Anansi and the sky god's stories
At a Glance
- Central figures: Kwaku Anansi, the spider; Nyame, the sky god who owns all stories; Onini the python, Mmoboro the hornets, Osebo the leopard, and Mmoatia the spirit who cannot be seen.
- Setting: Akan tradition (modern Ghana / Côte d’Ivoire); Anansi cycle, preserved in oral form by Akan storytellers and widely known across the African diaspora.
- The turn: Nyame sets an impossible price for ownership of all the world’s stories - four dangerous creatures, captured alive - and Anansi agrees to pay it.
- The outcome: Anansi captures all four through cunning rather than strength, and Nyame surrenders every story in the sky to him.
- The legacy: All stories in the Akan tradition are called Anansesem - spider stories - because Anansi bought them from the sky god and scattered them across the earth.
Anansi wanted something that did not belong to him. This was not unusual. But this time what he wanted was large - larger than the silk-cotton tree, larger than the river, larger than the sky god’s own house. He wanted all the stories in the world.
Every story belonged to Nyame. Every one. The stories about the river, the stories about the dead, the stories about why the plantain bends, the stories about the first woman and the first quarrel and the first lie. They were all kept in a box in Nyame’s house in the sky, and when anyone told a story, they were borrowing it from the sky god, whether they knew it or not.
Anansi went up.
The Price Nyame Named
Nyame was sitting when Anansi arrived. The sky god did not look surprised. People came to him for things all the time - rain, children, revenge. But Anansi did not want any of these.
I want your stories, Anansi said. All of them. I want them to belong to me.
Nyame looked at the spider for a long time. He did not laugh, though others would have. He named his price instead. He named it the way a man names a bride-price he does not expect to be paid.
Bring me Onini, the python who swallows whole goats. Bring me Mmoboro, the hornets whose stings kill cattle. Bring me Osebo, the leopard whose teeth have tasted human flesh. And bring me Mmoatia, the spirit of the forest who cannot be seen.
Anansi said yes.
He went home to his wife Aso. He told her what Nyame had asked. Aso did not say he was foolish. Aso was not that kind of wife. She sat and she thought, and then she told him how to catch the python.
Onini the Python
Anansi cut a long branch from a palm tree and carried it to the river where Onini lived. He walked along the bank talking to himself, loud enough for the python to hear.
It is longer. No, it is shorter. My wife says it is longer, but I say it is shorter.
Onini lifted his head from the water.
What are you talking about, Anansi?
My wife and I are arguing, Anansi said. She says you are longer than this branch. I say the branch is longer. We cannot agree.
Onini was proud. Every python is proud of his length.
Lay the branch on the ground, Onini said. I will stretch beside it and we will settle this.
Onini stretched himself along the branch. He stretched and stretched. He was concentrating on being as long as possible, which meant he was not concentrating on Anansi. Anansi tied him to the branch. He tied the tail first, then the middle, then the head.
You are shorter than the branch, by the way, Anansi said.
He carried the python up to Nyame.
Mmoboro the Hornets
Anansi filled a calabash with water. He poured some of the water over his own head. Then he walked to the tree where the hornets had built their nest, carrying a large banana leaf over his head like a man caught in the rain.
It is raining terribly, he called up to the hornets. Your nest will be destroyed. Come into this calabash where it is dry.
The hornets were buzzing, angry at the water dripping down the tree. They poured into the calabash in a cloud of wings and fury.
Anansi plugged the mouth of the calabash with the banana leaf.
He carried the hornets up to Nyame.
Osebo the Leopard
Anansi dug a pit on the path Osebo walked every night. He covered it with branches and leaves. In the morning Osebo was in the pit, snarling, his claws scraping the walls.
Anansi appeared at the edge.
Osebo, you have fallen into a terrible hole. Let me help you.
He bent a tall green tree down to the edge of the pit and tied it there.
Grab the tree, Anansi said. When I cut the rope, it will spring up and carry you out.
Osebo grabbed the tree. Anansi cut the rope. The tree sprang up and flung Osebo into the air. When the leopard came crashing back down, Anansi was ready with his web. He wrapped Osebo before the leopard’s head cleared.
He carried the leopard up to Nyame.
Mmoatia the Spirit
Mmoatia was the hardest. You cannot catch what you cannot see. But Anansi had a plan - or Aso did, which amounted to the same thing.
Anansi carved a small wooden doll and covered it in sticky sap from the gum tree. He placed a bowl of mashed yams in the doll’s lap and set it at the foot of an odum tree, where forest spirits liked to gather.
Mmoatia came. She saw the yams. She liked yams.
May I have some? she asked the doll.
The doll did not answer. The doll could not answer. It was a doll.
Mmoatia asked again, louder. She was polite the first time, less polite the second time, and by the third time she was not polite at all.
If you will not answer me, I will slap you, she said.
She slapped the doll. Her hand stuck. She slapped with the other hand. That hand stuck too. She kicked. Her foot stuck. She butted with her head. Her head stuck.
Anansi came out from behind the odum tree and peeled her off the doll and tied her up.
He carried the spirit up to Nyame.
The Box in the Sky
Nyame looked at Onini tied to the branch. He looked at Mmoboro buzzing in the calabash. He looked at Osebo wrapped in web. He looked at Mmoatia struggling against the rope.
The sky god had made a bargain. Powerful men had tried to buy these stories before - chiefs with armies, hunters with spears, priests with offerings. None of them had brought what he asked.
A spider did.
Nyame opened the box. The stories came out like smoke, like seed-floss on the wind. They scattered. They drifted down through the sky and settled everywhere - on the river, in the market, in the mouths of old women sitting by the fire, in the ears of children who should have been sleeping.
From that day the stories belonged to Anansi. When an Akan storyteller begins, the stories are called Anansesem - spider stories. Not sky stories. Not god stories. Spider stories. Because a small thing with eight legs and more cunning than sense climbed up to the sky and bought them all.