COLLECTANEA.
The Provenience of Certain Negro Folk Tales.
III. Tar Baby.
In a comparison of the variants of Tar Baby it is notable that the trap is almost always[1] set to catch a thief, a thief of water from a well or spring,[2] or of produce from the
- ↑ The most notable exception I find is in the most familiar of all the versions of the tale, in II. Uncle Remus, his Songs and Sayings. In a variant I collected in Florida there is no reference to theft, nor is there in a Duala variant (Lederbogen, W., "Duala Fables," J. African Soc. No. xiii. (1904), 59-60), or in a Hottentot variant (Schultze, L., Aus Namaland und Kalahari, p. 477, Jena, 1907), or in several Indian variants (Sapir, E., "Yana Texts," Univ. of California Publications, in Amer. Archaeology and Ethnol. ix. (1910), 227-8; Dixon, R. B., "Shasta Myths," Journal American Folk-Lore, xxiii. (1910), 34-5; Boas, F., Indianische Sagen von der Nord-Pacifischen Küste Amerikas, 44, 214, Berlin, 1895 (Lower Frazer and Awiky’ēnoq); Sapir, E., "Takelma Texts," 87-9, Univ. of Pennsylvania Anthropological Publications, ii. No. i, 1909.
- ↑ Christensen, A. M. H., Afro-American Folk-Lore (Sea Islands, S.C.), pp. 62-8, Boston, 1892; Jones, C. C., Negro Myths from the Georgia Coast, No. iv., Boston and New York, 1888; Harris, Nights with Uncle Remus; Louisiana Folk-Tales, App. Mem. Amer. Folk-Lore Soc. ii. (1896); also from Biloxi Indians of Louisiana, Dorsey, J. O., in Journal American Folk-Lore, vi. (1893), 48. See, too, Mooney, J., "Myths of the Cherokee," pp. 271-2, xix. (1897-8), Ann. Pep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol.; Dorsey, G. A., "Traditions of the Osage," 24-5, Field Columbian Mus. Pub. 88, Anthrop. Ser. vol. vii. No. I.; "Bahama Songs and Stories," xii. Mem. Amer. Folk-Lore Soc. iii. (1895), and in a variant I have collected from Watlings Island; Dennett, R. E., Folk-Lore of the Fjort, xxii. xxiii., London, 1S98. In a North Carolina variant I have collected and in an Andros Island variant Rabbit merely dirties the water in the well. See, too, Lomax, J. A., "Yoruba Tales," Jour. Amer. Folk-Lore, xxvi. (1913), 5; Cronise, F. M., and Ward, H. W., Cunnie Rabbit, Mr. Spider and the other Beaf, pp. 103-9, London
