A Patch Of Old Snow

Sticky fake baby used to entrap Br'er Rabbit

The Tar-Babe is the second of the Uncle Remus stories published in 1881; it is virtually a doll made of tar and turpentine used past the villainous Br'er Fob to entrap Br'er Rabbit. The more that Br'er Rabbit fights the Tar-Baby, the more entangled he becomes.

In modern usage, tar-baby refers to a problematic situation that is only aggravated by boosted involvement with it.^[ane]

Publication history [edit]

Br'er Rabbit attacking the Tar-Baby, 1895 illustration

A story originally published in Harper'south Weekly by Robert Roosevelt,^{[ volume & issue needed ]} features Br'er Fox, who constructs a doll out of a lump of tar and dresses information technology with some dress. When Br'er Rabbit comes along, he addresses the tar "baby" amiably, but receives no response. Br'er Rabbit becomes offended past what he perceives as the tar baby's lack of manners, punches it and, in doing so, becomes stuck. The more Br'er Rabbit punches and kicks the tar baby out of rage, the worse he gets stuck.

Now that Br'er Rabbit is stuck, Br'er Fox ponders how to dispose of him. The helpless only cunning Br'er Rabbit pleads, "Do anything you want with me – roas' me, hang me, skin me, drown me – merely please, Br'er Fob, don't fling me in dat bramble-patch", prompting the sadistic Br'er Flim-flam to practice exactly that because he gullibly believes information technology will inflict the maximum pain on Br'er Rabbit. However, as rabbits are at home in thickets like the brier-patch, the resourceful Br'er Rabbit escapes.

Years later Joel Chandler Harris wrote of the Tar-Baby in his Uncle Remus stories.^[ii]

[edit]

Variations on the tar-baby legend are found in the folklore of more than than one civilisation. In the Journal of American Folklore, Aurelio M. Espinosa discussed diverse unlike motifs within 267 versions of the tar-baby story that were ostensibly 'in his possession'.^[3] Espinosa used the being of similar motifs to argue that the tar baby story and hundreds of other myths throughout the world, despite the significant variations between them, originate from a single ancient Indian myth.^[4] The next year, Archer Taylor added a listing of tar baby stories from more sources effectually the world, citing scholarly claims of its earliest origins in India and Islamic republic of iran.^[five] Espinosa later published documentation on tar baby stories from a diversity of language communities around the world.^[6]

Anthropologist Elsie Clews Parsons compiled an extensive list of references of the Tar Babe stories, from North American, Latin American and African publications on sociology.^[7]

A very similar West African tale is told of the mythical hero Anansi the Spider. In this version, Anansi creates a wooden doll and covers it over with glue, then puts a plate of yams in its lap, in club to capture the she-fairy Mmoatia (sometimes described as an "elf" or "dwarf"). Mmoatia takes the bait and eats the yams, but grows aroused when the doll does not respond and strikes it, becoming stuck in the procedure.^{[ citation needed ]}

From The Bahamas, the Tar-Baby story was published by The Periodical of American Folklore in the year 1891 in Some Tales from Bahama Folk-Lore by Charles Lincoln Edwards. Edwards had collected the stories from Green Turtle Cay, Abaco in the summer of 1888. In the tale, B' Rabby refused to dig for water, and didn't assist grow the field. He tricks B' Lizard and B' Bouki while they were standing watch by the water and the field. The other animals got tired of his tricks, got together and created a Tar Baby. B' Rabby was defenseless by Tar Baby and the other animals who wanted to throw him into the bounding main simply he talked them into throwing him into a bush-league. They threw B' Rabby into the bush and he got away.^[8]

In a variant recorded in Jamaica, Anansi himself was once similarly trapped with a tar-baby made by the eldest son of Mrs. Anansi, after Anansi pretended to exist dead in order to steal her peas.^[9] In a Castilian linguistic communication version told in the mountainous parts of Colombia, an unnamed rabbit is trapped by the Muñeco de Brea (tar doll). A Buddhist myth tells of Prince V-weapons (the Future Buddha) who encounters the ogre Mucilaginous-Hair in a woods.^[10] ^[eleven] ^[12]

The tar-baby theme is nowadays in the folklore of various tribes of Meso-America and of South America: it is found in such stories^[xiii] equally the Nahuatl (of United mexican states) "Lazy Boy and Little Rabbit" (González Casanova 1946, pp. 55–67), Pipil (of Republic of el salvador) "Rabbit and Petty Fox" (Schultes 1977, pp. 113–116), and Palenquero (of Colombia) "Rabbit, Toad, and Tiger" (Patiño Rosselli 1983, pp. 224–229). In United mexican states, the tar babe story is also found amongst Mixtec,^[14] Zapotec,^[15] and Popoluca.^[sixteen] ^[17] In Northward America, the tale appears in White Mountain Apache lore as "Coyote Fights a Lump of Pitch".^[18] In this story, white men are said to have erected the pitch-human that ensnares Coyote.^{[ citation needed ]}

According to James Mooney in "Myths of the Cherokee",^[19] the tar-baby story may have been influenced in America by the Cherokee "Tar Wolf" story, considered unlikely to have been derived from like African stories: "Some of these animate being stories are common to widely separated [Native American] tribes amongst whom there can be no suspicion of [African] influences. Thus the famous "tar baby" story has variants, non only amidst the Cherokee, but also in New Mexico, Washington [State], and southern Alaska—wherever, in fact, the pine supplies enough gum to be molded into a ball for [Native American] uses".^{[ citation needed ]}

In the Tar Wolf story, the animals were thirsty during a dry spell, and agreed to dig a well. The lazy rabbit refused to aid dig, and and then had no right to drink from the well. But she was thirsty, and stole from the well at night. The other animals fashioned a wolf out of tar and placed it near the well to scare the thief. The rabbit was scared at first, but when the tar wolf did not respond to her questions, she struck it and was held fast. And so she struggled with it and became and so ensnared that she could not motion. The side by side forenoon, the animals discovered the rabbit and proposed various means of killing her, such every bit cutting her head off, and the rabbit responded to each idea saying that it would not harm her. And then an animal suggested throwing the rabbit into the thicket to die. At this, the rabbit protested vigorously and pleaded for her life. The animals threw the rabbit into the thicket. The rabbit then gave a whoop and bounded away, calling out to the other animals "This is where I alive!"^{[ citation needed ]}

Idiomatic references [edit]

The story has given rise to two American English language idioms. References to Br'er Rabbit'southward feigned protestations such as "delight don't fling me in dat brier-patch" refer to guilefully seeking something past pretending to protestation, with a "briar patch" frequently meaning a more advantageous state of affairs or environment for one of the parties.^[20]

The term tar baby has come to refer to a problem that is exacerbated by attempts to struggle with it, or past extension to a situation in which mere contact can lead to becoming inextricably involved.^[one]

Racist interpretation [edit]

Although the term "tar baby" is documented every bit coming from a folktale of African origin, its modern pregnant in America is different. Many consider tar baby to be a pejorative term for African Americans.^[21] The Oxford English Dictionary mentions tar baby as "a contemptuous term for a blackness person",^[22] and the subscription version as well mentions "a derogatory term for a Black (U.S.) or a Maori (N.Z.)".^[1] ^[23]

Several United States politicians—including presidential political party nominees John Kerry, John McCain, Mitt Romney^[24]—have been criticized by civil rights leaders, the media, and fellow politicians for using the "tar babe" metaphor.^[23] ^[25] An article in The New Commonwealth argued that people are "unaware that some consider it to have a 2d meaning every bit a slur" and it "is an obscure slur, non even known to exist so by a substantial proportion of the population". It continued that, "those who experience that tar baby 's status as a slur is patently obvious are judging from the fact that it sounds like a racial slur".^[26]

See likewise [edit]

Cautionary tale
Reverse psychology
Wicked trouble

References [edit]

^ ^a ^b ^c "tar baby". Oxford English language Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford Academy Press. (Subscription or participating establishment membership required.)
^ "Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings". Project Gutenberg. 2000-08-01. Retrieved 2010-05-25 .
^ Espinosa, A. (1943). A new classification of the fundamental elements of the tar-baby story on the basis of 2 hundred and threescore-seven versions. Journal of American Folklore, 56, pp. 31–37 as cited in Campbell, J. (1949). The Hero with a K Faces. New York, New York: MJF Books, 87. ISBN ane-56731-120-2.
^ Espinosa, A. 'More Notes on Origin and History of the Tar-Baby Story', Sociology Vol. 49, No. 2 (1938) 179.
^ 1944. The Tarbaby Again. Journal of the American Oriental Society Vol. 64, No. i pp. 4–vii.
^ pp. 58–60. Aurelio Macedonio Espinosa. 1990. The Folklore of Spain in the American Southwest: Traditional Spanish Folk Literature in Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
^ Parsons, Elsie Worthington Clews. Folk-lore of the Antilles, French And English. Part 3. New York: American Folk-lore Society. 1943. pp. 48-51.
^ Some Tales from Bahama Folk-Lore by Charles Lincoln Edwards. pp. 47–54
^ "'Anansi and the Tar-infant', Jamaican Anansi Stories". Sacred-texts.com. 1924. Retrieved 2010-07-03 .
^ Campbell, J. (1949). The Hero with a Thousand Faces. New York, New York: MJF Books, pp. 85–89.
^ Pilpay (2008). Charles Dudley Warner (ed.). A Library of the World's Best Literature – Ancient and Modern – Vol. XXIX. Cosimo, Inc. pp. 11460–11463. ISBN9781605202235.
^ Eugene Watson Burlingame, ed. (1994). Buddhist Parables. Mortilal Banarsidass. pp. 41–44. ISBN8120807383.
^ Enrique Margery: "The Tar-Baby Motif", p. 9. In :- Latin American Indian Literatures Periodical, Vol. half-dozen (1990), pp. 1–13
^ Dyk, Anne, ed. 1959. "Tarbaby." Mixteco texts, pp. 33–44. (Linguistic Series 3.) Norman: Summer Institute of Linguistics of the University of Oklahoma.
^ Stubblefield, Carol and Morris Stubblefield, compilers. 1994. Rabbit and Coyote. Mitla Zapotec texts, pp. 61–102. (Folklore texts in Mexican Indian languages no. 3. Language Data, Amerindian Series 12.) Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
^ Clark, Lawrence East. 1961. Rabbit and Coyote. Sayula Popoluca texts, with grammatical outline, pp. 147–175. (Linguistic Series half-dozen.) Norman: Summer Found of Linguistics of the Academy of Oklahoma.
^ Foster, George McClelland. Sierra popoluca folklore and beliefs. Vol. 42. University of California Printing, 1945.
^ Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz, eds. 1984. In American Indian Myths and Legends, pp. 359–361. New York: Pantheon.
^ James Mooney, "Myths of the Cherokee", Dover 1995, pp. 271–273, 232–236, 450. Reprinted from a Government Printing Part publication of 1900. Also, "The Rabbit And The Tar Wolf" Cherokee story
^ Prahlad, Anand (eight August 2016). African American Folklore: An Encyclopedia for Students: An Encyclopedia for Students. ABC-CLIO. pp. 43–44. ISBN978-1-61069-930-iii.
^ "Romney Apologizes For 'Tar Babe'"". CBS News. July 31, 2006.
^ "tar babe". Lexico Uk English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on April thirty, 2020.
^ ^a ^b Coates, Ta-Neishi Paul (Baronial i, 2006). "Why 'Tar Baby' Is Such a Sticky Phrase". Time.
^ Petri, Alexandra (2011-08-03). "Doug Lamborn's 'tar baby' quagmire". Washington Post . Retrieved 2021-02-xvi .
^
- White House Press Briefing, 2006-05-16.
- Washington at Work; The Senator Pursues 'Untold' M.I.A. Story, New York Times, Barbara Crossette, 1992-08-ten.
- "Spokeswoman: Bachmann 'Tar Infant' Quote Not Racial". ABC News. April 20, 2012. Archived from the original on April 20, 2012. {{cite news}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
- Creators.com Archived 2007-09-27 at the Wayback Car.
- "Click2Houston.com". Click2Houston.com. 2005-10-05. Archived from the original on 2012-03-27. Retrieved 2010-07-03 . {{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
- Raised on point of gild, Debates, Firm of Eatables, Ottawa, Canada, Conservative MP, Pierre Poilievre, uses the term twice answering separate questions during Question Period. 2009-05-29.
- "Full Interview 630 KHOW Sound Version". Khow.com. 2011-07-29. Retrieved 2011-08-xix .
- "Rep. Lamborn likens Obama to a "tar baby"". Salon.com. 2011-08-01. Retrieved 2016-02-20 .
- "GOP Congressman, Doug Lamborn of Colorado, blasted for likening President Obama to a 'tar baby' New York Daily News". Nydailynews.com. 2011-08-02. Retrieved 2011-08-19 .
^ McWhorter: 'Tar Infant' Isn't Really a Racist Slur The New Republic, 2011-08-03.

External links [edit]