to embody the quaint and homely humor which was his most
prominent characteristic; if it does not suggest a certain
picturesque sensitiveness--a curious exaltation of mind and
temperament not to be defined by words--then I have reproduced
the form of the dialect merely, and not the essence, and my
attempt may be accounted a failure. At any rate, I trust I have
been successful in presenting what must be, at least to a large
portion of American readers, a new and by no means unattractive
phase of negro character--a phase which may be considered a
curiously sympathetic supplement to Mrs. Stowe's wonderful
defense of slavery as it existed in the South. Mrs. Stowe, let me
hasten to say, attacked the possibilities of slavery with all the
eloquence of genius; but the same genius painted the portrait of
the Southern slave-owner, and defended him.
A number of the plantation legends originally appeared in the
columns of a daily newspaper--The Atlanta Constitution and in
that shape they attracted the attention of various gentlemen who
were kind enough to suggest that they would prove to be valuable
contributions to myth-literature. It is but fair to say that
ethnological considerations formed no part of the undertaking
which has resulted in the publication of this volume. Professor
J. W. Powell, of the Smithsonian Institution, who is engaged in
an investigation of the mythology of the North American Indians,
informs me that some of Uncle Remus's stories appear in a number
of different languages, and in various modified forms, among the
Indians; and he is of the opinion that they are borrowed by the
negroes from the red-men. But this, to say the least, is
extremely doubtful, since another investigator (Mr. Herbert H.
Smith, author of Brazil and the Amazons) has met with some of
these stories among tribes of South American Indians, and one in
particular he has traced to India, and as far east as Siam. Mr.
Smith has been kind enough to send me the proof-sheets of his
chapter on The Myths and Folk-Lore of the Amazonian Indians, in
|