Similar trickster figures arise through independent invention or an ancient shared source.
Evidence
We KNOW Br’er Rabbit matches Anansi because the story TRAVELED (enslaved people carried it across the ocean). But Anansi and Iktomi could NOT have shared a story — West Africa and the Lakota plains had no contact. So how do we explain that BOTH made their trickster a spider? … There are only two possibilities, and a scholar must weigh them: (a) INDEPENDENT INVENTION — two peoples, separately, both noticed the same things about spiders (small, patient, clever weavers of traps, makers of intricate webs) and so, on their own, both made the spider their trickster; or (b) some VERY ancient shared source, from tens of thousands of years ago, before peoples spread across the earth. — , A Year of World Stories, 14910
Categorization
- QUESTION: The African Hares-to-Lakota spider question is a live archaeological/folklore puzzle worth pursuing.
- XREF: Connects to the scholarly diffusion vs. polygenesis debate in anthropology and to C. G. Jung’s archetype ideas. — connects to: Unrelated peoples independently invent similar founding epics — , A Year of World Stories, 15261; Parallel creation myths reveal shared human imagination while differences reveal distinct values. — , A Year of World Stories, 15608; The trickster figure emerges in every inhabited culture of the earth. — , A Year of World Stories, 14879
Related
- The trickster figure emerges in every inhabited culture of the earth. (similarity 0.80)
- Unrelated peoples independently invent similar founding epics (similarity 0.79)
Broader Connections
- Unrelated peoples independently invent similar founding epics
#corroborates(0.90) — , A Year of World Stories, 15261 - The trickster figure emerges in every inhabited culture of the earth.
#corroborates(0.85) — , A Year of World Stories, 14879 - Parallel creation myths reveal shared human imagination while differences reveal distinct values.
#expands(0.75) — , A Year of World Stories, 15608