The Possum's Bare Tail
Embarrassed Possum
Image Source: Buffalo
Middle School: Why the Possum's Tail is Bare, a Cherokee Legend
The moonlight gleamed softly into the edges of the burrow as the mother rabbit smiled down at her children. The tiny rabbits hopped around, over, and under one another, occasionally biting at each other playfully. After a few minutes of this play, the mother rabbit called her children closer to her and said,
“It’s story time, little ones.” The commotion within the burrow came to a stop as the little rabbits came up to her and formed a small pile of white tails, long ears, and bright eyes.
“What story do we get to hear this time, mama, who is it about?"
“Shhh” said their mother, and immediately the pile of bunnies became silent. “Now,” said the mother rabbit, “If you will be very quiet and listen well, you will learn what you need to survive in this world – and how to be cunning like the Great Rabbit who came before us.”
The little rabbits were silent and listening closely, their dark eyes sparkling as they awaited the story their mother was about to tell. Taking a deep breath and half-closing her eyes, their mother began.
“The old ones tell us that while the Great Rabbit was beautiful and truly the greatest of all animals, there was one animal who claimed to be more beautiful than any other – the Possum, who had a beautiful tail of long, silky black fur.
He would always take every chance he could to show off his tail, and he took very good care of it, cleaning it until it sparkled and then dancing around, waving it at all the other animals and singing,
“My tail is so fine! See how it shines and gleams! Surely I have the best tail in the world!”
Well, as is understandable, the Great Rabbit was very upset that Possum was always boasting about his pretty tail, and decided to take care of his boasting once and for all!
Now, children, there was a very, very big party and dance being planned that all of the animals were going to have, and the Great Rabbit was given the duty of delivering invitations – which, as you know, was the perfect opportunity to set up his prank against Possum!
The Great Rabbit knew Cricket, the barber, would help him, and got him to agree to dress Possum’s tail for the dance – of course, he also told him just how to do it, since Rabbit had special plans in mind for this hair trimming!
Well, of course, Rabbit was very busy, and had many other things to do, so he left Cricket to his work, and the small insect went over to Possum’s house the next morning to prepare him for the party. The Possum thought that his tail was going to be more beautiful than ever – with Rabbit’s plan, however, that wouldn’t be the case!
Cricket dressed Possum’s tail, all right, but while he wrapped a pretty red cord around it – in order to protect the beautiful hair there until the dance that night – he was also trimming it off!
Possum didn’t know this of course, and at the big party that night he did his usual dance and show off routine, taking the cord off his tail and dancing around, praising his oh-so-perfect tail.
Rabbit and everyone else gathered there laughed at him for a very long time, and it took him a while to see that when he had pulled that string off of his tail, the hair came with it, and his gorgeous tail was bald!
Possum was so embarrassed that he immediately fell over and grinned – and of course, Possum’s pride and joy in life was taken from him by our very own ancestor, the Great Rabbit, who was so very cunning and clever.”
The little rabbits were nearly asleep, but had held on to wakefulness as long as they could in order to hear the end of the story. Now yawning, the small rabbits started drifting into sleep one by one, until at last only the smallest rabbit lay awake. He was a most unusual little rabbit with a gleam to his coat that none of his many siblings had. He blinked at his mother with wide-open brown eyes and said quite clearly,
“Mama, I’m going to be just like the Great Rabbit someday, I will!”
His mother chuckled and licked him behind the ears - making him squirm away from her- and said,
“I’m sure you will. Now go to sleep.”
Author’s Note: My changes to this story were rather minimal, as I wanted it to retain to feel of the original myths and traditions of the Cherokee people. I wanted this retelling to be like a different generation was telling it, but keeping the essentials the same – in fact, my biggest changes to the story were making Rabbits character a bit more prominent, and shifting the focus off of Possum’s individual vanity to how that vanity related to Rabbit. The original version of the story is a bit shorter, and Rabbit, while the primary instigator of Possum’s humiliation, is barely mentioned. In my version of the story, Rabbit is clearly given the credit for what happened to Possum, primarily because the tale is told by Rabbits, who most certainly see Rabbit in the best light possible! All of the tales in my storybook will be seen through the viewpoints of the rabbits, so Rabbit will undoubtedly get a fairly positive opinion from them regardless – but at this point in time, the baby rabbits in the frame tale clearly see Rabbit as one who can do no wrong – while in later tales in my storybook, they will find out that this is not actually the case!
Mooney, James (1900) "Why the Possum's Tail is Bare", from "Myths of the Cherokee" Web Source