Anansi superimposed over the Jamaican flag and the Asanti/Ashanti Eye of God image.
He wears a Rastafarian Lion of Judah T-Shirt showing that he is irie.
 | AnansiStories by Michael Auld have no age limits.
Swapping these Jamaican stories since childhood,
he has written, illustrated, and told these
folkloric tales to students in various classrooms and other venues.
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 | Above: The Author's illustration of Anansi, Bra' Tiger and their love interest
in front of her house. From the live story that I narrated on the YouTube link
titled: "ANANSI AND TIGER RIDING HORSE"
Teachers can contact me by email if interested in an educational session on Zoom.
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Kweku Anansi is an Akan and Jamaican folkloric character whose first name, Kweku means Wednesday's child. He has many names, but the original Ghanain title represents a spider, which Ananse, or Anansi, and depending on where you are it is also spelled Anancy, which means "spider" in Twi. Although he is half god and half Pirate Spider, an arachnid found around the world, he can be depicted in folklore as either a man, a spider, or a spider-man who predates the Marvel character for thousands of years. Depending on the story or the storyteller, he can be many things, good, bad, crafty, risque, or even stupid. The best stories start with the teller's disclaimer so as not to point fingers at any listener, and end with a moral. Anansesem or AnansiStories teach us how to behave. Anansi can be found in many countries from West Africa to the Caribbean, to Central and North America where his people were taken. His stories can deal with the hand of the king's daughter, rivalry for a maiden's attention, telling of history, or parallel a story from Aladin, but some are the food search. Of the hundreds of tales, here below are just three of my illustrations and a rag doll. America's "Aunt Nancy and the Tar Man". This story can also be found in Jamaica as "Anansi and the Tar Baby", and in a Cherokee-inspired story, "Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby".
 | | America's "Aunt Nancy and the Tar Man". This story can also be found in Jamaica as "Anansi and the Tar Baby", and in a Cherokee-inspired story, "Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby". |
 | My illustrated Jamaican AnansiStory is titled, "Inside the Cow". It is a tale of hunger, and missteps in search of a cow's fat for food without the owner's knowledge. This is a parallel with Aladin's "Open Sesame" scenario told how-to get fat, Takooma to his "neighbor" Anansi. The story was collected in 1924 from George Parks by American ethnologist Martha Warren Beckwith who traveled to the island to collect stories from local informants.
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 | My 1970s comic strip story was published in the Jamaican Gleaner Company's Star newspaper. It illustrated Anansi telling the story of the formation of the Asanti Confederacy in 1670 under the 50=year-old Asantehene Osei Tutu and enabled by his cousin, the priest Okomfo Anoyke.
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 | My books and Anansesem comic strip panels on the Jamaican Maroon's Second War stand behind my rag doll and his recipe booklet.
Then, there is Anansi's son, Ticky-Ticky
Above: Intikuma is Anansi's youngest son also called Takooma or Tacooma in Jamaican stories, where he appears as a child or a man, unrelated to Anansi.
Below: Ticky-Ticky is my version of a tri-racial, 12-year-old Jamaican schoolboy. The story about him (seen in the above book "Ticky-Ticky's Quest" is Part 1 of a trilogy). This first part takes the young Spider-Boy into the Caribbean via a loaned reality-crossing, flying Bat-Canoe, owned by his relative Makataure Guayaba, Lord of the Afterlife of the Island of Those Absent (i.e, the Dead). Ticky-Ticky is also loaned Opiyel. the Search-Dog of the Afterlife to hunt for the Spider-Boy's missing, wayward father, Anansi. Parts 2 & 3 will take Ticky-Ticky to Turtle Island to meet with his American spider relatives. Then on into Mexico's ancient past and a meeting with a Yamayeka/Jamaican Yamaye Taino girl. This encounter ends with a parallel reality arrival at their villages on Bull Bay, Jamaica, and pre and current-Global Warming issues.
 | | Native American aerial concept of a view of Turtle Island: |
North America, and Mexico. (From Part 2 of Ticky-Ticky's trilogy).
Link to the Next Post This link is to the Taino Creation Story on ART THAT INFORMS
This next link will be posted as "Jamaica's Seven Traditional Storytelling tales" of ghosts, pirates, Three-Fingered Jack the Maroon, a White Witch, a Rolling Calf, a Twice Buried Man, Spanish Jar & the Golden Table, and a naughty, risque schoolboy's story called Big Boy and Teacher.
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