All the animals suffered with thirst. Food was scarce. Finally the animals assembled a council.
"We must think of some way to keep us from dying of thirst and hunger." They dicussed the situation at some length. Finally, the council reached agreement. They decided that each animal should cut off the tips of his or her ears and extract the fat. All this fat would be collected and sold.
The animals would then take the money and use it to buy a hoe which would be used to dig a well so they would at least have water.
"That is a workable plan!" they all agreed. Even Hare with his long ears agreed.
One by one, they cut their ears and collected the fat. When they asked Hare to take his turn, he refused.
The other animals were shocked at Hare's behavior.
All the other other animals puchased a hoe and went to the lagoon. Hare was not there. They dug and dug until at last they found water. Hare did not help dig.
"Ah," they rejoiced, "now we have water and can ease our thirst." Each of the animals then took a turn to drink.
When the sun stood high in the sky, some animals rested in the shade near the well.
Hare brought a calabash and went to the dry lagoon.
A calabash is also known as a "bottle gourd" or "long melon" when it is harvested, hollowed out, and dried, it can be used as a bottle for carrying water. Sometimes large calabashes are also hollowed and dried to be used as percussion instruments.
Hare dragged the empty calabash on dry ground, and it made an awful loud noise, "Chan-gan-gan-gan, chan-gan-gan-gan."
The animals were frightened and ran to tell the others that they heard something terrible towards the well.
While they were gone, Hare loped down to the well and had a good long drink and put some water in his calabash. Since the animals hadn't yet come back, Hare decided that he would also bathe, and in doing so he muddied the water. Hare didn't care. He just laughted at his own cleverness for having got plenty of water.
When the other animals returned to the well, they found the water gotten by their efforts was muddied.
"Who?" they cried, "Who has muddied our well? We will find out who has spoilt it!"
After discussing the situation, they made a dummy-image and spread sticky bird lime over it.
Then when the sun stood high in the sky, all the other animals hid in the bush and waited to see what would happen.
Soon they had heard the awful noise again,"Chan-gan-gan-gan, chan-gan-gan-gan." This time the animals stayed hidden in the bush.
Hare spied the image, and since he did not know this person, he went over and politely greeted it.
Hare did not suspect any animals were hidden nearby.
The image did not speak, but sat mute. Hare again spoke to the image, and again greeted the image. Still, the image sat mute.
Insulted, Hare said, "Take care--or I will slap you!"
The image said nothing.
Hare slapped the image hard and his right hand stuck fast. Angrily, Hare slapped the image with his left hand. The left hand stuck fast.
Infuriated, Hare yelled, "Ha! Ha! I'll kick you hard with my feet."
Hare kicked the image hard with both his feet, but it did no good. Both feet became stuck fast.
He could not get away, but he squirmed and yelled. He butted his head against the image and it stuck fast too.
The other animals came out and saw Hare stuck fast with the calabash nearby.
"Shame! Shame! Shame on you, Hare!" They all cried.
One of the animals spoke, "Did you not agree to cut off your ears with us, and then did not!?!" Another said, "Yes, then you come to muddy the water when you did not help to dig the well!?!"
They took sticks and beat Hare long and hard for his behavior.
When they had finished beating Hare, they said, "We ought to kill you for your crime in a drought, but we will not today."
They let him go and Hare fled into the grass. Now Hare must hide, and always run fast.
2012 retold by Myth Woodling
Comments
In "Roots and Stuff," I explained under the entry for rabbit, that this animal was known as a trickster in both Native American Indian stories and African stories.
Well known African tricksters include "Hare" and "Ananasi," who is alternatively a spider or a man. African stories of Hare and Ananasy were preserved by those enslaved and carried to the USA and the Caribean. These stories clearly are an important part of African-American heritage. Hare, from the Ewe, became Br'er Rabbit and Ananasi, from the Ashanti, became Aunt Nancy in the Gullah folktales. Some English speaking folklorists have used the word rabbit in translating stories about Hare.
This African folktale is from the Ewe peoples. The Ewe are a people located in the southeast corner of Ghana, Africa. They have stories not of a rabbit who is a trickster, but a hare who is a trickster.
Many Americans will recognize "Why Hare Must Run" as being extremely similar to Joel Chandler Harris's The Tar-Baby (1904), involving Br'er Rabbit--only birdlime is used instead of tar.
In the Aarne-Thompson index, it is tale type 175, "The Tarbaby and the Rabbit." This type of story can be found in several collections of African American folklore. It is best read aloud by a skilled story teller.
You tube: Uncle Remus' "Wonderful Tar Baby Story."
Both the African Hare and the USA Br'er Rabbit are tricksters.
Tricksters play an critical role in folktales and mythology. They are clever, sly, deceitful, often impulsive, and frequently amoral.
Sometimes their pranks are benificial to others as well as themselves, and sometimes their pranks are just mean.
A lot of ambivalence surrounds the figure of the trickster. Many times the chaos introduced by the trickster's own cleverness often is a
catalyst in the narrative.
Sometimes the trickster succeeds because of his cleverness and sometimes the trickster is tricked.
In these two stories, the USA Br'er Rabbit fared better than the African Hare.
Hare's cleverness allowed him to get water without loosing the tips of his long ears or digging a well. Yet, his impulsive
and volatile nature also allowed him to be duped into striking a sticky figure.
Br'er Rabbit's impulsive and volatile nature also caused him to be duped into striking a sticky figure, however it was
Br'er Rabbit's cleverness that ultimately allowed him to escape unharmed from Br'er Fox.
Incidentally, the stories of "Why Hare Must Run" and "The Tar-Baby" have roots in India. Heidi Anne Heiner on the
SurLaLune Fairy Tales commented about the orginal Jataka tale,
The
The Demon With the Matted Hair.
The fivefold attack on the Demon and the Tar Baby is so preposterously ludicrous that it cannot have been independently
invented, and we must therefore assume that they are casually connected, and the existence of the variant in South Africa
clinches the matter, and gives us a landing-stage between India and America. There can be little doubt that the Jataka of
Prince Five Weapons came to Africa, possibly by Buddhist missionaries, spread among the negroes, and then took ship in
the holds of slavers for the New World, where it is to be found in fuller form than any yet discovered in the home of its birth.
I say Buddhist missionaries, because there is a certain amount of evidence that the negroes have Buddhistic symbols among
them, and we can only explain the identification of Brer Rabbit with Prince Five Weapons, and so with Buddha himself, by
supposing the change to have originated among Buddhists, where it would be quite natural.
This story has spread world wide in oral lore. In different retellings, the sticky figure has been made out of numerous
substances: clay, pitch, tar, wax, gum, etc.
--Heiner, May 8, 2005