Background: In the language of the Ashanti people, Anansi means ‘spider’. The word ‘nan’ means ‘to spin’. Ashanti folktales are known as Ananisem, which means ‘story’ and which may or may not be about spiders. Anansi is an African folktale character. He often takes the shape of a spider and is considered to be the spirit of all knowledge of stories. He is also one of the most important characters of West African and Caribbean folklore. The prescribed lesson is an Anansi story that explains the phenomenon of how his name became attached to the whole corpus of tales.

Summary: Once there were no stories in the world. The Sky God, Nyame, had them all. Anansi went to Nyame and asked how much the stories would cost to buy. Nyame set a high price. He had three conditions: Anansi must bring back the Mmoboro Hornets, Onini the python and Osebo the leopard.

Anansi set about capturing these. First he went to catch the hornets. Anansi filled a calabash with water and poured some over himself and some over the nest, calling out that it was raining. He suggested that the hornets get into the empty calabash, and, when they obliged, quickly sealed the opening. Then, he went to where the python lived carrying a long bamboo pole and some strong vines.

He debated out loud whether the python was really longer than the bamboo pole or not as he and his wife had debated over. The python overheard him and, when Anansi explained the debate, agreed to lie along the bamboo pole. Because the python could not easily make himself completely straight, a true impression of his actual length was difficult to obtain. When he stretched at one end, he got shorter at the other end. So the python agreed to be tied to the pole. When he was completely tied, Anansi took him to Nyame.

To catch the leopard, Anansi dug a deep hole in the ground. When the leopard fell into the hole, Anansi offered to help him out with a strong rope. He bent a tall tree towards the ground so that its top was over the pit, and he tied it that way. Then he tied a rope to the tree and dropped the other end of it into the pit.

“Tie this to your tail”, he said. Osebo tied the rope to his tail. “Is it welltied?”Anansi asked. “Yes, it is well-tied”, the leopard said. “In that case”, Anansi said, “you are not merely half-foolish, you are all-foolish”.

And he took his knife and cut the other rope, the one that held the tree bowed to the ground. The tree straightened up with a snap, pulling Osebo out of the hole. He hung in the air head downward, twisting and turning. And while he hung this way, Anansi killed him with his weapons. Then he took the body of the leopard and carried it to Nyame, the Sky God, saying: “Here is the third thing. Now I have paid the price.” Nyame said to him: “Kwaku Anansi, great warriors and chiefs have tried, but they have been unable to do it. You have done it. Therefore, I will give you the stories. From this day onward, all stories belong to you.

From the story we see that there are two kinds of people on earth: The tricksters and the ones who are tricked. If we are not intelligent enough, we will fall prey to the cleverer lot. And that is why, in parts of Africa, people love to narrate, and love to hear the stories they call ‘spider stories’.

Though it is a simple story of a trickster, a few insights can be gathered from the story:

When one is very determined, nothing is impossible. 

• Since Anansi really wanted to own all the stories in the world, he did everything he could to acquire his goal. Strength is not measured by size.
• Anansi was just a small spider but he conquered animals bigger than he was.