WHY SPIDERS LIVE ON ROOFTOPS
Brer Tiger and Brer Anansi went to river-side.
Brer Anansi said, "Brer Tiger, take out your inside and wash it out."
Brer Tiger did so.
"Now, Brer Tiger, dip your head in water, wash it good."
The moment Brer Tiger put his head in water, Anansi took up the inside and run away with it give to his wife Tacoomah to boil.
Next morning he heard that Tiger was dead. He called all the children to know how they were going to cry. Each one come say, "Tita Tiger dead!"
The last child he called said, "Same something Papa bring come here last night, give Ma Tacoomah to boil, Tita Tiger gut."
"Oh, no!" said Anansi. "Pickney, you can't go." So they lock up that child.
So man hear him crying, ask him what's the matter.
"I want to go to Tita Tiger's funeral!"
Let him out to go.
When Anansi see him coming, he run away and take house-top and since then he never come down.
Story Title: Eating Tiger's Guts
Storyteller: Simeon Falconer, Santa Cruz Mountains
Book Title: Jamaica Anansi Stories
Author: Martha Warren Beckwith
Published: 1924
Rights: CC0 Public Domain
Online Source: Sacred Texts Archive
Process: I have removed the eye-dialect, along with editing for punctuation and paragraphing.
Story Notes from Author (Beckwith): The "Just so" story, number 51, is another version of the diving plot, which is popular in Jamaica. Jekyll tells it, 7-9, in form (b). Compare: Chatelain, 205; Junod, 208; Renel, 254; JAFL 32:395; Nights, 373-377; Parsons, Sea Islands, 40. In all these cases, the trickster proposes diving and eats a store of food while his companion is in the water. The grotesque idea of bodily dismemberment coupled with the diving episode, I do not find in any of the parallels noted. In Parsons, Andros Island, 73, Boukee and Elephant go out bird-hunting. Boukee shoots Elephant and brings him home to the family. Boukee is brought to justice because the children are overheard singing, "Me and Mamma'n Pappa / Eat my belly full of pot of soup / Bo'o' Elephin got (gut), oh!" For the incriminating song in version (b), see number 4.
