Tradition

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

Trickster Cycle Myths gathers six narratives built around cunning, deception or a trick that reverses the expected order between the strong and the clever, spanning West African, Akan, Northwest Coast, Chinese, Polynesian and Israelite tradition.

Four put a recognized trickster figure at the center. Eshu and the Two Friends has the Ifa tradition's guardian of crossroads walk between two friends' fields wearing a cap that is one color on each side, then watches them destroy their friendship arguing over what color the stranger wore, a lesson in the incompleteness of any single vantage point. How Anansi Obtained the Sky God's Stories has the spider trick a python, a leopard, a swarm of hornets and a fairy into captivity in turn to win the sky god Nyame's stories, renamed in Anansi's honor afterward. Raven and the Box of Daylight has Raven transform himself into a hoarding chief's own grandson to reach and steal the innermost box of daylight, releasing light into the world. Maui Fishing Up the Islands has the demigod trick his brothers into paddling far out to sea before hauling up land with an enchanted hook, becoming the North Island of New Zealand in the Maori telling.

Sun Wukong's Rebellion Against Heaven turns the pattern toward power rather than mischief: the stone born monkey steals a magic staff, erases his own name from death's register, and wars openly on the gods before the Buddha traps him beneath a mountain.

Samson and Delilah sits here for its structure rather than its hero. Samson is not the trickster but the one tricked, worn down by Delilah's repeated deception until he tells her the secret of his strength, and the reversal she engineers is the same shape of cunning overturning strength that the other five build around a trickster's own cleverness.