Manuel (“Rabbit Hunter”) Moore, Saunook, Haywood County, North Carolina
SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE TO LISTEN TO THE AUDIO VERSION
Manuel Moore was living at Saunook, in Haywood County, North Carolina when recorded in 1939. As a CCC enrollee, he would probably have been in his early to mid 20s.
[transcripption copyrigh Michael Montgomery and Paul Reed, 2017][M = Manuel Moore; I = Interviewer Bill Moore]
M: What luck you had, ah that’s no fishing tale at all, I went a-fishing the other day, I tried ever kind of a bait in the world, I couldn’t get nothing that they’d strike, so I happened to think away back there in olden times when the Indians was here, they, I, he just took, and I drawed me a big frog on the side of a tree, and I had me three tow sacks, so I just put my hand over the s- t- uh frog till I got my sack up to the tree, and I went and opened my sack and took my hand off the frog and all three of my sacks filled up right there, so I took my knife and cut the frog off to keep them jumping, from killing theirselves agin the tree, always in the lake.
I: Well, why didn’t you just smear a little mud over that frog?
M: There wasn’t no mud handy where I was at.