Mus be some udder rabbit

Is it time for Brer Rabbit to save the world?

I am reading 'The Adventure of English' by Melvyn Bragg , which is very nourishing, and have come across a chapter which has re-introduced me to the wonder of Brer Rabbit.

When I was a child, my father introduced me to the Brer Rabbit stories, which are the best example of 19th Century southern black language, a mixture of Pidgin, Gullah and English, with an interesting grammar and word order. I recall my father trying to find a version of the stories in the vernacular, as all the books in UK bookshops seemed to have been translated into standard English, removing much of their charm. The stories tell of a rabbit who is cunning, witty and inventive, and descend directly from the stories of animal tricksters who featured in Animal folklore. As a child, I remember thinking these were a lot more exciting than Beatrix Potter.

The stories are told in the language of the slaves, which principally came from Gullah, a conglomorate of several African languages combined with English. Common words from Gullah include 'banana, voodoo, zebra, banjo, yam and gumbo.

The Brer Rabbit stories were narrated by a character called Uncle Remus, but in reality as told by Joel Chandler Harris and Charles C. Jones, Jr. Here is the exceprt that Melvyn Bragg uses in his book:

(To help you read this, imagine you are in the deep south, sitting out on the veranda, perhaps with a blues guitar in your lap.)

"Buh Wolf and Buh Rabbit, dem bin nabur. De dry drout come. Ebry ting stew up. Water scarce. Buh Wolf dig one spring fuh git water. Buh Rabbit, him too lazy an too schemy fuh wuk fuh isself. Eh pen pon lib off tarruh people. Ebry day, wen Buh Wolf yent du watch um, eh slip to Buh Wolf spring, an eh fill him calabash long water an cah um to eh house fuh cook long and fuh drink,. Buh Wolf see Buh Rabbit track, but eh couldn't ketch um duh tief de water.
One day eh meet Buh Rabbit in de big road, an ax um how eh mek out fuh water. Buh Rabbit say him no casion fuh hunt water: him lib off de jew on de grass. Buh Wolf quire: 'Enty you blan tek water outer my spring?' Buh Rabbit say: 'Me yent.' Buh Wolf say: 'You yis, enty me see you track?' Buh Rabbit mek answer: 'Yent me gwine to you spring. Mus be some udder rabbit. Me nebber been nigh you spring. Me dunno way you spring day.' Buh Wolf no question um no more; but eh know say eh bin Buh Rabbit fuh true, an eh fix plan fuh ketch um."

The stories have a controversial history, and the fact they were collected (some say appropriated) by a white man made some feel that the 'ling' of the plantations was being cleaned up and absorbed by mainstream white culture, at the expense of the black culture from where they came. This may be so, but the fact remains that this oral tradition may never have survived to this day if it had not been collated by somebody, and the colour of the collector should 'relly mek no dif'rence.'

That said, Disney did not cover themselves in glory when they made they made 'Song of the South', which was a rendering of the Brer Rabbit stories set in some kind of mythical age when black people toiled in the plantations for free (but not as slaves, apparently). Uncle Remus was played by James Baskett, a Black man, who was the very first live actor ever hired by Disney. Allegedly, though, Baskett was unable to attend the film's premiere in Atlanta because no hotel would give him a room. Read more on the Brer Rabbit controversy at:

http://www.mupress.org/webpages/books/brasch.html
http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/sots.htm

It seems extraordinary that in all the horror and inhumanity of slavery, one of the worst atrocities committed in modern history, came these stories of wit and humour, telling the tale of a protagonist beating the odds and always coming out on top.

Incidentally, I read this week that a council in the UK has instructed officials that the word 'nitty gritty' should not be used as it may give offence to black people. 'nitty gritty', it has been claimed, originated as a term for the grit that accumulated in the bilges of slave ships. However, many dispute this, and the word may have been a long-standing naval term.

The Ku Klux Klan gave English the word 'Bulldozer', originally 'bull-dose', meaning a dose large enough for a bull. It was a dose of whipping administered to black people, often fatally.

On balance, I may stop using the word 'bulldozer', but I am going to keep reading Brer Rabbit.