Tar Baby

The Tar-Baby is the second of the Uncle Remus stories published in 1880; it is about a doll made of tar and turpentine used by the villainous Br'er Fox 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 any "sticky situation" that is only aggravated by additional involvement with it.

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, "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 maximum pain on Br'er Rabbit. As rabbits are at home in thickets, however, the resourceful Br'er Rabbit escapes.

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.

Variations on the tar baby legend are found in the folklore of more than one culture. In the Journal of American Folklore, Aurelio M. Espinosa examined 267 versions of the tar baby story. The next year, Archer Taylor added a list of tarbaby stories from more sources around the world, citing scholarly claims of its earliest origins in India and Iran. Espinosa later published documentation on tarbaby stories from a variety of language communities around the world.

A very similar West African tale is told of the mythical hero Anansi the Spider. In this version it is Anansi who 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.

...
Wikipedia