The Negroes in the West Indies still retain the tales and traditions
which their fathers and grandfathers brought with them from Africa.
Some thirty years back these “Ananzi Stories”, as they are called, were
invariably told at the Negro wakes, which lasted for nine successive
nights. The reciters were always men. In those days when the slaves
were still half heathen, and when the awful _Obeah_ was universally
believed in, such of the Negroes as attended church or chapel kept
their children away from these funeral gatherings. The wakes are now,
it is believed, almost entirely discontinued, and with them have gone
the stories. The Negroes are very shy of telling them, and both the
clergyman of the Church of England, and the Dissenting Minister set
their faces against them, and call them foolishness. The translator,
whose early childhood was passed in those islands, remembers to have
heard such stories from his nurse, who was an African born; but beyond
a stray fragment here and there, the rich store which she possessed has
altogether escaped his memory. The following stories have been taken
down from the mouth of a West Indian nurse in his sister’s house, who,
born and bred in it, is rather regarded as a member of the family than
as a servant. They are printed just as she told them, and both their
genuineness and their affinity with the stories of other races will be
self-evident. Thus we have the “Wishing Tree” of the Hindoos, the
_Kalpa Vriksha_ of Somadeva, and of the German Fairy Tales in the
“Pumpkin Tree”, which throws down as many pumpkins as the poor widow
wishes. In one story we have “Boots” to the life, while the man whom he
outwits is own brother to the Norse Trolls. In another we find a
“speaking beast”, which reminds us at once of the Egyptian story of
Anessou and Satou, as well as of the “Machandelboom”, and “the
Milk-white Doo”. We find here the woman who washes the dirty head
rewarded, and the man who refuses to wash it punished, in the very
words used in “The Bushy Bride”. We find, too, in “Nancy Fairy”, the
same story, both in groundwork and incident, as we have in “the Lassie
and her Godmother”; and most surprising of all, in the story of “Ananzi
and Quanqua”, we find the very trait about a trick played with the tail
of an ox, which is met with in a variation to “Boots who ate a match
with the Troll”. Here is the variation: “Whilst he was with the Troll,
the lad was to go out to watch the swine, so he drove them home to his
father’s house, but first he cut their tails off, and stuck them into
the ground. Then he went home to the Troll, and begged him to come and
see how his swine were going down to Hell. But when the Troll saw the
swine’s tails sticking out of the ground he wanted to pull them back
again, so he caught hold of them and gave a great tug, and then down he
fell with his heels up in the air, and the tails in his fist.”
They are called “Ananzi Stories”, because so many of them turn on the
feats of Ananzi, whose character is a mixture of “the Master-thief”,
and of “Boots”; but the most curious thing about him, is that he
illustrates the Beast Epic in a remarkable way. In all the West Indian
Islands, “Ananzi” is the name of spiders[1] in general, and of a very
beautiful spider with yellow stripes in particular. The Negroes think
that this spider is the “Ananzi” of their stories, but that his
superior cunning enables him to take any shape he pleases. In fact, he
is the example which the African tribes from which these stories came,
have chosen to take as pointing out the superiority of wit over brute
strength. In this way they have matched the cleverness and dexterity of
the Spider, against the bone and muscle of the Lion, invariably to the
disadvantage of the latter.
[1] Compare Crowther’s _Yoruba Glossary_, where _Alansasa_ is given as
the Yoruban for _spider_. The change of _n_ into _l_ is not uncommon,
even supposing the West Indian word to be uncorrupt.
After this introduction, we let the Tales speak for themselves, only
premising that the “Jack-Spaniard” in the first story is a very pretty
fly of the wasp kind, and, like his European brother, very small in the
waist; that the “Cush-cush”, is a little red yam which imparts a strong
red dye to everything with which it is boiled; and that the “Doukana”
is a forest tree which bears a fruit, though of what kind it is hard to
say.