Week 9 Story: The Adventures of Anansi

For this story, I took the story of Anansi and God and turned it into three short 100-word stories. "Anansi" means "Spider" in the Akan language of Ghana, which is where this story comes from. Anansi is also famous in Jamaica and throughout the Caribbean because storytellers from Ghana and other west African cultures, kidnapped as slaves and taken to the Americas, brought their stories with them. You can read some microfiction Anansi stories from the Caribbean here: Tiny Tales of Anansi. 

God and Anansi Make a Bargain

"I want all stories to be Anansi-stories!" Anansi shouted.

"Agreed," said God, "provided you bring me Bees in a calabash, alive, and Snake, and also Leopard."

Anansi grabbed a calabash and went to where the Bees lived. He sat on the ground, shaking his head. "Yes!" he shouted. "No? Yes! No?"

"What's wrong?" they asked him.

"God says no, you cannot all fit into this calabash," said Anansi, "but I say yes, you can!"

"Yes!" buzzed the Bees. "Yes, we can!" Then they flew into the calabash.

Anansi sealed the calabash and brought it to God.

"Now Snake!" said God.

Anansi and Snake

Anansi grabbed a long stick and sat down outside Snake's hole, muttering loudly. "He is! Or maybe he isn't? He is! Or maybe not?"

Snake slithered out of his hole and asked, "What'sssss wrong, Ananssssssssi?"

"God says you are not as long as this stick," Anansi replied, "but I say you are."

"Of coursssssse I am asssss long as that sssssstick," said Snake. "I'll prove it!"

Snake wiggled along the stick. Then Anansi grabbed Snake's head and tied it to the stick, and also his tail.

Laughing, Anansi ran back to God and gave him Snake.

"Now Leopard!" said God. 

Anansi and Leopard

Anansi prepared a big cage. Then he sewed his eye shut and went to Leopard's den, singing and laughing.

"Why are you so happy?" asked Leopard.

"I sewed my eye shut," said Anansi, "and now I see the most beautiful things. It's magic!"

"Sew my eye shut too!" roared Leopard. "I want to see the beautiful things!"

Anansi sewed one of Leopard's eyes shut.

"It's not working," Leopard growled.

"I'll sew the other eye," said Anansi.

Now Leopard couldn't see anything. Anansi easily trapped him in the cage and took him to God.

That's how all the stories became Anansi-stories!

~ ~ ~

Author's Notes. This quest is one of the most famous African trickster story types. Brer Rabbit goes on a similar quest: Brer Rabbit's Smarts. Sometimes the quest is for stories, like here, or for wisdom, or for a bride, etc.

I added the part about Anansi sewing one eye first and then the other eye based on a similar story about Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit: Rabbit's Eyeball Candy. In the original story, Anansi gets "Tiger" to sew his eyes shut, but there are no tigers in Ghana; the word "Tiger" is used to refer to a big cat, kind of like the way "lion" is used in the phrsae "mountain lion" in English. One of the big cats of Ghana is the leopard, so I used Leopard for this story.

Bibliography. "How We Got the Name Spider Tales" in West African Folktales by William H. Barker and Cecilia Sinclair.

Image sources.

Calabash. 

Python.

Leopard.

Here is an illustration by Cecilia Sinclair in the book; this depicts Anansi as a man. In the stories, Anansi has a shifting identity: sometimes a god, sometimes a spider, sometimes a man, and sometimes a mixture that is hard to define. This shows Anansi tricking the bees into getting into the jar: