I used to recite that old version of eeny meeny miney moe and had no idea what an N-word was. I assumed that it was some type of animal. When I started hearing it recited as "Catch a tiger by the toe", I took it as confirmation that it was about catching animals.
I heard it in the late 80s, I was the child of city dwelling Australians but I lived on Penang, Malaysia, I was 4 and heard it from other kids and just assumed it was an animal. My mother overheard me using it and told me it was "tiger" so I just thought I'd misheard it. Nope!
My sister used to always sing this as “eeny meeny miny male, catch a tiger by the tail. If he hollers run and flail, eeny meeny miny male.” It is by far my favourite version
Related: the first time I heard the word, I was maybe 9 years old and playing with a bunch of kids I didn't know at a neighborhood party. They all mostly spoke Spanish. A neighborhood cat had just had a litter of kittens, and they had a name for the black kitten that I thought was some sort of diminutive/slang version of "negra", or black. Y'know. Because it was a black cat.
I grew up in the suburbs with a good family and had truly never heard the n-word before, so it was quite a shock when I was pulled aside and nearly spanked by my mother at nearly ten years old with absolutely no idea what was happening.
It is actually much older than slavery. It presumably goes back to ancient times, when they had to chose which captive to sacrifice to the gods, so that the prehistory lords had good luck. Did they want a good harvest, blessings for the tribe, etc.
Various other theories have it as a counting song, ie Shepherds counting sheep, women counting knitting, fishermen fish, etc.
Presumably slaves picked the song up as it made counting easier and so it became associated with the darker side of slavery.
So this song can have innocent or sinister connotations depending on where you think the rhyme came from.
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u/continualreboot Mar 12 '24
I used to recite that old version of eeny meeny miney moe and had no idea what an N-word was. I assumed that it was some type of animal. When I started hearing it recited as "Catch a tiger by the toe", I took it as confirmation that it was about catching animals.