Trickster Rabbit Hunts a Duck

Cherokee

Rabbit was a boastful creature, always stretching the truth about his abilities. Anything another could do, Rabbit boasted he could do it better. He was clever enough to convince most.

“But you can’t swim in my lake and eat fish,” Otter said.

“I swim and eat fish all the time,” Rabbit claimed.

“Well,” said Otter, “I can swim and eat ducks.”

“I swim and eat ducks, too,” claimed Rabbit.

“Aha,” said Otter, “this I must see.”

And so while Otter watched, Rabbit made a noose of bark and dove into the lake. Rabbit tried to swim underwater, like Otter, but nearly drowned. But Rabbit was lucky. He swam near a group of ducks, dove beneath where they paddled, and came up next to one, which he quickly captured with his noose.

“I can take care of rabbit,” said Duck, and he flapped his wings, lifting himself into the sky.

“Perhaps you should release Duck, and confess your shortcomings,” said Otter.

Rabbit refused to confess, instead holding tight to the noose, which was secured around Duck’s neck. Duck flapped, and flapped, and flapped, until he was soaring high above the earth. Rabbit held onto the noose until his strength failed him, and then he fell, landing in a hollow sycamore stump.

Several days later, children were playing outside the hallow stump.

“Help me,” sang Rabbit, “I am inside this tree, if you will cut a door and set me free, you will find I am the prettiest animal you ever did see.”

The children hurried to tell their father. Their father felt sorry for the rabbit, and cut a hole in the stump. When the hole was large enough, Rabbit, who was all talk and no courage, jumped through and ran away.

From Traditional Stories and Foods: An American Indian Remembers, by Joan Leslie Woodruff