_Source._--The _Pancavudha-Jataka_, Fausböll, No. 55, kindly
translated for this book by Mr. W. H. D. Rouse, of Christ's College,
Cambridge. There is a brief abstract of the Jataka in Prof. Estlin
Carpenter's sermon, _Three Ways of Salvation_, 1884, p. 27, where my
attention was first called to this Jataka.
_Parallels._--Most readers of these Notes will remember the central
episode of Mr. J. C. Harris' _Uncle Remus_, in which Brer Fox, annoyed
at Brer Rabbit's depredations, fits up "a contrapshun, what he calls a
Tar Baby." Brer Rabbit, coming along that way, passes the time of day
with Tar Baby, and, annoyed at its obstinate silence, hits it with
right fist and with left, with left fist and with right, which
successively stick to the "contrapshun," till at last he butts with
his head, and that sticks too, whereupon Brer Fox, who all this time
had "lain low," saunters out, and complains of Brer Rabbit that he is
too stuck up. In the sequel Brer Rabbit begs Brer Fox that he may
"drown me as deep ez you please, skin me, scratch out my eyeballs,
t'ar out my years by the roots, en cut off my legs, but do don't fling
me in dat brier patch;" which, of course, Brer Fox does, only to be
informed by the cunning Brer Rabbit that he had been "bred en bawn in
a brier patch." The story is a favourite one with the negroes: it
occurs in Col. Jones' _Negro Myths of the Georgia Coast_ (Uncle Remus
is from S. Carolina), also among those of Brazil (Romero, _Contos do
Brazil_), and in the West Indian Islands (Mr. Lang, "At the Sign of
the Ship," _Longman's Magazine_, Feb. 1889). We can trace it to
Africa, where it occurs in Cape Colony (_South African Folk-Lore
Journal_, vol. i.).
_Remarks._--The five-fold attack on the Demon and the Tar Baby is so
preposterously ludicrous that it cannot have been independently
invented, and we must therefore assume that they are causally
connected, and the existence of the variant in South Africa clinches
the matter, and gives us a landing-stage between India and America.
There can be little doubt that the Jataka of Prince Five Weapons came
to Africa, possibly by Buddhist missionaries, spread among the
negroes, and then took ship in the holds of slavers for the New World,
where it is to be found in fuller form than any yet discovered in the
home of its birth. I say Buddhist missionaries, because there is a
certain amount of evidence that the negroes have Buddhistic symbols
among them, and we can only explain the identification of Brer Rabbit
with Prince Five Weapons, and so with Buddha himself, by supposing the
change to have originated among Buddhists, where it would be quite
natural. For one of the most celebrated metempsychoses of Buddha is
that detailed in the _Sasa Jataka_ (Fausböll, No. 316, tr. R.
Morris, _Folk-Lore Journal_, ii. 336), in which the Buddha, as a hare,
performs a sublime piece of self-sacrifice, and as a reward is
translated to the moon, where he can be seen to this day as "the hare
in the moon." Every Buddhist is reminded of the virtue of
self-sacrifice whenever the moon is full, and it is easy to understand
how the Buddha became identified as the Hare or Rabbit. A striking
confirmation of this, in connection with our immediate subject, is
offered by Mr. Harris' sequel volume, _Nights with Uncle Remus_. Here
there is a whole chapter (xxx.) on "Brer Rabbit and his famous Foot,"
and it is well known how the worship of Buddha's foot developed in
later Buddhism. No wonder Brer Rabbit is so 'cute: he is nothing less
than an incarnation of Buddha. Among the Karens of Burmah, where
Buddhist influence is still active, the Hare holds exactly the same
place in their folk-lore as Brer Rabbit among the negroes. The sixth
chapter of Mr. Smeaton's book on them is devoted to "Fireside
Stories," and is entirely taken up with adventures of the Hare, all of
which can be parallelled from _Uncle Remus_.
Curiously enough, the negro form of the five-fold attack--"fighting
with _five_ fists," Mr. Barr would call it--is probably nearer to the
original legend than that preserved in the Jataka, though 2000 years
older. For we may be sure that the thunderbolt of Knowledge did not
exist in the original, but was introduced by some Buddhist Mr. Barlow,
who, like Alice's Duchess, ended all his tales with: "And the moral of
that is----" For no well-bred demon would have been taken in by so
simple a "sell" as that indulged in by Prince Five-Weapons in our
Jataka, and it is probable, therefore, that _Uncle Remus_ preserves a
reminiscence of the original Indian reading of the tale. On the other
hand, it is probable that Carlyle's Indian god with the fire in his
belly was derived from Prince Five-Weapons.
The negro variant has also suggested to Mr. Batten an explanation of
the whole story which is extremely plausible, though it introduces a
method of folk-lore exegesis which has been overdriven to death. The
_Sasa Jataka_ identifies the Brer Rabbit Buddha with the hare in
the moon. It is well known that Easterns explain an eclipse of the
moon as due to its being swallowed up by a Dragon or Demon. May not,
asks Mr. Batten, the _Pancavudha Jataka_ be an idealised account of
an eclipse of the moon? This suggestion receives strong confirmation
from the Demon's reference to Rahu, who does, in Indian myth swallow
the moon at times of eclipse. The Jataka accordingly contains the
Buddhist explanation why the moon--_i.e._ the hare in the moon, _i.e._
Buddha--is not altogether swallowed up by the Demon of Eclipse, the
Demon with the Matted Hair. Mr. Batten adds that in imagining what
kind of Demon the Eclipse Demon was, the Jataka writer was probably
aided by recollections of some giant octopus, who has saucer eyes and
a kind of hawk's beak, knobs on its "tusks," and a very variegated
belly (gasteropod). It is obviously unfair of Mr. Batten both to
illustrate and also to explain so well the Tar Baby Jataka--taking the
scientific bread, so to speak, out of a poor folk-lorist's mouth--but
his explanations seem to me so convincing that I cannot avoid
including them in these Notes.
I am, however, not so much concerned with the original explanation of
the Jataka as to trace its travels across the continents of Asia,
Africa, and America. I think I have done this satisfactorily, and will
have thereby largely strengthened the case for less extensive travels
of other tales. I have sufficient confidence of the method employed to
venture on that most hazardous of employments, scientific prophecy. I
venture to predict that the Tar Baby story will be found in Madagascar
in a form nearer the Indian than Uncle Remus, and I will go further,
and say that it will _not_ be found in the grand Helsingfors
collection of folk-tales, though this includes 12,000, of which 1000
are beast-tales.