C010.. Baer (p. 37). Mr. Terrapin Appears Upon the Scene

This is Chase010.

Types ATU0073 Blinding the Guard

Motifs K0621 Blinding the Guard

See also Chase007 for another example of blinding the guard.

Notes

Baer: "Crane parallels the incident of Terrapin dropping on Fox's head and knocking him out to two versions of an Amazonian Indian myth. Both Hartt and Smith have tales in which tortoise jumps or slips out of a tree on to Jaguar's head, killing him."

Baer reporting on Mofokeng's analysis: "A Benga story is the closest African analogue to this incident. In that tale tortoise has a reason for being in the tree; he has found leopard's palm-wine cache and has been sharing his find with the other animals. After he leads gazelle to the wine, gazelle puts tortoise in a bag which he throws down hitting leopard on the head. Gazelle escapes, tortoise is caught, but later escapes by a false plea."

about the tobacco juice, Baer again cites Mofokeng: "the manner in which he escapes from the chimeny by spitting tobacco juice into Brer Fox's eyes is quite common in Africa.

Baer then speculates, citing Baughman's motif index: "Perhaps the Africa tales and Afro-American versions have resulted in the "widespread literary story of Daniel Boone throwing tobacco dust into eyes of Indian captors" (Baughman K621)."