View topic - Gogetch

Thanks to the research of Tappan Adney and the artistic skills of Passamaquoddy canoe builder Tomah Joseph (and a carbon paper tracing and semi-shaky paint job) the latest shop rebuild (Explorer Solo) now sports a replica of the precursor to the Mad River Confident Rabbit logo.

The book The Bark and Skin Boats of North America has a photograph of a canoe built by Tomah Joseph with an end decoration that is the ancestor of MRC’s logo, right down to the curving ferns on either side and pipe-smoking bunny (figures 78 and 79, page 87).

I had noticed how the MRC logo has changed over the years as the bunny got chubbier and seemed to lose interest in his pipe. I noticed too that the Tomah Joseph bunny is a skinny magician, and he’s not just holding his pipe, he’s tokin’, confident that he can best the lynx.

From the book: The Indian’s mark on his canoe…is not a signature to be read by anyone. The mark may, of course, be identified as to what it represents, but unless it is known as the mark used by a certain man it cannot be “read”. Any mark could be used by an Indian, either because it had some connection with his activities or habits, or because he “likes it”.

Using some choices from Adney’s sketches I combined a few symbols to create my own gogetch; the mark of Peter Polchies (a stone pipe; I am a pipe smoker) over a sun and crescent moon (Joe Ellis mark of “this canoe was finished on a new moon”; but for me representing paddling daytime and nighttime, as well as a tattoo on my right arm) resting on a double bladed paddle (altered from the mark of Noel Polchies and representing my preferred mode of propulsion).

(Excellent book BTW, and Adney gives further sketches and photographs examples of various gogetch)

A couple of confident rabbits.

The one I traced on the bow of my Explorer:

http://community.webshots.com/photo/549 ... 2505ZfmPTd

and another variation:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b315/ ... towlin.jpg

Anyone know of photo or drawings of other confident rabbits?