(4) When the owner of the dead cow comes to cut it up, the trickster hides in some organ, which the owner’s daughter takes to the brook to wash. He jumps out, pretends that he was in the brook bathing, complains of the insult and gets the cow as damages. So Cronise and Ward, Nassau, Edwards. In Tremearne, he gets a whole elephant for himself.
(5) He carries the cow away into a lonely place in order to enjoy the whole, and Dry-head gets it away from him; see numbers [29], [30]. The episode does not occur in other versions. In Cronise and Ward, he gets three cows by means of the tail in the ground trick. In Harris, he is given his companion’s head, who gets shut up with him and upon whom he has laid the blame of killing the cow.
23. Cunnie-more-than-Father. [[Story]]
Parkes gave me the only version of this admirable story that I found in Jamaica and I did not find it in this form in other American collections. The essential idea is that of repeated attempts by a parent to turn over to an enemy an adroit child, who each time outwits his would-be captor. The plot is common in Africa. In Rattray, Chinyanje, 133–136; Torrend, 183–185; Junod, 158–163, a woman steals from a monster, who demands her unborn child in compensation. After his birth, the monster comes for his prey. The parent attempts to beguile the child into his hands by sending him to fetch something from the place where the monster lies concealed. Each time the child escapes. Finally the child climbs a tree and throws down fruit (Torrend and Junod) or wood (Rattray) into the open mouth of his enemy, thus choking and killing him.
For a similar sequence of attempts to entrap a weaker enemy, compare the Coyote and Rabbit cycle from Mexico, Boas, JAFL 25: 205, 236, 246, and 260 referring to Preuss; and two versions of the same story by Mechling, JAFL 25: 201–202.
Parkes’s version includes five episodes, three of which belong to the regular cycle; the first and the last are indeterminate. [[247]]
(1) The child proves too clever for the parent. Barker, 24, says, “Anansi is the Spider, and with him is generally associated his son, Kweku Tsin.” Stories about the two bring out the superior wit of the son and the jealousy of the father. Compare numbers [19], [21c], [24] in this collection.
In the African stories cited above, the motive for seeking to entrap the child is one of compensation for stolen food. In the Mexican cycle, the dull-witted strong animal has been made to suffer punishment for a stolen food-supply, in place of the real thief. In Jamaica, the child’s exposure of a hidden food-supply is used as the motive.
The story of the yam’s hidden name is universally known and enjoyed in Jamaica. It belongs to the group of hidden-name stories discussed under number [69]. See Milne-Home, 56–57, De Affassia, and compare Musgrave, 53–54.