Referring to a doll made of tar and turpentine to entrapBr'er Rabbit in one ofJoel Chandler Harris'sUncle Remus stories, published in 1881, from earlier African American folklore, from earlier African (e.g. Kongo) folklore, influenced in America by similar stories from various unrelated Native American tribes, such as the Cherokee, Alabama, Koasati, and Apache.[1][2] (Similar stories are found throughout the world,[3] e.g. among the Mixtec[4] and Zapotec.[5])
2006,Mitt Romney, quoted in "Romney apologizes for calling Big Dig 'tar baby'", July 31, 2006,WISTV.com
Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is apologizing for referring to the troubledBig Dig construction project as a "tar baby." / Romney made the comment during a speech at a fund-raiser with Iowa Republicans on Saturday. Romney told the crowd "The best thing politically would be to stay as far away from thattar baby as I can."
2001, Bobby Delaughter,Never Too Late: A Prosecutor's Story of Justice in the Medgar Evars Case, page75:
If Dees had indicated any willingness to personally pursue the case, Ed would've immediately had him appointed as a special prosecutor and turned thistar baby of a case over to him on the spot.
^Jonathan Brennan,When Brer Rabbit Meets Coyote: African-Native American Literature (2003), pages 72, 107-109, 134
^Richard Erdoes, Alfonso Ortiz, eds,American Indian Myths and Legends (1984), pp. 359–361
^Enrique Margery: "The Tar-Baby Motif", in theLatin American Indian Literatures Journal, volume 6 (1990), p. 9
^Anne Dyk, ed., "Tarbaby", inMixteco texts (1959), pp. 33–44, (Linguistic Series 3, SIL)
^Carol Stubblefield, Morris Stubblefield, compilers, "Rabbit and Coyote", inMitla Zapotec texts (1994), pp. 61–102, (Folklore texts in Mexican Indian languages no. 3,Amerindian Series 12, SIL)
