How to catch a rabbit
How to catch a rabbit
#18—A story about rabbits, ferrets and football.
Welcome to Mind Flexing, your weekly thought expedition to everywhere and anywhere. Strap on your boots (or put your feet up), take a deep breath, and let’s get flexing.
The Bunnies. It’s not exactly the sort of football name that stokes fear in an opponent. No one flees from cute little bunnies, not like they would a tiger or a shark. Even a sea eagle and toothy eel give rise to a degree of caution. And I’ve run from a rooster. But bunnies? Most footy fans don’t raise an eyebrow at why the South Sydney Rabbitohs would be associated with rabbits, though I suppose you could joke that they give a good thumping. Since 1908, generations have grown up hearing the name The Rabbitohs and, as often is the case with things we are used to, it’s just accepted.
The Redcliffe Dolphins? I can’t explain that one. Not scary at all. But The Bunnies, I can explain, because despite the colloquial nickname, they’re not actually bunnies; rabbitohs are altogether quite different. The problem is, younger generations have no idea what a rabbitoh is.
Rabbitohs were once very common. They were rabbit hunters—hawkers of days past when life was hard and meat was scarce and expensive. The name rabbitoh evolved in Australia, where the hunters hawked their catches through the streets calling, “Rabbit-oh, rabbit-oh,” and so naturally, rabbitohs they became.
Feeding a nation
My grandfather, Brian, likes rabbit meat. Not that it’s easy to come by these days; our wealthier society has no need for its gamey taste and, if not cooked just right, tough texture. But if my grandfather sees it—or offal or brains—on a menu, he will always order it for the nostalgic memory it evokes. The sensory experience of food has a way of reviving things stored deep within, and for my grandfather, those are memories of his mother’s cooking. She knew how to cook rabbit.
In the early 1940s, as war ravaged the world and food was dealt out in rations, Brian, just a boy at the time, would go rabbiting with his father through the paddocks that once surrounded Parramatta. My great-grandfather, James, was quite an opportunistic fellow. He was an illegal bookmaker, a toll collector, a drover, a factory worker, and for a while during the war, a rabbitoh.
In the days before Calicivirus was released as a bioagent, wild rabbits were plentiful and cheap. Though small, they were a lifeline for a population living off ration tickets and anyone who got hold of one from a street hawker could put meat on the table and use their ticket to purchase some other necessity.
My great-grandfather worked shifts at a tyre factory six days a week and went rabbit hunting with a group of men between. Some weekends, little Brian went with him.
They walked from Parramatta out to the rolling farmland around Westmead, Dundas and North Rocks, where rabbit warrens were abundant along the farm boundaries. Those farms have long since disappeared, replaced by urban sprawl and, in recent years, a growing number of high rises. But back in the days before urbanisation, they set off on their long walks carrying a box wrapped in chicken wire containing the secret to catching rabbits: ferrets.
My grandfather says they had two ferrets; ‘little thieves’ their Latin etymology suggests. To catch the rabbits, all entrances and exits to the warren were found and covered with nets before releasing the ferrets inside to ‘ferret’ them out.
They may look cute, but ferrets are vicious little hunters, and just the right size for terrorising rabbits. The rabbits were chased out and caught, often 10 to 15 per warren. Then, they were skinned and sold for two bob a pair, which was two shillings and equivalent to about 20 cents. The pelts could fetch a little more. Most importantly, there was food on the table.
It was a very efficient hunting strategy, but now and then, Brian says a problem arose. If there were kittens in the warren, the ferrets stayed and feasted like little vampires, drinking only the blood. Then, satisfied, they stayed in the warren. When such an inconvenience occurred, the men had to attempt to dig the ferrets out, and if that couldn’t be done, they had to leave and come back the following day to find them. Eventually, the ferrets would need to resurface in search of food.
Remembering the rabbitohs
Such was the life of a rabbitoh, a social necessity that helped carry the population through two world wars and The Great Depression. Slowly, as economic conditions improved, the need for them slipped away, and with it went our collective memory of them. Except, for a football team—the South Sydney Rabbitohs—popularly called The Bunnies after the white rabbit on their jersey.
There’s no written record about why South’s became known as The Rabbitohs, but the oral story that survived, and seems plausible, is that many of the players would go rabbiting to earn money on the side of playing football. I recall reading, many years ago, on a sign somewhere in the vicinity of Redfern Oval, that the men would head up to the sand dunes of La Perouse then return to Redfern to hawk their catch. Some versions of the story say the players would frequently turn up to games with shirts stained in rabbit blood, hence the colour red in their jersey.
Thirteen rabbitohs, stained in blood. Now that’s something that would have stoked fear in the opposition.
Things I’ve enjoyed reading on Substack this week
3 Ways to Keep a Naturalist’s Notebook—Jillian Hess
A beautiful stroll through some famous nature journals, including Emily Dickinson, Jane Goodall, Beatrix Potter and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
A Cambridge Notebook #6—Ann Kennedy Smith
Ann’s insights into Cambridge are always delightful. Her writing has almost convinced me to move there.
There is a morale to this antidote—Kate Morgan Reade
A roundup of commonly misused words.
Thank you for Mind Flexing with me. If you enjoyed this essay, please subscribe, comment below, click the ❤️ button, or share it with someone you think would appreciate it.
I’ll be back next week. Until then, keep 💪.
Alia, what a great historical and social tale; I really enjoyed reading it! White shirts pre-stained with blood is a psychological edge! And then there is the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog...with big gnashing teeth. Seriously, though, there is evidence of Medieval illuminated manuscripts depicting vicious rabbits, with fascinating reasons behind the practice:
"Far from being sweet and adorable, rabbits in the margins and illuminated letters of these texts (which were entirely made and illustrated by hand before the invention of the printing press in the mid-15th century) are frequently shown wielding swords, axes, and bows and arrows as they fight against—and sometimes kill—those who often hunted them.
These kinds of medieval images in the margins, known as drolleries, were characterized by outlandish scenes that often reversed the dynamics of the real world. In the Middle Ages, people liked to portray scenarios in illustrations as the opposite of how they were in reality. This gave rise to the expression “the world turned upside down” when referring to culture of this era.
In these manuscripts, the rabbits, which were traditionally regarded as timid and gentle—and frequently hunted by humans and their hounds—instead become vicious killers themselves."
See the link for illustrations, too!
https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/medieval-killer-rabbits
Excellent, excellent article!