Sorry if this isn’t the appropriate venue to ask this! Lemme know if there’s another sub that deals with folklore, etc.
I’ve always been really confused by the Br’er rabbit story with the “Tar Baby,” as Br’er Fox constructing a doll out of Tar to capture the protagonist is both incredibly bizarre and, notably, entirely unrelated to the story. The story is more about how Br’er Rabbit escapes once captured, but the capturing itself is entirely incidental. Why the hell would the story include such a specific and improbable trap?
Looking it up, it looks like “Tar babies” are involved in multiple stories across multiple cultures. Early stories are found in India and Iran, but Native Americans and, of course, American slaves have the same bizarre story element? Why is “Tar baby” such a common trope?
On the Wikipedia page, it is noted that The Journal of American Folklore examines 267 Tar Baby stories. Why are there so many?
Is this as unusual as I think it is? It’s one thing for themes/plot elements to cross cultural divides, but the “Tar baby” idea is so incredibly specific and bizarre I find it incredibly unlikely to have been invented from scratch each time, but it’s also weird for such an incidental element to be included in each retelling.
The claim that Aurelio M. Espinosa examined 267 versions of the story (from the wiki page) is somewhat misleading. In his 1943 article, Espinosa, with no evidence to back up his claims, lists all the variations in the different stories that he is supposedly in possession of. Here is an excerpt:
"A3. A man has a well or a lake from which he drinks. An animal goes there to drink, and often pollutes the water. A4. An animal has a well or lake from which he drinks. Another animal goes there to drink, and often pollutes the water. A4a. An animal goes to a certain river or spring to drink. A5. Various animals in partnership have a well or lake from which they drink. Another animal, usually a hare or rabbit, goes there to drink, and often pollutes the water. A6. A very strong man, a very mischievous man, or a very small and clever man, travels from place to place, defeating in battle or outwitting all those he meets"
As you can see Espinosa is not being specific about which story he is referring to at all, and due to the complete lack of evidence he could just be making this up. Furthermore, the variations that he describes are actually quite large, for example:
"B7. In order to catch the witch of element A7, the brothers of the kid- naped girl place a tarred horse at the entrance of the door of their house. B8. Tar-baby is a fetish or witch doll. It has the power to catch and to hold. B9. Tar-baby is a magic trap. It has the power to catch and to hold. Bio. Tar-baby is a bucket or barrel full of tar, a large piece of butter, a tarred piece of meat, a tarred object or figure buried in the ground, or a rotted and pitchy pine branch. BIi. In order to capture covetous or sensual monkeys or other animals, hunters place sticky plasters on the ground over which they usually travel. B 12. In order to catch a thief, a bully or a mischief maker, men or animals place tar, pitch or bird lime on a gate, on a house roof, on sticks on the ground, on a stool (under which a tortoise sits as guardian), or on a stone"
I mean, is one folk story about a magic trap really the same kind thing as the tar-baby story? I'm not sure that every folk tale about animals, children, witches, girls, bullies, men or mischief-makers being caught, caged or stuck can all be held up as examples of the same common myth (which Espinosa states he believes originates from India, again with absolutely no attempt at giving evidence). I think this idea reflects a folklorists desire to find common universal myths among cultures than an actual resemblance. Even if he did have some concrete examples, his methodology seems flawed; just because he has identified common elements, doesn't mean the stories are the same. They may variate massively in other components.
Espinosa has also written about the tar-baby story in issue 2 of volume 49 of the journal Folklore. Perhaps he gives some evidence for his claims there. I don't have access to the article, but you can find it here: If you manage to read it let me know! https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/0015587X.1938.9718748?needAccess=true
As you can see from the preview, Espinosa bases his claim of Indian origin on Joseph Jacobs' identification of a parallel between the Buddhist story of Jataka 55 and the Tar-baby story. In this Indic tale The Bodhisatta, walking through the forest, is stopped by an ogre named sticky-hair. He tries to kill the ogre with poison arrows, but they get stuck in the monsters hair. Determined, he tries clubs and spears but again they are stuck in his hair. Undeterred he tries his fists but he himself becomes entangled. The monster, impressed with the Bodhisatta and his bravery sets him free, and the Bodhisatta in return turns him into a spirit to be the guardian of the forest.
Judge for yourself whether this spiritual Buddhist tale about self-determination is somehow related to the Uncle Remus story. I'm unconvinced.
There seems to be more evidence for relationships between the tar-baby story and Native American stories, although you would need some better evidence than Wikipedia if you were going to believe that. Such a relation would be relatively more plausible, perhaps a Latin American native popular myth spread through European settlers and was reinterpreted by African slaves, although to me it seems highly unlikely. I am very sceptical about comparative mythology.