The above ideas explain the willingness of many animals in African and Afro-American tales to take a direct approach when asking the Supreme Being for favors.  They think nothing of journeying to the Supreme Being’s domain, sometimes with an entourage.  They are bold and often argumentative when they speak, though always respectful.  The Supreme Being, knowing that he will have to contend with the consequences of granting the request, is often reluctant to do so.

In one of the stories Garcia and Kleymeyer tell on their video, Conejo goes to God with a request to be made bigger.  God tells him he’s smart and, so, doesn’t need to be bigger.  But Conejo persists, and God finally agrees—on the condition that Conejo bring him wasps, two crocodile teeth, and a snake.  Conejo completes the tasks, and God makes him bigger by elongating the rabbit’s ears.

The snake bites the hunter who tried to help it.

There is an African American version of this story, wherein Brer Rabbit goes to God to request a longer tail.  When the tasks are completed, God is so disturbed by Brer Rabbit’s cunning that He tells Brer Rabbit that because he’s so smart he can make his own tail long.  In Akan tradition, Anansi approaches Nyame, the Sky God, to ask for his stories.  Nyame asks Anansi to bring wasps, a leopard, a snake, and a fairy.  (Anansi catches the fairy by creating a “gum” baby.)  Anansi behaves in the same manner as Conejo and Brer Rabbit when he petitions Nyame.  But his request is more benign, and Nyame gives him the stories.  Thus all the stories in the world belong to Anansi.

African influence is easier to see in communities of the Americas that were relatively isolated.  The Chota Valley in Ecuador, the Sea Islands of Georgia, Cuba, Brazil, Colombia, Suriname, French Guiana, and other places in South America and the Caribbean all have populations that manifest their African heritage in readily documented ways.  In most of the United States, the early Africans’ prolonged exposure to other cultures (Native American and European) makes it hard to see African tale types in some African American folktales.  Acculturation is a two-way street, however.  African influences are not limited to African American folktales but extend to folktales in the United States as a whole.  One can recognize the factors discussed in this article—similarity of story content, language, religious practices, and foodways–in many American folktales and thereby identify aspects of our common folk heritage.