Bought all the world's stories from the sky god, at a price of four impossible captures
A python, a leopard, a swarm of hornets and an invisible fairy.
Myth · Around the world
Anansi
Akan (West African) folklore — spider trickster
The spider trickster of the Akan people of Ghana, and one of the most widely travelled characters in world folklore. Small, greedy and endlessly cunning, he bargains with the sky god for ownership of all stories and wins them by catching four impossible creatures. Carried across the Atlantic by enslaved Akan people, he survives in the Caribbean as Anancy and in the American South as Aunt Nancy.
How to spot them
- ▸A spider, or a man who becomes one, who wins by wit rather than strength
- ▸Bargains with, and repeatedly outwits, the sky god Nyame
- ▸His tales cross the Atlantic with the slave trade and resurface in Jamaica and the Carolinas
- ▸Quiz clue: 'Nyame', 'Onini the python', 'the pot of wisdom', 'Aunt Nancy'
Stories & episodes
Measured a python against a palm branch by persuading it to stretch itself out straight
Onini, the first of the sky god's four demands.
Trapped a leopard in a pit and a swarm of hornets in a gourd by pretending it was raining
Osebo and the Mmoboro.
Tried to hoard all the wisdom in the world in a pot, and spilled it trying to climb a tree
His son's sensible advice is what makes him drop it — hence wisdom is scattered among everyone.
His tales crossed the Atlantic with enslaved Akan people and became Caribbean folklore
Anancy in Jamaica; Aunt Nancy among the Gullah of the American South.
A 2005 Neil Gaiman novel is named after his sons
A sequel of sorts to American Gods, in which he also appears as Mr Nancy.
Stories of this kind are called by his name in Twi
Anansesem, 'spider tales' — the Akan word for folktale generally.
Quick-fire facts
- •He belongs to the Akan peoples of Ghana and Ivory Coast; his name means 'spider' in Twi
- •The sky god he bargains with is Nyame (or Nyankopon)
- •The four captures are Onini the python, Osebo the leopard, the Mmoboro hornets and Mmoatia the fairy
- •His wife is usually Aso and his son Ntikuma
- •Akan folktales in general are called anansesem, 'spider stories'
- •R. S. Rattray's Akan-Ashanti Folk-Tales (1930) is the standard early collection
- •In the Caribbean he becomes Anancy; in Gullah tradition Aunt Nancy
- •He is often grouped with Brer Rabbit and other New World trickster figures of African origin
- •Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys (2005) and American Gods feature him as Mr Nancy
Drill it — 9 cards
1 / 9new card
Sources
- R. S. Rattray — Akan-Ashanti Folk-Tales
- David Leeming — The Oxford Companion to World Mythology