Jamaica Anansi stories

Chapter 403: 142. Anansi makes a Dance. [Story]

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About This Book

A collection of Jamaican folktales gathers short animal and trickster narratives centered on the spider Anansi alongside tales about tigers, monkeys, goats, and birds. Stories account for curious animal traits, stage comic reversals, and probe themes of cunning, justice, and social order through episodic plots and origin motifs. The volume also presents riddles, dance and song materials, and field-recorded music, arranged in thematic sections that compile variants, brief notes, and folkloric context for each tale.

[Contents]

142. Anansi makes a Dance. [Story]

The songs of this medley at first follow the story of Goat’s escape from the dance, number 40, combined with the parallel story of Rat’s escape from Puss’s dance. The song is taken from a popular game in which one player represents the cat, another the rat; all the others form a line with clasped hands, and Puss tries to catch Rat through the line, while all sing the song. The bull’s song belongs to number 88 or 89. Anansi’s fifing is possibly taken from 139.