Snapping Turtle took all the water. He sat in his seat atop the spring, keeping the water for himself.
Rabbit came and said, "I need some water."
"You can't have any water!" shouted Snapping Turtle.
"But I'm very thirsty!" pleaded Rabbit.
"No!" shouted Snapping Turtle.
"I'd be so grateful!" Rabbit begged.
"Didn't you hear me?" shouted Snapping Turtle. "No!"
Rabbit kept asking, and Snapping Turtle kept saying "No! No!"
All the while, Rabbit scratched and scratched the ground, making a ditch under Snapping Turtle's seat until the water came flowing out.
That's why water flows everywhere today: thanks to Rabbit.
This is a story from the Catawba people; you can see the original Catawba text here in Catawba Texts, published by Frank Speck (more about Speck's work with Catawba storytellers). Here's how the story opens:
This story was told by Mrs. Margaret Brown, a Catawba woman who was born around 1835; she died in 1922. There is a fascinating back-and-forth between the Native peoples of the southeast and the African American storytellers: both rabbit (hare) and turtle (tortoise) are important characters in Native American stories and in African American stories too; I really like how, in this story, rabbit is able to fool the turtle: when rabbit and turtle face off in a folktale, you can never be sure who will come out on top!
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