Thunder and Anansi

Author: Traditional Asante

Time Period: 1001 CE–1500 CE

Country or Culture: Africa

Genre: Folktale

PLOT SUMMARY

The man-spider Anansi, his family, and the entire village are faced with a famine. Desperate for food, Anansi sees an island far away in the distance. Upon the island is a single palm tree. He acquires an old boat and, after battling the waves on the shore, is finally able to put to sea toward the island on his seventh try. Once he gets to the island, he climbs the tree, seeking nuts for himself and his family. When he finds them, he drops them toward the boat, which is tied to the tree below. Each nut he throws downward, however, misses the boat and falls into the sea. Anansi, refusing to give up the food he is gathering, jumps in after the nuts and finds himself in front of a cottage on the seabed.

Living in the underwater house is Thunder. When he hears Anansi’s story of the famine, Thunder gives the man-spider a magical pot that will provide enough food for all of Anansi’s family and people. Anansi thanks Thunder and resurfaces. As he heads back to land, Anansi tests the pot’s magic, calling upon it to produce food. It magically produces a large and satisfying meal for Anansi. He then decides that it would be better for him not to tell his family or neighbors about the pot, fearing that using it for so many people would wear out its magic. Anansi hides the magic cooking pot, using it only to feed himself. While his family and friends continue to starve, Anansi shows signs of weight gain.

Anansi’s wife and his son Kweku Tsin grow suspicious of Anansi’s resurgent health. Kweku Tsin turns into a fly and follows his father around the village. He witnesses his father’s selfish acts and alerts his mother. Kweku Tsin and his mother use the magic pot to feed themselves and the entire village. However, Anansi’s fears are confirmed, as the pot melts away due to overuse. Anansi is angry when he learns that his pot is missing and, believing his son and wife to be the culprits, seeks a way to punish them.

He goes back to the island and attempts to drop more nuts into the water so that he might visit Thunder again. This time, the nuts all fall into the boat. Anansi grows impatient and simply dives under the water. He finds Thunder again and tells him the story of the pot’s theft. Thunder offers him a magic stick. Anansi goes back to the boat and heads for home. He calls upon the stick’s magic, expecting it to produce more food. Instead, the stick comes alive and beats him severely. Anansi jumps overboard and swims home, battered, bruised, and remorseful for his selfish actions.

SIGNIFICANCE

The story of Anansi, Thunder, and the magic cooking pot is one of the so-called spider tales that originated among the Asante (Ashanti) people in what is now the West African country of Ghana. Stories of Anansi spread quickly throughout Africa and, by way of the slave trade, to Jamaica and other regions as well. As the stories expanded across Africa and the Atlantic Ocean, Anansi changed in form. For example, in the Bahamas, he is characterized as a tricky boy named Boy Nasty. Elsewhere, he appeared as a rabbit; in fact, this incarnation gave rise to the story of Br’er Rabbit in the United States.

According to the spider tales, Kweku Anansi is the son of the great sky god, Nyame, and his wife, Asase Yaa, the earth goddess and the goddess of fertility. Anansi is occasionally heroic and benevolent, represented by his human side. In other stories, however, Anansi is, like a spider, a trickster. According to the latter characterization, Anansi’s mischievous behavior once led his father to turn him into a man-spider.

Anansi is not a malevolent being, however. His problem in many stories is that he frequently acts in a greedy and self-serving manner. In this folktale, for example, he strikes out to sea in search of food not only for himself but also for his family. He determines that the pot he eventually acquires will lose its magic if overused and therefore decides to use its power for his own needs. Still, in many of the stories of Anansi, the man-spider’s trickery and cunning brings success to him and others around him, even if that success does not come as planned. In this case, Anansi’s family and fellow villagers, when learning of the pot’s magic, are saved from starvation.

When he is punished with the magic stick, Anansi immediately knows why and is remorseful. The ending of this tale is similar to others in the Anansi tradition. Anansi’s trickery and selfishness provides a moral for the reader. Although he is characterized as someone whose powers exist somewhere between the divine and the earthbound realms and who frequently deceives others for personal gain, he is also frequently tricked and humbled by others—in humorous fashion—for his misdeeds. Additionally, in some cases, his missteps take place in the face of a far superior figure (such as Thunder), giving him a sort of heroic characteristic to which people can relate. In this story, for example, his selfishness is rewarded by the clearly magical Thunder with a stick that beats him in humiliating (but not brutal) fashion. Very popular among children, Anansi is typically a likeable character whose behavior teaches a lesson to others on the benefits of selflessness and community.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barker, William H., and Cecilia Sinclair. “Thunder and Anansi.” West African Folk-Tales. 1917. Chapel Hill: Yesterday’s Classics, 2007. 10–14. Print.

Brown, Marcia. Anansi, the Spider Man: Jamaican Folk Tales. Derrimut: Pan Macmillan Australia, 1956. Print.

Mazzucco, Roberta. “African Myths and What They Teach.” Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute, 2013. Web. 27 June 2013.

Pelton, Robert D. The Trickster in West Africa: A Study of Mythic Irony and Sacred Delight. Berkeley: U of California P, 1980. Print.

Walker, Sheila S. African Roots/American Cultures: Africa and the Creation of the Americas. Lanham: Rowman, 2001. Print.