Talk:Br'er Rabbit/Archive 1

Archive 1

History

The article certainly doesn't give much in the way of a history of the oral tradition of Br'er Rabbit. Do we just not know where he came from? When the first stories showed up? If he has any connection to Old Man Coyote or ol' Anansi the spider? Etc etc etc. 68.103.3.22 19:10, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I'll add a reference to Gullah_language, which may be a start. 217.43.41.129 00:04, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Graphic

_ _ User:24.141.61.47 complains

removed image; it seems inappropriate to apply a commercial image to the main entry for folk mythology

but folk mythology is folk mythology whether its puveyor profits from developing their expertise by making themself more indispensible to their village's life or by getting housing on the beach in Malibu: commerce is universal and pervasive; every culture's artists get a payoff, and every culture's best artists also sneak in art for art's sake. In this case, images of that 60-year-old vintage are pretty much the current embodiment of what remains a folk character.
_ _ That being said, an illustration from an edition in JCH's lifetime, or a West African image (preferably pre-colonization) might well be more valuable for that difference. More importantly, everything but the hard-to-notice noose is nondescript, and surely we can come up with an illustration that conveys more of Brer Rabbit's character than a smiley-face graphic would.
_ _ A better image is possible and welcome; no image is a step backwards. (And when we have a better image, we will know more about whether this image and the next, together, are better than the better image alone.
_ _ So i'm rv'g pending appearance of the better image.
--Jerzy·t 02:32, 2005 August 9 (UTC)

I've replaced it with a free image. It's not the best by any means; it makes Br'er Rabbit look like a London fop. But there are a few more freebies available on the web that I will try to upload tonight. One of those should work just fine. — Amcaja 22:48, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Note, disussion of this issue at Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content#Am_I_doing_this_right.3F (will be archived within a few weeks of posting this)Wikidemo 19:49, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Deletion

It is requested that assertions to the effect that Brer Rabbit is of African origin be deleted; since it has been thoroughly proven that decades before any Afro-American versions of this was recorded, it was recorded from among the Cherokee in North Carolina.

It is requested that you provide a reliable source to back up your claims, which sound to me to be entirely false. — Amcaja (talk) 11:22, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah, sorry; I see you did add sources that back of the Cherokee claim. It still sounds ludicrous, since slaves were telling Br'er Rabbit stories up and down the Atlantic seaboard and throughout the south. There are also equally convincing studies that trade the stories back to regions of West Africa and claim the Native Americans adopted the tales from the slaves. What's certain is that the two folklores did merge and mingle. I think what we need to do is provide both stories, with reliable sources to back them up, and state what scholarly consensus is on it, if there is one.

As for your citations, they're better than nothing, but some of them are not reliable, and they all need to give a page number. Could you revisit them and address these points? — Amcaja (talk) 22:40, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Story summary

I'm not American, and I don't really get the gist of the meaning of "briar patch" even after reading the full article. I'd appreciate if someone could contribute a short summary of the plot near the top of the article so that readers without prior knowledge can get the gist of the story quickly, especially how it relates to the expression "briar patch". Goodnewsfortheinsane (talk) 17:11, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

So what does "br'er" mean?

So what does "br'er" mean? This article really isn't very informative. 184.77.159.253 (talk) 03:05, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

 Done Br'er = Brother. Thanks for the note! Binksternet (talk) 03:33, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Bugs Bunny?

Despite not being called such, it does seem he's another instance of Br'er rabbit. Any ideas on what sources for it might exist? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.107.31.220 (talk) 04:28, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

All histories are welcome - Creek - Cherokee - African - or other

Let's remember that all histories are welcome in a Wikipedia article. Each contibutor will research within his, or her, own prejudice. Those who support Cherokee origins no doubt have their bias because their interests or family background. So, too, with Uncle Remus or Creek supporters.

Wikipedia - despite what people think - does not necessarily look for truth ... only verifiability. We must make sure, above all else, that we have references to everything we write.

When people write as an explanation: "There is absolutely no doubt of the Creek origin of the Uncle Remus stories. This was confirmed long ago by Ethnologist John R. Swanton. Harris & Minnie Bulloch lived among the Creeks, but had no contact with Cherokees," there's certainly a strong sense of bias - but also not a single reference. Francis Hannaway 18:56, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Which King George of England is being discussed? There were three kings called George who had jurisdiction in the American colonies, up until independence. Why do contibutors talk about "King George of England" as if he was one person? ... and also, write about him as if he had been a foreign king rather than the king of those lands which eventually became the US? Francis Hannaway (talk) Francis Hannaway 19:47, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Everything in the Creek section is debatable, wrong, or unprovable. There is no way to prove that a story goes back to pre-Contact oral tradition, because obviously there is no attestation. From where exactly comes the idea that everyone in central Georgia has Native American ancestry? Speaking as a folklorist, I would say that the Br'er Rabbit story is a clear example of the confluence of Native American, African, and European traditions. Winter Maiden (talk) 19:27, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Winter Maiden, you are right. The way Wikipedia gets round this lack of first hand evidence is to accept published works that cite such knowledge. You can say that, for example, Mark Twain wrote about the Creek stories in 1893 and cite a reference (he probably didn't - it's just an example). I don't want to teach my granny to suck eggs, and I'm sure you know this already. We can speculate, as long as it's referenced to a published work. What you could do, is put citation needed tags on unreferenced sections. I think that if there were more related content in stories of African origin, a stronger link could be made to African origins. Perhaps the stories are a melting pot of converging concepts and were given a twist to market them by Joel Chandler Harris. I look forward to your further contributions. Francis Hannaway (talk) Francis Hannaway 11:43, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Pronunciation

how do you pronounce Brer?
I've always said "Brayer" HordeFTL (talk) 01:54, 23 July 2010 (UTC) For years I thought it was Briar rabbit, but I'm now thinking this is a way of saying Brother Rabbit,like the way African-Americans say "Br'uh man". Also I wonder if this has something to do with why black people say, "Out yo Rabbit A-- mind!" Just a thought. 96.250.83.177 (talk) 09:14, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

If it's from brother, the original pronunciation must have been [brʌ] bruh. The pronunciation given in the article, /ˈbrɛər/, would have arisen as an erroneous reading of the spelling br'er. Does anyone have a published source to refer to? Linguistatlunch (talk) 21:20, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Roosevelt and African Origins

I am unable to find the stories that Theodore Roosevelt recalled his uncle publishing in Harpers using the Library of Congress, Harpers search which I believe has the full series of Harpers online.

I did find a retelling of the Tar Baby as part of "Bushy and Jack" by Mary Hose: page 662, 'Harper's New Monthly Magazine' Volume 0034 Issue 203 (April 1867) which uses the name "B'r Rabbit".

In the archive at University of Michigan Library, I also found a collection of three of the stories briefly written under the title "Negro Fables": page 505, 'The Riverside magazine for young people' (November 1868) which uses "Br. Rabbit". These stories are unattributed so could conceivably have been by Roosevelt's uncle - perhaps he misremembered the publication?

I'm not sure whether the statements around Roosevelt need correction or some sort of footnote and would welcome a suggestion. It might also be interesting to post links to these stories. Jskaife (talk) 15:07, 11 October 2012 (UTC)