VI. TRANSLATION. Mr. Rabbit Grossly Deceives Mr. Fox

A continuation of our sporadic and recreational forays into Tales of Uncle Remus. Please see first posts for context, translation issues re the idiom, and cultural setting of the time - and the universality of Uncle Remus.

VI.

MR RABBIT GROSSLY DECEIVES MR. FOX

One evening when the little boy, whose nights with Uncle Remus were as entertaining as those Arabian ones of blessed memory (FN 1),* had finished supper and hurried out to sit with his venerable patron, he found the old man in great glee. Instead, Uncle Remus was talking and laughing to himself at such a rate that the little boy was afraid he had company. The truth is, Uncle Remus had heard the child coming, and, when the rosy-cheeked chap put his head in at the door, was engaged in a monologue, the burden of which seemed to be --

"Ole Molly H'ar FN 2
W'at you doin' dar,
Settin' in de corner
Smokin' yo' cigyar?"

As a matter of course this vague allusion reminded the little boy of the fact that the wicked fox was still in pursuit of the rabbit, and he immediately put his curiosity in the shape of a question.

"Uncle Remus, did the Rabbit have to go clean away when he got loose from the Tar-Baby?"

"Bless gracious, honey, that he didn't. Who? Him? You don't know nuthin' at all 'bout Brer Rabbit if that's the way you puttin' him down. What he goin' away for? He might have stayed sort of close until the pitch rub off'n his hair, but there weren't many days before he was loping up and down the neighborhood same as ever, and I don't know if he weren't more sassier than before.

"Seem like that the tale about how he got mixed up with the Tar-Baby got 'round amongst the neighbors. Leastways, Miss Meadows and the gals FN 3 got wind on it, and the next time Brer Rabbit paid them a visit tackled him about it, and the gals set up a monstrous gigglement. Brer Rabbit, he sat up just as cool as a cucumber, be did, and let them run on."

"Who was Miss Meadows, Uncle Remus?" inquired the little boy.

"Don't ask me, honey. She was in the tale, Miss Meadows and the gals was, in the tale I give you like it were given to me. Brer Rabbit, he sat there, he did, sort of lame like, and then by and by he cross his legs, he did, and wink his eye slow, and up and say, says he:

"' Ladies, Brer Fox was my daddy's ridin'-horse for thirty years, maybe more, but thirty years that I knows of,' says he; and then he paid them his respects, and tip his beaver, and march off, he did, just as stiff and an stuck up as a fire-stick.

"Nex' day, Brer Fox come a callin', and w'en he began for to laugh about Brer Rabbit, Miss Meadows and the gals, they ups and tells him about what Brer Rabbit say. Then Brer Fox grit his tooths, sure enough he did, and he looked mighty dumpy, but when he rise for to go, he up and say, says he:

" ' Ladies, I ain't disputin' what you say, but I'll make Brer Rabbig chew up his words and spit them out right here where you can see him,' says he, and with that off Brer Fox put.

"And when he got to the big road, he shook the dew off'n his tail, and made a straight shoot for Brer Rabbit's house. When he got there, Brer Rabbit was expecting on him, and the door was shut fast. Brer Fox knock. Nobody ain't answer. Brer Fox knock. Nobody answer. Then he knock again - blam! blam! Then Brer Rabbit holler out mighty weak:

"'Is that you, Brer Fox? I want you to run and fetch the doctor. That bait or parsley FN4 what I what I ate this morning is getting away with me. Do, please, Brer Fox, run quick," says Brer Rabbit, says he.

"' I come after you, Brer Rabbit,' says Brer Fox, says he. 'There's going to be a party up at Miss Meadows', ' says he. 'All the gals'll be there, and I promised that I'd fetch you. The gals, they allowed that it wouldn't be no party exceptin' I fetch you,' says Brer Fox, says he.

"Then Brer Rabbit say he was too sick, and Brer Fox say he wasn't, and there they had it up and down, disputin' and contendin'. Brer Rabbit say he can't walk. Brer Fox say he tote him. Brer Rabbit say how? Brer Fox say in his arms. Brer Rabbit say he drop him. Brer Fox allow he won't. By and by Brer Rabbit say he go if Brer Fox tote him on his back. Brer Fox say he would. Brer Rabbit say he can't ride without a saddle. Brer Fox say he get the saddle. Brer Rabbit say he can't set in saddle lest he have bridle for to hold by. Brer Fox say he get the bridle. Brer Rabbit say he can't ride without blind bridle, 'cause Brer Fox be shyin' at stumps along the road, and fling him off. Brer Fox say he get blind bridle. The Brer Rabbit say he to. Then Brer Fox say he ride Brer Rabbit most up to Miss Meadows's, and then he could get down and walk the balance of the way. Brer Rabbit agreed, and then Brer Fox leaped out after the saddle and the bridle.

"Course, Brer Rabbit know the game that Brer Fox was fixin' for to play, and he determined for to outdo him, and by the time he comb his hair and twist his mustache, and sort of rig up, here come Brer Fox, saddle and bridle on, and lookin' as pert as a circus pony. He trot up to the door and stand there pawin' the ground and chompin' the bit same like sure enough horse, and Brer Rabbit he mount, he did, and they amble off. Brer Fox can't see behind with the blind bridle on, but by and by he feel Brer Rabbit raise one of his foots.

"' What you doin' now, Brer Rabbit?' says he.

" 'Shortening the left stirrup, Brer Fox,' says he.

"By and by Brer Rabbit raise up the other foot.

"'W'at you doin' now, Brer Rabbit?' says he.

"' Pullin' down my pants, Brer Fox,' says he.

"All this time, bless gracious, honey, Brer Rabbit were puttin' on his spurs, and when they got close to Miss Meadows's, where Brer Rabbit was to get off, and Brer Fox made a motion for to stand still, Brer Rabbit slap the spurs into Brer Fox flanks, and you better believe he got over ground. When they got to the house, Miss Meadows and all the gals was settin' on the piazza, and instead of stoppin' at the gate, Brer Rabbit rode on by, he did, and then come gallopin' down the road and up to the horse-rack, which he hitch Brer Fox at, and then he saunter into the house, he did, and shake hands with the gals, and set there, smokin' his cigyar same as a town man. By and by he draw in a long puff, and then let it out in acloud, and squared himself back and holler out, he did:

"'Ladies, ain't I done tell you Brer Fox was the riding horse for our family? He's sort of losing his gait now, but I expect I can fetch him all right in a month or so,' says he.

"And then Brer Rabbit sort of grin, he did, and the gals giggle, and Miss Meadows, she appraise up the pony, and there was Brer Fox hitched fast to the rack, and couldn't help himself."

"Is that all," Uncle Remus?" asked the little boy as the old man paused.

"That ain't all, honey, but won't do for to give out too much cuff for to cut one pair pants," replied the old man sententiously.FN5
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FN1 "Arabian ones of blessed memory" - After looking up at random, this seems to be "The Thousand and One Nights" of Scheherezade. Scherezade, the new wife/ concubine (?) told the Sultan tales continuing every night without an ending, so he would not kill her, as was his custom with new favorites. He came back, night after night, in hopes of hearing an ending. She never ended her stories. Ultimately, he loved her. Is that right? Iraq, 10th Century, appears to be the earliest compilation, some Indian roots, some cultural redactions and changes since, see ://www.al-bab.com/arab/literature/nights.htm

FN 2 "H'ar,"as the word is written, elsewhere is in the context of "hair"

FN 3 "Miss Meadows and the gals" - just a regular part of the community, no more identity needed, implies Uncle Remus, and the little boy asks no more. For a discussion of cultural redactions, deleting references that offend later sensibilities, its impact on the depth of the original communication in many cases, and the great skill of equivocating around life lessons, see Joy of Equivocation: Remus and Life Education.

FN 4 Bait might be not just the fish on a hook, but also potato bait - a cut piece of potato put out to lure bugs damaging to the overall crop of something else. Search for "potato bait" and get to findarticles.com/p/articles/mi and from there click to get to it. URL too long. "Potato baits aid symphylans", Central Coast vegetable crops.

"Pusly" could be parsley, see ://www.uni-graz.at/~katzer/engl/Petr_cri.html (look at the large, edible root there); or purslaine - a vegetable, see ://www.spoutwood.com/4b.html. See 17th Century English recipe for purslaine at //www.godecookery.com/engrec/engrec98.html. Invite us over.

FN5 Sententiously - in a pompous, moralizing way - see ://www.thefreedictionary.com/sententiously

V. TRANSLATION. The Story of the Deluge, and how it came about

V.

THE STORY OF THE DELUGE AND HOW IT CAME ABOUT

"One time," said Uncle Remus - adjusting his spectacles so as to be able to see how to thread a large darning-needle with which he was patching his coat -- "one time, 'way back yonder, before you was borned, honey, and before Master John or Miss Sally was borned -- 'way back yonder before any of us was borned, the animals and the creatures sort of electioneered around among themselves, until at last they agreed for to have an assembly. In them days," continued the old man, observing a look of incredulity on the little boy's face, "in them days, creatures had lots more sense than they got now, let alone that, they had sense same like folks. It was touch and go with them, too, mon, and when they made up their minds what had to be done, 'twasn't more than mentioned before it was done. Well, they elected that they had to hold an assembly for to sort of straighten out matters and hear the complaints, and when the day come, they was on hand. The Lion, he was there, 'cause he was the king, and he had to be there. The Rhinocerous, he was there, and the Elephant, he ws there, and the Camels, and the Cows, and plumb down to the Crawfishes, they was there. They was all there. And when the Lion shook his mane, and tucked his seat in the big chair, then the session began for to commence."

"What did they do, Uncle Remus?" Asked the little boy.

"I can't scarcely call to mind exactly what they did do, but they spoke speeches, and hollered, and cussed, and flung their language around just like when your daddy was going to run for the legislature and got left. However, they arranged their affairs, and explained their business. By and by, while they was disputing longer one or another, the Elephant trompled on one of the Crawfishes. 'Course, when that creature put his foot down, whatsomever's under there was bound for to be squished, and there wasn't enough of that Crawfish left for to tell that he'd been there.

"This made the other Crawfishes mighty mad, and they sorter of swarmed together and drawed up a kind of preamble with some wherefores in it, and read her out in the assembly. But, bless gracious! such a racket was going on that nobody ain't heard it, excepting maybe the Mud Turtle, and the Spring Lizard, and their influence was powerful lacking.

"By and by, while the Unicorn was disputing with the Lion, and while the Hyena was laughing to himself, the Elephant squished another one of the Crawfishes, and a little more and he'd have ruined the Mud Turtle. Then the Crawfishes, what there was left of them, swarmed together and drew up another preamble with some more wherefores; but they might as well have sung Old Dan Tucker* to a hurricane. The other creatures was too busy with their fussing for to respond unto the Crawfishes. So there they was, the Crawfishes, and they didn't know what minute was going to be next; and they kept on getting madder and madder and scareder and scareder, until by and by they began to wink to the Mud Turtle and the Spring Lizard, and then they bored little holes in the ground and went down out of sight.

"Who did, Uncle Remus?" asked the little boy.

"The Crawfishes, honey. They bored into the ground and kept on boring until they unloosed the fountains of the earth; and the waters squirt out, and rose higher and higher until the hills was covered, and the creatures were all drowned; and all because they let on among themselves that they was bigger than the Crawfishes."

Then the old man blew the ashes from a smoking yam, and proceeded to remove the peeling.

"Where was the ark, Uncle Remus?" the little boy inquired, presently.

"Which ark's that?" asked the old man, in a tone of well-feigned curiosity.

"Noah's ark," replied the child.

"Don't you pester with old man Noah, honey. I bound he took care of that ark. That's what he was there for, and that's what he done. Leastways, that's what they tells me. But don't you bother longer that ark, excepting your mammy fetches it up. There might have been two deluges, and then again there mightn't. If there was nay ark in this here what the Crawfishes brought on, I ain't hear tell on it, and when there ain't no arks around, I ain't got no time for to make them up and put them in there. ** It's gettin' your bedtime, honey."

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* Ol' Dan Tucker: See lyrics at ://www.bluegrasslyrics.com/all_song.cfm-recordID=sp979.htm. This song was first published in sheet music in 1843, says Wikipedia, with no composer named. See ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Dan_TuckerSee a longer dialect version at //www.iath.virginia.edu/utc/minstrel/dantuckerfr.html.

You can also hear it by following the clicks at the virginia.edu site. Look up Bruce Springsteen and Pete Seeger also to hear it.
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** General comment on the tale - Accepting ambiguity in theology. Not artificially filling in blanks. See Joy of Equivocating, Remus post. You were far ahead of your time. There is no ark here or any deity causing things or judging - and Remus has no problem with anyone's own story including whatever. He just keeps his own.

IV. TRANSLATION - How Mr. Rabbit Was Too Sharp for Mr. Fox

This is the second part of the Tar-Baby story - the famous briar patch escape. The characters are, as the title says, only Mr. Rabbit and Mr. Fox.

IV.

HOW MR. RABBIT WAS TOO SHARP FOR MR. FOX

"Uncle Remus," said the little boy one evening, when he had found the old man with little or nothing to do, "did the fox kill and eat the rabbit when he caught him with the Tar-Baby?"

"Law, honey, ain't I tell you 'bout that??" replied the old darkey*, chuckling slyly. "I declare to gracious I ought to have told you that, but old man Nod was ridin' on my eyelids until a little mre and I'd have disremembered my own name, and then on to that here comes your mammy hollerin' after you.

"What I tell you when I first begin? I told you Brer Rabbit was a monstrous soon(?) creature: leastways that's what I laid out for to tell you. Well, then, honey, don't you go and make no other calculations, 'cause in them days Brer Rabbit and his family was at the head of the gang when any racket was on hand, and there they stayed. Before you begin for to wipe your eyes about Brer Rabbit you want and see whereabouts Brer Rabbit going to fetch up at. But that's neither here nor there.

"When Brer Fox find Brer Rabbit mixed up with the Tar-Baby, he feel mighty good, and he roll on the ground and laugh. By and by he up and say, says he:

"'Well, I expect I got you this time, Brer Rabbit, says he; 'maybe I ain't, but I expect I is. You been runnin' around here sassin' after me a mighty long time, but I expect you done come to the end of the row. You been cuttin' up yo' capers and bouncin' around in this neighborhood until you come to believe yourself the boss of the whole gang. End then you are always somewhere where you got no business,' sez brer Fox, says he. 'Who asked you for to come and strike up acquaintance with this here Tar-Baby? And who stuck you up there where you is? Nobody in the round world. You just took and jam yourslf on that Tar-Baby without waitin' for any invite,' says Brer Fox, says hee, 'and there you is, and there you'll stay til I fixes up a brush-pile and fires her up, 'cause I'm going to barbecue you this day, sure,' says Brer Fox, says he.

"Then Brer Rabbit talk mighty humble:

"'I don't care what you do with me, Brer Fox,' says he, 'so you don't fling me in that briar-patch,' says he.

"'It's so much trouble for to kinde a fire,' says Brer Fox, says he, 'that I expect I'll have to hang you,' says he.

"'Hang me just as high as you please, Brer Fox,' says Brer Rabbit, says he, 'but do for the Lord's sake, don't fling me in that briar-patch,' says he.

"' I ain't got no string,' says Brer Fox, says he, 'and now I expect I'll have to drown you,' says he.

"'Drown me just as deep as you please, Brer Fox,' says Brer Rabbit, says he, 'but don't fling me in that briar-patch,' says he.

"' There ain't no water nigh,' says Brer Fox, says he, ' and now I expect I'll have to skin you,' says he.

"'Skin me, Brer Fox,' says Brer Rabbit, says he, 'snatch out my eyeballs, tear out my ears by the roots, and cut off my legs,' says he, 'but do please, Brer Fox, don't fling e in that briar-patch,' says he.

"' 'Course Brer Fox want to hurt Brer Rabbit bad as he can, so he caught him by the behind legs and slung him in the middle of the briar-patch. There was a considerable flutter where Brer Rabbit struck the bushes, and Brer Fox sort of hang around for to see what was going to happen. By and by he hear somebody call him, and way up the hill he see Brer Rabbit settin'cross-legged on a chinkapin (?) log, combing the pitch out of his hair with a chip. Then Brer Fox know that he been swapped off mighty bad. Brer Rabbit was bleedzed (pleased?) for to fling back some of his sass, and he holler out:

"'Bred and born in a briar-patch, Brer Fox - bred and born in a briar-patch!' and with that, he skip out just as lively as a cricket in the embers."

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Read the original dialect at //xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/remus/toosharp.html; and analysis at ://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/remus/anasharp.html.









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* These translations leave in the vernacular, including negro and colored, when they appear, but leave out some others. No set criteria, but more a personalsense of what gets in the way as an obtrusive and now seen as total insult, and other phrases that seem more local and not so obtrusive.
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Read the original dialect at //xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/remus/toosharp.html; and analysis at //xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/remus/anasharp.html

III. TRANSLATION - Why Mr. Possum Loves Peace

III
WHY MR. POSSUM LOVES PEACE

"One night," said Uncle Remus - taking Miss Sally's little boy on his knee, and stroking the child's hair thoughtfully and caressingly - "one night Brer Possum called by for Brer coon, according to en, and after gobblin' up a dish of fried greens and smokin' a cigar, they rambled forth for to see how the balance of the settlement was gettin' along. Brer Coon, he was one of these here natural pacers, and he racked along the same as Master John's bay pony, and Brer Possum he went in a han'-gallup (?); and they got over heap of ground, man.

Brer Possum, he got his belly full of persimmons, and Brer coon, he scooped up an abundance of frogs and tadpoles. They ambled along, they did, just as sociable as a basket of kittens, until by and by they hear Mr. Dog talkin' to himself way off in the woods.

"'Supposin' he runs up on us, Brer Possum, what're you goin' to do?' says Brer Coon, says he. Brer Possum sort of laughed around the corners of his mouth.

"'Oh, if he come, Brer coon, I'm goin' to stand by you,' says Brer Possum. 'What're you goin' to do?' says he.

"'Who? Me?' says Brer Coon. 'If he run up onto me, I lay I give 'im one twis',' says he.

"Did the dog come?" asked the little boy.

"Go 'way, honey!" responded the old man, in an impressive tone. "Go way! Mr. Dog, he come and he come a zoonin'. And he ain't wait for to say howdy, neither. He just sail into the two of 'em. The very first pass he made Brer Possum fetched a grin from ear to ear, and keel over like he was dead.

Then Mr. Dog, he sail into Brer Coon, and right there's where he dropped his money purse, 'cause Brer Coon was cut out for that kind of business, and he fairly wiped up the face of the yeth with him. You better believe that when Mr. Dog got a chance to make himself scarce he took it, and what there was left of him went skaddlin' through the woods like it was shot out of a musket. And Brer Coon, he sort of licked his clothes into shape and racked off, and Brer Possum, he lay there like he was dead, 'til by and by he raise up sort of careful like, and when he find the cost clear he scramble up and scamper off like something was after him."

Here Uncle Remus paused long enough to pick up a live coal in his fingers, transfer it to the palm of his hand, and thence to his clay pipe, which he had been filling - a proceeding that was viewed bythe little boy with undisguised admiration. The old man then proceeded:

"Next time Brer Possum met Brer Coon, Brer Coon refused to respond to his howdy, and this make Brer Possum feel mighty bad, seeing as how they used to make so many excursions together.

"'What make you hold your head so high, Brer Coon?' says Brer Possum, says he.

"'I ain't runnin' with cowards these days,' says Brer Coon. 'When I wants you I'll send for you,' says he.

"Then Brer Possum git mighty mad.

"'Who's any coward?' says he.

"'You is," says Brer Coon, 'that's who. I ain't associating with them what lays down on the ground and plays dead when there's a free fight goin' on,' says he.

"Then Brer Possum grin and laugh fit to kill hisself.

"'Lord, Brer Coon, you don't expect I done that 'cause I was 'feared, do you?' says he. 'Why, I wasn't any more 'feared than you is this minute. What was there for to be skeered of?' says he. I knew you'd get away with Mr. Dog if I didn't, and I just lay there watchin' you shake him, waitin' for to put in when the time come,' says he.

"Brer Coon turned up his nose.

"'That's a mighty likely tale,' says ne, 'when Mr. Dog ain't more than touch you before you keel over, and lay there stiff,' says he.

"'That's just what I was going to tell you about,' says Brer Possum, says he. 'I wasn't no more scared than you is right now, and I was fixin' for to give Mr. Dog a sample of my jaw,' says he, 'but I'm the most ticklish chap what you ever laid eyes on, and no sooner did Mr. Dog put his nose down here among my ribs than I got to laughin', and I laughed 'til I ain't had no use of my limbs,' says he, ' and it s mercy unto Mr. Dog that I was ticklish, 'cause a little more and I'd e't him up,' says he. 'I don't mind fightin', Brer Coon, no more than you does*, ' says he, 'but I declare to gracious if I can stand ticklin'. Get me in a row where there ain't no ticklin' allowed, and I'm your man,' says he.

"And down to this day" - continued Uncle Remus, watching the smoke from his pipe curl upward over the little boy's head - "down to this day, Brer Possum's bound to surrender when you touch him in the short ribs, and he'll laugh if he knows he's going to be smashed for it."

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* The Propagandist: Self-serving spins of words and webs of meaning. Somebody does something that sure looks suspiciously in his interest, and against what he said he was going to do. But watch that person then spin words and webs of meaning in and endless barrage of verbiage until his action becomes noble and altruistic and the other guy is jes' left scratchin' his haid.

II. TRANSLATION - The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story

Just try to force an issue, and make somebody respond the way you would like, and follow it up with a cuff to the haid to make your point, without first checking out what might happen, given the givens, and watch how you get totally stuck. A story of getting taken in.

II.

THE WONDERFUL TAR-BABY

"Didn't the fox ever catch the rabbit, Uncle Remus?" asked the little boy the next evening.

"He came mighty near it, honey, sure as you're born - Brer Fox did. One day after Brer Rabbit fooled him with that calamus root, Brer Fox went to work and got him some tar, and mixed it with some turpentine, and fixed up a contraption that he called a Tar-Baby, and he took this here Tar-Baby and he set her in the big road, and then he lay off in the bushes to see what the news was goin' to be. And he didn't have to wait long, neither, 'cause by and by here come Brer Rabbit pacin' down the road - lippity-clippity, clippity-lippity - just as sassy as a jay-bird. Brer Fox, he lay low. Brer Rabbit came prancin' along until he spied the Tar-Baby, and then he fetched up on his behind legs like he was astonished. The Tar-Baby, she sat there, she did, and Brer Fox, he lay low.

"'Mawnin'!" says Brer Rabbit says he - 'nice weather this mawnin'," says he.

"Tar-Baby ain't sayin' nothin', and Brer Fox, he lay low.

"'How do your symptoms seem to segashuate*?" says Brer Rabbit, says he.

"Brer Fox, he wink his eye slow, and lay low, and the Tar-Baby, she ain't sayin' nothin'.

"'How you come on, then? Is you deaf?' says Brer Rabbit, says he. 'Cause if you is, I can holler louder,' says he.

"Tar-Baby stay still, and Brer Fox, he lay low.

"'You're stuck up, that's what you is,' says Brer Rabbit, says he, 'and I'm going to kill you, that's what I'm going to do,' says he.

"Brer Fox, he sort of chuckled in his stomach, he did, but Tar-Baby ain't sayin' nothin.'

""I'm going to teach you how to talk to respectable folks if it's the last act,' says Brer Rabbit, says he. 'If you don't take off that hat and tell me howdy, I'm going to bust you wide open,' says he.

"Tar-Baby stay still, and Brer Fox, he lay low.

"Brer Rabbit kept on askin' him, and the Tar-Baby, she kept on sayin' nothin', until presently Brer Rabbit drew back with his fist, he did and blip he tucked her side of her head. Right there's where he broke his molasses jug. His fist stuck, and he can't pull loose. The tar held him. But Tar-Baby she stay still, and Brer Fox, he lay low.

"'If you don't let me loose, I'll knock you again,' says Brer Rabbit, says he, and with that he fetched her a wipe with the other hand, and that stuck. Tar-Baby, she ain't sayin' nothin', and Brer Fox, he lay low.

"'Turn me loose, before I kick the natural stuffing out of you,' says Brer Rabbit, says he, but the Tar-Baby, she ain't sayin' nothin.' She just held on, and then Brer Rabbit lost the use of his feet in the same way. Brer Fox he lay low. Then Brer Rabbit squalled out that if the Tar-Baby don't turn him loose he'll butt her cranksided. And then he butted, and his head got stuck. Then Brer Fox, he sauntered forth, lookin' just as innocent as one of your nanny's** mockin' birds.

"'Howdy, Brer Rabbit,' says Brer Fox, says he. 'You look sort of stuck up this mawnin'," says he, and then he rolled on the ground, and laughed and laughed 'til he couldn't laugh no more. 'I expect you'll take dinner with me this time, Brer Rabbit. I laid in some calamus root, and I ain't going to take no excuse,' says Brer Fox, says he."

Here Uncle Remus paused, and drew a two-pound yam out of the ashes.

"Did the fox eat the rabbit?" asked the little boy to whom the story had been told.

"That's all the far the tale goes," replied the old man. "He might, and then again he mightn't. Some say Judge Bar came along and loosed him - some say he didn't. I hear Miss Sally calling. You better run along."

[note there is no briar patch conclusion here, and that is true to the book - stay in suspense please, just like the little boy] [also note there is no Brer B'ar in this story - Walt Disney fakes things]
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* segashuate - ? "exaggerate"?
** please put back in the real word

Look up the film clip of Walt Disney's 1946 "Song of the South." See the Tar-Baby section bit at at //www.uncleremus.com/tarbaby.html, about 15 minutes long from the Walt Disney film.
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Read the original dialect at //xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/remus/tar-baby.html; and analysis there at ://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/remus/anatar.html

I. TRANSLATION - Uncle Remus Initiates the Little Boy

[What Miss Sally heard when she found her son in Uncle Remus' cabin, listening to stories][p.4ff]

I.

UNCLE REMUS INITIATES THE LITTLE BOY

"By and by, one day, after Brer Fox been doin' all that he could for to catch Brer Rabbit, and Brer Rabbit been doin' all he could for to keep him from it, Brer Fox say to himself that he'd put up a game on Brer Rabbit, and he ain't more than got the words out of his mouth 'til Brer Rabbit come a lopin' up the big road, lookin' just as plump, and as fat, and as sassy as a Morgan Horse FN 1  in a barley-patch.

"'Hold on there, Brer Rabbit,' says Brer Fox, says he.

"'I ain't got the time, Brer Fox,' says Brer Rabbit, says he, sort of mendin' his licks.

"'I want to have some confab with you, Brer Rabbit,' says Brer Fox, says he.

"'All right, Brer Fox, but you better holler from where you stand. I'm monstrous full of fleas this morning,' says Brer Rabbit, says he.

"I saw Brer B'ar (Bear) yesterday,' says Brer Fox, says he,' and he sort of rake me over the coals 'cause you and me ain't make friends and live neighborly, and I told him that I'd see you.'

"Then Brer Rabbit scratch one ear with his off hind-foot sort of dubiously, and then he ups and says, says he:

"'All a settin', Brer Fox. Supposing you drop around tomorrow and take dinner with me. We ain't got no great doin's at our house, but I expect the old woman and the children can sort of scramble around and get up something for to stay your stomach.'

"'I'm agreeable, Brer Rabbit,' says Brer Fox, says he.

"'Then I'll depend on you,' says Brer Rabbit, says he.

"Next day, Mr. Rabbit and Miss Rabbit got up soon, before day, and raided on a garden like Miss Sally's out there, and got some cabbages and some roasting ears, and some asparagus, and they fix up a smashin' dinner. By and by one of the little Rabbits, playin' out in the backyard, come runnin' in hollerin', 'Oh, ma! oh, ma! I saw Mr. Fox comin'!' And then Brer Rabbit he took the children by their ears and make them sit down, and then he and Miss Rabbit sort of dally around, waitin' for Brer Fox. And they keep on waitin', but no Brer Fox ain't come. After a while, Brer Rabbit goes to the door, easy like, and peep out, and there, sticking from behind the corn there, was the tip end of Brer Fox's tail. Then Brer Rabbit shut the door and sat down, and put his paws behind his ears and begin for to sing:

"'The place whereabouts you spill the grease,

Right there you're bound to slide,

And where you find a bunch of hair,

You'll surely find the hide.'

"Next day, Brer Fox sent word by Mr. Mink, and excused himself 'cause he was too sick for to come, and he asks Brer Rabbit for to come and take dinner with him, and Brer Rabbit say he was agreeable.

"By and by, when the shadows was at their shortest, Brer Rabbit he sort of brush up and then saunter down to Brer Fox's house, and when he got there, he hear somebody groanin', and he look in the door and ther he see Brer Fox settin' up in a rockin' chair, all wrapped up with flannel and he look mighty weak. Brer Rabbit look all around, he did, but he ain't see no dinner. The dishpan was settin' on the dable, and close by was a carvin' knife.

"'Look like you goin' to have chicken for dinner, Brer fox,' says Brer Rabbit, says he.

"'Then Brer Rabbit sort of pull his mustache, and say: 'You ain't got no calamus root, FN 2 have you, Brer Fox? I done got so now that I can't eat no chicken except she's seasoned up with calamus root.' And with that, Brer Rabbit leaped out of the door and dodge among the bushes, and sat there watching for Brer Fox; and he ain't watch long, neither, 'cause Brer Fox flung off the flannel and crept out of the house and got where he could close in on Brer Rabbit, and by and by Brer Rabbit holler out: 'Oh, Brer Fox! I'll just put your calamus root out here on this here stump. Better come get it while it's fresh,' and with that Brer Rabbit gallop off home. And Brer Fox ain't never catch him yet, and what's more, honey, he ain't goin' to."

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FN 1  Morgan Horse.  A breed of recehorse, known for versatility, elegance and strength, see http://www.morganhorse.com/about_the_morgan/

FN 2  Calamus root, or bittersweet, has a venerable history in itself, or not, depending on your perspective. The calamus root has been a source of folk medicine for digestive ills and other medical problems,and also is said to make you feel very good. Look up why it was declared "unsafe." See Uncle Remus Tales, calamus root post. See note at Uncle Remus, Calamus Root Post

Bittersweet:  (another name for calamus)  A woody vine, with berries that ripen and drop the shell to reveal a red-orange berry, often used for decorating.  http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bittersweetSee

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General comment on the tale - Pretend friendship, while plotting behind all the while, and watch the other guy find out and get the better of you anyway. Read original text at http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/remus/initiate.html; and an analysis there at http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/remus/aninit.html

Uncle Remus: Undercurrents of the Stockholm Syndrome, and inverting unequal power

The culture of Uncle Remus, in which those who survived deferred, can well be seen as genius - the development and implementation of linguistic and behavioral codes by which to stay alive.

A slave culture had to do that. Uncle Remus' tradition can be seen as an example of the Stockholm syndrome. Get past the silly URL here and read about Stockholm Syndrome at //www.sniggle.net/stock.php.

The syndrome involves captives trying to please their captors, and very soon upon realizing they cannot escape, are isolated, threatened with death, yet the captors show some acts of kindness. That concept, the universal human one where the relationship is powerless vs. powerful, takes the relationship of Remus with Aunt Sally and others from the plantation into a different realm.

This purpose, using deference to defuse, is suggested on the blurb on the back cover, the 1982 Penguin Classics edition of "Uncle Remus, His Tales and Sayings" ties Uncle Remus' characters with history and human need:

1. Uncle Remus is described as "the docile and grandfatherly ex-slave storyteller," the "literary creation" of Joel Chandler Harris that "reassured white readers during the tense and tentative reconstruction."

2. Brer Rabbit is seen as a "mainstay of black folklore long before Joel Chandler Harris heard of him," "whose cunning and revolutionary antics symbolically inverted the master-slave relationship and satisfied the deep human needs of a captive people." Robert Hemenway wrote a fine introduction to that edition, see ://books.google.com/books

How people act in when one must defer, or possibly die, is discussed in "Unequal Power Relationships." See //serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro04/web1/kkrasnec.html. It has been connected to slavery, abusive spousal or other interpersonal relationships, prisoners of war. Many captives soon seek to please the captor when the captor offers little kindnesses, and that syndrome recognized as a universal survival technique for the captive.

In Stockholm, people were held for 5 days in a Swedish bank heist - interesting study. The syndrome presented after only a few days of the captivity. Imagine the effect when it goes on for centuries. Schools, teach Remus with dignity and history in mind. The submissive behavior seen in Uncle Remus is not inferiority but brilliant modes of survival.

Here is an additional site on it, from a counseling perspective this time - at //counsellingresource.com/quizzes/stockholm/index.html. Other sites: //www.nurturingpotential.net/Issue13/Stockholm.htm; narrative race-relations personal blog-type article at //hometown.aol.com/jemiltd/myhomepage/index.html.

Sources of Tales Worldwide - Remus and Roman de Reynard

Sources of heritage. Often elsewhere.

Some information and research topics are available only to some institutions or other entities that require subscriptions, payments, all that. Still, some of those do relax a little and make bits open to the rest of us who are tight-fisted.

Roman de Renard or Roman de Renart.

Here is a scholarly source that traces Uncle Remus tales and themes back to France's 11th century Roman de Renard, the Story of the Fox - at JSTOR's ://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0030-8129(1892)7%3Cxxxix%3ATTOURT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2. It even (for once) offers a free teaser as to content - actual pages from an early work from 1892. There was no "France" then, but the area is there.

This is not a critique or summary of that research, because that takes full access to this JSTOR - the point is only that human beings find certain themes to be of interest, develop tales about them, repeat them and they go miles and miles and miles.

Other sources trace the stories to Africa - the theory holds. Human beings find certain themes to be of interest, develop tales about them, repeat them, and they go miles and miles and miles.

THE FRANCE CONNECTION. The Roman de Renart dates from 12th or 13th Century France, a collection of tales, often rowdy, or bawdy, with a trickster at the focal point. If you were in college, we would find this source for a summary - at //www.enotes.com/classical-medieval-criticism/roman-de-renart; then party on and spit it back on an exam as though we figured it out ourselves. Life.

Tricksters. In any culture. Find more medieval French ones at ://www.utm.edu/staff/globeg/narrat.shtml. Click on the Fox.

Sometime we will get on Aesop and what role the fox plays in the fables. This is great stuff. We think we are all so different, but we ain't. From ancient Greece to reconstruction South. People, just getting along against the strong. Find a 1930's film on the Fox at ://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021309/.

The trickster. Everybody watch out.

Redacting, diluting in the Retelling. Miss Meadows and the Gals, and More.

Equivocation, and the weapon of those who have an agenda: The redaction pen.

When matters get complicated, ignore some things. Cross it out. Pretend it was never there. Redact. Obscure or remove. See ://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/redact.

Look at Uncle Remus. And Miss Meadows and the Gals.

Are there parts of the Uncle Remus Tales and Stories that could possibly offend. Just look at all these branches. And even if so, why impose a literary pruning just because someone's worldview later is different from what was life's components before. Is not variety and spontaneity to be valued over forced shapes; and much can be presented as history, the period. To add to understanding.

"This means that??" You decide.

Uncle Remus. Read Uncle Remus' tales closely. A starting point could be our translations, done for recreational purposes and not scholarly, at see Uncle Remus Tales - Translations. Focusing on each image as the story proceeds leads to areas just under the surface that speak loudly, but only once noticed.

Here, look at the tale, Brer Rabbit Grossly Deceives Brer Fox - at Translation and notes: "Brer Rabbit Grossly Deceives Brer Fox". There are several images - described in footnotes at that site, here as translated -

• The Arabian Nights -"One evening when the little boy, whose nights with Uncle Remus were as entertaining as those Arabian ones of blessed memory...." That opens the story. This site, at //www.al-bab.com/arab/literature/nights.htm, says that some parts of the 1001 Nights are not suitable for children because of X content, and points out the reaction of later cultures - redaction, and change of the original to meet later sensibilities.
  
• A little song-ditty about "Ole Milly H'ar Wat you doin' dar, Settin' in de corner Smokin' yo' cigyar?"
• Miss Meadows and the gals - who was she? asks the little boy. Oh, don't ask me, says Remus. She and the gals were just in the story as it was given to me. Note that Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox pay them visits; and Miss Meadows and the gals have parties.
• When Brer Rabbit manipulates Brer Fox into letting him ride Brer Fox to Miss Meadows's party, he first adjusts the stirrup, and the action continues. Then, what you doin' now, asks Brer Fox who can't see because he has on a blind bridle. Brer Rabbit: "Pullin' down my pants, Brer Fox," says he.
  
• Tell me more, says the little boy when the story winds down. Wouldn't do, says Uncle Remus, to "give out too much cuff for to cut one pair pants."

Put them together. The thought process can go like this, if you like: All deniable. The mind-pictures grow slowly. Remus: it was the narrator speaking about the 1001 Nights, but if we add adult imagery from the Arabian Nights, that sets the stage in the very first sentences, to "Ole Molly" who comes soon after, then a whole other angle emerges more strongly for Miss Meadows and the gals, and Brer Rabbit doing what he does while riding Brer Fox, and the last allusion to the cuffs. Let your mind wander. What stage was set. What happened next. What is being told here about the community, its residence, the culture.

This post suggests that there is a value to talking around ideas, and the original equivocations should stand without forcing anything further. The non-frontal approach. Let those with ears hear, and eyes see, etc. When done skillfully, a story can speak on many levels, and all is eminently deniable if somebody else sees it differently, because of the splendid equivocation in the first place. The value is also that the idea can get across without being lopped off immediately. Equivocation at its finest. Equivocation = safety, until discovered or interpreted by a Lopper.

Redactions. The lopping off. Happens all the time. Later generations of the earliest versions of fairy tales and fantasy tales often zap out explicit or violent acts incompatible with a current culture's ideas of what is proper. That kills the history and the original culture, but is done anyway if a perceived anathema is revealed - see ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anathema. Equivocation and its rainbow and layers of meaning - room for all. Admit anyone's interpretation - that's what it's for. Why not let the discussion, the era, the untrimmed tale waft on.

We know the Walt Disney approach - make money off everything in sight and shape the culture. Prune out all that does not fit the desired message, which may well be far removed from the actual. See post 10/22/07 here. Joy of Equivocating - Uncle Remus, Toxic Disney.

The real community here. Uncle Remus. Later vaudeville and other caricatures of former slaves show them as persons to be ridiculed. See ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackface. Uncle Remus here, an individual clearly respected for and trusted in his role at Aunt Sally's, is instead a full, real person. Remus may even know the "Arabian ones of blessed memory;" they are part of a large oral tradition of stories, seeping around the globe.

Here is the irony. We do not. Who can get back to those original texts for us, long redacted by later retentive cultures interested in imposing agendas. What did you know, Uncle Remus? More than we. What if we want to put some parts back in?

Aunt Sally and the rest of the whitewashed culture in post-reconstruction South further whitewashing their culture. Who here is deceived about the depth of the humanity of Uncle Remus.

Who wears the blind bridle after all? Aunt Sally.

The little boy. He's fine. He picks up enough about the adult world and his community as he can handle at the time, no need to deny, no need to lie or elaborately steer away, just let it pass, equivocate the issue away, and he asks no questions at all about what Brer Rabbit is doing, or why Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox go visitin'.

Now to look up if later collections in the children's section have Brer Rabbit just adjusting stirrups on the way to Miss Meadows's.

Redaction and today's readers. Should children or adults be steered away from Uncle Remus because there are these kinds of references once in a while, to life as it was in that era, and who the people were, and the roles? Should that sentence about Brer Rabbit and the pants be redacted out. Why? This is a period piece - a slice of life in the post-reconstruction South. History, culture.

Redaction gets difficult. Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn" appears to be banned in some places for supposedly presenting racial stereotypes. Read closer. Jim there as a character shows himself to Huck and others as no part of that stereotype. The individual rises above.

At some point here, we will have to deal with the n word if we go into the plantation stories - on what grounds does anyone redact, edit material out, see ://www.thefreedictionary.com/redactions.

Is not redaction itself then a lie. Do we really think kids don't know, and if our parents and grandparents could handle Uncle Remus as is, why not now. Put in the context, but is that enough to meet the needs of the redactors.

Here are the Uncle Remus Tales if the equivocation, ambiguity, and the multiple unfathomable truths they convey, are subjected further to the Loppers - the redactors, Walt Disney and his impositions, adders and changers.

Is this what also happened to the original messages of the religious greats, the classical thinkers, the Founders, after attacked and coopted by "institutions."

We love the wild trees, the understories of stories. However, there is a danger that pointing something out in them will guide the Loppers, who then will seek to redact. Like a bad movie. The tightrope. Discussion of meanings in that light can endanger the integrity of the story, or even shape how later readers interpret it.

Text Redactors. Text Changers. Text Adders. Run, tales, run.

No answer. But we have an awareness and concern for any "interpreting" possibilities. Some fear of the consequence of exploration here, so far offset by the joy of exploring equivocating.

Ethical Issues - even in The World of Uncle Remus. Miss Cow.

Remus' stories and ethical, dignitarian issues. Here, "Miss Cow Falls a Victim to Mr. Rabbit."

The tales are more complex than a surface, or recreational read in dialect, suggests. Too much gets passed over because of the difficulty in understanding the dialect. Or, because the drive for entertainment leads to editing out serious thoughts.

It takes translating for yourself, each word, before the realization hits. For example, look what is happening with Uncle Remus. His world is like ours after all.

Read: "Miss Cow Falls a Victim to Mr. Rabbit," see Uncle Remus Tales, Miss Cow. Read it there. Not perfect, but you got an amateur here.

Some ethical issues in the story. The Plot. Rabbit and his family are hungry. He sees Miss Cow. He wants some milk, is not optimistic about his chances. He polites her up, gets her to butt the persimmon tree so he can get some persimmons, knowing she will get stuck with her horn in the tree; and she does, and it does, and he won't help her out.

He said he would get Brer Bull to help pry her loose.

Instead, he brings back his family with pails and they - ha ha - milk her dry and leave her there. No asking, no permission. All night she moos there. She finally gets loose, mad, and hatches a plan to get back at Brer Rabbit, by sticking her horn back in the hole so she can slide it out easy when and if he comes to help.

He sees her do it, won't get close - says he can help by doing the grunting while she does the work of getting loose. She pulls out that horn and takes off after him - he ducks in the briar patch, pretends he is another rabbit entirely, tells here where Brer Rabbit ran off to, and she heads on, not seeing that he is there.

Issues. Why does that sound like a gang assault (put in fear, in some jurisdictions) or battery (unwanted touching in some jurisdictions) or both. Yet, there are other angles - the nature of milking as necessary after all, and the use of young 'uns, worse - see ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape#Gang_rape.

Who owes what to whom. Still, see it from Sis Cow's view. She would have had choices, except that Brer Rabbit cut them off. What were Sis Cow's choices? Can her rights be valorized, a value put on it? Brer Bull could have helped gouge out the hole in the tree so she could get loose, and Brer Rabbit did say he was going to get him (never did). Unstuck, she would have gone back to the barn.

Brer Rabbit perhaps himself could have helped her get loose because he could see what was going on,, but instead he took advantage. But, here is the twist. As Uncle Remus knows, and tells the little boy, if Brer Rabbit had not milked Sis Cow, she would have been in great discomfort. It benefited her to get milked.

A cow + full udder = pain, etc.

But that is not enough to assess Brer Rabbit. None of this is intended to take away the enjoyment of an old folk tale with a trickster, that common character among cultures globally, but it is worth discussing.

Rights or not.

1. Does Sis Cow have a right to her bodily integrity: has she not the right to decide when and how a necessary milking will take place? Or to take the pain and defer it, until she is treated right.
Sis Cow Returns! Here she is, with reinforcements, to take her revenge.

2. Did Brer Rabbit, once he caused her to change her position and butt the tree, have an obligation to follow through, get help, as he said he was doing (before he just came back with his family and he pails), and to ask if he could have the milk? Knowing she needed to be milked and was stuck in the tree trunk, she may well have agreed.

3. This story is a mess from the view of Sis Cow and others of her gender persuasion, who can imagine what it was like for her, stuck in the tree, betrayed when Brer Rabbit doesn't go for help, but instead Brer Rabbit and his folks are all over her. What is the role of the ask. Do time, place and manner determine ethics.*

And if that is so, that there is a Bovine Liberation Front (the BLF) out there (we will head it up), how do we see milking factories. Just a thought.Are there any?

Ethical issues in old trickster stories. See tricksters around the world at //128.32.250.47:8080/folkartandlit/stories/storyReader$27. Foxes and rabbits and ravens and Squirrel Nutkin. He's at://wiredforbooks.org/kids/beatrix/sn1.htm. Fodder - the receiving end of the trickster - in lit.

Uncle Remus' tales. There we are, laughing at Brer Rabbit as trickster, how the so-called underdog, the weakest critter in the neighborhood, a rabbit, prey, manages to do to get his way against the mighty and the supposedly wily. The subversive message of the slave besting the owner.

Then move from the funny images to see why we also get uncomfortable. The human condition in the mirror, mean delight in taking advantage, and can we ever rise above.
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* More on Ethics. Permissions. Choice. Time, Place, Manner.

Many acts seem ethical or not depending on the time, place and manner of execution. Is that so?

Does it matter when, where and how we do things. Or can we run roughshod over people, on grounds that we "can" and by pointing out some other benefit to them - while, on the other hand, we continue to benefit at their expense.

Not easy. Issues of dignitarianism arise, see the somebodies and nobodies, and the idea of "all rise" at ://www.humiliationstudies.org/news-old/archives/001256 and related searches for "dignitarianism" or rankism. Can we "valorize" ourselves or is it hopeless. Is there a right to autonomy, that we get to give permission before things are done to us, even if someone else thinks it is necessary.

Can we choose time, place and manner, even in extremis. For that, see //www.bartelby.org/61/42/I0124200.

Tar-Baby story issue: The blackness of the added bear. The dangers of Gratuitous Changes - Walt Disney and Brer B'ar

Today we look at bears. This fellow from our yard, sunning after sunflower.

First, look at "The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story." Two characters: Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit, in their eternal dance of who gets the better of whom - and the rabbit usually wins, even if after a time.

The story ends equivocally - Brer Rabbit all tarred up, Brer Fox celebrating about him. The little boy asks Uncle Remus what happens - and Uncle Remus says that is as far as the story goes, he says he hears Aunt Sally calling,now run along.

Then there is a second story entirely, "Why Mr. Possum Loves Peace," and then the little boy persists in wanting to know what happened to the tarred Brer Rabbit. Another Tar-Baby installment begins: "How Brer Rabbit Was Too Sharp for Brer Fox" -

The great briar patch escape.

1. There is no Brer B'ar. Anywhere. In either tale.

2. Now look at the 1946 Walt Disney film based loosely on Uncle Remus' tales -Disney adds another character to the story, and then distorts who that character is in the community.

He adds another participant, Brer B'ar, who appears in several of the tales, but Disney turns this community member into a caricature, an oaf, a outsized figure of Vaudeville. Brer B'ar also is apparently an Appalachian or American Black Bear, and has the white blaze on his belly that is often seen: see www.fieldtripearth.org/article.xml?id=789&ordinal=2 .

The size range of black bears - from 50-75 inches long, 130-660 pounds in weight. See fieldtripearth.

Do an Images search for Uncle Remus and see for yourself, or look up the film clips on the Internet. Black and dumbdumbdumbdumb. "I'm gonna blow his haid clean off!" and everybody, most everybody, jes' laffs en laffs.

Overt racial overtones? Of course not. Black bears are black. The point is that Disney doesn't let the black character be a regular member of the community. This is the one he makes the doofus. A hopelessly slow-minded fool in a raggedy hat, a figure with mental retardation and a rural uneducated accent to boot, an ungainly clod, the better to amuse you, and reinforce your own feelings of your own superiority. No other figure in the tales fits that role.

These are racial overtones nonetheless. Not part of the tales.

His addition and then rendition of Uncle Remus tales in the 1946 "Song of the South" is humorous, to those who have been taught to laugh at the status of others, and not just their predicaments.

Please airbrush it out. Add it, if you have to, in a trailer at the end, the way people can watch out-takes as they leave the theater. Uncle Remus would never laugh at a character because of who he was- just the situation.

Find the commentators and websites promoting release of the film. Are they even aware of the changes Disney made, and the teaching effect they can have? Maybe some promoters of the uncut film intend to promote Disney's full film as a way of promoting not-so-subtle racial stereotypes indirectly. They could not be anti-race directly. Do they want to continue the viral idea that some people by nature are dumb and inferior? Go ahead. Sell it and see if anyone minds. Sales people are clever. You don't even know Disney put this element in, until you look at original story sources and see the change. Clever. Polluting, viral, subtle, good salesmanship.

For an overview of Disney's powerful cultural-educational influence: see this college syllabus overview at //www.mediaed.org/videos/CommercialismPoliticsAndMedia/MickeyMouseMonopoly/studyguide/html.

Notes on The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story. Later Toxic Additives

The Tar-Baby Story is well known, from generations of children's retellings, and Hollywood's film including the story, in "Song of the South." The result is that we know the version that appeared on film, and the kiddie books, better than the original. We accept all those as "Uncle Remus" but many of them are not. The film version, for example, by act and omission raises many racial issues, stereotypes, adds characters and blackens them bigly for more racial effect, and all that just gets absorbed.

Please see a more complete discussion at Joy of Equivocating: Benign and Malignant Walt Disney. or that is retold with many changes that raise racial issues.

See also the discussion on why we fill in blanks - discomfort with uncertainty - as seen in Walt Disney's treatment of the Tar-Baby and Briar Patch stories, in Joy of Equivocating: Where Fear of Uncertainty Leads Us.

Notes on "Brer Rabbit Grossly Deceives Mr. Fox"

If we add our own commentary as a reader is reading, it may be a distraction. And, our interests may not coincide with a reader's - especially if issues are raised that are uncomfortable for some. To us, all is good and wonderful because it is the world that Uncle Remus is portraying, and we want to learn about it.

For example, "Brer Rabbit Grossly Deceives Mr. Fox." Read it closely and find that Brer Rabbit has harnessed Mr. Fox and they are off to the house of the ladies to party. On the way, Brer Rabbit gets ready. The little boy asks who the ladies are, and Uncle Remus dodges. See the commentary on ths bit of local color at Joy of Equivocating, Uncle Remus and Life Education.

Notes on ethical issues raised: "Miss Cow Falls A Victim to Mr. Rabbit"

Ethical, dignitarian issues raised in Uncle Remus.

Some topics raised by the stories can be distracting if raised at first reading of the story. And the purpose of this recreational effort is to increase enjoyment of Uncle Remus, while offering commentary on the side, and not imposing on the reader.

In that vein, please see the comments on Miss Cow's situation - the forced milking - at this other site - Hello, Fodder: Ethical and Dignitarian Issues in Uncle Remus.

And read the entire story, in our translation, at IX. Miss Cow Falls A Victim to Mr. Rabbit.

Original Uncle Remus and Child Fare

Should you buy an original edition as a gift for a child? If done with care and paying attention to the unintended lessons a child might learn from it.

The book is indeed a treasure as to the tales; and as to presenting rural southern life with its social stratifications stemming from slavery. However, that slavery-culture made liberal use of the N word, even though "negro" itself is also used; and the C word for "colored," and all the rest in the further stories and proverbs, part of the oppression-subservience of the plantation, as well as gradations that people use about each other in any group or town life. America.

Choice: You can teach your children about that, or you can avoid their seeing the words at all. In favor of the words is that they make so clear how gradations and labels affect how people see themselves, what the life was like, and Joel Chandler Harris presents it so well. Can children understand that context? Or will this exposure just reinforce Jim Crow. Find more about Jim Crow at //www.jimcrowhistory.org/.

Probably in later editions, like contemporary now, those now-offensive terms are redacted - and that in itself is a shame in a different way, because redacting essential parts of a narrative alters our understanding of what life was like in Remus' time. The characters lived and died under the burden of those terms, used by themselves as to each other, and by the other groups in the society as to them.

Online Sites for reading Uncle Remus

1. Complete, I think Try this site for each story in dialect. Go to://www.fullbooks.com/Uncle-Remus.html

See all the other free books available. No connection here, just glad to see it.

2. Modern compilation. "Complete Tales of Uncle Remus." 2002. Compiled by Richard Chase. Not all pages provided. See www.books.google.com/books? Copyrighted.

3. Also looks complete. See www.uncleremus.com. Click on the menu at the top right for the 35 complete stories, and other material provide. They can be downloaded as a Project Gutenberg eBook, with the provisos given at the eBook site.

4. Portions of the 1880 edition, Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings The Folk-Lore of the Old Plantation, illustrations by Frederick S. Church and James H. Moser (cover is reproduced): at http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/railton/enam481c/harris.html

5. No illustrations but full version at http://www.fullbooks.com/Uncle-Remus1.html

Social context: Reconstruction South; then the 1940's

What was the context of these stories, that enabled them to spread so widely so fast in the Reconstruction South.

The stories challenged racism. University sources point out the ongoing and changing struggle for dominance between the races, an enhanced instability that came upon the culture with abolition of slavery. A social issue was what to do when social lines could not be enforced by slavery any more. See "Remus Tales: Selected Text," virginia.edu. Is that the University of Virginia.

Blacks told the stories, and had for years, because in them the weak overcame the strong. That was a subversive idea - good did not necessarily prevail, but wits did. Whites were interested because they were grappling with what to do with this newly freed group. Control, let be, and control did not always work.

The issue never went away. World War II saw continuing segregation, even in the army. Enter Walt Disney in post-war 1946. In a sense, he reverses the lessons of the stories, that the weak can overcome the strong, by reinstating the race issue in a new and more insidious way.

Disney's changes to support ongoing racism: Disney looks at the animal community in Uncle Remus, and suddenly has to interject stereotypes that were not there.

He spontaneously makes Brer B'ar the biggest oaf of all, the biggest and blackest and dumbest character of all, he can't even think in dialect as the others can - all the doofus can say is, "I'm gonna blow his haid clean off," or some such; and plunking him where he has no business - in the Tar-Baby story and its briar-patch sequel, in "How Mr. Rabbit Too Sharp for Mr. Fox."

Brer B'ar is there just to be laughed at for being dumb. How can he defend himself? Remus would never do that. He does not ridicule people for their status, he laughs at their situations and how they cope. Disney - shallow and a seller cheap.

Be careful watching Disneyed tales of any kind. Disney had an agenda, whether in depicting fairy tales, or cultural tales.

Cross-cultural connections. Remus trickster tales and medieval lore

The stories in Uncle Remus cross several cultures - the element of the trickster does not depend on any ethnic group for enjoyment, no particular color of skin or animals taking the place of humans.

1. Those who trace tales take them back to the middle ages, and even long before. See
//www.1911encyclopedia.org/Reynard_The_Fox; and the Google digitized book, "Fairy Tales from Before," at http://books.google.com/books?id=jDgdupF3VWcC&pg=PA150&lpg=PA150&dq=uncle+remus+roman+de+renard&source=web&ots=mSRMrJMG0l&sig=u1kFuOOe2ZKAAcGm0p36INiFXsk.

2. For an overview, see "Fables and Trickster Tales Around the World," a lesson plan for cross-cultural learning from the National Endowment of the Humanities - excellent. See the roots there in Aesop's Fables (Greece area), and the Anansi tales from Ghana, that the article identifies as the basis for the Remus tales.

3. See a discussion by author G.K. Chesterton, see //www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/index.html, as to the similarities between Aesop, a Greek slave, much beloved and a teller of fables; and Uncle Remus, an African-heritage slave, by then freed, and still much beloved, and a teller of fables, at "Aesop's Fables: the Difference Between Fables and Fairy-Tales," online at //query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A04E2DE1E3AE633A25754C1A9679D946396D6CF
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With these deep roots, we continue to have a concern with Walt Disney changing cultural essential tales, fairy tales, fables, far more than entertainment requires. He has his own message. He Ralters character. Adds pollutants. The original flavor falls away so that something more box-office can take its place. If it will sell, put it in along with all the music. And the value system of Disney takes over the value system of the culture of the story, to the loss of all of us.

Proposal: Where the Walt Disney film, "Song of the South," 1946, violates the integrity of the traditional stories in ways that alter the meaning, take them out. Put them in an informative trailer at the end if you have to. See the concern with infecting cultural material for purposes of sales, inculcation and profit motives, as happened with the Joel Chandler Harris tales from the Uncle Remus tradition at Joy of Equivocating, Additives to Remus.See FN 1.
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Next research: Those who love fairy tales (me), and examine their cultural sources and their spread, may well say that any tale-teller or transcriber puts a differing imprint and change on the material, to suit their own dramatic purposes. FN 2
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FN 1. Background. Walt Disney, in "Song of the South," adds a cultural overlay in ways that take away from the essence. People seeing his film instead of reading the original would have no idea where the differences are.

The vote here on the areas found so far:

1) return to the original equivocal ending to The Wonderful Tar Baby story; and make us wait for the next episode, after "Why Mr. Possum Loves Peace" before continuing with the Tar-Baby conclusion, about the briar patch in "How Mr. Rabbit was Too Sharp for Mr. Fox."

2) return to the original one-on-one trickster theme in Tar Baby, leaving out the added laughingstock Brer B'ar. Let it remain Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox and keep Brer B'ar to his own stories, and as he is in the book - a respected member of the community who gets targeted by Brer Rabbit like everybody else.

If the outcry is so great at going back to the original, then put that clip in a trailer, with information about 1946, the Jim Crow laws, stereotypes and Vaudeville caricatures, showing people as buffoons, and laughing at them. One problem is that we will continue to imitate Brer B'ar anyway.

emus would not laugh at anyone. He would have us laugh, or be horrified, at the predicament, but laugh at someone? Never. Laughing at people and putting them down is the Walt Disney approach to entertainment, not the Joel Chandler Harris.

If we find that JCH did put those elements in editions we have not yet checked, of course we will let you know. We have checked the 1895 and 1921 editions - no dim-witted (if lovable, as he surely is - and that is the insidious part of the stereotype - he is such a dear) B'ar in Tar Baby.

Aha - Here, however, is a reference to a new addition - a "first Remus volume" in 1881 edition - at //edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=237. Is Brer B'ar as an oaf in there? Our 1921 lists copyrights only for 1880, 1895, 1908, 1921

FN 2. Someone else take up this issue: Whether cultures (or individuals) have a need, as part of perpetuating their own identity, to designate some religious, political, social or gender group(s) that they can target, deprive if possible, and denigrate as different, and unworthy.

And if one group rises above the designation, is there pressure to keep them back down there, or to fast identify another to take its place so that somebody is always significantly down. What a satisfaction for those who are up. Self-reward for behavior. Works every time. Think of immigrants, Gypsies, or Roma, other ethnic groups, or those with mental retardation, or women, or blondes - for example. Nicknames for everyone and every light bulb joke in the place serves a purpose. Fill in the blank.

We don't need Disney, or talking heads, or columnists, to add to it.

Uncle Remus' dialect: Translating from inland rural slave-heritage

A.  Translation issues: 

1.  Difficulty, risk.

Any translation is difficult and risky, because it is impossible to catch every nuance of one language form in another. Shades of meaning are lost. Translating is always difficult and even controversial, because, in most cultures, the body language is integral to the meaning of a communication, especially in the telling. Gestures accompanying words can even stand alone as communications.  Look at tv feeds from the United Nations, for example, with some delegates leaning back, silently stroking their chins, over and over, during an entire speech. Showing derision? We sense a communication without the words.

2. Controversy.

Translation is also controversial because it offers somebody the chance to substitute a personal view and agenda for the original, by word selection, additions, uses of words, inclusions and exclusions, and even through inadvertent errors. See the discussion of this particular 1995 translation of the Book of Luke into Gullah - this focuses on all those issues. See
://www.adoremus.org/997-Gullah.html: "De Good Nyews Bout Jedus Christ Wa Luke Write."

3.  Necessity, in order for content to be transmitted.

Translations are needed where the original language is so unfamiliar that a reader bogs down and goes to a movie about the story instead, with all the distortions of film by the promoters for its profit-entertainment purposes.

4.  Alternative to third party translations.

Proposal - be proactive. Do your own translation, or read one already available; then go immediately back to the original and read it in dialect with the plot meaning already in your head.

B.  The Nature of the Dialect in Uncle Remus

1.  Gullah.  The Uncle Remus dialect: So far, the dialect of Uncle Remus seems not to be "Gullah." Gullah appears to be a specific kind of blended language characteristic now of the coastal islands and coast areas of the south, a mix of many cultural traditions of slaves from different parts of Africa, see //www.coastalguide.com/gullah/.

Uncle Remus is not a coastal island set of tales, however - few water images - and there are many slave-heritage dialect roots in the plantation area context.  This site refers to the Virginia, the Sea Islands, the Louisiana, and the Inland -- that seems to be the area of the  Uncle Remus dialect. See www.bartleby.com/226/2011.html

The dialect of Uncle Remus in some sources is still often described as "Gullah," see for example //homepage.ntlworld.com/matt_kane/uncle%20remus%20tales.htm, but this may be a shorthand for all the kinds of dialects there really are.

2.  Enriching the dialect.

Many people came ashore in the Virginias and Carolinas, see Gypsies, Roma: Melungeons, Racial, Ethnic Mixes.  Among these are Portuguese sailors, and see in Uncle Remus the Portuguese word, "palaver", at Mr. Wolf Makes a Failure. See the footnote, the asterisk at the end there. 


See some of the issues in this Gullah translation of the Book of Luke, at http://www.adoremus.org/997-Gullah.html

Other Remus stories, non-fable, real-life. Two-step method to understanding.

Uncle Remus as a fictional communications centerpiece, served in more capacities than for the familiar compiled plantation legends with the animal fables.

In our 1921 edition by Joel Chandler Harris, there are real-life stories, with people as people, on plantations, in the Reconstruction South, leading real lives.. The animal fables were made then into a Disney film, that put the fables in the forefront - "Song of the South," now in DVD. There is some effort about to get the original movie re-released, and there are some issues as to that (see other posts, especially re Tar-Baby, about Disney's distortions of the stories and why he did that - cultural/racial biases that he put in there, profit, whatever).

The Remus works are also history. As to Uncle Remus and more current events issues than animal tales, see the reconstruction issues at ://xroads.virginia.edu/~ug97/remus/atlanta.html

There are sayings, songs, stories that evoke an entire era. Some of them are also in this edition from 1921, but not advertised on the cover. They are as hard to read as the fables in dialect, so for me, it helps to do a translation first, then go back to the dialect.

Even read them aloud. Hear the words and characters come alive. Try this two-step method yourself, do your own translations, then go back to Uncle Remus' own voice.

Copyright

Does anyone understand copyright? We are using a 1921 edition Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings (the Uncle Remus Legends of the old Plantation), and have enjoyed reproducing the wonderful illustrations in past translation efforts as in the public domain. We believe they are, by now, public domain. Is that right? We may or may not continue- or put in a more occasional illustration, in hopes the earlier ones encourage people to look them up. - 70 years long gone. Why should We The People be deprived of our heritage after that?

Initiates the little boy story issue: "Calamus Root" - Brer Rabbit a user. Uncle Remus Initiates A Little Boy

Read the story at Uncl Remus Tales, Uncle Remus Initiates the Little Boy. Meet the calamus root.

But don't tell the feds where Brer Rabbit is. Could they arrest him? Is calamus merely declared "unsafe," see 1968 status at //www.viable-herbal.com/singles/herbs/s741.htm; or does that decision about "unsafe" make its sale or use illegal. Not sure. The calamus root has a long history as a remedy for many ailments, and an enhancer for other matters, see this Natural Herb sales catalogue describing what has been alleged, at ://dotcrawler.com/natural-herbs.html/ It was even found in the tomb of Tutankhamen, so they say.

Native Americans used it to communicate with spirits. The North American variety, one of four worldwide, seems to be the safest - others have carcinogenic qualities (on people or just rats, like the sassafras?)

Headache, toothache, fatigue, hangover, cough,gas, diabetes, asthma, on and on. Promote real testing anyone, or since it can't be patented, do the drug companies not touch it?  No profit?

How does calamus figure in Uncle Remus?

Here, Brer Rabbit outsmarted Brer Fox, shown wrapped up in the flannel in the rocker, in the first tale of the Uncle Remus cluster, "Uncle Remus Initiates the Little Boy," see Uncle Remus Initiates the Little Boy: Calamus Root story, and Brer Rabbit ducked out fast when he saw he might be the dinner to which he had been invited-- and said he just had to get a "calamus root" to eat with supper. Fast escape.

And Brer Fox got back at him in Tar-Baby - "I done laid in some calamus root...," sez Brer Fox, sezzee. Brer Rabbit loved it. Tricked with it.

Look it up. You will find all this about a calamus root: health and recreation.

The viable-herbal site, above, starts with calamus being used for centuries as an expectorant and anesthetic. It has been used to focus the mind and stop smoking, increase endurance, stamina. It is also a "uterine stimulant," so pregnant or nursing women should not use it (does uterine stimulant mean abortifacient? how to find out?)

Other names; and its uses. It is also known as bittersweet, or Sweet Flag, for herbal use to stimulate digestion, can be chewed or made as an infusion, helps with anorexia (says this site) by stimulating appetite and mind; has anti-anxiety effect; and treats motion sickness. See //www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=8800.

"Acorus calamus" is also a plant sacred to the Cree Indians. There are many other names for it, specific to different and other tribes. See //users.lycaeum.org/~iamklaus/acorus.htm. Some of the effects are hallucinations, euphoria, stimulation.

The Dakota Indians use it to treat diabetes (will someone please follow that up??). See Lycaeum.org site. It was also psychoactive and known as one of the "witches' flying ointments." Same site. Then see Exodus 30:22-25 - calamus root was one of the ingredients of a "holy anointing oil," says same site. Its "ketoret" component is an ingredient in certain incense, Exodus 3:34-38, says //www.alchemy-works.com/herb_calamus.html - also used in snuff.
(have we found Biblical support for mild hallucinagens). sites look at the same words and say no. See .freeanointing.org/Calamus_is_a_lie. So, the debate goes on, and that is why we try to get back to original sources and people who actually know a language, not just the later interpreters with agendas one way or another. Keep looking.

Walt Whitman, poet, wrote about calamus in his "Leaves of Grass." See //findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3708/is_200407/ai_n9452864. That site also notes that calamus was known to blacks in the rural south.

Enter the government governing. The FDA gave (or did others do it for them?) massive doses to rats over a long time and the rats got cancer. So, after 1950, the FDA declared it unsafe for human consumption. I understand that the FDA cannot regulate food, and surely a natural plant is a food, but they called it a food "additive" instead and they can regulate additives.

However, the FDA's studies show that only the variety in India has the beta-aserone, the carcinogen in it, the North American variety only has aserone, but aserone can be made into other things that site readers probably know about. Same site: //users.lycaeum.org/~iamklaus/acorus.htm.

So, the FDA is regulating a food ingestible, something that is not addictive, not harmful when used as directed, as any herb, and apparently just because it can be used as an alternative to liquor for recreation? Could it be that people, real people at the FDA benefit by its relationship to the liquor lobby. Is that true? Go check. Also look into some of the other issues raised by this initially simple look into what is a calamus root anyway:

Food additive: formal definition

Quote

(s) The term "food additive" means any substance the intended use of which results or may reasonably be expected to result, directly or indirectly, in its becoming a component or otherwise affecting the characteristics of any food (including any substance intended for use in producing, manufacturing, packing, processing, preparing, treating, packaging, transporting, or holding food; and including any source of radiation intended for any such use), if such substance is not generally recognized, among experts qualified by scientific training and experience to evaluate its safety, as having been adequately shown through scientific procedures (or, in the case of a substance used in food prior to January 1, 1958, through either scientific procedures or experience based on common use in food) to be safe under the conditions of its intended use; except that such term does not include—

(1) a pesticide chemical residue in or on a raw agricultural commodity or processed food; or

(2) a pesticide chemical; or

(3) a color additive; or

(4) any substance used in accordance with a sanction or approval granted prior to the enactment of this paragraph 4 pursuant to this Act, the Poultry Products Inspection Act (21 U.S.C. 451 and the following) or the Meat Inspection Act of March 4, 1907 (34 Stat. 1260), as amended and extended (21 U.S.C. 71 and the following);

(5) a new animal drug; or

(6) an ingredient described in paragraph (ff) in, or intended for use in, a dietary supplement.

Unquote. From//www.fda.gov/opacom/laws/fdcact/fdcact1.htm.
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Calamus is also listed in that same site as one of the "carminative" herbs (this means that it relieves gas or cleanses bowels, see //www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=24293)

Quote

Minor carminative herbs
Anise (Pimpinella anisum)
Caraway (Carum carvi)
Coriander (Coriandrum sativum, C. vulgare, C. microcarpum)
Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare)
Calamus (Acorus calamus)
Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis)

Unquote.

From ://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~comm/ds-econ4.html
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With more important things to do, including tending to its apparent failures to protect in ways the law requires, do your own search for FDA fail as a start on that, is a ban on Brer Rabbit's beloved calamus really necessary?

Then look up why on earth is simple sassafras also banned. Once started a silly site about the historical uses of sassafras, at Sassafras, Centuries of Uses, then never got back to tidy it up. There was a similar testing of rats, I understand, but the massive testing on rats backfires because rodents are naturally "allelopathic" to sassafras - naturally averse - a protection developed by the sassafras plant to keep from being totally eaten by beavers, say, near waterways. Look that up, too.

The alchemy-works site above does say that calamus grows in water, or near it. If it developed protections against rodent ingestion, no wonder the critters got sick from it. Come on, FDA. Think. Think. If the ban is because it can be converted into a drug chemically similar to mescaline www.erowid.org/chemicals/tma2/. Mescaline is from cactus, or peyote, see www.drugeducation.net/mescaline.htm. Those are issues not related to the 1950's cancer finding. Read also about caffeine, aspirin, alcohol and tobacco at the drugeducation site. Some things get singled out, some don't.

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After centuries of uses, however, the FDA said in 1958 (?) we should not use it at all - see reasons here, and question it as you will. Still, the calamus root figures prominently in parts of Uncle Remus, Legends of the Old Plantation, the first section of "Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings," by Joel Chandler Harris 1890, 1895, 1908, 1921, Grosset & Dunlap. This is from the 1921 edition.