fandomhigh | World Mythology, Monday, Period 3

Anansi is a fine fellow, and admittedly one of my favorite gods," Ghanima said, as her students arrived today. "He is easily one of the most important characters of West African lore. He is often depicted as a spider, a human, or combinations thereof."

"The Anansi legends are believed to have originated in the Ashanti tribe. They later spread to other Akan groups and then to the West Indies, Suriname, and the Netherlands Antilles. On Curaçao, Aruba, and Bonaire he is known as Nanzi, and his wife as Shi Maria. Anansi stories originated in Ghana, in Africa. The word Anansi is Akan and means spider. Anansi stories are known as Anansesem to the Ashanti and Anansi-Tori to the Suriname.

Grinning, Ghanima hopped off her desk to begin wandering the rows of desks as she talked. "Anansi, the Spider, is one of the most popular animal tricksters from West African mythology. Tricksters are mischievous figures who often oppose the will of the gods, resulting in some kind of misfortune for humans. Like many trickster figures, the wily Anansi can change his appearance to look like whatever he chooses. This makes for some entertaining escapades, and gets him into and out of a world of trouble."

"West Africans originally considered Anansi to be the creator of the world. He often acted as a go-between for humans in their dealings with the sky god Nyame, and he supposedly persuaded Nyame to give both rain and the night to people. In most stories, however, Anansi is a crafty and cunning trickster who makes life more enjoyable for himself (or more difficult for others) by fooling humans, other animals, and even the gods themselves, often using his cleverness and knowledge of his victims' ways of thinking to trick them and achieve his purpose."

"Many Anansi stories deal with him attempting to trick people into allowing him to steal food or money, or something else that could turn a profit, but our 'hero' doesn't always win! It was not uncommon for a trick to backfire upon Anansi in some way or another."

"One of the very notable stories where Anansi himself was tricked, was when he tried to fight a tar baby after trying to steal food, but became stuck to it instead. The "tar-baby" tale appears in a variety of ethnic African folklore contexts. It is perhaps best known to Americans from the Brer Rabbit version, found in the Uncle Remus stories. These were derived from African-American folktales in the Southern United States. Ultimately this version was adapted and used in the 1946 live-action/animated Walt Disney movie Song of the South, which is an entire dissertation on mythology, sociology, and American racism in and of itself. We will not get into that here."

"Now, why is this figure so universal?" she asked, "And why did so many African American folk tales recount his exploits, under one name or another? Anansi is the spirit of rebellion; he is able to overturn the social order; he can marry the King's daughter, create wealth out of thin air; baffle the Devil and cheat Death. Even if Anansi loses in one story, you know that he will overcome in the next. Anansi conveys a simple message --that freedom and dignity are worth fighting for, at any odds."

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Like a Trickster!

Take notes, pass notes, come up with a good trick...

What about Anansi do you personally find appealing? What do you find appalling? Would you be willing to worship the Trickster?

Sounds like a pretty sweet job, right? What do you think it means to be King of All Stories, not just your own? Do you have to take responsibility for what happens in other stories, or are you just the Gatekeeper? How would you prevent stories from being misused?

On a lighter note, if there was ONE joke that you could play and get away with it, a Trick to last a lifetime, what would you do? Why?

She's here if you need her!

Good morning, Monday.

Prince Sidon

Gratuity Tucci

Tip was reasonably familiar with Anansi, yes. He was one of the few bits of African folklore that still popped up in the American education system, at least where she'd grown up. She'd done a whole book report on an illustrated copy of Anansi stories from her library in fourth grade, even.

She'd never heard his appeal phrased the way Ghanima put it, though. She noted the words "freedom" and "dignity" down extra large on her paper and chewed on the end of her pen thoughtfully. She'd always seen the trickster as lighthearted and foolish, and part of her balked at the lone African god westerners knew being associated with stuff so closely tied into emancipation. Africa's legacy was more than just slavery. Still, she couldn't deny the idea had some merit. She was going to need to look into this more on her own time.

Molly Squidpiddge

Sidon liked this topic much better than the last one, grinning faintly at the idea of such a figure as he scribbled down his notes for further research and understanding. He tried to think of any trickster-types in Hylian mythology, but no one came to mind, especially not in Zora legend. Perhaps a project when he returned home would be to find one!

Edited 2018-01-29 22:13 (UTC)

"I believe I would enjoy Anansi's stories," Sidon offered, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "They seem like they would be quite fun to tell little hatchlings, perhaps even to teach them lessons in the meantime. But I am not terribly fond of the stealing parts, or the bit about profit. Gaining from fooling someone else is not very honorable, nor would I want to support such a thing."

When they got to this part of the discussion, Sidon's eyes glittered a little with the excitement of it all. Rarely did he get the chance to try to consider himself in a more playful light, and he rather enjoyed the test to his imagination.

"I believe," he said after a moment of amusing consideration, "I would put a glimmer of light up at the top of the tallest waterfall, and I would tell people that it was the sheen from a beautiful, wondrous stone called..." He thought a moment, then smiled softly, "...Mihpa's Grace. I would tell them that finding the stone would reveal to them treasure beyond their wildest dreams! But there would only be the glimmer, that is the trick! So that when they swim up the waterfall and they search and search and search, they will be confused. Where is the stone? Why can't I find it? Then they would turn and there it would be! The true treasure would be the sight of glorious Zora's Domain, of Lanaryu, all of Hyrule stretched out before them, and the realization that they were so great that they could swim up the highest waterfall in all the land, as only the truly gifted can!"

Yeah, if Sidon were to be a god of anything, it would probably be straight-up wholesomeness.

Ahsoka Tano

"Back home," Sidon offered, eyes still shining, perhaps with a little bit of homesickness now as he thought about it, "we are working on inscribing all of our stories into the mountainside so that they're remembered for many generations to come!" And he was talking Zora generations, so that was quite a long time, indeed. I think that's better than just one person being in charge of all the stories, because what if something happens to that one person? Well, I suppose Jiahto, he is the one who started the project, though I can't imagine him with some of the other traits of Anansi! He, and all the other Elders, are just always so serious!"

Like the world was ending, or something!

Paris Geller

World Mythology, Monday, Period 3

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