Why White Ants Always Harm Man’s Property

Once a famine fell on the land so fierce that a single grain of corn was worth far more than its weight in gold. A hungry spider was wandering through the forest hunting for anything to eat when, to his delight, he came upon a dead antelope.

He knew he would never get home safely with such a prize if anyone saw it, so he rolled it up carefully in a long mat and tied the bundle tight. Then he lifted it onto his head and set off, weeping loudly and telling everyone he passed that he was carrying the body of his dead grandfather. Everyone he met was full of sympathy.

On the way he met Wolf and Leopard. These two suspected one of Spider’s tricks; they knew he could not be trusted. Walking on a little, they talked over how they might discover what was really in the bundle.

They decided to take a short cut across country to a tree they knew Cousin Spider would have to pass. When they got there they hid behind it and waited. As Spider came by, they shook the tree and made the most dreadful noises. Spider was so terrified that he dropped his load and ran.

The two friends opened the bundle and were thrilled to find antelope meat inside. They carried it home and began cooking supper.

When Spider got over his fright, he started wondering who had been making those noises at the tree. He decided his enemies must be Wolf and Leopard, and he resolved to win the meat back from them.

He took a small lizard and filed its teeth into fine, sharp points. Then he sent the lizard to spy on Wolf and Leopard by asking them for fire. As soon as he left their cottage he was to put the fire out, so that he could go back and ask again. If they asked him any questions, he was to smile and show off his teeth.

The lizard did exactly as he was told, and everything happened just as Spider had expected. Wolf and Leopard asked eagerly where the lizard had had his teeth filed so handsomely. “Filing Spider did it for me,” he answered.

Wolf and Leopard talked it over and decided they would like their teeth filed the same way; then they could crack the bones of their food with ease. So they went to the house of the disguised spider and asked him to make their teeth like Lizard’s. Spider agreed, but said that to do the job properly he must first hang them up in a tree. They did not object.

Once they were hanging there, Spider and his family came out and jeered at them. Then Spider went to their cottage and fetched the antelope. He invited the whole village to a feast, and it was held right in front of the two poor animals in the tree. All through the celebration everyone made fun of Wolf and Leopard.

The next morning White Ant and his children passed by on their way to visit friends. Leopard begged them to set him and his companion free. White Ant and his family set to work, ate through the tree, and released them. In thanks, Leopard and Wolf promised to lay out a feast for the ants when they came back that way.

Unluckily, Spider overheard the invitation and decided to profit from it. On the third day—the very day Wolf and Leopard had named—Spider dressed his children up as ants. They set out singing the ants’ song, so as to fool Leopard. Wolf and Leopard welcomed them warmly and spread a splendid meal, which the spiders enjoyed enormously.

Not long after they had gone, the real ants arrived. The two hosts, believing these must be Spider and his family coming to trick them, poured boiling water over them and killed every one except the father.

White Ant went home in a fury and swore he would never help anyone again. Instead he would harm property whenever he had the chance. That is the tale’s explanation for white ants damaging people’s property.

Where this story comes from

This is story VII in Barker and Sinclair’s West African Folk-Tales (1917). The spider here is simply “Spider” or “Mr Spider,” and his opponents are Wolf and Leopard. Barker adds a separate note elsewhere in the book that “tiger” in West African stories means a leopard, a reminder that the animals in these English retellings were translated with some freedom.

The book’s list of illustrations includes Sinclair’s picture “Wolf and Leopard discover the Flesh of the Antelope.”

Read the original: West African Folk-Tales, ebook 66923 at Project Gutenberg

Reading guidance: older readers. Includes a tooth-filing trick, animals tied in a tree, and the killing of children with boiling water. This is an invented origin tale, not a biological explanation of insect behavior.

Reading the story closely

Wolf and Leopard correctly suspect the bundle, but later mistake the real helpers for impostors. Earlier success at detecting a trick makes their final certainty especially dangerous. Spider creates the deception; the hosts choose the lethal response. White Ant’s revenge then extends the injury to people who did not cause it.

Draw a chain from the antelope to the two feasts. At each link, write what the characters believe and what the reader knows. Find the last moment when checking an identity could still have prevented the deaths.

Talk about it

• Why did Spider pretend the bundle was his grandfather?
• How did Spider use the lizard to trap Wolf and Leopard?
• Why did White Ant decide never to help anyone again? Was that fair?

Related stories

• Why We See Ants Carrying Bundles as Big as Themselves — another ant who suffers for trusting Anansi
• Why Spiders Are Always Found in the Corners of Ceilings — a spider thief is finally caught
• Tit for Tat — stolen meat and a clever payback