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Notes from Below Sea Level
Consider the Possum
This past Wednesday, quartering a sweet Red Delicious Apple (currently only $.65 a pound) and piling the pieces in a thick porcelain bowl I picked up at Goodwill for $.99, I felt a bit cheap and maybe a little stingy—I’ve taken to sometimes picking up small bunches of grapes to add to the apple, but prices are currently prohibitive on my budget. Babe, the possum living under my house, will have to do with the Red Delicious, a few carrot tops, and whatever she finds in the general area. They are facile creatures. And smart. Some Native American cultures honor the possum as teachers of resilience and adaptability, symbols of transformation. In the Australian Aboriginal’s Dreamtime Story of Baiame, the creator god gave us possums from people’s dreams for their cleverness and ability to adapting to new environments. Like I said, facile and smart.
So, I’m not overly worried; these ancient omnivorous marsupials eat nearly anything available: fleas, insects, mice, fallen fruit, seeds, rodent carcasses, snails, and (with loud gusto and obvious delight) cat food. Hence the occasional fruit plate to quell the competition between her and the resident feline strays that get fiercely protective over the store-brand dry food I mete out every evening—my futile attempt to bring a semblance of order to nature’s inherent, brutal chaos.
Most of my neighbors avoid possums, despite their ubiquitous presence here on the southern edges of Louisiana. From what I can deduce, they fear them, but it feels irrational or at least not much thought out. It seems more like a primordial fear of snakes or spiders, not a justified fear like the fear of alligators or bears. Maybe it’s the possum’s look or their teeth, or even that they are creatures of the night. These small animals, though, have a long, interesting history and—though I am not an objective recorder on this—are a healthy addition to a working ecosystem and most rural neighborhoods. They can look vicious, I admit, and might bare their teeth and growl when threatened, but mostly they are docile creatures and more likely to play dead than act aggressively. While I am not promoting them as pets, living alongside them doesn’t present the problems many people imagine.
In the latest issue of Possum Prints, the official newsletter of the Opossum Society of the United States (OSUS), an entire page is dedicated to avoiding rancidity in foods you feed to possums. While feeding any animal rancid food is probably not advisable, I’ve never run across a possum that picky about what it eats nor overly concerned with its state of decay. OSUS is an authority, though, and was formed as a wildlife rehabilitation and educational organization based in Yukon, Oklahoma—a place that has a very rich and interesting history in its own right. From a public-facing angle, the OSUS appears to be a great resource for people dealing with any variety of possum issues and serves to remind us that that are pockets of people interested in preserving and protecting these particular marsupials. [I should add, too, that the OSUS is presently accepting applications for a National Treasurer, if that sort of board position interests you.]
Despite their appearance (and unlike the recently arrived nutria), the possum is not related to the rat. A marsupial (pouched mammal), the possum is directly related to other, more endearing, marsupials such as the koala and the kangaroo, though the possum has a fairly short life cycle in comparison. Besides a one- to two-year life expectancy, gestation is only 11-13 days, after which the joeys—the small, embryonic-looking infants—reside in the jill’s pouch until they are large enough to ride on her back and, still even later, venture out on their own. This truly ancient creature has roots dating back some 65 million years to the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event which wiped out the dinosaurs and made possible the development of mammals and particularly the peradectids, sort of opossum-like animals related to Herpetotheriidae, the sister group of all living marsupials that appears around 30 million years ago. The evolutionary split that would birth our modern marsupials took place long before that, and rampant migration took place between North and South America before those continents separated toward the end of the Cretaceous period.
Those isolated in the South American regions migrated to the then-connected areas of Antartica and Australia. The ancestors of the North American families weren’t so resiliant and died out around 25 million years ago. But the emergence of the Isthmus of Panama allowed two south-bound marsupial families to make it back north, todays Virginia Possum (Didelphis virginiana) and, as far north as Mexico, the Southern Possum (Didelphis marsupialis). The more scientific name, “opossum,” is taken from the Algonquian word “apasum,” meaning “white animal”—to me, at least, an unflattering and generic name for the lone and noble North American example of the nearly 100 world-wide species of known possums. In short, these nocturnal whisps of fur have been with us since the beginning.
Possums play a solid supporting role in American history as well, though their importance might be glossed over in these more racoon-adoring times. The Library of Congress has multiple letters between George Washington and Sir Edward Newenham, an Irish Member of Parliament, discussing the shipment to Sir Edward of two possums. Thomas Jefferson, while serving as the U.S. Minister to France wrote to James Madison requesting possums to present as gifts to naturalists on the continent. Walt Kelly’s widely-distributed politically-nuanced comic strip, Pogo, featured a cast of anthropomorphic characters set in the southeastern (fictional) Okefenokee Swamp, including the title character—an opossum. T.S. Eliot published the poems he wrote to his godchildren under the title Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats in 1939. Since the beginning of the genre, possums have appeared in children’s books (who can resist Holly Goldberg Sloan’s Appleblossom the Possum). The natural science illustrator Angela Boyle collects the work of artists, creators, scientists, and writers that ponder the contours of our natural world in her aptly named four-volume Awesome Possum series. Perhaps these creatures are on a comeback tour, perhaps we are only getting around to appreciating their distinctive nature; either way, it does seem the possum’s reputation is gaining of late.
If you pass east through Mobile, Alabama and take old Highway 3 North at Spanish Fort, you can observe some beautiful, lush low delta country. Continuing up and over through Bay Minette and east past Atmore, you can head south into the Florida panhandle and—with a bit of winding and unexpected turns, eventually crossing under I-10 at the Blue Lake Baptist Church—will eventually reach the only monument (at least that I’m aware of) erected to possums: an odd and very southern testament for the odd little town of Wausau, Florida that has crowned itself Possum Capital of the World. I’m unsure how fierce the competition for the title might have been (only Brasstown, North Carolina has a competing interest), but an article in Roadside America notes that the monument was dedicated August 2, 1982 and celebrates the “town’s special relationship with the marsupial.” The 12-foot high, edifice-like structure is made of solid granite and features a family of possums in a tree. The roadside attraction in a town of fewer than 400 is tucked nearly between the Wausau Pentecostal Holiness Church and the Wausau Assembly of God just past the Wasau United Methodist Church on Washington Street, which may or may not be indicative of the town’s overall fervor over these creatures or if they are seen as an economic opportunity.
Historically, possums and their use and treatment in our developing American culture is, well, complicated. Our 23rd President, Benjamine Harrison, had two pet possums when he occupied the White House, clumsily named Mr. Reciprocity and Mr. Protection (which happened to match the Republican’s tongue-tripping platform of that year: “Protection and reciprocity are twin measures of Republican policy and go hand-in-hand.”).
William Howard Taft later used the possum to shore up part of the Southern vote and subsequently introduced possums to the White House in an effort (ultimately successful) to control an ongoing rat infestation. A popular picture in the Library of Congress shows scores of white men in formal dining wear seated at the President-Elect’s January 15,1909 banquet in Atlanta, Georgia, featuring “possum and taters.” Following the meal, dignitaries of the host—the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce—presented Taft with a small plushy toy possum, which the soon-to-be President dubbed “Billy Possum.” In typical American fashion, the Georgia Billy Possum Company was quickly formed, and thousands of toy possums flooded the market in an effort to displace the popular Teddy-Bear and to make a quick buck. Like Taft’s dismal first year in office, however, the company went bankrupt before Christmas.
The Possum Crisp and Brown served that day is indicative of the cultural importance of possum as part of the Southern diet at the time. Long a staple in meals of both white and African-American southerners, it had fully evolved by the early years of the 20th century as a favored centerpiece of African-American entrees for feast days. Maggie Pogue Johnson, the popular African-American composer and poet, crafted a poem about that specific Black cuisine. While the 1910 poem, “What’s Mo’ Temptin’ to de Palate?” is studied primarily for challenging the male-lead usurpation and in defense of gendered restrictions of writing in dialect, it specifically posits what is more tempting after a long day of work, than to arrive “En see a stewin’ in de stove / A possum crisp en brown, / Wid great big sweet potaters, / A layin’ all aroun’ ….”
From the wilds to our tables to verse to domestication and lore, the possum was not seen as a rodent so much as a source of protein and low-brow legend. No doubt the earliest settlers in the lands of Didelphis virginiana eventually realized that possums are fairly clean animals, continually grooming themselves and devouring ticks that plagued the area. The possum is also immune to most snake venom (save for the coral snake’s) and cannot serve as a carrier of rabies. While any mammal can catch rabies, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the RABV virus appears in less than 1% of possum populations, probably due to their naturally lower body temperature. Given their safe and savory nature, the prehensile tail and opposable thumbs on their hind feet are just an added feature on an already-singular animal and only add to their strangeness.
Recipes containing possum regularly appeared in cookbooks from the late 1800s through the 1950s and it wasn’t unusual to see dishes featured in such publications as The Atlanta Journal, The American Family Cookbook (1954), The Culinary Handbook, Apron Madness: Good Old Fashioned Recipes (1910), and The New American Cookbook (1941). Even Irma Rombauer’s standard Joy of Cooking included notes on cooking possum through its 1985 edition. In Jimmy Carter’s memoir, An Hour Before Daylight, he observes that given the possum’s scavenger-like habits, it is best to capture them live and feed them on clean food and water for several days before preparing and eating them.
So, Taft and his supporters weren’t just having a celebratory feast. They were blatantly riding finely sewn tailcoats in an effort to “connect” with the traditionally poor and marginalized Republican voters of the time. Taft’s feast—solely attended by Lilly-white male southerners and staffed by Black servers—marked a monumental shift in the politics of the American possum, a fitting symbol of a nascent southern strategy. The curators of the Jim Crow Museum have done a wonderful job documenting some of these instances of “othering” within a culture through this intentional association of class and animal or character—the branding by association of entire groups of people. Based at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan, you can go through the collection of anti-Black racial artifacts and trace the use and misuse of “possum” as a touchstone for shiftless and buffoonish, the lazy and dirty caricatures of African Americans.
Only eight years before that Chamber of Commerce gathering, the possum was among the ammunition used in an effort to smear Theodore Roosevelt following his audacious decision to invite his friend, advisor, and then-President of the Tuskegee Institute, Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House. Whites in the south reacted with outright condemnation and unconcealed rage. The Memphis Scimitar proclaimed that the “most damnable outrage which has ever been perpetrated by any citizen of the United States was committed yesterday by the President, when he invited a n----- to dine with him at the White House.” The Governors of Georgia and South Carolina publicly attacked the President for soiling the nation’s house, and Senator Benjamin Tillman (D-SC), saying the quiet part aloud, ranted that the “action of President Roosevelt in entertaining that n----- will necessitate our killing a thousand n------s in the South before they will learn their place again."
Chiding Louisiana politicians specifically, a column in the Iola (Kansas) Register observed that these white politicians were “raising the devil because President Roosevelt ate some sweet taters an’ possum with Booker T. Washington ….” Henry Watterson in The Washington Times dramatically and with a tinge of purple pronounced the position of the segregationist Southern Democrat: “Out in the cold as we may be—shivering as we are and hungry, yea verily and thirsty—yet as we stand around the White House and look in through the windows and see Teddy and Booker hobnobbing over the possum and potatoes, not one of us is disposed to envy either of them ….” No records exist to support the claim that the two friends ate possum, but the social and racial overtones associated with the dish was sweet sustenance for the opposition party.
What happened next, though, is a prank right out of frontier folklore. President Roosevelt, shortly after the luncheon, received an anonymous package of a live possum with a note informing him the animal’s name was Booker Washington. The Fort Mill Times assumed it was a slight to the President and his guest, noting that a “Southern outrage” had been committed “from somewhere in the sparsely settled ex-Confederate section,” where—the paper wryly observed—“the States lately in rebellion are hatching a period of re-Reconstruction.” The Washington Times, in its inimitable and smarmy manner, reported it without a hint of irony: “Mr Roosevelt has received by express from an anonymous donor somewhere in the South a large fat possum. ...Henry Pinckney, the President’s steward, is a South Carolinian and understands the art of cooking possum in savory style.” Of course, the Times showed it was dialed into the latest Washington gossip by adding to the end of the report that the President (anonymously and passively) “is said to be fond of the classic Southern dish of possum and taters.”
Though perhaps short lived, the use of possum as a slur was well understood in its day and still, to some extent, is associated with the poor and communities of color. By the late 20s, the possum’s racial heaviness had ebbed some and its acceptance was expanding with the country. During Herbert Hoover’s term, a possum was found wandering the White House grounds and Hoover, an avid animal lover, adopted him as a pet. President Hoover named him “Billy Opossum” and kept him in the pen once occupied by President Coolidge’s raccoon, Rebecca. Like Billy in his cage, possums are popularly believed to be solitary animals. Just lately, however, researchers at the Federal University of Pernambuco in Recife, Brazil, have documented group living and male/female partnerships in some possums. Perhaps the carved relief of the happy possum family on the Wausau’s Possum Monument isn’t as zoologically inaccurate as one might have assumed at first glance.
As far as I know, the possum living under my study floor is alone, the single living descendent of Baby, the heavily pregnant possum that showed up following a storm not long after I moved in almost a decade ago. I got her food, eventually set up a water source, and still later buried her in my side yard after finding her killed by a passing car. In any event, this morning when I went out to my patio for quiet, coffee, and a cigarette, I noticed Babe working on the last of the apple quarters in the fruit bowl. Even in the darkness, when our eyes met, I could see the silent reproach in her countenance, as if asking, “why no grapes?”
(October, 2024)
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