Kwaku Ananse
/ˈkwɑːkuː əˈnɑːnseɪ/noun
Akan trickster figure, usually depicted as a spider, who appears in folktales from Ghana and across the African diaspora.
Did you know?Ananse stories traveled across the Atlantic with enslaved Akan-speaking people and helped inspire Caribbean figures such as Jamaica’s Anancy.
Etymological Timeline
Precolonial Akan
Twi
Kwaku
“A male personal name traditionally given to a child born on Friday”
Precolonial Akan
Twi
ananse
“Spider”
18th–19th Century
Akan languages
Kwaku Ananse
“Kwaku the Spider, the clever trickster and keeper of stories”
19th Century
Caribbean English Creoles
Anancy / Anansi
“A spider trickster figure carried into Caribbean oral tradition”
20th Century
English
Ananse
“A name for the Akan spider-trickster and his cycle of folktales”
Modern English
English
Kwaku Ananse
“The Akan mythic storyteller and spider trickster”