In the beginning all the stories belonged to Nyame, and they sat in a wooden box beside his stool, and the world was quiet.
Any storytelling night; the Centre for National Culture, Kumasi.
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Listening to How Ananse Bought the Sky God's Stories
How Ananse Bought the Sky God's Stories
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How Ananse Bought the Sky God's Stories
In the beginning all the stories belonged to Nyame, and they sat in a wooden box beside his stool, and the world was quiet.
Ananse climbed up and asked to buy them.
Nyame looked at this small spider and named a price designed to end the conversation: bring me Onini the python, who is longer than any measure; bring me Osebo the leopard, with teeth like spears; bring me the Mmoboro, the hornets who cannot be counted; and bring me Mmoatia, the dwarf who is never seen.
Ananse said: I will bring them. And he went home and told his wife Aso, and Aso told him how.
For the python he cut a long palm branch and walked through the forest arguing loudly with himself — she says he is longer, I say the branch is longer, she is wrong — until Onini, who could not bear to be underestimated, offered to lie down beside the branch to settle it. Ananse tied him to it while measuring, for accuracy.
For the leopard he dug a pit on the path, and when Osebo fell in, he came by all sympathy and offered to bend a tree down and let him climb out on it, and tied him to the tree, for safety.
For the hornets he filled a calabash with water and sprinkled some on himself and some on the nest and cried out that the rains had come, and held out an empty gourd — here, shelter here — and they flew in, and he stopped the mouth.
For the dwarf he carved a small wooden doll, covered it in sticky latex, put a dish of mashed yam in its lap and set it under the odum tree where the Mmoatia dance. The dwarf came, ate, thanked the doll, got no answer, was insulted, slapped it — and stuck. Slapped it with the other hand. Stuck.
Ananse carried all four up to Nyame.
And Nyame, before the whole of his court, said: Great kings have come and could not do it. Warriors have come and could not do it. It is done by Kwaku Ananse. And he gave him the box, and Ananse opened it, and the stories went out over all the world.
That is why we call them spider stories.
If you visit Ghana. Any storytelling night; the Centre for National Culture, Kumasi.
In the beginning all the stories belonged to Nyame, and they sat in a wooden box beside his stool, and the world was quiet.
Ananse climbed up and asked to buy them.
Nyame looked at this small spider and named a price designed to end the conversation: bring me Onini the python, who is longer than any measure; bring me Osebo the leopard, with teeth like spears; bring me the Mmoboro, the hornets who cannot be counted; and bring me Mmoatia, the dwarf who is never seen.
Ananse said: I will bring them. And he went home and told his wife Aso, and Aso told him how.
For the python he cut a long palm branch and walked through the forest arguing loudly with himself — she says he is longer, I say the branch is longer, she is wrong — until Onini, who could not bear to be underestimated, offered to lie down beside the branch to settle it. Ananse tied him to it while measuring, for accuracy.
For the leopard he dug a pit on the path, and when Osebo fell in, he came by all sympathy and offered to bend a tree down and let him climb out on it, and tied him to the tree, for safety.
For the hornets he filled a calabash with water and sprinkled some on himself and some on the nest and cried out that the rains had come, and held out an empty gourd — here, shelter here — and they flew in, and he stopped the mouth.
For the dwarf he carved a small wooden doll, covered it in sticky latex, put a dish of mashed yam in its lap and set it under the odum tree where the Mmoatia dance. The dwarf came, ate, thanked the doll, got no answer, was insulted, slapped it — and stuck. Slapped it with the other hand. Stuck.
Ananse carried all four up to Nyame.
And Nyame, before the whole of his court, said: Great kings have come and could not do it. Warriors have come and could not do it. It is done by Kwaku Ananse. And he gave him the box, and Ananse opened it, and the stories went out over all the world.