportation.

[iii] Antonine Maillet’s novel entitled Pélagie-la-Charrette is about Acadians returning to their former territory.

[iv] Canada: Cultures and Colonialism to 1800 (HIST 4508).  WordPress

[v] See Micheline Bourbeau-Walker, « La Patrie littéraire : errance et résistance », Francophonies d’Amérique, <http://www.erudit.org/revue/fa/2002/v/n13/1005247ar.html?vue=resume>.

_________________________

Native American Indian Children’s Stories Storyteller Tales Legends Myths, told by Gregg Howard

Rabbit who loses his tail, Uncle Remus

Rabbit who loses his tail, Uncle Remus

© Micheline Walker
1 May 2013
WordPress 
Photo credit:  Google

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Uncle Remus & Tar-Baby

21 Tuesday Aug 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Literature, Songs

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Acadian (Cajun), Acadie (Algatig), Aesop's Fables, Georgia, Georgia General Assembly, Georgia on my Mind, Joel Chandler Harris, Reynard the fox, Tales of Uncle Remus, Tar-Baby story

Old Plantation Play Song, 1881

Georgia on my Mind

A few posts ago, we listened to Ray Charles sing Georgia on my Mind. It is a beautiful song written in 1930 by Hoagy Carmichael (music) and Stuart Gorrell (lyrics). Gorrell wrote the lyrics for Hoagy’s sister, Georgia Carmichael and it was recorded in 1930 by Hoagy Carmichael.

However, the song did not become a “hit” until Ray Charles included it in his 1960 album entitled The Genius hits the Road. Then, several years later, on 7 March 1979, Charles performed the song for the members of the Georgia General Assembly. It seemed a celebration of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. A month later, it was adopted as the official state song of the U.S. state of Georgia. (Wikipedia)

Joel Chandler Harris:  Uncle Remus

But for many of us, Georgia is mainly home to Joel Chandler Harris (9 December 1845 – 3 July 1908), the author of The Tales of Uncle Remus, tales which are told by a black slave raconteur, but which Joel Chandler Harris put in writing, using an eye dialect. But interestingly, The Tales of Uncle Remus find their source, on the one hand,

1) in Æsop’s fables and in the fables of La Fontaine‘s (8 July 1621 – 13 April 1695) and, on the other hand,

2) in the various versions of Reynard the Fox, the first of which is Nivardus of Ghent’s the Ysengrimus (1148 or 1149) a long — 6,574 lines of elegiac couplets — epic Latin fabliau or fabliaux and the birthplace of Reinardus or Reynard.

In other words, The Tales of Uncle Remus are not coyote tales, nor are they related to Anansi (spider, as in spider-man) tales, except, perhaps, remotely. The Anansi tales were probably brought to North America and the Carribbeans by black slaves except, perhaps, remotely. The Anansi tales from West Africa. The Tales of Uncle Remus are mostly European tales and, in particular, French tales and trickster tales. I suspect, however, that they are also rooted in African tales.

Nivardus of Ghent’s Ysengrimus

Born Reinardus, in Nivardus of Ghent’s Ysengrimus, the above-mentioned mock–epic poem, Reynard is indeed the trickster par excellence, the wolf, his nemesis, are anthropomorphic animals, which means that they have human attributes, the most important of which is their ability to speak. In literature, authors use speaking animals to say something without saying it. Such narratives are often described, in French, as a dire-sans-dire (to say without saying) and are usually defined as an oblique discourse.

Uncle Remus: Provenance

Assuming that Joel Chandler Harris, who lived in Georgia, is not Uncle Remus, how did Uncle Remus, a black raconteur also living in Georgia, learn Æsopic fables and Reynard stories? Provenance is our first mystery.  

In the middle of the 19th century, La Fontaine was translated into the various patois or dialects, créole in fact, of the French Carribbeans.[i] But, with respect to the tales of Uncle Remus, my best hypothesis would be that Uncle Remus heard his tales from Acadians[ii] deported as of 1755. Many of the ships filled with Acadians sailed down the east coast, from colony to colony, but the deportees were refused asylum by British colonies north of Georgia because they were Catholics. In Georgia, they were finally allowed to disembark.

Uncle Remus: a Black Raconteur

This takes us to our second mystery. Why were these tales told a black slave, or black slaves, rather than a white man? Regarding this issue, my best hypothesis would be that we are dealing with a matter of social status. It could be that the social status of deported Acadians did not differ much from the social status of black slaves.

The deported Acadians had spent weeks on ships. They had lost their homes and had been separated from wives, husbands, brothers, sisters, and other loved-ones. So, although they were not persons of colour, they were poor, deprived of their families and they had been exiled. In all likelihood the deported Acadians befriended the slaves rather than their owners.

As mentioned above, what I have written is hypothetical, but it makes sense. Just as it makes sense that the melody of Oh Shenandoah could have been a voyageur melody. As we know, there was a voyageur, Bonga, a name that could be derived from bon gars (good guy), who could easily have transmitted the melody. In fact, Bongas may have been a former black slave who had lived in Louisiana.

Wren’s Nest, Joel Chandler Harris’s Home

Joel Chandler Harris

In the latter part of 1880, Joel Chandler Harris (9 December 1848 – 3 July 1908) published Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings.  Until then and for many years, Joel Chandler Harris’s Uncle Remus stories had been published in various magazines. They were popular and had become an integral part of American culture. Joel Chandler Harris was therefore approached by D. Appelton and Company and asked to compile the stories so they could be published in book form. No sooner said than done, which takes us to the Tar–Baby story.

Br’er Rabbit and the Tar-Baby, drawing by E. W. Kemble from The Tar-Baby, by Joel Chandler Harris, 1904

The Tar-Baby story

The Tar-Baby story is a key story, if not the key story, in Joel Chandler Harris’s Uncle Remus.  In the Tar-Baby story, Br’er (Brother) Fox makes a doll covered with tar and turpentine. Br’er Rabbit sees the doll and starts punching it because it will not respond to him. As a result, Br’er Rabbit gets stuck to Tar-Baby. In order to be freed, he begs Br’er Fox not to throw him in the briar patch. Br’er Fox does not suspect a ruse, so he throws Br’er Rabbit in the briar patch and the rabbit is again free.

So now we know, albeit hypothetically, how Reynard the trickster might have travelled to Georgia and we also know that Br’er Rabbit proved the better trickster than Br’er Fox. In North America, the fox ceased to be a trickster. Finally, we can understand why Reynard stories and La Fontaine’s largely Æsopic fables were told to a black slave rather than a white man.

Tar Baby as Metaphor & as Social Slur

“Tar baby” has since been used as a metaphor. It describes a sticky situation that intervention makes even stickier. The more you try to solve a problem, the greater the problem.  But according to Wikipedia, “tar baby” has become a racial slur. The best is to quote Wikipedia.

“Several United States politicians—including presidential candidates John Kerry, John McCain, Michele Bachmann, and Mitt Romney—have been criticized by civil rights leaders, the media, and fellow politicians for using the “tar baby” metaphor. An article in The New Republic argued that people are “unaware that some consider it to have a second meaning as “a slur” and it “is an obscure slur, not even known to be so by a substantial proportion of the population.” It continued that, “those who feel that tar baby’s status as a slur is patently obvious are judging from the fact that it sounds like a racial slur”. In other countries, the phrase continues to refer to problems worsened by intervention.” (Wikipedia)[ii]

Conclusion

For the time being, I will continue to look upon The Tales of Uncle Remus as the moment when Reynard stories and Æsopic fables sailed down to Georgia with the deported Acadians (“Cajuns,” US) and were told Uncle Remus and committed to writing by Joel Chandler Harris who used an eye dialect, or nonstandard spelling replicating, more or less, African-American pronunciation. So there may exist a French connection to The Tales of Uncle Remus, except that in North America the rabbit will replace the fox and that tales originating in India were undoubtedly reshaped by an African collective unconscious. In other words, deported Acadians would have told Remus his tales, just as the voyageurs, perhaps Bongas himself, gave its melody to Oh Shenandoah, thereby creating another French connection. And, in the case of The Tales of Uncle Remus, we owe a debt of gratitude to Joel Chandler Harris who took the time to commit the tales he heard to writing. It is sad, however, that tar being black, tar baby should be acquiring a racial connotation.

The Song of the South

In 1946, Walt Disney produced the Song of the South, a film based on Uncle Remus. There is a video of this song on YouTube, which I am not embedding.

I have written several posts on Reynard the Fox and have included links to these articles.

RELATED ARTICLES

  • Reynard the Fox: the Trickster
  • Reynard the Fox: the Judgement
  • Reynard the Fox: the Itinerant
  • The Storyteller and Related Topics
  • Fairy Tales & Fables
  • The Topsy-Turvy World of Beast Literature
  • “Oh Shenandoah:” Lyrics and a Connection
  • “Georgia on my Mind” & the News
 

Sources and Resources

Internet information on Reynard the Fox
Pictures for Reynard the Fox
& other sites

 
_________________________
[i] Another possible source could be a “version of La Fontaine’s fables in the dialect of Martinique [that] was made by François-Achille Marbot (1817–66) in Les Bambous, Fables de la Fontaine travesties en patois” (1846). In the middle of the 19th century, La Fontaine was translated into Creole and associated patois (dialects). (Wikipedia)
[ii] The word Acadie is derived from the Mi’kmaq “algatig.”
[iii] See TimeUS.
 


how-the-rabbit-lost-his-tail© Micheline Walker
21 August 2012
WordPress

  
 
 
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