Looking for origins of "craney-crow"

I'm looking for the origin of the term or nick-name "Craney-Crow." There are other spellings, but this turns up as the name of a character in the "Uncle Remus" stories. I'm wondering if it originated elsewhere, was part of an earlier slave tale upon which Harris based his stories, or if it goes further back, maybe to an African folktale. Thank you!

Solution 1:

Joel Chandler Harris, the author/compiler/reteller of the Uncle Remus stories, was born in 1848. But by the time he was six years old, published mentions of the term "craney crow" had already appeared. One early instance, from "Marion Harland" [Mary Virginia Terhune], Alone is a passing mention in the context of entertainments for small children:

But Elle's friends came early, and she had no time or higher thoughts than filling small mouths with bread and butter, "run-the-thimble," the vexed question of "how many miles to Babylon?" and "Chicken-me-chicken-me-craney-crow;" pastimes, whose barbarous names caused the refined juveniles of this precocious '53, to join their gloved hands in thanksgiving, that their lot was not cast in those times!

From the same year, Eliza Leslie, The American Girl's Book: Or, Occupation for Play Hours (1854) lays out the rules for the hiding game "The Hen and Chickens," which begin as follows:

THE HEN AND CHICKENS

One of the girls who personates a Fox takes her seat on the floor in the middle of the room. The others, having the eldest at the head, form a procession holding each other's skirts in both hands a walk round the Fox, the foremost girl who performs the Hen saying,

"Chickany chickany craney crow,/ I went to the well to wash my toe,/ And when I came back a chicken was dead."

A later book, Henry Bolton, The Counting-Out Rhymes of Children: Their Antiquity, Origin, and Wide Distribution (1888) offers these specimens of the term:

846. Chickany, chickany, craney crow,/ I went to the well to wash my toe;/ When I came back one of my chicks was gone!/ What time is it, old witch?

J. B. B.

Said to be used in S[outh] C[arolina] for "counting out."

847. Hippiney, pippiney, craney crow,/ The cat's asleep, the crow's awake./ It's time to give my chickens some meat./ Down in the cellar and get a good supper;/ Up again, up again! What time is it, old buzzard?

P. B. P., Amenia, N[ew] Y[ork]

...

871. Chicky, cricky, craney, crow,/ I went to the well to wash my toe;/ High and low, out you go,/ Chicky, cricky, craney, crow.

G. B. D. Indiana.

Used in a special game. Compare rhyme 846.

I don't know whether the phrase "craney crow" is older than the counting games where it was used. But that usage is certainly older than the character Old Craney Crow as told by Harris.

An Elephind newspapper database search turns up an instance from 1848. From "Children Half Price," in the Lancaster [Pennsylvania] Intelligencer (May 23, 1848), evidently originally published in the New Orleans [Louisiana] Delta as part of trial testimony:

[Q.] What do you mean by a child?

Ans.—A young female human being.

[Q.] What constitutes the difference between a young lady and a young female human being?

Ans.—Why, a young female human being wears pinafores, long frocks, check aprons, eats large quantities of bread and butter, giggles at boys, hugs wax dolls, and plays "puss in the corner" and "chickemy, chickemy, craney crow"—whilst a young lady carries her hair done up behind, reads Byron and Bulwer, wears balzarines from Madame Voizin's, eschews pantalettes, casts her eyes down at the sight of young gentlemen, has a small appetite, and generally, when there's room enough, sits at the first table.