#coneys

Eating around Detroit, Michigan, Fall of 2010. Photos by Brad Duncan.

I have a fascination with rabbits, lagomorphs, rabbit symbolism, and how rabbits stand for various things in so many different cultures. From thinking about the Nahuatl "Ometochtli" to the far-traveling three-eared circle of rabbits symbol, to the relationship between coney and cunny and burrows of the usual and the lascivious sorts.

Here are a number of links to rabbits in history, myths, and tales.

"In pagan and early Christian art, rabbit hunts often symbolize sex. But Vivian Mann, Morris and Eva Feld chair of Judaica at the Jewish Museum, insisted that rabbits in the Haggadot do not symbolize sexuality in the context of a hunt scene."

"‘Twas coming on for noon by this time, and Nick’s steps were slower than they had been, and his mind dwelt more on bread and ale than on cony-catchers and villains."

And of course, here's art I commed of Jack Rabbot and Michael "Robby" Robunnyvitch.

Rabbits, unlike hares, are not indigenous to the United Kingdom. Whilst there is some archaeological evidence that rabbits were eaten in Romano-Britain – in 2001 the remains of a rabbit bearing marks suggestive of butchering was found in an early Roman rubbish tip in Lynford in Norfolk and another was found on the site of a Roman villa at Beddingham in Sussex – it is generally thought that they…