Anansi the Trickster ~ Weaving the Webs of Stories & Life
“Stories are webs, interconnected strand to strand, and you follow each story to the center, because the center is the end. Each person is a strand of the story.”
― Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys
“People take on the shapes of the songs and the stories that surround them, especially if they don't have their own song.”
― Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys
This week in the UK, the Home Secretary announced new controls to combat illegal immigration. The same person who wants to give protections to statues while stripping them off actual people. It’s also illegal to go abroad...if you're poor that is. Of course there’s a loophole for the super rich and those who own second (third and perhaps even fourth homes abroad). The penalty for the crime of going abroad, why a fine of course! As one of my friends said only the other day, any ‘crime’ that has a fine for a penalty is really only a crime for the poor.
Another week, another shit show. You don’t need me to tell you the doom and gloom stories that dominate news, I’m sure you’ve heard plenty yourself, for the world is a strange place of late, would you not agree? Instead, I’m going to tell you a story. Stories are important, you guys know how I feel about stories and folklore, and today I’m going to share with you one of my favourite Anansi stories.
Anansi, as fans of Neil Gaiman might know, is a spider god whose roots stretch back to West Africa. His stories are also entrenched in Caribbean folklore due to the mass movement of peoples from West Africa to the Islands during the slave trade. As the paternal side of my family hail from Jamaica, I’ve always been interested in the Anansi stories. There’s something about this little spider god, the seeming unimportance of the creature when compared to the strength of animals such as the tiger and the leopard. But Anansi is so much more.
In Obeah, Anasi is the spider mind of the divine, who itself is a being so far removed from the lives of humanity that to know it is impossible. In the Anansi stories, Anansi is a trickster whose cunning often overcomes bigger, stronger and more powerful opponents, though he is not always successful. I think one of the things that appeals to me is the fact that while he is mostly successful in his endeavours of trickery, he sometimes isn’t, that it’s the little guy against the world, that despite his lack of size and power, he uses what he has to overcome the obstacles in his way. Also there is that darker aspect that is often shared by folktales from around the world. They are not always pleasant and in this respect they mirror the life we live. The story I’m going to share with you today has all of these elements, and so without further ado…
How Anansi Got The Sky God’s Stories
Long, long ago, there were no stories in the world for they all belonged to the Sky God Nyankonpon, who was also known as Nyame, and nobody could afford to buy the stories. Anansi wanted the stories, and so he went to the Sky God and asked how much it would cost to buy them. The Sky God laughed, after all, Anansi was but a spider, how could he afford to buy the stories.
Anansi asked Nyankonpon how much the stories could be bought for to which he replied ‘‘No less than Onini the python, Osebo the leopard, Mmoatia the fairy, and Mmoboro the hornet.’’
And so Anasi vowed that he would bring them to the Sky God. The Sky God laughed at the little spider, for it would be impossible for such a small and insignificant creature to complete the task where so many had failed before.
First, Anansi went to where Onini the python lived and there he met Onini’s wife. Anansi asked her how long the python really was and doubted whether or not he was as long as a branch that happened to be nearby. Upon hearing the debate, Onini, proud of his length and eager to prove the spider wrong, agreed to be tied to the branch to get a true measure and so Anansi bound him to the branch and carried him away to the Sky God.
Next Anansi dug a deep hole in the ground. When Osebo the leopard fell into the hole, no matter how much he tried, he could not get out. Anansi offered to help the leopard out and cast down his sticky web so that he could pull the leopard out. But when Osebo was out of the hole, he found he was bound up in Anansi’s web and so Anansi carried him off to the Sky God.
To catch the Hornets, Anansi took an empty calabash and poured water over a banana leaf he held over his head, proclaiming that the rains had come and that the hornets should take shelter in the calabash. The hornets took his advice and once inside, Anansi sealed the calabash and carried the hornets off to the Sky God.
Finally, it was time to catch the Mmoatia. Anansi took a doll and covered it in sticky gum. He sat the doll at the base of the Odum tree where the fairy was known to reside and placed a yam down in front of it. When the fairy at last appeared, it saw the yam and ate some before thanking the doll. When the doll did not acknowledge its thanks (for of course, we know that dolls do not speak), the fairy struck the doll with one hand and then the other, offended by its rudeness. But of course, the doll was covered in gum and so the fairy found itself stuck, and so Anansi carried the fairy off to the Sky God.
When the Sky God saw that Anansi had indeed fulfilled the cost of the stories, he gave them to the tricksy spider and so it was that they were no longer called the Sky God stories but the Anansi stories and this is how the world became to be filled with the wonder and magic of stories.
* * *
I told you the story was a good one! So when the world goes to shit, why not share a story or two. Stories have a power after all, especially the Anansi stories. They give us hope that we may yet overcome that which oppresses us, our troubles and strife, even when those ills seem insurmountable, too big and too powerful. They remind us that in the savagery of life there is beauty too, that the savagery is beauty, in its own way. Folk stories in particular connect us all, for we are all threads in the story that is life, and like stories, life is often filled with dark times, times when it feels like everything is about to implode in on itself. And so let us take inspiration from Anansi, let us become the tricksters of our own stories, forging the reality we want to see made manifest.
“Stories are like spiders, with all they long legs, and stories are like spiderwebs, which man gets himself all tangled up in but which look pretty when you see them under a leaf in the morning dew, and in the elegant way that they connect to one another, each to each.”
― Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys
“Each person who ever was or is or will be has a song. It isn't a song that anybody else wrote. It has its own melody, it has its own words. Very few people get to sing their song. Most of us fear that we cannot do it justice with our voices, or that our words are too foolish or too honest, or too odd. So people live their song instead.”
― Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys
“Let's start a new tomorrow, today.”
― Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys
EMMA KATHRYN
Emma Kathryn, practises traditional British witchcraft, Vodou and Obeah, a mixture representing her heritage. She lives in the sticks with her family where she reads tarot, practises witchcraft and drink copious amounts of coffee.
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