I think it was highly deadly ?

Which makes more sense?

A beautiful bunch of ripe bananas / Highly deadly black tarantula

A beautiful bunch of ripe bananas / Hide the deadly black tarantula

I'd say the second one.

Why would you want to hide a tarantula? Hide it where? From who? I always figured tarantulas and other spiders were just something banana boat workers had to watch out for while they did their jobs which makes sense for the song.

It’s the bananas that are hiding the tarantula. Behind a seemingly tasty treat lurks a deadly foe.

Just imagine David Attenborough:

"This bunch of ripe bananas looks beautiful and pristine. But it hides a dangerous beast: the deadly black tarantula."

It's well-accepted usage to say "Inanimate object X hides object Y", even if Y is an intelligent agent which has hidden itself.

I think it's the phrasing that gets to me.

"Hide the deadly black tarantula" sounds like an instruction, while "Hiding deadly black tarantula" or even "Hides the deadly black tarantula" sounds more natural.

Indeed, "A beautiful bunch of ripe bananas hides the deadly black tarantula" would indeed be more in line with the "official" US dialect of English. But part of Belafonte's goal in writing the song was to honor his Jamaican heritage; so he wrote the song in the dialect of the people who would be doing the work described. Hence "Daylight come and me wan' go home" rather than "Daylight is coming and I want to go home"; "tally me bananas" rather than "tally my bananas", and "hide" rather than "hides".

I just did a quick lookup of the lyrics and that's what popped first...