MYTH 996: Week Nine Reading Notes Part A

Source Story: "West African Folktales" by William H. Barker and Cecilia Sinclair, with drawings by Cecilia Sinclair (1917).

Spider was jealous of Nyankupon for being the subject of all the folk stories, so he asked for all the stories from then on to be called Anansi stories, after him. Nyankupon agrees on the condition that Spider bring him a jar full of bees, a boa constrictor, and a tiger. Spider uses his cunning to trick all the above creatures and brings them to Nyankupon, so after that the old stories were called Anansi (Spider) Tales.

Father Anansi, who possesses all the wisdom in the world, becomes angry with some men and decides to punish humanity by reclaiming all the wisdom he has shared and placing it in a pot, then hiding the pot on top of a tree. He hangs the pot from his neck, and therefore he cannot climb the tree to hide it there. His son, who has been watching, suggests that he carry the pot on his back. Realizing that his son has more wisdom than he, Anansi throws the pot down, breaking it and releasing all the wisdom across the world to humans.

Anansi and his rich neighbor, named Nothing, go to town to find some wives. On the way, Anansi trades clothes with Nothing so that he appears rich while Nothing appears poor, so Anansi gets many wives and Nothing gets only one. When they get home, Anansi's wives realize how poor he is and leave him for Nothing. Anansi tricks Nothing into a deathtrap, killing him. Nothing's first wife is heartbroken and makes food to share with all the children of the land so that they will cry with her, which is why children are often said to be "crying for Nothing."

Anansi and his family have no food and are starving, so Anansi goes in search of some coconuts, only to find an underwater cottage where Thunder lives, who gives him a magic pot that provides food out of nothing. Afraid that the pot's magic will run out, Anansi keeps it from his family, allowing them to starve while he fattens himself up. His son, however, shapeshifts into a fly and spies on him, then takes the pot to share with his family. Anansi's wife, in anger, accidentally destroys the pot while cooking a meal to share with all the hungry people in town. Angry, Anansi goes back to Thunder and tells him the tale, whereupon Thunder gives Anansi a magical stick that beats him to a pulp. Anansi is left feeling remorseful for being so foolish.

A king offers his three daughters as wives to any man who can discover their names, which Anansi does through trickery. He tells the name to his friend Lizard, who agrees to act as his herald when he meets with the king. However, since Lizard is the one who actually says the names, the king gives him the princesses instead of Anansi. Anansi frames Lizard for the crime of killing the king's rooster, and pours boiling water into his mouth to make him unable to speak. When the king's men find him, he can only bob his head up and down and is unable to defend himself, so the princesses are taken from him and given to Anansi, and since then all lizards bob their heads up and down.

During a terrible famine, Anansi's oldest son discovers a good hunting place where he finds meat to sell in the village. Greedy, Anansi uses trickery to track his son to his hunting place, then drives him off in order to kill all the animals himself and sell them to become rich. His son returns the trickery, though, by creating a fake god to scare Anansi into leaving behind all the meat, which his son then takes to sell, becoming rich and eventually telling the story to all the neighbors, which shames Anansi into temporarily giving up his evil ways.

During another terrible famine, Anansi finds a dead antelope and tries to take it home to his family to eat, but Wolf and Leopard steal it. So, he tricks them into letting him hang them from a tree by promising to sharpen their teeth for them, then takes back the meat and hosts a huge party right in front of them where the whole village eats the antelope meat. Later on, a family of white ants (termites) passes by and helps Wolf and Leopard escape their bonds, so the two animals offer to prepare a feast for the white ants a few days later. Anansi hears and dresses his own children up as white ants, and they go and eat the feast themselves. When the real white ants arrive, Leopard and Wolf assume they are really Anansi's children and kill all of them but the father, who in anguish vows never to help anyone again, and only to destroy.

Anansi uses trickery to steal the crops which Squirrel has so carefully tended, by pretending that the fields were his all along because he built a roadway to them, where Squirrel always came by the trees. He and his family carry away all of the crops to sell them, but a huge storm makes them drop their crops to hide. When they return, a crow has his wings spread over the crops to keep them dry, whereupon the crow claims the crops as his own and takes them to sell himself, leaving Anansi with no reward for his theft.

Anansi and his son both need rain to make their fields grow, and a dwarf comes along to his son and offers his help. The son taps the dwarf lightly with two small sticks, which makes it rain. Anansi, thinking to make the dwarf produce double the rain, beats him so hard with two large sticks that he dies. Anansi tries to frame it on his son, but his son is too clever and tricks Anansi into taking the dwarf (a close friend of the king) to the king himself. The king is angry and has the dwarf's body magically sealed in a box which is placed on top of Anansi's head to carry forevermore. The only way to get rid of the box is to get someone else to carry it for him. Anansi tricks Ant into carrying it for him, which is why we always see ants carrying such heavy loads.

Anansi's family has a magnificent harvest, but Anansi wants it all to himself, so he tricks his wife and son into leaving for awhile, telling them he'll be gone on business, and when he returns they will all feast together. Really, he stays and eats half the harvest himself. His son discovers that someone has been stealing from them and sets up a rubber man, to which Anansi gets stuck. Out of shame when he is discovered by all the townspeople for stealing from his own family, he shapeshifts into a spider and hides in a corner of the ceiling, which is why spiders always hide there.

During a great famine, Anansi's cousin discovers a stone that grinds flour of its own accord, next to a stream of honey, but he only ever takes enough to feed his family. Realizing that his cousin's family is not starving like everyone else, Anansi tricks his cousin into showing him where the stone is. Rather than only taking what he needs, and against the stone's begging, Anansi takes the entire stone from village to village, carried on his head, and sells the flour, making a lot of money. But when he tries to take the stone off his head at the end of the day, it refuses, and instead grinds him up, which is why we often find lots of small spiders under huge stones.

MYTH 996