Nights With Uncle Remus: Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation

by Joel Chandler Harris

"Demazana, Demazana,
Child of my mother,
Open this cave to me.
The swallows can enter it.
It has two apertures."

The cannibal's voice was hoarse, and the girl would not let him in. Finally, he has his throat burned with a hot iron, his voice is changed, and the girl is deceived. He enters and captures her. Compare this with the story of the Pigs, and also with the group of stories of which Daddy Jack's "Cutta Cord-la!" is the most characteristic. In Middle Georgia, it will be observed, Brother Rabbit and his children are substituted for the boy and his sister; though Miss Devereux, of Raleigh, North Carolina, who, together with her father, Mr. John Devereux, has laid the writer under many obligations, gathered a story among the North Carolina negroes in which the boy and the sister appear. But to return to the Kaffir story: When the cannibal is carrying Demazana away, she drops ashes along the path. Demane returns shortly after with a swarm of bees which he has captured, and finds his sister gone. By means of the ashes, he follows the path until he comes to the cannibal's house. The family are out gathering wood, but the cannibal himself is at home, and has just put Demazana in a big bag where he intends to keep her until the fire is made. The brother asks for a drink of water. The cannibal says he will get him some if he will promise not to touch his bag. Demane promises; but, while the cannibal is gone for the water, he takes his sister out of the bag and substitutes the swarm of bees. When the cannibal returns with the water, his family also return with the firewood. He tells his wife there is something nice in the bag, and asks her to bring it. She says it bites. He then drives them all out, closes the door, and opens the bag. The bees fly out and sting him about the head and eyes until he can no longer see. Compare this with the negro story (No. LXX.) of how Brother Fox captures Brother Terrapin. Brother Terrapin is rescued by Brother Rabbit, who substitutes a hornet's nest. This story was told to the writer by a colored Baptist preacher of Atlanta, named Robert Dupree, and also by a Henry County negro, named George Ellis.

Compare, also, the Kaffir "Story of the Great Chief of the Animals"[i_11] with the negro story of "The Fate of Mr. Jack Sparrow."[i_12] In the Kaffir story, a woman sees the chief of the animals and calls out that she is hunting for her children. The animal replies: "Come nearer; I cannot hear you." He then swallows the woman. In the negro story, Mr. Jack Sparrow has something to tell Brother Fox; but the latter pretends he is deaf, and asks Jack Sparrow to jump on his tail, on his back, and finally on his tooth. There is a variant of this story current among the coast negroes where the Alligator is substituted for the Fox. The Kaffir "Story of the Hare" is almost identical with the story of Wattle Weasel in the present volume. The story of Wattle Weasel was among those told by the railroad hands at Norcross, but had been previously sent to the writer by a lady in Selma, Alabama, and by a correspondent in Galveston. In another Kaffir story, the Jackal runs into a hole under a tree, but the Lion catches him by the tail. The Jackal cries out: "That is not my tail you have hold of. It is a root of the tree. If you don't believe, take a stone and strike it and see if any blood comes." The Lion goes to hunt for a stone, and the Jackal crawls far into the hole. In the first volume of Uncle Remus, Brother Fox tries to drown Brother Terrapin; but the latter declares that his tail is a stump-root, and so escapes. The Amazonian Indians tell of a Jaguar who catches a Tortoise by the hind leg as he is disappearing in his hole; but the Tortoise convinces him that he is holding a tree-root.[i_13] In the Kaffir story of the Lion and the Jackal, the latter made himself some horns from beeswax in order to attend a meeting of the horned cattle. He sat near the fire and went to sleep, and the horns melted, so that he was discovered and pursued by the Lion. In a negro story that is very popular, Brother Fox ties two sticks to his head, and attends the meeting of the horned cattle, but is cleverly exposed by Brother Rabbit.

There is a plantation proverb current among the negroes which is very expressive. Thus, when one accidentally steps in mud or filth, he consoles himself by saying "Good thing foot aint got no nose." Among the Kaffirs there is a similar proverb,—"The foot has no nose,"—but Mr. Theal's educated natives have given it a queer meaning. It is thus interpreted: "This proverb is an exhortation to be hospitable. It is as if one said: Give food to the traveller, because when you are on a journey your foot will not be able to smell out a man whom you have turned from your door, but, to your shame, may carry you to his." It need not be said that this is rather ahead of even the educated Southern negroes.

To compare the negro stories in the present volume with those translated by Bleek[i_14] would extend this introduction beyond its prescribed limits, but such a comparison would show some very curious parallels. It is interesting to observe, among other things, that the story of How the Tortoise Outran the Deer—current among the Amazonian Indians, and among the negroes of the South,—the deer sometimes becoming the Rabbit in the South, and the carapato, or cow-tick, sometimes taking the place of the Tortoise on the Amazonas—has a curious counterpart in the Hottentot Fables.[i_15] One day, to quote from Bleek, "the Tortoises held a council how they might hunt Ostriches, and they said: 'Let us, on both sides, stand in rows, near each other, and let one go to hunt the Ostriches, so that they must flee along through the midst of us.' They did so, and as they were many, the Ostriches were obliged to run along through the midst of them. During this they did not move, but, remaining always in the same places, called each to the other: 'Are you there?' and each one answered: 'I am here.' The Ostriches, hearing this, ran so tremendously that they quite exhausted their strength, and fell down. Then the Tortoises assembled by and by at the place where the Ostriches had fallen, and devoured them." There is also a curious variant[i_16] of the negro story of how Brother Rabbit escapes from Brother Fox by persuading him to fold his hands and say grace. In the Hottentot story, the Jackal catches the Cock, and is about to eat him, when the latter says: "Please pray before you kill me, as the white man does." The Jackal desires to know how the white man prays. "He folds his hands in praying," says the Cock. This the Jackal does, but the Cock tells the Jackal he should also shut his eyes. Whereupon the Cock flies away.

In his preface, Bleek says that the Hottentot fable of the White Man and the Snake is clearly of European origin; but this is at least doubtful. The Man rescues the Snake from beneath a rock, whereupon the Snake announces her intention of biting her deliverer. The matter is referred to the Hyena, who says to the Man: "If you were bitten, what would it matter?" But the Man proposed to consult other wise people before being bit, and after a while they met the Jackal. The case was laid before him. The Jackal said he would not believe that the Snake could be covered by a stone so that she could not rise, unless he saw it with his two eyes. The Snake submitted to the test, and when she was covered by the stone the Jackal advised the Man to go away and leave her. Now, there is not only a variant of this story current among the Southern negroes (which is given in the present volume), where Brother Rabbit takes the place of the Man, Brother Wolf the place of the Snake, and Brother Terrapin the place of the Jackal, but Dr. Couto de Magalhães[i_17] gives in modern Tupi a story where the Fox or Opossum finds a Jaguar in a hole. He helps the Jaguar out, and the latter then threatens to eat him. The Fox or Opossum proposes to lay the matter before a wise man who is passing by, with the result that the Jaguar is placed back in the hole and left there.

With respect to the Tortoise myths, and other animal stories gathered on the Amazonas, by Professor Hartt and Mr. Herbert Smith, it may be said that all or nearly all of them have their variants among the negroes of the Southern plantations. This would constitute a very curious fact if the matter were left where Professor Hartt left it when his monograph was written. In that monograph[i_18] he says: "The myths I have placed on record in this little paper have, without doubt, a wide currency on the Amazonas, but I have found them only among the Indian population, and they are all collected in the Lingua Geral. All my attempts to obtain myths from the negroes on the Amazonas proved failures. Dr. Couto de Magalhães, who has recently followed me in these researches, has had the same experience. The probability, therefore, seems to be that the myths are indigenous, but I do not yet consider the case proven." Professor Hartt lived to prove just the contrary; but, unfortunately, he did not live to publish the result of his investigations. Mr. Orville A. Derby, a friend of Professor Hartt, writes as follows from Rio de Janeiro:

Dear Sir,—In reading the preface to Uncle Remus,[i_19] it occurred to me that an observation made by my late friend Professor Charles Fred Hartt would be of interest to you.

At the time of the publication of his Amazonian Tortoise Myths, Professor Hartt was in doubt whether to regard the myths of the Amazonian Indians as indigenous or introduced from Africa. To this question he devoted a great deal of attention, making a careful and, for a long time, fruitless search among the Africans of this city for some one who could give undoubted African myths. Finally he had the good fortune to find an intelligent English-speaking Mina black, whose only knowledge of Portuguese was a very few words which he had picked up during the short time he had been in this country, a circumstance which strongly confirms his statement that the myths related by him were really brought from Africa. From this man Professor Hartt obtained variants of all or nearly all of the best known Brazilian animal myths, and convinced himself that this class is not native to this country. The spread of these myths among the Amazonian Indians is readily explained by the intimate association of the two races for over two hundred years, the taking character of the myths, and the Indian's love for stories of this class, in which he naturally introduces the animals familiar to him.... Yours truly,