Week 7 Reading Notes A: West African Folktales

Anansi on Wikipedia

For the Week 7 Reading, I chose West African Folktales. I chose this unit because one of my best friends is from Ghana, and she is a brilliant girl. These tales were collected from the capital of Ghana, Accra, at a teacher training center in the 1900s. There are many ethnic groups in Ghana, including my friend’s, Ashanti. I thought that it would be interesting to read and learn about her culture. All of these tales were of Anansi who was originally a Spider. The first tale is an origin story of why all of these particular tales are about the Anansi, a trickster. Throughout this reading, I learned that one of the most common characteristics of tricksters is their selfishness, which was very apparent in many tales. Sometimes Anansi uses his cleverness to obtain what he wants, but other times he gets what is coming to him by his rude behavior. I also enjoyed the character Kweku Tsin, Anansi’s son. It seems like in whichever tales the boy appears in, he always outsmarts his father’s evil deeds. In the next set of readings, Kweku Tsin will become the Sun while Anansi is the moon, so he will outdo his father once again.

In the first tale of this unit, How We Got the Name “Spider Tales”, Anansi, a Spider, uses his cleverness to win the favor of the chief of gods, Nyankopon, who all stories were once told about. Once the chief gets what he had asked of the Spider, it is granted that every story thereafter should be told of the Spider instead of Nyankopon.

The story How Wisdom Became the Property of the Human Race is the first tale in which Kweku Tsin outmaneuvers his selfish father. To smite some people who had crossed him, Anansi had planned on hiding all of his wisdom from the human race. His son finds him trying unsuccessfully to climb a tree in which to hide his wisdom. The wisdom, which is in a pot around Anansi’s neck, keeps getting in his way. The boy approaches his father and suggests that his father simply transfer the pot to his back so that it would not be in the way anymore. In his often irritable temper, Anansi throws the pot onto the ground. It breaks and the wisdom then spreads out over the world. I found multiple morals in this story, including the necessity of not being selfish and the power of searching for simple solutions.

Why the Lizard Moves His Head Up and Down is not a story with a positive moral at the end. Rather, it is an origin story. Anansi is a trickster and downright mean in this tale, as in many others, but he is successful this time. In this particular tale, the Lizard had crossed Anansi, who greedily wants the King’s three daughters for his wives. The King had promised that anyone who could find out the names of the women, which have been kept secret from the public, would be able to marry them. Anansi spies on the girls (in a pretty creepy manner, I must say), and learns their names. He then asks the Lizard to help him report to the King. Believing that the Lizard was the one to find out the names, all of the women are given to him. The jealous and angry Anansi the pours boiling water into the Lizard’s mouth, making him dumb. That is why the Lizard moves his head up and down today.
I enjoyed reading about a character, Anansi, who does not always experience the same fate in each tale. Not knowing whether Anansi will win in the end or not made reading these tales an enjoyable experience for me. I may write a tale on the wise Kweku Tsin for this week’s Storytelling.

You can read these tales here: link.

Barker, W. H., and Cecilia Sinclair. West African Folktales. C.M.S. Bookshop, 1930.