The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #72476   Message #1250694
Posted By: GUEST,Azizi
18-Aug-04 - 04:00 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Mr. Rabbit, Mr. Rabbit
Subject: Lyr Add: RABBIT HASH
I've searched but can't find a 1970s or 1980s journal article about rabbit songs that I remember reading a couple of years ago. The article lamented the fact that so few African American children and adults know the words and movements to the rabbit songs that are a part of our heritage. This lamentation can be expanded to include non-African Americans.

The first example of "Every Little Soul Must Shine" is from my Cocojams website and I stand by the comments that I made two years ago.

Although they don't include the chorus "Every little soul must shine", you may be interested in the text of two other Rabbit songs, both from Thomas W. Talley's 1922 classic Negro Folk Songs:

RABBIT HASH
Dere wus a big ole rabbit
Dat had a mighty habit
A-settin' in my gyardin,
An'eatin' all my cabbith
I hit' im wid a mallet,
I tapped 'im wid a maul.
Sich anudder rabbit hash,
You's never tasted 'tall.

RABBIT SOUP
Rabbit soup! Rabbit sop!
Rabbit e't my tunnup top.

Rabbbit hop, tabbit jump,
Rabbit hide behin' dat stump.

Rabbit stop, twelve o'clock,
Killed dat rabbit wid a rock.

Rabbit's mine. Rabbit's skin.'
Dress 'im off an' take 'im in.

Rabbit's on! Dance an' whoop!
Makin' a pot o' rabbit soup!

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It's fine to take songs out of their original context and sing them just for fun and pleasure. But I hope people are aware that these references to food and the considerable number of references to food found in other antebellum enslaved African American songs document the insufficent food rations that they were given and their need to suplement their food supply sometimes by hunting {without guns}and sometimes by "other means".