Sepia Saturday- Tar Baby

The theme this week is Dogs.

This is Tar Baby. (I love the little curl on top of his head!)

This is the earliest dog I can remember, although my mother has told me about a beagle we had when I was a baby. Tar Baby was named after a character from The Uncle Remus book by Joel Chandler Harris.

Br'er Rabbit and the Tar-Baby, drawing by E.W. Kemble from The Tar-Baby, by Joel Chandler Harris, 1904.

Me and Tar Baby

My sister, Nancy and I and Tar Baby. (I'm not really sure that's Nancy. Hard to tell from this photo.)

My father and the pup.

Tar Baby sitting up. What a smart dog!

My brother, Bob and Tar Baby.

In this picture you can see the gate that was left open and cost Tar Baby his life. ( Bobby didn't do it).

We loved the Uncle Remus stories from the story books and then from the Disney movie, "Song of the South".
I've, since, found out that the Uncle Remus stories and the name "Tar Baby" is sometimes considered racist. If my mother had known that we would have had to find a new name. She was the most unprejudiced person I've ever known.

In one tale, Br'er Fox constructs a doll out of a lump of 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. Now that Br'er Rabbit is stuck, Br'er Fox ponders how to dispose of him. The helpless but cunning Br'er Rabbit pleads, "but do please, Brer Fox, don't fling me in dat brier-patch," prompting Fox to do exactly that. As rabbits are at home in thickets, the resourceful Br'er Rabbit escapes. Using the phrases "but do please, Brer Fox, don't fling me in dat brier-patch" and "tar baby" to refer to the idea of "a problem that gets worse the more one struggles against it" became part of the wider culture of the United States in the mid-20th century. The story was originally published in Harper's Weekly by Robert Roosevelt; years later Joel Chandler Harris wrote of the tar baby in his Uncle Remus stories. A similar tale from African folklore in West Africa has the trickster Anansi in the role of Br'er Rabbit.

If you'd like to see Uncle Remus singing "Zipp-a-dee-doo-dah" click here-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcxYwwIL5zQ

Don't forget to go to http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com to see more dog stories.