Types ATU0051 Lion's Share
Motifs J0811.1 Lion's share
A0924 Origin of ocean: from jumping across creek or river
Notes
See Bantu / Xhosa stories with lion and hare who go hunting
"lion keeps missing the game, then when the other animal hits it, lion insists that he brought it down"
Dundes has an African story where dog and leopard talk about the sounds they make while sleeping
There are four (!) Creek versions of this story... in two the Creek does become an ocean. See also Mooney for a Cherokee story where Rabbit takes Otter to "The Place Where It Rains Fire" ... and in another Cherokee story, Rabbit and Deer have jumping contest and a stream becomes a large river
Baer concludes "While the initial situation and the early episodes of the tale have their parallels and probably origin in Africa, Rabbit's revenge is paralleled in American Indian tales. ... This tale is an excellent example of how a variant is created in performance, with familiar motifs from other known tales. Cutting the string may even have been an invention of Harris's informant."
===========
I'm not sure comparing traditional "lion's share" stories even makes sense; it will be interesting to see how widely applied that ATU type is... I far prefer the idea of the lion not even being a compentent hunter to start with as here.
No comments:
Post a Comment