Bark Canoe Lore: Pipe Smoking Rabbit Symbol

[mso489]

From John McPhee's nonfiction book The Survival of the Bark Canoe: The Malecite Indian tribes

marked the bow of their canoes on one side with a lynx and the other side with the image of a

rabbit smoking a pipe. The rabbit represented the Malecite tribe's calmness in the face of their

enemies, the rabbit smoking its pipe in proximity of its arch enemy the lynx.

 

[cobguy]

That's pretty cool ... confident rabbit!

 

[misterlowercase]

Interesting stuff.

http://nmai.si.edu/exhibitions/infinityofnations/woodlands/251662.html
:
The motif showed up in a movie called The Edge too:

:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utJfhfjOasE

:

Anthony Hopkins’ character was Charles Morse.

He has an encyclopedic knowledge and demonstrates it in an early scene, when the lodge owner bets Charles five dollars he doesn’t know what is illustrated on the back of a wooden paddle. Charles, seeing the panther carved on the front of the paddle, offers the answer: “A rabbit smoking a pipe.”
The other characters are amazed at his acumen. When the lodge owner asks Charles whether he knows the significance of the illustration, Charles responds: “The rabbit is not afraid, because he knows he’s smarter than the panther.” This Indian proverb foreshadows the rest of the film's action. In the ending scene, Charles and the lodge owner revisit the proverb, which now has a life-changing meaning for Charles.

It's a good movie I thought.

 

[warren]

Fascinating!

 

[mso489]

Great images of the rabbit with its pipe, which the book does not include but only

describes. Also, the note on the movie with Anthony Hopkins, one of my favorite

actors. Just shake the tree here at Forums and all kinds of wonderful things fall out.

I copied the images and put them, hard copy, in my calendar/journal/archives.

 

[Chasing Embers]

Being of native descent, I see another tattoo coming on.

 

[misterlowercase]

Picture of a Passamaquoddy woman (Susan Neptune) smoking a pipe,

taken during the Maine Centennial, June 28-July 5, 1920.

 

[momeerphil]

A young pipe carver in California uses a rabbit head as his logo, but his rabbit is not smoking a pipe.

 

[danielplainview]

I measure my work productivity in pipes also. I try to smoke a pipe every hour at work.

Now that I think about it, I don't get much work done.

 

[cobguy]

Being of native descent, I see another tattoo coming on.

That would be cool ... what clan/tribe are you descended from?

 

[Chasing Embers]

Maternal grandparents-Shawnee.

 

[samanden]

Chris Morgan's stamp is a rabbit smoking a pipe. Great logo and great pipes.

 

[shaintiques]

That is very cool!

 

[mso489]

I have to admit, the pipe smoking rabbit makes an unusual and worthy tattoo. I seriously considered

a tattoo back when it was mostly a military and Navy thing, not much middle class landlubber interest

at all. Maybe an anchor and a rose, but decided I couldn't live with one piece of art for years. Maybe

don't look so good on elderly men anyway. This design has a great story with it. My late wife was

1/8 Tuscarora, I believe -- beautiful high cheek bones and garnet eyes.