#1. How We Got the Name “Anansi Tales.” Anansi, or Ananse, is the Akan name for
#1. How We Got the Name “Anansi Tales.” Anansi, or Ananse, is the Akan name for “Spider,” and he is one of the most famous African tricksters. Spider has other names in other West African languages; in Hausa stories, for example, Spider is called Gizo. I have changed the name “tiger” to “leopard” in this story; the word “tiger” in African folktales refers to leopards, cheetahs, servals, and other wild cats (there are no actual tigers in Africa). Leopard is often the dupe of the trickster; see story #6, The Elephant that Wanted to Dance and story #32, The Jackal, the Dove, and the Panther, in which it is the trickster rabbit who fools the leopard.
#2. Wisdom and the Human Race. Fanti-land refers to the home of the Fante, an Akan people who live in Ghana. The name of Anansi’s son, Kweku Tsin, is from the Akan day-name system; Kweku is a name given to a son born on a Wednesday. For more stories from Ghana, see these books in the Bibliography: 12, 13, 18, 20, 32, 37, 55, 90, 136, 165, 199.
#3. Thunder and Anansi. Greed is one of the most distinctive traits of trickster characters like Anansi, as you can see both in this story and in the previous story. For more Spider stories, see these books in the Bibliography: 12, 14, 15, 18, 20, 52, 55, 63, 64, 90, 98, 114, 136, 159, 178.
#4. The Flame Tree. This story is set in the Kyagwe region of central Uganda. The Lake referred to here is Lake Nalubaale (Lake Victoria), which is one of the Great Lakes in the East African Rift Valley. The Buvuma Islands are an island chain in the northern part of the lake. You can see pictures of actual flame trees at Wikipedia: Spathodea. For more stories from Uganda, see these books in the Bibliography: 23, 113, 149, 176.
#5. The Buffalo Maiden. The Mabira Forest is a rainforest in central Uganda. This story includes a song; songs-in-the-stories are a regular feature of African folktales. Most folktale collections do not include the music, but you will find a transcription of the music in #19, How the Animals Dug Their Well.
#6. The Elephant that Wanted to Dance. As in the previous story, the setting is the Mabira rainforest of Uganda. The sem-sem sauce referred to in the story is made with peanuts and sesame. The animals called “rock conies” are also known as rock hyraxes. Although hyraxes look like rodents (hence the name “rock conies”), they are actually in the same animal family, Paenungulata, as elephants and manatees.
#7. The Language of the Beasts. This is an Amazigh (Berber) story from northern Africa. The jerboa referred to here is a tiny rodent with a very long tail, as in the English “gerbil.” The story of the man who learned the language of the animals is a famous folktale that appears in many variations (Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 670), often focused on punishing the wife, as here. This variation is distinctive for the elaborate explanation of just how the man gained his unusual power. For more examples of ATU 670, see Ashliman’s collection of stories which you