The matter is referred to the Hyena, who says to the Man: “If you were bitten, what would it matter?” But the Man proposed to consult other wise people before being bit, and after a while they met the Jackal. The case was laid before him. The Jackal said he would not believe that the Snake could be covered by a stone so that she could not rise, unless be saw it with his two eyes. The Snake submitted to the test, and when she was covered by the stone the Jackal advised the Man to go away and leave her. Now, there is not only a variant of this story current among the Southern negroes (which is given in the present volume), where Brother Rabbit takes the place of the Man, Brother Wolf the place of the Snake, and Brother Terrapin the place of the Jackal, but Dr. Couto De Magalhães17 gives in modern Tupi, a story where the Fox or Opossum finds a Jaguar in a hole. He helps the Jaguar out, and the latter then threatens to eat him. The Fox or Opossum proposes to lay the matter before a wise man who is passing by, with the result that the Jaguar is placed back in the hole and left there.

With respect to the Tortoise myths, and other animal stories gathered in the Amazons, by Professor Hartt, and Mr. Herbert Smith, it may be said that all or nearly all of them, have their variants among the negroes of the Southern plantations. This would constitute a very curious fact if the matter were left where Professor Hartt left it when his monograph was written. In that monograph 18 he says: “The myths I have placed on record in this little paper have, without doubt, a wide currency on the Amazonas, but I have found them only among the Indian population, and they are all collected in the Lingua Geral. All my attempts to obtain myths from the negroes on the Amazonas proved failures. Dr. Couto de Magalhães, who has recently followed me in these researches, has had the same experience. The probability, therefore, seems to be that the myths are indigenous, but I do not yet consider the case proven.” Professor Hartt lived to prove just the contrary; but, unfortunately, he did not live to publish the result of his investigations.Mr. Orville A. Derby, a friend of Professor Hartt, writes as follows from Rio de Janeiro:—

DEAR SIR—In reading the preface to Uncle Remus,19 it occurred to me that an observation made by my late friend Professor Charles Fred. Hartt, would be of interest to you.

At the time of the publication of his Amazonian Tortoise Myths, Professor Hartt was in doubt whether to regard the myths of the Amazonian Indians as indigenous or introduced from Africa. To this question he devoted a great deal of attention, making a careful and, for a long time, fruitless search among the Africans of this city for some one who could give undoubted African myths. Finally he had the good fortune to find an intelligent English-speaking Mina black, whose only knowledge of Portuguese was a very few words which he had picked up during the short time he had been in this country, a circumstance which strongly confirms his statement that the myths related by him were really brought from Africa. From this man Professor Hartt obtained variants of all or nearly all of the best known Brazilian animal myths and convinced himself that this class is not native to this country. The spread of these myths among the Amazonian Indians is readily explained by the intimate association of the two races for over two hundred years, the talking character of the myths, and the Indian’s love for stories of this class, in which he naturally introduces the animals familiar to him . . .

Yours truly,

 

ORVILLE A. DERBY.

 

 

 

Caixa em Correio, No. 721,
Rio de Janeiro.

Those who are best acquainted with the spirit, movement, and motive of African legends will accept Mr. Derby’s statement as conclusive. It has been suspected even by Professor J. W. Powell, of the Smithsonian Institution, that the Southern negroes obtained their myths and legends from the Indians, but it is impossible to adduce in support of such a theory a scintilla of evidence that cannot be used in support of just the opposite theory—namely: that the Indians borrowed their stories from the negroes. The truth seems to be that, while both the Indians and the negroes have stories peculiar to their widely different races and temperaments, and to their widely different ideas of humor, the Indians have not hesitated to borrow from the negroes.