Anansi

Anansi (Kwaku Ananse) is a spider and trickster of Akan oral tradition from present-day Ghana. In the best-known cycle he bargains with the sky god Nyame to become the owner of all stories — which is why folktales themselves are sometimes called 'Anansesem' (Anansi stories).

Carried across the Atlantic in the memory of enslaved West Africans, Anansi survived and adapted throughout the Caribbean and the Americas, becoming a figure of cunning and quiet resistance for the powerless. The tradition is fundamentally performative — told aloud, with call-and-response — so no single written text is canonical.