Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 18.djvu/851

This page has been validated.
PLANTATION FOLK-LORE.
831

ing the Jaguar down some fruit, slips off the tree, and, falling on the Jaguar's head, kills him. In "Uncle Remus," while the Rabbit and Terrapin are calling at Miss Meadows's, the Fox comes in on them unawares, and the Terrapin, who has been put up on a shelf, rolls off in his agitation, falls on the head of the Fox, and stuns him a moment, so that Brer Rabbit escapes.

These are all the stories in Hartt which have full or partial parallels in "Uncle Remus"; there are, however, several additional ones in Smith that belong here.

V. "Story of the Jaguar who wanted to marry the Deer's Daughter, but was cut out by the Cotia" (Smith, p. 547; "Riverside Magazine," 1868, p. 505; "Lippincott's," 1877, p. 753; and "Uncle Remus," p. 34). The Cotia brags that he can ride the Jaguar, and the Deer promises to give him his daughter if he does. The Cotia pretends to be ill, and the Jaguar charitably takes him on his back, and even ties him on with a root, and gives him a switch. When the Cotia finds himself master of the situation, he whips the Jaguar unmercifully, and rides him by the Deer's house. In "Lippincott" the Rabbit and Wolf, in the other versions the Rabbit and Fox, are the parties concerned.

VI. In the conclusion of Smith's version, p. 549, the Cotia slipped off the Jaguar's back, and hid in a hole before the latter could catch him. The Jaguar set an Owl to watch the hole, but the Cotia peeped out and threw a handful of sand in the Owl's face and ran away. A somewhat similar incident is found in "Uncle Remus," p. 39 ("Riverside Magazine," 1868, p. 508, III, at end), but, instead of throwing sand in the Buzzard's eyes, the Rabbit makes him believe that there is a squirrel in the tree in which the Rabbit is imprisoned, and, when the Buzzard rushes around to catch it, the Rabbit escapes.

VII. "Story of the Cotia who played Tricks on the Jaguar and outwitted him" (Smith, p. 549, at end). The Jaguar, enraged at the tricks played upon him by the Cotia, caught the latter and tied him to a tree, intending to drown him in the morning. The Cotia expressed his joy at this determination, and remarked that he would be very sad if he was going to be thrown into a brier-bush. The Jaguar, of course, changed his mind and threw his enemy into a brier-bush; whereat the Cotia ran away laughing. The same incident precisely occurs in "Uncle Remus," p. 29 ("Riverside Magazine," 1868, p. 505, I), with the Fox and the Rabbit, who begs, "fer de Lord's sake, don't fling me in dat brier-patch!" The Fox is again deceived, and the Rabbit, as he escapes unhurt, cries out, "Bred en bawn in a brier-patch, Brer Fox!"

VIII. A variant of the last story( Smith, pp. 552, 554) relates that, to be avenged on the Cotia, the Lion and Jaguar guarded a spring, so that the Cotia could get nothing to drink. After a time the Cotia became very thirsty, and, seeing a man pass with a jar on his head, said to himself, "I will see if I can get some water from