Weaving is frequently used in relation to storytelling and technology. The house eshu describes being the narrator and storyteller as, “I spin the threads. I twist warp ‘cross weft. I move my shuttle in and out, and smooth smooth, I weaving you my story, oui?” (3). Granny Nanny, which carries the A.I. in a worldwide web—and eventually a web between worlds—is described as a “spider web” (38).

There is a distinction between an anansi or ‘nansi story and the specific story of “Brer Anansi, the spider man, the trickster” (78) in Caribbean folklore. Anyone can engage in “spinning a tale” (78), including non-humans like Benta. In the cloth on her loom, “Tan-Tan could discern the dancing black figures she was weaving into it” (190). Tan-Tan herself spins tales as the Robber Queen; during Carnival on New Half-Way Tree, she “wove her deft weave about being kidnapped and stolen away” (317).

Labor is another motif that runs throughout the novel. On the technologically advanced planet of Toussaint, physical labor is rare and stigmatized. The runners who organize against Granny Nanny and A.I.s, work with their hands; when recalling his interaction with a runner, Antonio thinks, “Labour.