Rabbit Goes Duck Hunting: A Traditional Cherokee Legend

Description

Ji-Stu, the Cherokee trickster rabbit, wakes early one morning and decides to visit his old friend Otter, who lives up the river. Along the way, he sees a huge wood duck sitting on the water and instantly recognises the Chief of All the Wood Ducks, who is surrounded by hundreds of smaller ducks. Ji-Stu hurries to tell Otter, but when they return the great Chief is gone. Otter, who did not believe Ji-Stu’s story in the first place, slips into the water to catch a wood duck, his favourite feast. Ji-Stu decides to catch the Chief as he reappears. Ji-Stu, famous for tricking others, manages to outwit himself. When he catches the Chief of All the Wood Ducks, the Chief tries to drown Ji-Stu and then takes him for a flight the rabbit will never forget! Ji-Stu flies high above the People’s village, hanging on to the Chief for dear life, while two little boys below barely miss him with an arrow. He will see those two boys again — and this time he will need all his skills to escape! This is the fifth of Deborah L. Duvall’s collaborations with Murv Jacob on the Cherokee Grandmother Stories.