Chapter XX 



ANimSM AND FOLK-TALES OF KECENT INTRODUCTION; 

 MIXED FOREIGN AND INDIGENOUS BELIEFS 



The Story of "Brer Rabbit" (362-S62), and other Tales (S63-S64). 



353. Tliere are many stories current of undoubted foreign origin, 

 chiefly African, modified more or less by local conditions. Among 

 these are the celebrated adventures of Brer Rabbit, who, through the 

 Spanish form of the word (conejo) is here known as Koneso (Arawak), 

 or Konehu (Warrau). The Warraus apply the term to any "smart" 

 man, indeed to any knave or rogue who is always outwitting his 

 iieighbors. Both nations claim the hero as their own, the Arawaks 

 even crediting themselves with his long ears, and it was from these 

 two sources that I was able to glean the details given here. 



The Stoky of Koneso (Beer Rabbit) 



353. There was once a Koneso; but ahhough he was a rabljit, he had short ears 

 just like any other person. He traveled about all over the country, and he had 

 ■plenty of children everywhere. Yes; he gave a lot of trouble to the single girls, 

 and upset the harmony of many a married man's home. If the other men aimed 

 at him with a club or with an arrow, it would either glide off or break, and Koneso 

 would laugh. They found they could not kill him, and he continued doing just 

 what he liked. But at last he himself got tired of everybody, and went away to 

 another country. Now, the country he went to was ruled by a nafudi,' who was 

 celebrated as having a very beautiful daughter. Koneso happened to see this lovely 

 woman one day, and forthwith went and asked the father to give her to him for a 

 wife. But the nafudi told him he must first of all bring him two quakes full of alli- 

 gator and camudi eyes. So, Koneso retired to make the quakes, and spent some 

 days in arranging for the manufacture of cassiri. With the cassiri he filled plenty 

 of jugs and brought them down to the waterside, close to the river bank. He next 

 took his bone flute and played pretty music — it was such pretty music that all the 

 alligators and camudis came out of the water to listen to it. He then handed the 

 drinks round in a calabash, made them intoxicated, and while they were all lying 

 dead drunk there, he gouged their eyes out with his finger. Having filled his quakes 

 with their eyes, he hurried back with them to the nafudi, but the latter said, "I 

 can not let anyone like you have my daughter. Hang your impudence! " And with 

 this, he pulled sharply at Koneso's ears.^ But with the pull, Koneso's ears got 

 Btretched and hung down a good way over his neck. UTien Koneso found that he 

 had now got long ears, he became very angry, and told the nafudi he would show 

 him what he could do. Whereupon, he began attempting to take liberties with the 

 pretty daughter, but the more she screamed, the more he laughed; and every stick 

 that the nafudi beat him with got broken immediately it touched his skin. When 

 the nafudi saw that he could not hurt Koneso this way, he told his men to seize him, 



■ 1 Nafudi is the Arawak term for the head of a settlement, for a "boss," and used to be applied to a chief- 

 tain or cacique, in the same sense that it would be and still is applied to the Kinf: or to the Governor. 



2 It is a common trick for the Indians to give a sharp downward tug on their children's ears when the 

 youngsters are naughty or disobedient. 



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