Ananse and the Famine: how he came by his wife's grain
There was a hunger in the land, and Ananse had nothing, and he decided the fastest route to food was death.
Told in the lean season before harvest.
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Ananse and the Famine: how he came by his wife's grain
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Ananse and the Famine: how he came by his wife's grain
There was a hunger in the land, and Ananse had nothing, and he decided the fastest route to food was death.
He announced he was dying. He gave his family instructions: bury me in the farm, not the graveyard — bury me near the yams — and put my cooking pot in the grave with me, and my spoons, and a little water, so I lack nothing on the road.
They did as he asked, and wept, and went home.
Every night Ananse rose out of his grave, went into the farm, took the best of the harvest, cooked it and ate it in the dark. By day the family found the farm robbed and could not understand it. They set a watch and saw nothing. At last they made a figure and coated it in sticky gum and stood it in the middle of the field.
Ananse came out in the night, saw someone standing in his farm, demanded to know what they wanted — got no answer — struck the figure, and stuck fast.
In the morning his family found him there, alive, filthy, and caught.
He was so ashamed that he ran into the corner of the ceiling, and that is where the spider has lived ever since — up in the roof, in the dark, at the edge of the room where the family eats.
If you visit Ghana. Told in the lean season before harvest.
There was a hunger in the land, and Ananse had nothing, and he decided the fastest route to food was death.
He announced he was dying. He gave his family instructions: bury me in the farm, not the graveyard — bury me near the yams — and put my cooking pot in the grave with me, and my spoons, and a little water, so I lack nothing on the road.
They did as he asked, and wept, and went home.
Every night Ananse rose out of his grave, went into the farm, took the best of the harvest, cooked it and ate it in the dark. By day the family found the farm robbed and could not understand it. They set a watch and saw nothing. At last they made a figure and coated it in sticky gum and stood it in the middle of the field.
Ananse came out in the night, saw someone standing in his farm, demanded to know what they wanted — got no answer — struck the figure, and stuck fast.
In the morning his family found him there, alive, filthy, and caught.
He was so ashamed that he ran into the corner of the ceiling, and that is where the spider has lived ever since — up in the roof, in the dark, at the edge of the room where the family eats.