Uncle Rabbit and the Wax Doll

Follow the classic tale of the trickster Brer Rabbit in a one-of-a-kind trilingual edition, featuring Nahuatl, Spanish, and English languages alongside traditional amate bark paintings.

Uncle Rabbit has been gazing longingly at a garden across the river where his favorite foods are planted. Finally, he tricks Old Man Crocodile into giving him a ride to the other side of the river, only to find that he has bitten off more than he can chew!

Uncle Rabbit and the Wax Doll beautifully recounts a Nahuatl version of Brer Rabbit, one of the most widespread tales of both the Old and New Worlds, in three languages. Told by master storyteller Silvestre Pantaleón and illustrated on amate bark paper by Inocencio Jiménez, a self‐taught artist from the same village in Guerrero, Mexico, this book tells the story of trickster Uncle Rabbit as he cleverly makes fools out of his eternal adversaries: Old Man Crocodile and Uncle Coyote.

Presented here in Nahuatl alongside English and Spanish translations of the story, Uncle Rabbit and the Wax Doll shares a beloved tale with intercultural meaning alongside unique, detailed bark paintings and a Nahuatl-English glossary.

Silvestre Panteleón, recently deceased, was from the Nahuatl-speaking village of San Augustín Oapan, state of Guerrero, Mexico.

Inocencio Jiménez is a self-taught artist also from San Agustín Oapan. He illustrated Uncle Rabbit and the Wax Doll over the course of 18 months.

Jonathan D. Amith is an independent scholar (anthropologist and linguist) who has studied and documented Nahuatl, Mixtec, and Totonac. He recorded, transcribed, and translated this edition of Uncle Rabbit and the Wax Doll.