Ashanti Mythology
The Ashanti are an important tribe of central Ghana in West Africa. Their religion is animistic in that everything in nature is spirt-infused. their supreme being is Nyame (is the Sky deity of the Akan people) of Akanland (South Ghana), the leader of the Abosom, the Akan spirits and minor gods.His name means "he who knows and sees everything"
The Ashanti people also have a popular trickster figure, named Anase, the spider. who play a role in their creation myth.
Nyame, the high god, created the world including this spider Ananse. But it was Ananse who made the first people, into whom the sky -god Nyame (Nyankopon) then breathed life. Ananse enjoyed working behind the high gods' back, disguising himself as a bird and even challenging him as a creator, creating the sun. moon, and stars as well as night and day. There is an Anansi story that explains the phenomenon of how his name became attached to the whole corpus of tales:
Once there were no stories in the world. The Sky-God, Nyame, had them all. Anansi went to Nyame and asked how much they would cost to buy. Nyame set a high price: Anansi must bring back Onini the Python, Osebo the Leopard, the Mmoboro Hornets, and Mmoatia the dwarf. Anansi set about capturing these. First he went to where Python lived and debated out loud whether Python was really longer than the palm branch or not as his wife Aso says. Python overheard and, when Anansi explained the debate, agreed to lie along the palm branch. Because he cannot easily make himself completely straight a true impression of his actual length is difficult to obtain, so Python agreed to be tied to the branch. When he was completely tied, Anansi took him to Nyame. sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anansi Creation myths of the world: parts I-II; By David Adams Leeming |
To catch the leopard, Anansi dug a deep hole in the ground. When the leopard fell in the hole Anansi offered to help him out with his webs. Once the leopard was out of the hole he was bound in Anansi's webs and was carried away.
To catch the hornets, Anansi filled a calabash with water and poured some over a banana leaf he held over his head and some over the nest, calling out that it was raining. He suggested the hornets get into the empty calabash, and when they obliged, he quickly sealed the opening. To catch the dwarf he made a doll and covered it with sticky gum. He placed the doll under the Odum (Tree of Life) where the dwarfs play and put some yam in a bowl in front of it. When the dwarf came and ate the yam she thanked the doll which of course did not reply. Annoyed at its bad manners she struck it, first with one hand then the other. The hands stuck and Anansi captured her. Anansi handed his captives over to Nyame. Nyame rewarded him by making him the god of all stories. |
Ananse who is known as a trickster can be a shapershifter as well, which is why he could easily disguise his self.
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