h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Anansi is a cheeky spider-a spider that holds the rsponsibility for everyone sharing a bit of commonsense.

Anansi wanted to own all the common sense in the world-so the little fellow decided he would go around and gather it all up-and store it in a calabash. He did this but then he thought-"Hmm! what is stopping anyone from just coming along and pinching this great clever stuff for themselves? So Anansi decided that the best place to put his bundle of commonsense was high at the top of a tree.

So Anansi picked up the commonsense, and began to climb the highest tree-but all off a sudden he heard he was being laughed at!-now Anansi hated to be ridiculed-so he turned to see who was bothering him-and saw a little boy-the boy said-

"how silly-you can't climb a tree, carrying that!" so this sent Anansi into a rage! so annoyed was Anansi that he flung down the Calabash-and all the common sense was scattered all over the world!
so that is why we all owe Anansi for our common sense!

I'm sure Anansi is sometimes a spider and sometimes a man. I know several stories. Mostly he's trying to trick someone out of something.

I think you have something there-and yep, he's always out to make a monkey out of someone else-but it usually backfires.