Ananse is a fictitious character from Akan oral literature who has both human and spider qualities. His behavior is human but he has the form of a spider and lives in a community of animals. In the past and still in rural areas of Ghana today, the tales are told around the fire to entertain and teach the values of the society. Storytelling is an active exchange in which the audience participates with responses and songs.
Many Ghanaians today are born in urban areas and not as likely to hear Ananse stories from their elders. However, Ananse tales have been recorded and published in books and pamphlets for children and adults. Every Ghanaian elementary student reads about Ananse and may get to act out an Ananse story as a way to learn about Ghana's rich cultural heritage.
Ananse plays various roles in the tales and in the minds of modern Ghanaians. He is considered to be wise and cunning, but the spider trickster also teaches what one should not do when he is motivated by greed and takes inappropriate advantage of others. At the end of such a tale, he is shamed.
Here are some examples of the social meanings of Ananse:
- At the W.E.B. Dubois mausoleum in Accra, the ceiling features a design in the shape of a spider's web. Ghanaians who were interviewed on the trip to Ghana gave three different interpretations for the web. For one person the web symbolizes Ananse's (and therefore Dubois') wisdom. The American-born Dubois was an elder in his nineties when he moved to Ghana to become a citizen at the invitation of then President Nkwame Nkrumah. Another said Ananse is a protector or spy who always sees what is happening while he hides in the ceiling. However, Kofi Anyidoho who served on the Board that created the W.E.B. Dubois Center and directed it for ten years, explained that the web was intended to symbolize a net unifying all African peoples - a vision embraced by both Dubois and Nkrumah (interview, July 27, 1000).
- At the Ashanti Military Museum in Kumasi, a small printed piece of paper, on display with other articles, explains that the spider was the logo of the 81st Division of the West African Forces under the British. The spider is Ananse: "His Outstanding quality is subtlety, and by using his wits, he repeatedly discomforts those who would harm him. He achieves many "impossible" feats such as the capture of a hive of bees, a leopard, and a snake."
- An Akan proverb portrays Ananse as an example
that one should not follow. Dua a Ananse adi awuo, Ntikuma ntra ase nto
nkom can be interpreted as: Ananse's son, Ntikuma, does not sit and go
to sleep under a tree whose fruit his father has eaten and died from (Opoku,
# 497, 99).
Karen Keim, Moravian College