The Lodge totem you NEVER see

Name - if you will, please - the top Lodge totems - especially the ones, that get depicted on OA flaps. There's the ubiquitous turtle, deer, eagle, bear & bison - beavers are nominally prevalent too, as are thunderbirds. Any other animal? Squirrel, chipmunk, coyote/wolf, & fish/whale/shark pop up occasionally, too, and all can be found around America (except thunderbirds of course, discounting those made in Dearborn, MI).

But what animal - which lives almost everywhere - has NEVER been depicted on a flap, though (late model NOAC & Jambo flaps are instantly discounted, because they're more gimmicky, than representative)? Why - it's everybody's FAVORITE - the jackrabbit!

I have a few thoughts on this that I thought I'd bounce off the gang - let me know if I'm on the right track. I think there are SEVERAL reasons for this, MOST of which were socio-cultural reasons in the 1930's, 40, & 50's. I should also point out, that, being NO expert in Native American beliefs, as regards the jackrabbit, I'm GUESSING that it doesn't exactly rank terribly HIGH on the scale of animals associated with mystical prowess in the pantheon of their beliefs. Perhaps as a foodstuff, but, I shall leave that to those with more expertise on the matter.

First of all, the rabbit hardly strikes fear in the heart of an opponent (Monty Python's rabbit aside...), which is also why you never see them as college mascots, either. From 1930 to 1960, when most Lodges were either being established, or establishing an identity for their patches/flaps, take a moment & think about what rabbits were most closely associated with in our American culture;

1) The Easter Bunny - self-explanatory
2) Bugs Bunny (a cool rabbit in ANY age, but as COUNTER cultural in the 30's & 40's, as the Rat Fink was in the 60's, or Fritz the Cat in the 70's, and COUNTER culture was NOT a thing to be associated with Scouting during the Great Depression & WWII years [and some would say so even today - that is, if Scouting isn't already counter to what passes for today's 'culture!']!!! He may have been an icon to Scouts OF that age, but wearing him on a uniform would have been HIGHLY frowned upon!!!).
3) Harvey the Rabbit - closely associated with mental illness in the film of the same name, this too, was a BAD concept for a totem!
4) Playboy Magazine - D'OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

As you can see, the venerable rabbit got around in the early/middle part of the 20th century!

While there is nothing inherently problematic with a rabbit totem, I think the problem wasn't so much the rodentia, as it was the socio-cultural use of the rabbit in some iconoclastic ways, that happened to converge, & coincide, with the development of the Order of the Arrow in Scouting. Ergo, we have never had a Lodge with a rabbit totem, and probably won't in the foreseeable future!

Bob McCanless
Pittsburgh