Courlander (1976) explores the evolution and dispersal of the Anansi legends, noting how the spelling of Anansi’s name changes with the region (in Jamaica, for example, it is spelled Anancy,Annancy,or ‘Nancy).  He makes reference to “Aunt Nancy” tales in the American South, but his is the only reference to a U.S. Anansi that this author has found.

Until recently, Anansi stories in the Americas were about the only tales indisputably attributed to Africa.  As far back as the 1880s, when Joel Chandler Harris published the Uncle Remus stories, folklorists argued the origin of the tales black people told in the United States.  Many believed the tales’ origins to be Indo-European.  The debate centered around the fact that slavers mixed Africans of different backgrounds.  Opponents of the positive African influence theory believed that without the stimulus of people who shared their traditions, the Africans who came to the Americas had no incentive to preserve what they knew.  Stith Thompson, renown for classifying tales, wrote in 1946 about tales found in Africa in terms of their relationship to Indo-European tales.  In particular dispute were the tar baby stories, which Thompson said originated in India.  Whatever the Afro-American stories’ origins, folklorists now agree they were introduced to the Americas by African people.

Anansi and the wisdom tree

Long ago, in the time of magic, when the animals talked and the moon walked, Anansi the spider was the most respected one in his village.  Each night the chief summoned his drummers and dancers and the people of the village to gather at Anansi’s house and listen to his words of wisdom.  The drums would call out: “Doon, Doon, Doc! Doon, Doon, Doc!”

Wearing his silken threads, Anansi would dance from his rooftop, spinning a web to the ground, and pronounce his great proverbs for the evening:

The end of the story will not harm you,
If…you know the beginning of the tale;
or
One who falls by one’s foot may rise again,
But…one who falls by one’s mouth may
not be so lucky;
or
Greed loses what it has gained!