Trickster Story Stories

Words: 681
Pages: 3

Both of these trickster tale stories are oral storytelling. An oral storytelling is an ancient intimate tradition between the storyteller and their audience. However, even though they are both trickster tales with many similarities there are also some differences.
There are definitely more similarities than differences in “ How Stories Came to Earth” and “Coyote Steals Fire”. The first similarity is they both use anthropomorphism, which means they have human characteristics to gods, animals, or inanimate objects. An example from “How Stories Came to Earth” would be that Anansi is a spider and can sometimes look like a wise old man and has a wife named Aso who can also talk and give some ideas to him. In “How Coyote Steals Fire” Coyote and
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The first difference is the role of women. In “How Stories Came to Earth” the role of women were not useless at all. For example, Aso is Anansi's wife and helped him try to figure out ways to capture the animal and bring them to the sky-god to make them into stories. The first idea she gave him was to cut off the branch of the palm tree to trick the python. “In Coyote Steals Fire” the role of women were not that important. “If the female teeth came up with the carved sides, they counted one.” Thunder and Coyote were playing a game at this time and when they were counting points the female side was worth less than the male side. Another difference is the power figure of both of the leaders. In “How Stories Came to Earth” the sky-god gave Anansi the stories with a hassel. In “How Coyote Steals Fire” Thunder got angry and tried to kill Coyote. Thunder got confused and mad at Coyote for cheating and trying to steal the fire from him. The last difference is they both use a different trick method. In “How Stories Came to Earth° the first example would be when Anansi goes around to the creatures and tells them to go somewhere he knew they could easily be captured from. He captured the python by cutting off a branch of the palm tree, the leopard by digging a hole, the hornets by filling an empty ground with water and making an Akua’s child, a wooden doll with a black face