Similarities between Indian Tales and African Tales

        A few semesters back I had the privilege of taking West African literature.  Although we mainly read novels by authors from that region we spent a small portion of the class reading early African tales.  After reading a lot of the Native American trickster tales in our class I was reminded on the African tales because of their extreme likeness.  Even though both areas are miles and miles apart the stories of both peoples had the same feeling to them.  They were playful and humorous.
         One thing in particular that stood out was that the stories from both regions mostly consisted of animal characters.  Much like the Indian tales, the African tales have a few recurring characters like Crocodile, Giraffe, Eagle, and Cheetah.  The African tales also have a trickster character.  From class we know that the Indian trickster character is often Coyote.  In African tales the trickster is often the character Anansi, meaning spider.  

In some stories Anansi is portrayed as a spider-like man who gets himself into sticky situations he must trick his way out of.  One of my favorite is the story of Anansi and the Sky God.  The version I read seemed to be of Anansi as an animal.  I found a really cool video that someone made of that tale that shows Anansi as a man but the story follows the same plot.  It is basically about Anansi bringing the power of stories to the earth.

    Another similarity I found between the two region's stories is a sort of aloofness with sexuality and bodily functions.  Although I don't consider myself prudish in any way, that was one thing that was quite foreign to me.  I wish I had kept the textbook from that class to recall some of the stories because they are pretty hard to find just searching online.  Here is a link to it though in case anybody is interested:  http://www.amazon.com/African-Folktales-Pantheon-Folklore-Library/dp/0394721179/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327994662&sr=8-1
      Anyway, one thing I remember is that we were lucky enough to have an exchange student from West Africa in the class with us and he told us his favorite story that his grandma used to tell him about how the cheetah got its spots.  I couldn't find it online anywhere and so I'm a little unsure about all the details but basically he tried to eat another animal, some trickery and shenanigans occurred and he got pooped on.  Forever giving him spots.  
     Stories like that and like the Monster Skunk, where the main character is just going around crapping on everybody, are pretty hilarious but not really the sort of stories I grew up listening to.  I'm very much accustomed to the contrastingly feces free Aesop's Fables.  Aesop's Fables have a lot of similarities with Indian and African tales as well.  There are almost always animal characters teaching a moral to the reader.  I have to remind myself of the similarities when reading these tales so as to relate to them and better enjoy them.