Abstract
One of the most favorite characters in many African myths and folk tales is definitely a trickster. As a part of the African cultural heritage, the trickster has an important place in the cultures of many African nations. He is an entertainer, teacher, judge and a sage. Many comic aspects of life are brought together through the trickster, as well as serious social processes. He rewards and punishes. He is a deity and an ordinary man, if not an animal. During the Middle Passage Era he goes along with his suffering people to the New World. New circumstances require him to change and assume new forms. He has to be a rebel and a protector of his people due to slavery and violation of human rights. So, from comical spider and monkey back in Africa, we now have new characters such as Railroad Bill, Brother John, Br’er Rabbit and many hoodoo doctors. African oral tradition is transformed and becomes the basis for African-American literature.
Highlights
African trickster is an important figure in the myths of the African oral tradition
His habits and desires are those of men, the trickster is usually in animal form. It is usually in the form of a spider, like Anansi among the Akan, Ture among the Zande and Gizo among Hausa. It is in the form of a rabbit, like in the mythology and stories of Central and East Africa
The desire for freedom and revenge goes to the extent that even notorious African-American bandits of the nineteenth century became tricksters
Summary
African trickster is an important figure in the myths of the African oral tradition. Among the Akan, the trickster god Anansi is so popular that there is even a special genre of stories - anansesem (spider stories). Feldman explains (1963: 15-16) the relationship between the trickster and the hierarchical social order: "The trickster’s actions offered Africans a model of behavioral patterns that facelitated both individual and communal well–being without violating or threatening communal identity and values While those at top of the hierarchy could rely on their inherent power–defined in both religious and social terms – those at the bottom demonstrated worth and ability to survive through native intelligence. The desire to obtain food or money, the need to sleep or get away from work, the dream of freedom and vengeance to slaveholders represent the civilizational decline of the African man in relation to the former complexity that is recognized in the trickster stories The former magnificence and mystery of a divine trickster is gone. The most famous among them is John, known for his adventures and outwitting with his master
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