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{{Short description|American Folklore character and metaphor}}
{{redirect|Tar Baby}}
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[[File:Br'er Rabbit and Tar-Baby.jpg|thumb|Br'er Rabbit and the Tar-Baby, drawing by [[E. W. Kemble]] from "The Tar-Baby", by [[Joel Chandler Harris]], 1904]]

The '''Tar-Baby''' is the second of the [[Uncle Remus]] stories published in 1881; it is about a doll made of [[tar]] and [[turpentine]] used by the [[villain]]ous [[Br'er Fox]] to entrap [[Br'er Rabbit]]. The more that Br'er Rabbit fights the Tar-Baby, the more entangled he becomes.

The phrase "tar baby" has acquired idiomatic meanings over the years, including a negative racial [[connotation]].

==Publication history==
Joel Chandler Harris collected the story in its original dialect and included it in his 1881 book, "Uncle Remus, his Songs and his Sayings".<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2306 |title=Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings |publisher=Project Gutenberg |access-date=2010-05-25 |date=2000-08-01}}</ref> His introduction mentions earlier publication of some of his Uncle Remus Stories in the columns of a daily newspaper, ''The Atlanta Constitution''. Harris said these legends had "become a part of the domestic history of every Southern family." Indeed, [[Theodore Roosevelt]] (the 26th president of the United States, born in 1858), noted in his autobiography that as a young child he heard Br'er Rabbit tales from his Southern aunt, Anna Bulloch, and that his uncle, Robert Roosevelt, transcribed some of her stories from her dictation.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Roosevelt |first1=Theodore |title=Theodore Roosevelt: an autobiography |date=1914 |publisher=The Macmillan Company |url=https://archive.org/details/theodoreroosevel0000theo/page/12/mode/1up?q=%22the+Brer+Rabbit+stories%22}}</ref>

==Plot==
[[File:Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby.jpg|thumb|upright|Br'er Rabbit attacking the Tar-Baby, 1895 illustration]]
The 'Tar Baby' story comes from the oral tradition of black slaves on the old plantations of the American South, one of many [[Uncle Remus]] stories. It features [[Br'er Fox]], who constructs a doll out of a lump of pine tar and dresses it with some clothes. When [[Br'er Rabbit]] comes along he addresses the tar "baby" amiably but receives no response. Br'er Rabbit becomes offended by 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.

In Joel Chandler Harris's popular retelling of the tar baby story, the fox then saunters over and gloats, laughing uproariously, and invites the rabbit to his house to "take dinner" with him, saying he has some calamus root and will take no excuse. The little boy listening to the story asks if the fox ate the rabbit, but the storyteller demurs and tells the boy to run off because he's being called. The Harris version seems to end there.

A couple of stories later, though, the tale continues in Harris's story, "How Mr. Rabbit was Too Sharp for Mr. Fox". This ending is now popularly incorporated into the tar baby story:

Now that Br'er Rabbit is stuck, Br'er Fox ponders how to dispose of him. The helpless but cunning Br'er Rabbit pleads, "Do anything you want with me – roas' me, hang me, skin me, drown me – but please, Br'er Fox, don't fling me in dat brier-patch", prompting the sadistic Br'er Fox to do exactly that because he gullibly believes it 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.

== Analysis ==
In [[folklore studies]], the story of the Tar-Baby is classified in the international [[Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index]] as tale type ATU 175, "The Tar-Baby and the Rabbit".<ref>Aarne, Antti; Thompson, Stith. ''The types of the folktale: a classification and bibliography''. Folklore Fellows Communications FFC no. 184. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1961. pp.&nbsp;63-64.</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Uther |first1=Hans-Jörg |title=The Types of International Folktales: A Classification and Bibliography, Based on the System of Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson |date=2004 |publisher=Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Academia Scientiarum Fennica |isbn=978-951-41-0963-8 |page=120 }}</ref>

== Related stories ==
Variations on the tar-baby legend are found in the folklore of more than one culture. In the ''[[Journal of American Folklore]]'' in 1943, [[Aurelio Macedonio Espinosa Sr.|Aurelio M. Espinosa]] discussed various different motifs within 267 versions of the tar-baby story that were ostensibly 'in his possession'.<ref name="Espinosa 1943">{{cite journal |last1=Espinosa |first1=Aurelio M. |title=A New Classification of the Fundamental Elements of the Tar-Baby Story on the Basis of Two Hundred and Sixty-Seven Versions |journal=The Journal of American Folklore |date=1943 |volume=56 |issue=219 |pages=31–37 |jstor=535912 |doi=10.2307/535912 |issn=0021-8715}} Cited in {{harvp|Campbell|1968|page=87}}</ref> Espinosa used the existence 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.<ref name="Espinosa 1938">{{cite journal |last1=Espinosa |first1=Aurelio M. |title=More Notes on the Origin and History of the Tar-Baby Story |journal=Folklore |date=1938 |volume=49 |issue=2 |pages=168–181 |jstor=1257771 |doi=10.1080/0015587X.1938.9718748 |issn=0015-587X}}</ref> The next year, Archer Taylor added a list of tar baby stories from more sources around the world, citing scholarly claims of its earliest origins in [[India]] and [[Iran]].<ref name="Taylor 1944">{{cite journal |last1=Taylor |first1=Archer |title=The Tarbaby Once More |journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society |date=1944 |volume=64 |issue=1 |pages=4–7 |jstor=594049 |doi=10.2307/594049 |issn=0003-0279}}</ref> Espinosa later published documentation on tar baby stories from a variety of language communities around the world.<ref name="Espinosa 1990">{{cite book |last1=Espinosa |first1=Aurelio M. |title=The Folklore of Spain in the American Southwest: Traditional Spanish Folk Literature in Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado |date=1990 |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |isbn=978-0-8061-2249-6 |pages=58–60}}</ref>

Anthropologist [[Elsie Clews Parsons]] compiled an extensive list of references of the ''Tar Baby'' stories, from North American, Latin American and African publications on folklore.<ref name="Parsons 1943">{{cite book |editor1-last=Parsons |editor1-first=Elsie Worthington Clews |title=Folk-lore of the Antilles, French And English, Part 3 |date=1943 |oclc=295797 |publisher=American Folk-lore Society |location=New York |pages=48–51}}</ref>

A very similar [[West Africa]]n tale is told of the [[mythical]] hero [[Anansi]] the Spider. In this version, Anansi creates a wooden doll and covers it over with gum, then puts a plate of yams in its lap, in order to capture the she-fairy Mmoatia (sometimes described as an "elf" or "dwarf"). Mmoatia takes the bait and eats the yams, but grows angry when the doll does not respond and strikes it, becoming stuck in the process.{{fact|date=May 2021}}

From [[The Bahamas]], the Tar-Baby story was published by ''[[The Journal of American Folklore]]'' in 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 help 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 caught by Tar Baby and the other animals who wanted to throw him into the sea but he talked them into throwing him into a bush. They threw B' Rabby into the bush and he got away.<ref name="Edwards 1890">{{cite book |last1=Edwards |first1=Charles Lincoln |title=Some Tales from Bahama Folk-Lore |date=1890 |oclc=12030157 |pages=47–54 |id=Read at the Annual meeting of the American Folk-lore Society, November 29, 1890}}</ref>

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 be dead in order to steal her peas.<ref name="Beckwith 1924">{{cite book |last1=Beckwith |first1=Martha Warren |title=Jamaica Anansi Stories |date=1924 |oclc=647204394 |publisher=American Folk-Lore Society |location=New York |chapter-url=https://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/jas/jas021.htm |via=Sacred-texts.com |chapter=Anansi and the Tar-baby}}</ref> In a [[Spanish language]] 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 Five-weapons (the future Buddha) who encounters the [[ogre]] Sticky-Hair in a forest.<ref name="Campbell p85">{{cite book |last1=Campbell |first1=Joseph |title=The Hero with a Thousand Faces |date=1968 |publisher=Princeton University Press |pages=85–89 |isbn=978-0-6910-1784-6 |edition=2nd |url=https://archive.org/details/herowiththousand00camp/page/87/mode/1up?view=theater |url-access=registration}}</ref><ref name="Warner 1902">{{cite book |title=A Library of the World's Best Literature, Vol.&nbsp;XX |editor=Warner, Charles Dudley |publisher=J. A. Hill |location=New York |date=1902 |pages=11460–11463 |oclc=3648354 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4uQpAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA11460 |via=Google Books |chapter=Pilpay: Prince Five-Weapons}}</ref><ref name="Burlingame 1922">{{cite book |title=Buddhist Parables: Translated From the Original Pāli by Eugene Watson Burlingame |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven |date=1922 |pages=41–44 |oclc=1317717 |lccn=22024886 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/buddhistparables00burl/page/41/mode/1up?ref=ol&view=theater |chapter=A Buddhist Tar-Baby}}</ref>

The tar-baby theme is present in the folklore of various tribes of Meso-America and of South America: it is found in such stories<ref name="Margery 1990">{{cite journal |first=Enrique |last=Margery |title=The Tar-Baby Motif |page=9 |journal=Latin American Indian Literatures Journal |volume=6 |issue=1 |date=1990 |issn=0888-5613}}</ref> as the [[Nahuatl]] (of Mexico) "Lazy Boy and Little Rabbit" (González Casanova 1946, pp.&nbsp;55–67), [[Pipil people|Pipil]] (of El Salvador) "Rabbit and Little Fox" (Schultes 1977, pp.&nbsp;113–116), and [[Palenquero]] (of Colombia) "Rabbit, Toad, and Tiger" (Patiño Rosselli 1983, pp.&nbsp;224–229). In Mexico, the tar baby story is also found among [[Mixtec]],<ref>Dyk, Anne, ed. 1959. "Tarbaby." ''Mixteco texts'', pp. 33–44. (Linguistic Series 3.) Norman: Summer Institute of Linguistics of the University of Oklahoma.</ref> [[Zapotec peoples|Zapotec]],<ref>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.</ref> and [[Popoluca]].<ref>Clark, Lawrence E. 1961. Rabbit and Coyote. ''Sayula Popoluca texts, with grammatical outline'', pp. 147–175. (Linguistic Series 6.) Norman: Summer Institute of Linguistics of the University of Oklahoma.</ref><ref>Foster, George McClelland. Sierra popoluca folklore and beliefs. Vol. 42. University of California Press, 1945.</ref> In North America, the tale appears in [[White Mountain Apache]] lore as "Coyote Fights a Lump of Pitch".<ref name="Erdoes Ortiz 1984">{{cite book |first1= |editor1-last=Erdoes |editor1-first=Richard |editor2-last=Ortiz |editor2-first=Alfonso |title=American Indian myths and legends |date=1984 |location=New York |publisher= Pantheon Books |isbn=978-0-394-50796-5 |pages=359-361 |url=https://archive.org/details/americanindianmy0000unse_a5s3/page/359/mode/1up?q=%22COYOTE+FIGHTS+A+LUMP+OF+PITCH+white%22 |chapter=Coyote Fights a Lump of Pitch |url-access=registration}}</ref> In this story, white men are said to have erected the pitch-man that ensnares [[Coyote (mythology)|Coyote]].<ref name="Erdoes Ortiz 1984" />{{rp|p=360}}

According to [[James Mooney]] in "Myths of the Cherokee",<ref>James Mooney, "Myths of the Cherokee", Dover 1995, pp. 271–273, 232–236, 450. Reprinted from a Government Printing Office publication of 1900. Also, [https://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/cher/motc/motc021.htm "The Rabbit And The Tar Wolf" Cherokee story]</ref> the tar-baby story may have been influenced in America by the [[Cherokee]] "Tar Wolf" story, considered unlikely to have been derived from similar African stories: "Some of these animal stories are common to widely separated [Native American] tribes among whom there can be no suspicion of [African] influences. Thus the famous "tar baby" story has variants, not only among 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".{{fact|date=May 2021}}

In the Tar Wolf story, the animals were thirsty during a dry spell, and agreed to dig a well. The lazy rabbit refused to help dig, and so 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. Then she struggled with it and became so ensnared that she could not move. The next morning, the animals discovered the rabbit and proposed various ways of killing her, such as cutting her head off, and the rabbit responded to each idea saying that it would not harm her. 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 live!"{{citation needed|date=November 2019}}

==Idiomatic references==
The story has given rise to two American English idioms. References to Br'er Rabbit's feigned protestations such as "please don't fling me in dat brier-patch" refer to guilefully seeking something by pretending to protest, with a "briar patch" (a [[thicket]] of thorny plants) often meaning a more advantageous situation or environment for one of the parties (but not for the other party).<ref>{{cite book |last=Bickley |first=R. Bruce Jr. |editor-last1=Prahlad |editor-first1=Anand |title=African American Folklore: An Encyclopedia for Students |date=2016 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |location=Santa Barbara, Calif. |isbn=978-1-61069-930-3 |pages=43–44 |language=en |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/africanamericanf0000unse_f1a7/page/43/mode/1up?view=theater |chapter-url-access=registration |chapter=Briar Patch}}</ref> 

Alluding to Br'er Rabbit becoming entangled in the tar, the term ''tar baby'' has been used to refer to a problem that is exacerbated by attempts to struggle with it, or by extension to a situation in which mere contact can lead to becoming inextricably involved.<ref name="OCD 2002">{{cite dictionary |title=tar baby |dictionary=The Concise Oxford English Dictionary |date=2002 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-860572-0 |url=https://archive.org/details/conciseoxfordeng0000unse_v6w6/page/1465/mode/1up?q=%22tar+baby%22}}</ref>

[[Pine tar]], as meant in the original story and idiomatic usage, varies from golden to brown in color, with a golden color when thinned with turpentine. Bitumen/liquid asphalt has sometimes been called "tar" due to its replacement of pine tar in many uses. Because asphalt is dark brown to black, some who heard the term "tar baby" who were unfamiliar with the original story or established idiom assumed it was a term to disparagingly refer to black people, especially black children,<ref name=OED>{{OED |tar baby}}</ref> and has become associated with racism in that usage. The term has been used as a racial slur against Black people, especially Black children.<ref name=OED>{{OED |tar baby}}</ref> In many versions of the Uncle Remus story, the tar baby is compared to a Black person, whether by being illustrated with typically African features or described with phrases such as "a little Congo" or "as black as a Guinea Negro."<ref name="Wagner">{{cite book |last=Wagner |first=Bryan |date= |title=The Tar Baby: A GLOBAL HISTORY |url= |location= |publisher=Princeton University Press |page= |isbn=978-0-691-17263-7 |access-date=}}</ref> Historically, "tar baby" has been used as marketing alongside [[blackface]] and [[pickaninny]] caricatures.<ref>{{cite web |author=<!-- not stated --> |date= |title=Vintage Black Americana Bar of Toilet Soap Tar Baby Brand |url=https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-black-americana-bar-toilet-1840862070 |website=Worthpoint |location= |publisher= |access-date=2025-10-01}}</ref><ref name="Wagner"/>  Due to these racial connotations, politicians have faced pushback for using the term.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Henderson |first1=Nia-Malika |title=Politicians should stop using the phrase 'tar baby.' Like, now. |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/11/10/politicians-should-stop-using-the-phrase-tar-baby-like-now/ |access-date=26 May 2024 |newspaper=Washington Post |date=26 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151011201144/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/11/10/politicians-should-stop-using-the-phrase-tar-baby-like-now/ |archive-date=11 October 2015}}</ref>

== See also ==
* [[Cautionary tale]]
* [[Reverse psychology]]
* [[Wicked problem]]
* [[Tar Baby (novel)|''Tar Baby'']] - A novel by [[Toni Morrison]]

== References ==
{{Reflist|30em}}

== Further reading ==
* {{cite journal |last1=Espinosa |first1=Aurelio M. |title=Three More Peninsular Spanish Folktales That Contain the Tar-Baby Story |journal=Folklore |date=1939 |volume=50 |issue=4 |pages=366–377 |doi=10.1080/0015587X.1939.9718198 |jstor=1257403 |issn=0015-587X}}
* González Casanova, Pablo (1946) : ''Cuentos indígenas''.
* Schultze Jena, Leonhard (1977) : ''Mito y Leyendas de los Pipiles de Izalco''. El Salvador : Ediciones Cuscatlán.
* Patiño Rosselli, Carlos (1983) : ''Lengua y sociedad en el Panlenque de San Basilio''. Bogotá : Instituto Caro y Cuervo.
* Wagner, Bryan (2017): ''The Tar Baby: A Global History''. Princeton: Princeton University Press

==External links==
* {{Commonscatinline}}
* {{Wiktionary-inline}}
* {{wikisource-inline|Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings/The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story}}
* [https://archive.org/stream/philippinefolkta11028gut/11028.txt Monkey and turtle story from Philippines]
* [https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/type0175.html Folktales of ATU type 175] by [[D. L. Ashliman]]

{{Uncle Remus}}
{{Ethnic slurs}}

[[Category:1881 short stories]]
[[Category:American folklore]]
[[Category:African-American cultural history]]
[[Category:Anti-African and anti-black slurs]]
[[Category:Problem solving]]
[[Category:Br'er Rabbit]]
[[Category:Song of the South characters]]
[[Category:Rabbits and hares in literature]]
[[Category:Literature featuring anthropomorphic foxes]]
[[Category:Fictional dolls and dummies]]
[[Category:Literary characters introduced in 1881]]
[[Category:Characters in American novels of the 19th century]]