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28444 Benson (reply) RE: 28441: Lally: Question: Tap -Taps (fwd)
From: Legrace Benson <lgbenson@cbs.ucsb.edu>
Corbett adds:
Response to 28441, Lally, LeGrace Benson.
There is a little paperback on Tap-taps in my library on the other
side of the US. I cannot recall exact title or author. It doesn't turn up on
Google. There are many photos scattered through books on Haiti. The
tap-tap décor has changed greatly over the years, as M. Lally is aware, and
it would be interesting to see a book that shows the early ones on up to the
present. Haitian creativity is alive and well over the years on these
vehicles. One huge goods truck I saw in 1981 had elaborately carved and
polychromed mahogany side panels. I saw it again as late as 1994. The color
was gone but the carving had held up to the weather and roads. I am not
sure of this, but I think it ran between Port-au-Prince and Les Cayes.
Since everything in Haiti gets recycled (an admirable trait) those panels
may be somewhere down on "repair road" just up from the port.
My further question: what was the earliest instance of painted trucks and
busses?
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Corbett adds:
One book is called: Art on the Road: Painted Vehicles of the Americas.
Minneapolis: Pogo Press, 1988
There is a children's book called TAP-TAP by Karen Lynn Williams.
New York: Clarion Books, 1994.
In the journal African Arts, Spring, 1996, Vol. XXIX, issue 2
there is an article: Tap-Tap, Fula-Fula, Kai-Kai:
THE HAITIAN BUS IN ATLANTIC PERSPECTIVE. By Robert
Farris Thompson.
And as LeGrace says, photos in many of books on Haiti that feature photos.
Bob Corbett