Akua’ba fertility doll.
The Akan are a major ethnolinguistic group on the coast of West Africa traditionally spanning from the lagoons of the Ivory Coast in the west to the Volta River in the east. They speak languages belonging to a common family of Akan languages. It’s thought that they find their origin at least partially from tribal groups pushed south from the grasslands of the Sahel after the collapse of the Ghana empire in the 11th century.
The Akan share social and political traits such as matrilineal inheritance, naming scheme based on weekday followed by father’s clan, common myths, the 42 day calendar, yam festivals, the recognition of 8 matrilineal clans with 12 patrilineal clans, highly centralized leadership typically in the form of a king supported directly by a priest.
During the Middle Ages they began to develop into more complex states due to the well developed gold trade they carried out with the muslim empires of the Sahel. After the decline of the Sahel trade interest shifted to the European traders arriving from the sea. The profitability of the Atlantic slave trade with the introduction of firearms made warfare vastly more common until the area of what’s now southern Ghana was dominated by the powerful Ashanti empire with an elaborate bureaucracy and communications.
Roughly 10% of the slaves brought to the New World were Akan. The captives brought their language and gods with them. Escaped bands of Akan slaves formed fugitive tribes such as the Jamaican Maroons and Coromantees. Tales about the spider Anansi were absorbed by other slaves and contributed to the Brer Rabbit of African American folklore. Twi continued to be spoken in secret in the Caribbean among enslaved Obeah practitioners, and openly among the Maroons who successfully waged insurgencies against the British until they were permitted to live in peace on their newly gained lands. The Ashanti empire fought Britain in four wars before finally being pacified, the courage of their warriors and adaptability of their commanders was respected by their alien adversaries.
The Akan had an old tradition that their collective ancestor was a spider. The possible totemic explanation for this has long been lost to the sands of time already. Traditional beliefs revolved mostly around the ancestor spirits and the nature spirits called Abosam. The supreme creator god is called Nyame or Nyankopon, which is still what Christian and Muslim Akan use to refer to God with. The national god of the northern Akan was the river god Tano while the national god of the southern Akan was the thunder god Bobowissi. Asase Yaa (also called Aberewa) was the earth and mother goddess. Bia was god of the Bia river and the bush. But perhaps the most popular figure (or at least entertaining) was Kwaku Anansi, the spider.
Tropes from Akan mythology include:
- Adaptational Villainy: Different parts of Ghana tend to interpret Anansi differently. For instance, Ewe tales often depict Anansi as a more villainous character, if not an outright murderer, and someone to be wary of.
- The Ageless: The animals once argued over who is the oldest of all. Guinea Fowl said he was born first, and that he stomped out a fire because nobody else was around yet. He then showed everyone his red legs as a result. Parrot said he was the oldest and that there were no tools in the world yet. So Parrot used his beak to hammer out the first iron tools, this bent his beak out of shape. Elephant said when he was created Nyame gave him a nose so long that there was almost nothing left for the other creatures. Porcupine said he remembered when the earth was still soft to walk on after Nyame made it. Not to be outdone, Anansi had his sons give him a cashew he sat on like a chief on his stool. He proudly declared that when he came into being there was no earth. So he had to bury his father in his own head. All the beasts agreed Anansi is oldest.
- Amusing Injuries:
- Anansi would get his head shaved by Nyame’s careless servants who would nick his head so badly he refused to act as messenger again and hid at his mother Asase Yaa’s house. Everyone made fun of his poor haircut to boot.
- Anansi tried hiding hot beans under his hat before his mother-in-law’s funeral (people were expected to fast while mourning in Akan culture) and it scalded him bald.
- Animorphism: Often Anansi is treated as a human, sometimes as a spider, sometimes as a half-human half-spider.
- Arachnid Appearance and Attire: Anansi could be a spider (his name means "spider"), a man, or a man-sized spider.
- Arch-Enemy: In Jamaica, “Tiger” (just the local shorthand for any big cat) is this for Anansi.
- Artifact Title: Down the line “Spider Stories” didn’t just mean stories about Anansi anymore.
- Asshole Victim: Anansi truthfully could avoid most of the shenanigans he gets into if he wasn’t a greedy, dishonest, manipulative, lecherous, lazy, vindictive, attentionwhoring, arrogant prick. You cheer for him getting over on his foes as often as you laugh at him getting battered by a righteously angry person.
- Ass in a Lion Skin: Anansi passed himself off as a bird by collecting multicolored feathers from every species and perching in a tree. The god Wulbari actually bought it.
- Beard of Sorrow: Kwasi Benefo stopped caring for himself completely when his wives died one after the other. He lived like a beast and didn’t want to think about his heartbreak.
- Beware the Silly Ones: Anansi was a lighthearted trickster, it didn’t mean he was any less capable of wielding a sword or duping people into a cruel fate.
- Brutish Bulls: Nyame had an army of warrior cattle.
- Captured on Purpose: Tano was a fan of this tactic. He would transform himself into a little boy during wars, allow himself to be taken to the enemy kingdom, then spread pestilence among them.
- Caught in a Snare: Osebo the leopard tied his tail to a branch Anansi offered to raise him out of a hole with. This was a snare trap which left him hanging helpless from a tree. Anansi killed and skinned him.
- Cool Sword: Aberewa (another name for Asase Ya) owned a sword that would fight on its own when commanded to fight. To make it stop, one had to say “Cool down”. Anansi forgot that last detail.
- Divine Date: Bosomtwe once had an infatuation with a leprous old woman who lived alone near his lake. She protested that she was too old and poor to care for a baby. He responded that if she ever needed fish, she only had to knock on the surface of his lake. Their son was a man named Twe Adolo who sired a clan still living on the edge of the lake.
- Enfant Terrible:
- Kwaku Babone was the quintessential bad little boy of Akan folklore. That said, he did a few heroic things like slaying a wicked Ashanti King, and rescuing his mother a few moments after birth from a Sasanbosam.
- Anansi has six sons who spoke and named themselves as soon as they were born: Akakai "Able to see trouble", Twa Akwan "Road Builder", Hwe Nsuo "Dries Up Rivers", Adwafo "Skinner of Game", Toto Abuo "Stone Thrower", and Da Yi Ya "Lie on the Ground like a Cushion".
- Enemies with Death: Tano got into a feud with Owuo over a competition to catch up with a hunter. Whoever got to him and was invited for supper first would claim humanity. Tano transformed into an antelope and let the hunter chase him before turning around and assuming his huge god form again. He tried to set off with the hunter, but Owuo stopped him. They sang songs of power at each other but neither could overcome. So it was decided that Owuo could enter human habitations to get victims, but only if he could get there before Tano.
- Friendly Neighborhood Spider: Anansi is a divine trickster folktale character who is generally the protagonist in his stories, and is usually regarded as benign or even beneficial.
- Giant Flyer: Animabri was a giant flesh eating hornbill.
- Giant Spider: Anansi could be a spider (his name means "spider"), a man, or a man-sized spider.
- God Couple: Nyame/Wulbari and Asase Ya. They were once so close humans were squished between them. So man annoyed Nyame with cooking smoke, banging pestles, and slicing off chunks of the sky for the pot until he retreated further away from the earth.
- God of Thunder: Bobowissi was tied with Tano for most powerful of the active deities. He was thought to cause all storm phenomena and appointed the lesser spirits to their dominions. People struck by lightning were said to have angered him.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Anansi and Adun the Baboon ran into frog and turtle. They apologized for interrupting the amphibians basking, and claimed the bananas in the marsh for themselves. Anansi was gluttonous and insisted he get all the banana fruit while Adun only got the shoots. Not long after this Anansi was stunned to learn banana trees can grow from only the shoots, and the much happier Adun refused to share anything else with Anansi.
- Jacob and Esau: Bia was Nyame’s favorite son and intended heir to the lush country of the Ashanti. Nyame’s pet goat Akua Abirekyi preferred Tano though. So the goat told Tano to dress like Bia and claim Asanteman for himself. By the time everyone realized the deception it was too late, so Bia was stuck with the barren lands of what’s now the Ivory Coast.
- Jekyll & Hyde: When not seen as mother and daughter, Asase Yaa and Asaase Afua are considered two incarnations of the same goddess. Asase Yaa being the goddess of the harsh dry barren earth, and Asaase Afua being the goddess of the fertile earth as well as procreation.
- "Just So" Story:
- Among other things Anansi is the reason humans have blindness and stories in general.
- The Tinni plant continues to cut people to this day because nobody told the sword it came from “Cool down”.
- Baboons scratch themselves because their ancestor was enemies with Anansi and even now they feel him crawling on them.
- Spiders hide in corners because Anansi still owes a debt for yams he tasted without buying.
- Spiders have thin abdomens because Anansi tied multiple strings to himself to be alerted for lunch. Everyone tugged at once.
- Spiders sprint across water because Anansi is paranoid about the crocodile Odenkyem coming after him again.
- Everyone has some wisdom but nobody has all of it because Anansi broke the calabash of wisdom after his son Ntikuma tried to explain to him it’s easier to climb with an item on your back than your chest.
- People do evil at night because Esum the Night didn’t answer Nyame’s challenge question. Children play in the moonlight because Osrane the Moon also failed to answer Nyame’s question correctly. Owia answered correctly and Nyame rewarded him by making him chief, all important matters would be tended to during his time. The rainbow was protection for Owia if his brothers got jealous, and a symbol of safety to the people.
- Toothaches exist because a giant bird was stealing everyone’s jaws and Anansi recovered them. But he mixed them all up.
- Sickness exists because Anansi dumped a gourd full of diseases when Nyame tried to claim his wife.
- Jealousy spread into the world when Akwasi the Jealous had his wife Aso stolen from him by Anansi.
- Anansi once went on a long journey and did not return for several weeks. Akakai saw he fell into a river and his brothers set out to save him. Twa Akwan made a road through the jungle and they reached the river. Hwe Nsuo dried up the river and saw Anansi had been swallowed by a giant fish. Adwafo cut open the fish and pulled out Anansi. A hawk swooped down and grabbed Anansi, so Toto Abuo knocked it out of the sky with a rock. Da Yi Ya used himself to cushion Anansi's fall. Anansi then found a magnificent shining treasure in the jungle. Eager to show it off, he asked Nyame who he should gift it to for saving his life. The brothers began to squabble and fight over it so Nyame took it up the the heavens with him. And so, the moon has remained in the sky.
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: When Anansi went blind he continued to fish with the aid of two men. He was very rude and disrespectful to them to the point that they told him to step onto “land” when they were in the middle of a lake. He drowned.
- Nerdy Nasalness: While not quite nerdy, it was widely believed among the Akan that the nature spirits tend to speak in entertainingly nasal accents.
- Our Dwarves Are All the Same:
- Averted with the Mmoatia. They are race of part man part monkeys who stand about a foot high. Humans rarely see them, and they speak in a unique whistling language. They love their forest domain and are very fond of bananas. Their skill in the healing arts and magic incentivizes people to seek them out sometimes. Mmoatia have feet which point backwards.
- Black Mmoatia are benign and content with being left alone while leaving others alone in turn. Even so, whistling attracts them like all other Mmoatia. Unlike the unpredictable Red and White Mmoatia they do not associate with witches or Sasanbosam.
- Red Mmoatia are capricious and fond of pranks ranging from very annoying to downright cruel. They steal, frighten people, destroy things, disorient hunters, and torment livestock.
- White Mmoatia are the best at magic and occasionally spirit away humans to teach them. People often try to purchase quality magic charms or Suman from them.
- Our Ogres Are Hungrier:
- Sasanbosam were tall, winged, hairy, red, powerful bush demons with a taste for human flesh. Patches of red earth in the forest are said to be where one has eaten a victim. Nothing can assuage a Sasanbosam’s anger beyond letting it kill and eat the person who offended it, even the most trivial accident. It has iron teeth and claws, with feet that point both ways. When not haunting the darkest jungles they lurk underground and cause earthquakes. Sasanbosam is a great friend of witches and teaches them the dark arts. Mmoatia are often servants of Sasanbosam, eagerly carrying out their monstrous bidding.
- Srahmantin are the wives of Sasanbosam. They are frighteningly tall like their husbands, white skinned, droopy breasted, and long haired. Fortunately for humans, they don’t kidnap travelers for food. Instead they teach people magic and how to properly worship them before releasing them back to human society. In a few tellings Srahmantin have twelve heads.
- Psychopomp: Amokye was the little old woman who fishes out the souls of the dead from the river leading to Asamando, the underworld.
- Rescued from the Underworld: Kwasi Benefo was an interesting case. It was his late beloveds that saved him from the underworld despite his alive status. They comforted him and encouraged him to move on with his life.
- Sibling Rivalry: Tano didn’t get along very well with his brothers Bia and Bosomtwe. Bosomstwe actually moved his entire river to get away from him.
- Simple, yet Opulent: Chameleon owned a handsome cloak made of flies.
- Situational Sword: Aberewa’s sword would begin massacring everything in sight on its own when told to fight, only stopping when told “cool down”. Anansi forgot this line so when he fought the enemies of Nyame it eventually turned on him and his bovine comrades when there were no enemies left. Anansi cried out everything he could think of but nothing worked. It hacked him to death too.
- Swallowed Whole: Anansi was once eaten by a giant fish during a freak accident.
- Ultimate Blacksmith: Ta Yao is the blacksmith of the Abosom. In olden times he was also a War God.
