Readers Comments. This audio rendition of "Nights with Uncle Remus" by Joel Chandler Harris has been undertaken with a good deal of love and respect . However I can not say there wasn't a certain amount of hesitation on my part because of the cultural sensitivities current in 2007 regarding the use of what we are calling the "N word". In fact just yesterday I heard on the news that the NAACP was to be ritually burying it for all time. I have had to stop and ask myself how I should proceed with the project. Should I change the wording, leave instances blank or "bleep" them out? How do I feel about this issue? What is served by overlaying 21st century protocol on a work of literature that is from the 19th century? At this point I have decided to proceed with an objective reading of the tales. Leaving the language of the time intact and trusting those who "read" this along with me to find the correct spirit in which to hear it. This also applies to my imperfect rendering of the Gullah dialect which I have done my best to express as though a person is talking in a language every bit as real and true as any other language used by anyone. And certainly not in the spirit of a Minstrel show for the amusement of a deluded sense of superiority. This goal is, I feel, also that of the author. - B.R.McKay 7/7/2007 Uncle Remus: Social Context and Ramifications Joel Chandler Harris - comments on and examples of his work. (Editors note: Please see the entry below "North American Black English" for my opinion on the commentaries found at this site.) http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/remus/contents.html On July 20, 1879 an undersized thirty-year-old journalist from Atlanta known as Joe Harris began a journey from relative obscurity to interregional fame. On that day, the Atlanta Constitution published the young copy editor's "Story of Mr. Rabbit and Mr. Fox as told by Uncle Remus." Within months, magazines across the country were reprinting his tales, and after more than 1,000 written requests for a collection, the first Uncle Remus book was published in November, 1880. ... At the time, Harris said his purpose was not ethnology, or folklore analysis, but simply documentation. He doubted that his stories and character sketches would have any lasting historical value. He was wrong. North American Black English Many links here pertaining to American black dialect. Included is a link to several analyses of the stories by an as far as I can tell unnamed "scholar/s" or possibly by the editors cited as Melissa Murray and Dominic Perella. In reading these critiques which make a very heavy handed effort at overlaying racial commentary onto the tales, I am convinced that they should not be read in this manner. These stories seem to me to be not much more or or much less than archtypal "trickster" tales, inherited orally from an ancient culture. Whether one is entertained in the hearing of them is beside the point. They are not particularly contrived in a conscious way but rather their source and effect is deeply subterranean. B.R.McKay = 2007-07-06 http://www.google.com/Top/Science/Social_Sciences/Linguistics/Languages/Natural/Pidgins_and_Creoles/English_Based/North_American_Black_English/ Brief biography of Joel Chandler Harris. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. http://college.cengage.com/english/lauter/heath/4e/students/author_pages/late_nineteenth/harris_jo.html Harris was not unaware of the psychological implications of the stories he retold; he knew why the slaves, with few or no means at hand for effective physical resistance, celebrated the successes of weak but clever creatures like Brer Tarrypin and Brer Rabbit over the stronger but slower Brer Fox, Brer Bear, and Brer Wolf. He never told the stories to his own children, because in so many of them the punishments doled out to the smaller creatures' enemies (boiling, skinning alive, and burning) are so brutal. Nonetheless, in essays and rare public appearances he persisted in depicting the African American as gentle, compassionate, and eager for reconciliation with whites. The Uncle Remus Bookstore http://www.uncleremus.com/bookstore.html Full Text of "Nights with Uncle Remus". Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26429 American Folklore Stories - From other sources. http://www.americanfolklore.net/brer-rabbit.html Brer ("Brother") Rabbit is a trickster character in folktales of African, African-American, and Native American Culture. Brer Rabbit is the consummate trickster, who typically matches wits with Brer Fox, whom he always bests. The Native American tribes of the eastern seaboard of the United States also have a tradition of incorporating the Rabbit as a trickster in their myths and legends. Wikipedia Article on the roots in Cherokee and African myth. Also, interesting mention of an earlier but un-memorable collection printed in Harper Magazine by Robert Roosevelt the uncle of Theodore Roosevelt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brer_Rabbit Br'er Rabbit (also spelled Bre'r Rabbit or Brer Rabbit or Bruh Rabbit) is a central figure in the Uncle Remus stories of the Southern United States....Although Joel Chandler Harris collected materials for his famous series of books featuring the character Br'er Rabbit in the 1870s, the Br'er Rabbit cycle had been recorded earlier among the Cherokees. The "tar baby" story was printed in an 1845 edition of the Cherokee Advocate three years before Joel Chandler Harris was born. ... The stories can also be traced back to trickster figures in Africa, particularly the hare that figures prominently in the storytelling traditions in Western, Central and Southern Africa. These tales continue to be part of the traditional folklore of numerous peoples throughout those regions. In the Akan traditions of West Africa, the trickster is usually the spider (see Anansi), though the plots of spider tales are often identical to those of rabbit stories. Mr. Fox and Miss Goose
Brother Fox catches Mr. Horse
Brother Rabbit and the Little Girl
How Brother Fox was too Smart
Brother Rabbit's Astonishing Prank
Brother Rabbit secures a Mansion
Mr. Lion hunts for Mr. Man
The Story of the Pigs
Mr. Benjamin Ram and his Wonderful Fiddle
Brother Rabbit's Riddle
How Mr. Rooster lost his Dinner
Brother Rabbit breaks up a Party
Brother Fox
Brer Rabbit
and King Deer's Daughter
Brother Terrapin deceives Brother Buzzard
Brother Fox covets the Quills
How Brother Fox failed to get his Grapes
Brother Fox figures as an Incendiary
A Dream and a Story
The Moon in the Mill-Pond
Brother Rabbit takes some Exercise
Why Brother Bear has no Tail
How Brother Rabbit frightened his Neighbors
Mr. Man has some Meat
How Brother Rabbit got the Meat
African Jack
Why the Alligator's Back is Rough
Brother Wolf says Grace
Spirits
Seen and Unseen
A Ghost Story
Brother Rabbit and his Famous Foot
"In some Lady's Garden"
Brother 'Possum gets in Trouble
Why the Guinea-fowls are Speckled
Brother Rabbit's Love-charm
Brother Rabbit submits to a Test
Brother Wolf falls a Victim
Brother Rabbit and the Mosquitoes
The Pimmerly Plum
Brer Rabbit gets the Provisions
"Cutta Cord-La!"
Aunt Tempy's Story
The Fire-Test
The Cunning Snake
How Brother Fox was too Smart
Brother Wolf gets in a Warm Place
Brother Wolf still in Trouble
Brer Rabbit lays in his Beef Supply
Brother Rabbit and Mr. Wildcat
Mr. Benjamin Ram Defends Himself
Brother Rabbit pretends to be Poisoned
More Trouble for Brother Wolf
Brother Rabbit outdoes Mr. Man
Brother Rabbit takes a Walk
Old Grinny-Granny Wolf
How Wattle Weasel was Caught
Brother Rabbit ties Mr. Lion
Mr. Lion's Sad Predicament
The Origin of the Ocean
Brother Rabbit gets Brother Fox's Dinner
How the Bear nursed the Little Alligators
Why Mr. Dog runs Brother Rabbit
Brother Wolf and the Horned Cattle
Brother Fox and the White Muscadines
Mr. Hawk and Brother Buzzard
Mr. Hawk and Brother Rabbit
The Wise Bird and the Foolish Bird
Old Brother Terrapin gets some Fish
Brother Fox makes a Narrow Escape
Brother Fox's Fish Trap
Brother Rabbit rescues Brother Terrapin. The Night before Christmas