Rattlerabbit - [Fearsome Critter]

Rattlerabbit - [Fearsome Critter | Artifact] - (Latin: "Lepus Casteneta")

• About this Critter: A mysterious mythical hare that was once found across Americas southwest, it has the front end of a black rabbit and the rear-end like that of an rattlesnakes. Supposedly it was quite shy, only ever seen frittering about on the dawn of new years mornings. Whether it attacked using its noisy tail or if it bit with sharp teeth like a cornered rabbit is not known: in any case it seems that the creature had a diet consisting of either decadent daisy's or perhaps delicious dandelions? (perhaps it simply collected them, who's to say.) – Not much else is known about it, as it was only spoken of by silly scholars and imaginative archaeologists, this "Critter" was earliest depicted on an ancient, thousand year old bowl; which was once found in the Mimbres Valley, New Mexico & was only ever given a name thousands of years after the fact!

• History: This "Critter" (read with heavy quotation marks) was first named as such in a 1938 article titled "And some people believe them!" by Ronald L Ives, a prolific southwestern geographer from Arizona. – The article discusses both American Tall Tales, Fearsome Critters and the oral history of such, also mentioned in this article is the southwestern 'tall tale' of "Rot-Gut Pete" among several better known, now staple critters such as the "Tripodero" the "Rackabore", and the "Whirling Whimpus," – The Rattlerabbit is mentioned towards the end of the article where in Ives rather plainly describes an archaeological dig/excavation that happened a few years prior: Where in a rather prominent archaeologist unearthed a 1000 year old grave within in Mimbres Valley, New Mexico. – The "Rattlerabbit" was one of many found among several sacred bowls with surreal looking animals painted on them; Ives attached an example [clipping below] of said bowls in question and in a nutshell; said that "Such surrealist depictions like this where no doubt examples of mythical creatures, and as such are good examples of ancient versions of contemporary 'tall tales'. 

[clipping from the 1938 paper]

Rather interestingly, The excavation story was actually a real event which happened during the mid-1920's – You can read a lot more about the bowls and the actual Archaeology, history behind them over on archaeology.org's 2013 article on the topic over here. – For brevity's sake: these Mimbres Bowls where artifacts produced by natives living in the Southwest from the late 10th to early 12th century A.D. The small black-on-white ceramics are known for the unique geometric imagery found on their interiors, portraits of everyday scenes, local wildlife, and yes, even some mythical creatures! – Today, you can browse through a huge gallery of these Mimbres Artifacts over on Pinterest. [I was even able find an HD version of the same bowl! [below] - it is without a doubt that this bit was included as a way to get the readers interested in the history behind the bowls, rather than to necessarily create an entirely new myth; but never the less, through word of mouth and broken telephone, in a way, it eventually sort of did! ...

[HD version of the bowl - image source: Mimbres artifacts on Pinterest today, the bowl is probably somewhere still in the Morris collection]

...Much Later in 1979; Ive's article was quoted by Professor Walker D Wyman in his "Mythical creatures of the USA and Canada" [1979] - in which Wyman gives the critter a customary (tongue in cheek) Latin name: "Lepus casteneta" - ["Lepus" which is Latin for "Hare", and "Castaneta" which is of course, plain Spanish for "Castanet" (an instrument which if used fast enough, sounds an awful lot like rattlesnake!) – The remainder of Wyman's entry goes as follows:

"Rattlerabbit (Lepus casteneta)

       Down in the Mimbre valley of the Southwest lived a strange animal 1,000 years ago. Knowledge about it is persevered only in pottery made by these ancient Indians. it has the body of a rabbit down to the waist and the tail of a rattlesnake. Whether it struck with the tail or bit like a rabbit is not known. Obviously, it is an extinct species of mythical animal since contemporary indians have no knowledge of its existance and no sightings have been reported by imaginative scholars anywhere."

[Clipping from my personal copy of the book]

Today, Wymans books are quite hard to get a hold of (The 1978 reprint is especially rare.) – Copies are basically non existant and it has yet to be properly archived. – So from there, the critters name was preserved on the Lumberwoods museums "Fearsomecritters.org" Routunda – [A Long list of over 300 Critters names and with sources given, (but very little, if any additional context.) Sometime between 2006-2019: The curator added a rather short lymric included in "Lenwoods :Lexicon of lumberwoods lore" [2019] – Lens one liner poem goes as follows:

"RATTLERRABBIT: A regular rabbit with a rudder resembling a rattlesnake’s rump."

That poem, like many included was at one point copy pasted to the cryptidz wiki & other such dubious sources which unintentionally caused them to 'pollinate online.' (Rather frustratingly whoever shared them, almost never did so with credit! causing much confusion to those trying to research the obscure topics and creature names.) - However; said 'articles' containing this poem seem to have eventually been removed from said fandomwiki's (likely for not giving enough info!) Fair enough, a one liner poem does not a cryptid make, end of day. Unlike Cryptids however, Critters are not necessarily bound by "proof." or necessarily a need to be "real." 

I digress, regardless, one can only say so much about the Rattlerabbit without writing a "rambling deep dive" style article (much like the one you're reading now!) diving head first into history of it with abandon for how interesting the article may or may not be to its readers. (I hope it was!) – Most other contempoary sources & illustrations on the topic often Shorten the story even further; usually only going so far as to say, "well, it's quite mysterious!" – to which i can only say: "indeed!" – As beyond this, I honestly have little more to add!

[1934 photograph of Ronald L Ives - Img source: Journal of the Southwest 2019.]

• see also: Lagamorphs, Hodag

[Art sticker by @samkalensky part of my fearsome critters collection of stickers follow and support for many more!]