Editing Anansi (section)

==Social relevance==
[[File:Staff of Office Figures spider web and spider motif.jpg|thumb|Gold covered staff held by Akan linguist court official<ref>{{Citation |title=Staff of Office: Figures, spider web and spider motif  (ȯkyeame) |date= |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/314925 |access-date=2025-04-27}}</ref> ]]

=== Oral Tradition ===
Anansi stories were part of an exclusively [[oral tradition]], and Anansi himself was seen as synonymous with skill and wisdom in speech.<ref>See for instance [http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/11/sfg/ho_1286.475a-c.htm#|this Ashanti linguist staff finial] in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which relates to the saying "No one goes to the house of the spider Ananse to teach him wisdom."</ref> “The wisdom of the spider is greater than that of all the world together”.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Barker |first=William Henry |url=https://archive.org/details/westafricanfolkt00barkrich/page/24/mode/2up |title=West African folk-tales |last2=Sinclair |first2=Cecilia |date=1917 |publisher=London, G. G. Harrap & company |others=University of California Libraries}}</ref> Stories of Anansi became such a prominent and familiar part of [[Ashanti people|Ashanti]] oral culture that they eventually encompassed many kinds of fables, evidenced by the work of [[Robert Sutherland Rattray|R.S. Rattray]], who recorded many of these tales in both the English and [[Twi]] languages,<ref name="Zobel Marshall 2012"/> as well as the work of scholar [[Peggy Appiah]]: "So well known is he that he has given his name to the whole rich tradition of tales on which so many Ghanaian children are brought up – anansesem – or spider tales."<ref>{{cite book
  | last = Appiah
  | first = Peggy
  | title = Tales of an Ashanti Father
  | publisher = Beacon Press
  | year = 1988
  | isbn = 0-8070-8313-5 }}</ref> In similar fashion, oral tradition is what introduced Anansi tales to the rest of the world, especially the [[Caribbean]], via the people that were enslaved during the [[Atlantic slave trade]].<ref>{{Cite web
 |author      = [[Cynthia James]]
 |title       = Searching for Ananse: From Orature to Literature in the West Indian Children's Folk Tradition—Jamaican and Trinidadian Trends
 |publisher   = Trinidad University of the West Indies
 |year        = 2004
 |url         = http://www.sacbf.org.za/2004%20papers/Cynthia%20James.rtf
 |format      = Word Document
 |access-date  = 16 December 2008
|archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20090105203034/http://www.sacbf.org.za/2004%20papers/Cynthia%20James.rtf
 |archive-date = 5 January 2009
|url-status     = dead
 |df          = dmy-all
}}</ref> As a result, the importance of Anansi socially did not diminish when slaves were brought to the New World.

=== Resistance ===
Instead, Anansi was often celebrated as a symbol of slave resistance and survival, because Anansi is able to turn the tables on his powerful oppressors by using his cunning and trickery, a model of behaviour used by slaves to gain the upper hand within the confines of the [[Plantation complexes in the Southern United States|plantation power structure]]. Anansi is also believed to have played a multifunctional role in the slaves' lives; as well as inspiring strategies of resistance, the tales enabled enslaved Africans to establish a sense of continuity with their African past and offered them the means to transform and assert their identity within the boundaries of captivity. As historian [[Lawrence W. Levine]] argues in ''Black Culture and Consciousness'', enslaved Africans in the New World devoted "the structure and message of their tales to the compulsions and needs of their present situation" (1977, 90).<ref name="Zobel Marshall 2012">Zobel Marshall, Emily (2012) ''Anansi's Journey: A Story of Jamaican Cultural Resistance''. University of the West Indies Press: Kingston, Jamaica. {{ISBN|978-9766402617}}</ref>

[[File:Anansi (Mayaguez Children's Library).jpg|thumb|Illustration used by Puerto Rican storyteller [[Tere Marichal]].|238x238px]]

=== Teaching Narratives ===
The Jamaican versions of these stories are some of the best-preserved because Jamaica had the largest concentration of enslaved Ashanti in the Americas. Akin to their Ashanti origins, each of these stories carries its own proverb at the end.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://anansistories.com/Traditional_Stories.html|title=Traditional Anansi Stories|website=anansistories.com}}</ref> At the end of the story "Anansi and Brah Dead", there is a proverb that suggests that even in times of slavery, Anansi was referred to by his Akan original name: "Kwaku Anansi" or simply as "Kwaku" interchangeably with ''Anansi''. The proverb is: "If yuh cyaan ketch Kwaku, yuh ketch him shut",<ref>[http://www.nlj.gov.jm/?q=jamaican-proverbs#quaku "Jamaican Proverbs"]{{dead link|date=February 2025}}, National Library of Jamaica.</ref> which refers to when Brah Dead (brother death or drybones), a personification of Death, was chasing Anansi to kill him; its meaning: The target of revenge and destruction, even killing, will be anyone very close to the intended, such as loved ones and family members.

However, like Anansi's penchant for ingenuity, Anansi's quintessential presence in the [[African diaspora|Diaspora]] saw the trickster figure reinvented through a multi-ethnic exchange that transcended its Akan-Ashanti origins, typified in the diversity of names attributed to these Anansi stories, from the "Anansi-tori"<ref>A. P., and T. E. Penard. "Surinam Folk-Tales". The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 30, no. 116, 1917, pp. 239–250. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/534344.</ref> to the "Kuenta di Nanzi".<ref>Mondada, Joke Maaten, "Narrative Structure and Characters in the Nanzi Stories of Curaçao: a Discourse Analysis". (2000). ''LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses''. 7214.</ref> Even the character "Ti Bouki", the buffoon constantly harassed by "Ti Malice" or "Uncle Mischief", a Haitian trickster associated with Anansi,<ref name="Murray 2014">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MWRyBAAAQBAJ&q=%22ti+malice%22+%22anansi%22&pg=PA163|title=Roots of Haiti's Vodou-Christian Faith: African and Catholic Origins|last=Thomas|first=R. Murray|year=2014|publisher=[[ABC-CLIO]]|isbn=978-1-4408-3204-8|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Tell my horse|last=Hurston|first=Zora Neale|date=2014|orig-year=1938|publisher=HarperCollins e-Books|isbn=978-0-06-184739-4|oclc=877987972}}</ref> references this exchange: "Bouki" itself is a word descending from the [[Wolof language]] that also references a particular folk animal (the [[hyena]]) indigenous to them. The same applies to Anansi's role in the lives of Africans beyond the era of slavery; New World Anansi tales entertain just as much as they instruct, highlight his avarice and other flaws alongside his cleverness, and feature the mundane just as much as they do the subversive. Anansi becomes both an ideal to be aspired toward, and a cautionary tale against the selfish desires that can cause our undoing.<ref name="Murray 2014" />{{rp|163–164}} Anansi has effectively evolved beyond a mere trickster figure; the wealth of narratives and social influences have thus led to him being considered a classical hero.<ref>Van Duin, Lieke. "Anansi as Classical Hero". ''Journal of Caribbean Literatures'', vol. 5, no. 1, 2007, pp. 33–42. JSTOR, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/40986316?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents 40986316]</ref>