Speaking the “Truth by Dissembling”: Necessary Ambiguities in the Tar-Baby Tale

Abstract

The following paper is an adapted version of the introduction to a chapter, entitled “Symbolic Orphans: the Politics of the ‘Father-Tongue’ in [Toni Morrison’s] Tar Baby”, from my current doctoral thesis. The fundamental premise underlying this chapter is that Morrison, in her text Tar Baby, uses the complex history of the Tar-Baby tales, and the trickster-figure of those tales, in order to trace the cultural origin of African- American people, to outline the “charts of cultural descent” encoded in their story traditions, and to reclaim such traditions from dominant appropriations of them, for African-American cultures. The paper that follows does not discuss Morrison’s text at all, but looks, instead at the ways in which the history and lineage of the African- American Tar-Baby tale can be seen to reflect and parallel the history and lineage of African-Americans themselves, and can further be understood as an important example of cultural preservation, through very particular cultural methods, in the face of a dominant American culture that sought to erase and censure African-Americans’ identification with an African past, lineage and culture.

Opsomming

Hierdie artikel is ‘n verwerking van die inleiding tot ‘n hoofstuk getiteld “Symbolic Orphans: the Politics of the ‘Father-Tongue’ in [Toni Morrison se] Tar Baby”, in my huidige doktorale tesis. Die fundamentele premis onderliggend aan hierdie hoofstuk is dat Morrison in haar teks Tar Baby die komplekse geskiedenis van die “Tar Baby”-stories en die bedrieërfiguur in hierdie stories gebruik om die kulturele oorsprong van die Afro-Amerikaanse nasie na te spoor, om die “kaart van kulturele herkoms” te skets, en om sulke tradisies uit dominante toe-eiening daarvan terug te eis vir die Afro-Amerikaanse kulture. Die artikel wat volg bespreek glad nie Morrison se teks nie, maar kyk in plaas daarvan na die maniere waarop die geskiedenis en oorsprong van die Afro-Amerikaanse “Tar Baby”-storie gesien kan word as reflekterend van en parallel met die geskiedenis van die Afro-Amerikaners self, en origens verstaan kan word as ‘n belangrike voorbeeld van kulturele preservasie deur besonder spesifieke kulturele metodes ten spyte van ‘n dominante Amerikaanse kultuur wat gepoog het om die Afro-Amerikaners se identifikasie met ‘n Afro-verlede, -afkoms en -kultuur uit te wis en te sensureer.