Editing Anansi (section)

==Relationship between Anansi and Br'er Rabbit==
Anansi shares similarities with the trickster figure of [[Br'er Rabbit]], who originated from the folklore of the Bantu-speaking peoples of south and central Africa. Enslaved Africans brought the Br'er Rabbit tales to the New World, which, like the Anansi stories, depict a physically small and vulnerable creature using his cunning intelligence to prevail over larger animals. However, although Br'er Rabbit stories are told in the Caribbean, especially in the French-speaking islands (where he is named "Compair Lapin"), he is predominantly an African-American folk hero. The rabbit as a trickster is also in Akan versions as well and a Bantu origin doesn't have to be the main source, at least for the Caribbean where the Akan people are more dominant than in the U.S.<ref>[http://www.worldstories.org.uk/stories/story/73-why-anansi-has-eight-skinny-legs/english "Why Anansi Has Eight Skinny Legs"]. An Akan Story by Farida Salifu. World stories.</ref> His tales entered the mainstream through the work of the American journalist [[Joel Chandler Harris]], who wrote several collections of [[Uncle Remus]] stories between 1870 and 1906<ref name="Zobel Marshall 2012"/>

One of the times Anansi himself was tricked was when he tried to fight a [[tar baby]] after trying to steal food, but became stuck to it instead. It is a tale well known from a version involving Br'er Rabbit, found in the Uncle Remus stories and adapted and used in the 1946 live-action/animated [[Walt Disney]] movie ''[[Song of the South]]''. These were derived from African-American [[Folklore|folktale]]s in the [[U.S. Southern States|Southern United States]], that had part of their origin in African folktales preserved in oral storytelling by African Americans.  Elements of the African Anansi tale were combined by African-American storytellers with elements from Native American tales, such as the [[Cherokee]] story of the "Tar Wolf",<ref>James Mooney, "Myths of the Cherokee", Dover 1995, pp. 271–273, 232–236, 450. Reprinted from a Government Printing Office publication of 1900.</ref> which had a similar theme, but often had a trickster rabbit as a [[protagonist]]. The Native American trickster rabbit appears to have resonated with African-American story-tellers and was adopted as a cognate of the Anansi character with which they were familiar.<ref>Jace Weaver, ''That the People Might Live: Native American Literatures and Native American Community'', Oxford University Press, November 1997, p. 4.</ref> Other authorities state the widespread existence of similar stories of a rabbit and tar baby throughout indigenous Meso-American and South American cultures.<ref>Enrique Margery : "The Tar-Baby Motif", p. 9. In ''Latin American Indian Literatures Journal'', Vol. 6 (1990), pp. 1–13.</ref> Thus, the tale of Br'er Rabbit and the Tar Baby represents a coming together of two separate folk traditions, American and African, which coincidentally shared a common theme. Most of the other Br'er Rabbit stories originated with Cherokee or Algonquian myths.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://chenocetah.wordpress.com/2007/11/12/cherokee-place-names-in-the-southeastern-us-5/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100823025908/http://chenocetah.wordpress.com/2007/11/12/cherokee-place-names-in-the-southeastern-us-5/|url-status=dead|title=Cherokee Place Names in the Southeastern U.S., Part 6 « Chenocetah's Weblog<!-- Bot generated title -->|archive-date=23 August 2010}}</ref> In the USA today, the stories of Br'er Rabbit exist alongside other stories of Aunt Nancy, and of Anansi himself, coming from both the times of slavery and also from the Caribbean and directly from Africa.