Fuzzy-Wuzzy
"Fuzzy-Wuzzy" is a poem by the English author and poet Rudyard Kipling, published in 1892 as part of Barrack Room Ballads. It describes the respect of the ordinary soldier for the bravery of the Hadendoa warriors who fought the British army in Sudan and Eritrea.
Background
"Fuzzy-Wuzzy" was the term used by British soldiers for Beja warriors who were supporting the Mahdi of Sudan in the Mahdist War. The term relates to the elaborate tiffa hair style favoured by the Hadendoa tribe, a subdivision of the Beja people.[1]
The Beja people were one of several broad multi-tribal groupings supporting the Mahdi, and were divided into six tribes: Hadendoa, Halanga, Amarar, Beni-Amer, Habab, and Bishariyyin. All of these are semi-nomadic and inhabit the Sudan's Red Sea Hills, Libyan Desert, and southern Egypt. The Beja provided a large number of warriors to the Mahdist forces. They were armed with swords and spears and some of them carried breech-loaded rifles which had been captured from the Egyptian forces, and some of them had acquired military experience in the Egyptian army.
Legacy
The term "Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels" was used by Australian soldiers during World War II to describe Papua New Guinean stretcher bearers. The term was not widely deemed to be problematic when it was used by Kipling and by British soldiers during the Sudan Campaign or by Australian soldiers in the 20th century; however, more recently some have deemed it to be a racial slur.[2][3][4]
The poem
Kipling's poem "Fuzzy-Wuzzy" praises the Hadendoa for their martial prowess, because "for all the odds agin' you, Fuzzy-Wuz, you broke the square". This could refer to either or both historical battles between the British and Mahdist forces where British infantry squares were "broken". The first was at the Battle of Tamai, on 13 March 1884, and the second was on 17 January 1885[5] during the Battle of Abu Klea (when the square was badly broken, though thereafter promptly reformed). Kipling's narrator, an infantry soldier, speaks in admiring terms of the "Fuzzy-wuzzys", praising their bravery which, although insufficient to defeat the British, did at least enable them to boast of having "broken the square"—an achievement which few other British foes could claim.
Writing in The Atlantic in June 2002, Christopher Hitchens noted "[Yet] where Kipling excelled—and where he most deserves praise and respect—was in enjoining the British to avoid the very hubris that he had helped to inspire in them. His 'Recessional' is only the best-known and most hauntingly written of many such second thoughts. ... There is also 'The Lesson', a poem designed to rub in the experience of defeat in Africa, 'Fuzzy-Wuzzy', a tribute to the fighting qualities of the Sudanese."[6]
Benjamin Britten adapted the poem for his song of the same name between 1922 and 1923, and it was further revised in 1968. It remains unpublished.[7]
Other references
T. S. Eliot included the poem in his 1941 collection A Choice of Kipling's Verse.
See also
References
- ^ ″Beja tribesman from eastern Sudan″, 1885 (c), National Army Museum. Retrieved January 3, 2021.
- ^ Nelson, Alex (July 6, 2020) "8 words, phrases and terms you didn't know had racist links and origins", The Scotsman. Retrieved January 3, 2021.
- ^ Eubanks, Olivia (July 30, 2020) "Here are some commonly used terms that actually have racist origins", ABC News. Retrieved January 3, 2021.
- ^ "Fuzzy-wuzzy" Dictionary.com. Retrieved January 3, 2021.
- ^ Parsons, Michael (23 May 2015). "Brick from the Mahdi's tomb used as a Big House doorstop". The Irish Times. Dublin. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
- ^ Hitchens, Christopher (June 2002). "A Man of Permanent Contradictions". The Atlantic. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
- ^ "BTC21 Fuzzy Wuzzy". Britten Thematic Catalogue. Britten Thematic Catalogue. Archived from the original on 12 January 2021. Retrieved 12 January 2020.
External links
- Full poem at The Kipling Society website
- Historical background to the Kipling poem
- v
- t
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- The Light That Failed (1891)
- The Naulahka: A Story of West and East (co-author, Wolcott Balestier, 1892)
- Captains Courageous (1896)
- Kim (1901)
- Plain Tales from the Hills (1888)
- Soldiers Three (1888)
- The Story of the Gadsbys (1888)
- In Black and White (1888)
- The Phantom 'Rickshaw and Other Tales (1888)
- Under the Deodars (1888)
- Wee Willie Winkie and Other Child Stories (1888)
- From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches, Letters of Travel (1889)
- Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, poetry)
- Many Inventions (1893)
- The Jungle Book (1894)
- "Mowgli's Brothers"
- "Kaa's Hunting"
- "Tiger! Tiger!"
- "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi"
- The Second Jungle Book (1895)
- "Letting in the Jungle"
- "Red Dog"
- All the Mowgli Stories (c. 1895)
- The Seven Seas (1896, poetry)
- The Day's Work (1898)
- Stalky & Co. (1899)
- Just So Stories (1902)
- The Five Nations (1903, poetry)
- Puck of Pook's Hill (1906)
- Rewards and Fairies (1910)
- The Fringes of the Fleet (1915, non-fiction)
- Debits and Credits (1926)
- Limits and Renewals (1932)
- Rudyard Kipling's Verse: Definitive Edition (1940)
- A Choice of Kipling's Verse (by T. S. Eliot, 1941)
- "The Absent-Minded Beggar"
- "The Ballad of the 'Clampherdown'"
- "The Ballad of East and West"
- "The Beginnings"
- "The Bell Buoy"
- "The Betrothed"
- "Big Steamers"
- "Boots"
- "Cold Iron"
- "Dane-geld"
- "Danny Deever"
- "A Death-Bed"
- "The Female of the Species"
- "Fuzzy-Wuzzy"
- "Gentleman ranker"
- "The Gods of the Copybook Headings"
- "Gunga Din"
- "Hymn Before Action"
- "If—"
- "In the Neolithic Age"
- "The King's Pilgrimage"
- "The Last of the Light Brigade"
- "The Lowestoft Boat"
- "Mandalay"
- "The Mary Gloster"
- "McAndrew's Hymn"
- "My Boy Jack"
- "Recessional"
- "A Song in Storm"
- "The Sons of Martha"
- "Submarines"
- "The Sweepers"
- "Tommy"
- "Ubique"
- "The White Man's Burden"
- ".007"
- "The Arrest of Lieutenant Golightly"
- "Baa Baa, Black Sheep"
- "Bread upon the Waters"
- "The Broken-Link Handicap"
- "The Butterfly that Stamped"
- "Consequences"
- "The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin"
- "Cupid's Arrows"
- "The Devil and the Deep Sea"
- "The Drums of the Fore and Aft"
- "Fairy-Kist"
- "False Dawn"
- "A Germ-Destroyer"
- "His Chance in Life"
- "His Wedded Wife"
- "In the House of Suddhoo"
- "Kidnapped"
- "Learoyd, Mulvaney and Ortheris"
- "Lispeth"
- "The Man Who Would Be King"
- "A Matter of Fact"
- "Miss Youghal's Sais"
- "The Mother Hive"
- "The Other Man"
- "The Rescue of Pluffles"
- "The Ship that Found Herself"
- "The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo"
- "The Taking of Lungtungpen"
- "Three and – an Extra"
- "The Three Musketeers"
- "Thrown Away"
- "Toomai of the Elephants"
- "Watches of the Night"
- "Wireless"
- "Yoked with an Unbeliever"
- Bibliography
- Bateman's (house)
- Indian Railway Library
- Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer
- Law of the jungle
- Aerial Board of Control
- My Boy Jack (1997 play)
- Rudyard Kipling: A Remembrance Tale (2006 documentary)
- My Boy Jack (2007 film)
- Caroline Starr Balestier Kipling (wife)
- Elsie Bambridge (daughter)
- John Kipling (son)
- John Lockwood Kipling (father)
- MacDonald sisters (mother's family)
- Stanley Baldwin (cousin)
- Georgiana Burne-Jones (aunt)
- Edward Burne-Jones (uncle)
- Philip Burne-Jones (cousin)
- Edward Poynter (uncle)
- Alfred Baldwin (uncle)