I am advised by my publishers that this book is to be included in
their catalogue of humorous publications, and this friendly
warning gives me an opportunity to say that however humorous it
may be in effect, its intention is perfectly serious; and, even
if it were otherwise, it seems to me that a volume written wholly
in dialect must have its solemn, not to say melancholy, features.
With respect to the Folk-Lore scenes, my purpose has been to
preserve the legends themselves in their original simplicity, and
to wed them permanently to the quaint dialect--if, indeed, it can
be called a dialect--through the medium of which they have become
a part of the domestic history of every Southern family; and I
have endeavored to give to the whole a genuine flavor of the old
plantation.
Each legend has its variants, but in every instance I have
retained that particular version which seemed to me to be the
most characteristic, and have given it without embellishment and
without exaggeration.
The dialect, it will be observed, is wholly different from that
of the Hon. Pompey Smash and his literary descendants, and
different also from the intolerable misrepresentations of the
minstrel stage, but it is at least phonetically genuine.
Nevertheless, if the language of Uncle Remus fails to give vivid
hints of the really poetic imagination of the negro; if it fails
to embody the quaint and homely humor which was his most
prominent characteristic; if it does not suggest a certain
picturesque sensitiveness--a curious exaltation of mind and
temperament not to be defined by words--then I have reproduced
the form of the dialect merely, and not the essence, and my
attempt may be accounted a failure. At any rate, I trust I have
been successful in presenting what must be, at least to a large
portion of American readers, a new and by no means unattractive
phase of negro character--a phase which may be considered a
curiously sympathetic supplement to Mrs. Stowe's wonderful
defense of slavery as it existed in the South. Mrs. Stowe, let me
hasten to say, attacked the possibilities of slavery with all the
eloquence of genius; but the same genius painted the portrait of
the Southern slave-owner, and defended him.
A number of the plantation legends originally appeared in the
columns of a daily newspaper--The Atlanta Constitution and in
that shape they attracted the attention of various gentlemen who
were kind enough to suggest that they would prove to be valuable
contributions to myth-literature. It is but fair to say that
ethnological considerations formed no part of the undertaking
which has resulted in the publication of this volume. Professor
J. W. Powell, of the Smithsonian Institution, who is engaged in
an investigation of the mythology of the North American Indians,
informs me that some of Uncle Remus's stories appear in a number
of different languages, and in various modified forms, among the
Indians; and he is of the opinion that they are borrowed by the
negroes from the red-men. But this, to say the least, is
extremely doubtful, since another investigator (Mr. Herbert H.
Smith, author of Brazil and the Amazons) has met with some of
these stories among tribes of South American Indians, and one in
particular he has traced to India, and as far east as Siam. Mr.
Smith has been kind enough to send me the proof-sheets of his
chapter on The Myths and Folk-Lore of the Amazonian Indians, in
which he reproduces some of the stories which he gathered while
exploring the Amazons.
In the first of his series, a tortoise falls from a tree upon the
head of a jaguar and kills him; in one of Uncle Remus's stories,
the terrapin falls from a shelf in Miss Meadows's house and stuns
the fox, so that the latter fails to catch the rabbit. In the
next, a jaguar catches a tortoise by the hind-leg as he is
disappearing in his hole; but the tortoise convinces him he is
holding a root, and so escapes; Uncle Remus tells how the fox
endeavored to drown the terrapin, but turned him loose because
the terrapin declared his tail to be only a stump-root. Mr. Smith
also gives the story of how the tortoise outran the deer, which
is identical as to incident with Uncle Remus's story of how Brer
Tarrypin outran Brer Rabbit. Then there is the story of how the
tortoise pretended that he was stronger than the tapir. He tells
the latter he can drag him into the sea, but the tapir retorts
that he will pull the tortoise into the forest and kill him
besides. The tortoise thereupon gets a vine-stem, ties one end
around the body of the tapir, and goes to the sea, where he ties
the other end to the tail of a whale. He then goes into the wood,
midway between them both, and gives the vine a shake as a signal
for the pulling to begin. The struggle between the whale and
tapir goes on until each thinks the tortoise is the strongest of
animals. Compare this with the story of the terrapin's contest
with the bear, in which Miss Meadows's bed-cord is used instead
of a vine-stem. One of the most characteristic of Uncle Remus's
stories is that in which the rabbit proves to Miss Meadows and
the girls that the fox is his riding-horse. This is almost
identical with a story quoted by Mr. Smith, where the jaguar is
about to marry the deer's daughter. The cotia--a species of
rodent--is also in love with her, and he tells the deer that he
can make a riding-horse of the jaguar.
"Well," says the deer, "if you can make the jaguar carry you, you
shall have my daughter." Thereupon the story proceeds pretty
much as Uncle Remus tells it of the fox and rabbit. The cotia
finally jumps from the jaguar and takes refuge in a hole, where
an owl is set to watch him, but he flings sand in the owl's eyes
and escapes. In another story given by Mr. Smith, the cotia is
very thirsty, and, seeing a man coming with a jar on his head,
lies down in the road in front of him, and repeats this until the
man puts down his jar to go back after all the dead cotias he has
seen. This is almost identical with Uncle Remus's story of how
the rabbit robbed the fox of his game. In a story from Upper
Egypt, a fox lies down in the road in front of a man who is
carrying fowls to market, and finally succeeds in securing them.
This similarity extends to almost every story quoted by Mr.
Smith, and some are so nearly identical as to point unmistakably
to a common origin; but when and where? when did the negro or the
North American Indian ever come in contact with the tribes of
South America? Upon this point the author of Brazil and the
Amazons, who is engaged in making a critical and comparative
study of these myth-stories, writes:
"I am not prepared to form a theory about these stories. There
can be no doubt that some of them, found among the negroes and
the Indians, had a common origin. The most natural solution would
be to suppose that they originated in Africa, and were carried to
South America by the negro slaves. They are certainly found among
the Red Negroes; but, unfortunately for the African theory, it is
equally certain that they are told by savage Indians of the
Amazons Valley, away up on the Tapajos, Red Negro, and Tapura.
These Indians hardly ever see a negro, and their languages are
very distinct from the broken Portuguese spoken by the slaves.
The form of the stories, as recounted in the Tupi and Mundurucu'
languages, seems to show that they were originally formed in
those languages or have long been adopted in them.
"It is interesting to find a story from Upper Egypt (that of the
fox who pretended to be dead) identical with an Amazonian story,
and strongly resembling one found by you among the negroes.
Vambagen, the Brazilian historian (now Visconde de Rio Branco),
tried to prove a relationship between the ancient Egyptians, or
other Turanian stock, and the Tupi Indians. His theory rested on
rather a slender basis, yet it must be confessed that he had one
or two strong points. Do the resemblances between old and New
World stories point to a similar conclusion? It would be hard to
say with the material that we now have.
"One thing is certain. The animal stories told by the negroes in
our Southern States and in Brazil were brought by them from
Africa. Whether they originated there, or with the Arabs, or
Egyptians, or with yet more ancient nations, must still be an
open question. Whether the Indians got them from the negroes or
from some earlier source is equally uncertain. We have seen
enough to know that a very interesting line of investigation has
been opened."
Professor Hartt, in his Amazonian Tortoise Myths, quotes a story
from the Riverside Magazine of November, 1868, which will be
recognized as a variant of one given by Uncle Remus. I venture to
append it here, with some necessary verbal and phonetic
alterations, in order to give the reader an idea of the
difference between the dialect of the cotton plantations, as used
by Uncle Remus, and the lingo in vogue on the rice plantations
and Sea Islands of the South Atlantic States:
"One time B'er Deer an' B'er Cooter (Terrapin) was courtin', and
de lady did bin lub B'er Deer mo' so dan B'er Cooter. She did bin
lub B'er Cooter, but she lub B'er Deer de morest. So de young
lady say to B'er Deer and B'er Cooter bofe dat dey mus' hab a
ten-mile race, an de one dat beats, she will go marry him.
"So B'er Cooter say to B'er Deer: 'You has got mo longer legs dan
I has, but I will run you. You run ten mile on land, and I will
run ten mile on de water!'
"So B'er Cooter went an' git nine er his fam'ly, an' put one at
ebery mile-pos', and he hisse'f, what was to run wid B'er Deer,
he was right in front of de young lady's do', in de broom-grass.
"Dat mornin' at nine o'clock, B'er Deer he did met B'er Cooter at
de fus mile-pos', wey dey was to start fum. So he call: 'Well,
B'er Cooter, is you ready? Co long!' As he git on to de nex'
mile-pos', he say: 'B'er Cooter!' B'er Cooter say: 'Hullo!' B'er
Deer say: 'You dere?' B'er Cooter say: 'Yes, B'er Deer, I dere
too.'
"Nex' mile-pos' he jump, B'er Deer say: 'Hullo, B'er Cooter!'
B'er Cooter say: 'Hullo, B'er Deer! you dere too?' B'er Deer say:
'Ki! it look like you gwine fer tie me; it look like we gwine fer
de gal tie!'
"W'en he git to de nine-mile pos' he tought he git dere fus,
'cause he mek two jump; so he holler: 'B'er Cooter!' B'er Cooter
answer: 'You dere too?' B'er Deer say: 'It look like you gwine
tie me.' B'er Cooter say: 'Go long, B'er Deer. I git dere in due
season time,' which he does, and wins de race."
The story of the Rabbit and the Fox, as told by the Southern
negroes, is artistically dramatic in this: it progresses in an
orderly way from a beginning to a well-defined conclusion, and is
full of striking episodes that suggest the culmination. It seems
to me to be to a certain extent allegorical, albeit such an
interpretation may be unreasonable. At least it is a fable
thoroughly characteristic of the negro; and it needs no
scientific investigation to show why he selects as his hero the
weakest and most harmless of all animals, and brings him out
victorious in contests with the bear, the wolf, and the fox. It
is not virtue that triumphs, but helplessness; it is not malice,
but mischievousness. It would be presumptuous in me to offer an
opinion as to the origin of these curious myth-stories; but, if
ethnologists should discover that they did not originate with the
African, the proof to that effect should be accompanied with a
good deal of persuasive eloquence.
Curiously enough, I have found few negroes who will acknowledge
to a stranger that they know anything of these legends; and yet
to relate one of the stories is the surest road to their
confidence and esteem. In this way, and in this way only, I have
been enabled to collect and verify the folklore included in this
volume. There is an anecdote about the Irishman and the rabbit
which a number of negroes have told to me with great unction, and
which is both funny and characteristic, though I will not
undertake to say that it has its origin with the blacks. One
day an Irishman who had heard people talking about "mares' nests"
was going along the big road--it is always the big road in
contradistinction to neighborhood paths and by-paths, called in
the vernacular "nigh-cuts"--when he came to a pumpkin--patch. The
Irishman had never seen any of this fruit before, and he at once
concluded that he had discovered a veritable mare's nest. Making
the most of his opportunity, he gathered one of the pumpkins in
his arms and went on his way. A pumpkin is an exceedingly awkward
thing to carry, and the Irishman had not gone far before he made
a misstep, and stumbled. The pumpkin fell to the ground, rolled
down the hill into a "brush--heap," and, striking against a
stump, was broken. The story continues in the dialect: "W'en de
punkin roll in de bresh--heap, out jump a rabbit; en soon's de
I'shmuns see dat, he take atter de rabbit en holler: 'Kworp,
colty! kworp, colty!' but de rabbit, he des flew." The point of
this is obvious.
As to the songs, the reader is warned that it will be found
difficult to make them conform to the ordinary rules of
versification, nor is it intended that they should so conform.
They are written, and are intended to be read, solely with
reference to the regular and invariable recurrence of the
caesura, as, for instance, the first stanza of the Revival Hymn:
"Oh, whar / shill we go / w'en de great / day comes
Wid de blow / in' er de trumpits / en de bang / in' er de
drums /
How man / y po' sin / ners'll be kotch'd / out late
En fine / no latch ter de gold / en gate /"
In other words, the songs depend for their melody and rhythm
upon the musical quality of time, and not upon long or short,
accented or unaccented syllables. I am persuaded that this fact
led Mr. Sidney Lanier, who is thoroughly familiar with the
metrical peculiarities of negro songs, into the exhaustive
investigation which has resulted in the publication of his
scholarly treatise on The Science of English Verse.
The difference between the dialect of the legends and that of the
character--sketches, slight as it is, marks the modifications
which the speech of the negro has undergone even where education
has played in deed, save in the no part reforming it. Indeed,
save in the remote country districts, the dialect of the legends
has nearly disappeared. I am perfectly well aware that the
character sketches are without permanent interest, but they are
embodied here for the purpose of presenting a phase of negro
character wholly distinct from that which I have endeavored to
preserve in the legends. Only in this shape, and with all the
local allusions, would it be possible to adequately represent the
shrewd observations, the curious retorts, the homely thrusts, the
quaint comments, and the humorous philosophy of the race of which
Uncle Remus is the type.
If the reader not familiar with plantation life will imagine that
the myth--stories of Uncle Remus are told night after night to a
little boy by an old negro who appears to be venerable enough to
have lived during the period which he describes--who has nothing
but pleasant memories of the discipline of slavery--and who has
all the prejudices of caste and pride of family that were the
natural results of the system; if the reader can imagine all
this, he will find little difficulty in appreciating and
sympathizing with the air of affectionate superiority which Uncle
Remus assumes as he proceeds to unfold the mysteries of
plantation lore to a little child who is the product of that
practical reconstruction which has been going on to some extent
since the war in spite of the politicians. Uncle Remus describes
that reconstruction in his Story of the War, and I may as well
add here for the benefit of the curious that that story is almost
literally true.