Week Nine Reading Notes Part B - West Africa

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

• "The Moon and Stars"
• Anansi and his son Kweku Tsin are captured by a dragon one day while they're out hunting. The dragon takes them back to his castle where they are guarded (along with many others) by a great white rooster. Kweku devises a plan to distract the rooster and make a ladder to climb up into the heavens, using a bag of bones and a magical fiddle to keep the dragon at bay as they climb. The gods make Kweku into the sun, Anansi into the moon, and all the others into the stars.
• "How the Tortoise Got His Shell"
• The gods decide to throw a party, so they send Klo (the tortoise) to get some wine from the chicken. Klo is very fast, and he gets there quickly. The chicken and the tortoise fight for the right to the wine and the palms that produce it. Klo wins, but there is too much wine for him to carry in his pot, so he drink all the leftover wine, then slings the pot onto his back along with all the trees. Being drunk, he is too slow getting back to the party and finds himself locked out in the rain for two months, during which time he dies under the weight of the pot. When they find his body, the gods are able to bring him back to life, but the pot had so melded to his body that it became part of him, and that's how tortoise got his shell.
• "The Hunter and the Tortoise"
• A hunter finds a singing tortoise in the woods, and takes her home to sing to him every day. She agrees with the condition that she will only sing to him, and not to others. But of course he tells everyone about it, and tells them they can kill him if it turns out that he's lying. They agree that, if he is telling the truth, he may punish them however he sees fit for disbelieving them. But the tortoise doesn't sing in front of them, because of the agreement they made. After they kill the hunter, the tortoise finally speaks, and explains that the man brought it on himself.
• "The Leopard and the Ram"
• A leopard and a ram mistakenly choose the same place to build their house, so they decide to live together. When Leopard realizes that Ram brings home as much meat from hunting as he does, he asks his son to find out how Ram kills animals. Leopard's son and Ram's son reveal to each other how their fathers hunt, and Leopard gets the information from his son that Ram backs up a bit, then rams forward with his head to kill an animal. One day, the rain makes the floor very wet, and Ram slips backwards. Thinking Ram is about to kill him, Leopard takes his son and flees into the woods, despite Ram's calling out to him. This is why rams are domestic (they continue living in the house) while leopards are wild (they flee into the forest).
• "King Chameleon and the Animals"
• The animals decide they need a king, but because they cannot agree on one, they decide to have a race to determine their ruler. The first one to sit in a certain stool should be the king. Hare, the fastest, makes it to the stool first, but finds that Chameleon has hidden himself on Hare's tail and jumped off at the last second to steal the seat. The other animals honor their agreement to make him king, but they are all unhappy with the outcome, so they leave Chameleon lonely forever, with no subjects to rule.
• "Elephant and Wren"
• The king tells all his subjects that anyone who can cut down a certain large tree with only a wooden axe will receive an elephant as a reward. Spider takes the challenge, but secretly uses a steel axe instead. However, he doesn't want to share the elephant with his family, so he ties it to a tree while he tries to catch a wren to give them to eat while he hides the elephant in the woods to eat by himself later. He fails at catching the wren, and the elephant escapes.
• "The Ungrateful Man"
• A hunter comes across a pit with a serpent, a rat, a leopard, and a man all trapped in it. He helps them all out, despite thinking that the man was the only one he should have saved. The serpent repays him with a powerful antivenom for snake bites (which must be mixed with the blood of a traitor), the leopard supplies him with meat for many weeks, and the rat brings him a bundle of riches. The man from the pit, however, only becomes envious of the hunter and mooches off of him until he finds an opportunity to do him wrong. He wrongly accuses the hunter of stealing from the king, and the hunter is sentenced to death. Before his execution, however, the hunter is able to save the king's son from death by a snakebite using his antivenom mixed with the blood of the ungrateful man, who they kill for being a traitor. The hunter is set free and given many riches.
• "Why Tigers Never Attack Men Unless They are Provoked"
• A tiger and a hunter befriend each other and take turns staying at each other's homes. The hunter's father dies, so the tiger and his cub come to visit to console their friend. As they are leaving, some of the hunter's friends shoot the tiger, who fortunately does not die, but worries that his friend has betrayed him. The tiger pretends to be dead to see what the hunter will do. The hunter is deeply grieves and stays by the tiger's side all night, crying, to protect the body. The tiger reveals that he isn't really dead and explains what happened, then promises to never attack a man unless the man provokes him first.
• "How Mushrooms First Grew"
• A pair of brothers racks up a lot of debt, but they decide to try to pay it off honestly by farming. A bird eats all their seed, so the debt transfers to the bird. The bird tries to lay eggs to sell, but a silk tree's branch smashes them, so the debt goes to the tree. The tree tries to make silk to sell, but an elephant takes down all the pods, so the debt goes to the elephant. A hunter kills the elephant, so the debt goes to him. A tree stump trips the hunter and breaks his leg, so the debt goes to the stump. A colony of white ants (termites) eats through the stump, so the debt goes to them. They all pool their money to buy linen thread, which they weave into pieces of cloth to sell to pay off the debt. They sometimes lay this cloth out on their anthills, and people call it "mushrooms."
• "Farmer Mybrow and the Fairies"
• Farmer Mybrow sets out to make a field next to the home of some fairies. The fairies help with whatever task he begins (clearing the field, planting, etc.). He keeps the field and the fairies a secret from everyone, even his wife. But eventually his wife finds out the location and goes there to gather some firewood, after promising her husband she won't answer any questions she hears there. She pulls an unripe ear of corn from a stalk, and the fairies ask what she is doing. Forgetting her promise, she tells them she is pulling down an ear of corn. The fairies immediately help her with her task, pulling down all the crops before they are ripe and ruining the field.

Image of a tortoise from Public Domain Pictures

Week Nine Reading Notes Part A - West Africa

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

• "How We Got the Name: 'Spider Tales'"
• 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.
• "How Wisdom Became the Property of the Human Race"
• 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 Nothing"
• 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."
• "Thunder and Anansi"
• 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.
• "Why the Lizard Moves His Head Up and Down"
• 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.
• "Tit for Tat"
• 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.
• "Why White Ants Always Harm Man's Property"
• 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.
• "The Squirrel and the Spider"
• 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.
• "Why We See Ants Carrying Bundles As Big As Themselves"
• 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.
• "Why Spiders Are Always Found in Corners of Ceilings"
• 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.
• "The Grinding-Stone that Ground Flour by Itself"
• 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.

Spider image from Good Free Photos