| Learn my story |
[19 Dec 2007|09:39pm] |
Character Name: Anansi.
Other Names: Anancy, Anancyi, Ananansa, Ananse, Aunt Nancy, Anansiil, Hanansi, Compé Anansi, Kweku Anansi, Nansi
Pantheon: African
Parentage: Nyame - The Sky God (father), Asase Yaa - Earth Goddess and Goddess of Fertility (mother)
Family: Aso (Mistress Anansi) - Wife
Patronage:
Anansi is a trickster god who acts as an intermediary for Nyame. On
Nyame's command, Anansi brings the rain to quench forest fires. He
determines the borders of the ocean and rivers during floods. Anansi
created the sun, the moon and the stars in the sky, and then instituted
the succession of day and night. He created the first man, who Asase
Yaa then breathed life into. He taught humans the skills involved in
agriculture. Anansi proclaimed himself to be First King of Human
Beings. He is the King of All Stories.
Residence: Anansi lives in the small cracks of the
walls, on webs in the corner of the room, in dark places, in light, in
trees, on the ground, in a hut in the middle of the African plain, in
an upscale New York apartment, on the winds that come from the South
that raise the hackles, on the whispers of children, in the minds of
storytellers, and as every spider living in the world.
Anansi is nowhere and everywhere at once, choosing to be at
the place that seems like it will be the most fun at the time. His
little eight legged spies all over the world give him windows into the
lives of others.
Appearance: Anansi can take many forms, man or spider, of any
mixture of the two. When he is a man, it is said that his skin is black
like night, and his eyes glitter with all the mischievousness inside of
him. He is said to be a dapper gentleman almost always appearing in
nice clothing. When he is a spider, he can be any spider, but he
prefers to be an oily black spider of unknown species. When he decides
to be a mixture of man and spider, he can have extra limbs, extra eyes,
a man's head on a spider's body, a spider's head on a man's body, a
man's torso on a spider's abdomen, or any foul image he can come up
with.
Personality:
Anansi is crafty and sly, he is cunning and mischievous, if the mood
suits him, he is outright villainous. Life is there to amuse him, and
the people of the world likewise. He cares nothing for anything truths
be told. He'd just as soon give up his wife for stew as give her
flowers, if the end results suited him. He does everything he does
because it has some benefit to him, small or large; most of the time he
tricks people out of money or food, but any kind of profit will do.
Small in stature, Anansi uses his wit to make up for what he
lacks in size and strength. Anything that any of the other gods might
be able to outdo him in using their physical abilties, Anansi can find
a way to overcome using his mind. There are many instances of this
throughout the Spider's life. And he's not afraid to remind people of
this whenever he feels the need.
He is the very spirit of rebellion. Anansi riles against the
other gods, and while he is often in the service of one or another,
specifically his father, he'll always find a way to bend things so that
they benefit him also, or just him alone. He's not afraid of going
against something that he's promised on a whim. If he says that he'll
do something, chances are he might not. It all comes down to mood and
entertainment for Anansi.
Anansi is nothing if not arrogant. Pride is his Christian
sin. It doesn't run as shallow as to only encompass just appearance,
either. Anansi's pride swallows up the entirety of his being. He takes
pride in his work, in his mischeif, and in his occasional cruelty. He
is fond of talking himself up, leaving spiders to whisper in the ears
of those whom he wants to see him as wonderful.
He likes to plant ideas and thoughts into other people's
heads and ride the storm that comes. He will coerce others into things
they wouldn't normally do, just to see what happens. The termoil of
others brings him a goodly amount of joy, and he does nothing to hide
the fact when confronted by it. Anansi is never apologetic for what
he's done, not truly. He might offer an apology, but it will never be
sincere. And he won't think twice about turning around and playing
another trick on the person he just apologised to.
Anansi has a sense of humor, whether it is humorous to
anybody but himself is an entirely different matter. He likes jokes, he
likes funny things, and he likes when jokes and funny things happen to
other people. His humor can, and more often than not does, turn to a
darker vein. He twists things to be just a little more dangerous than
amusing, or a touch more heartbreaking than they are laughable.
He can be kindly, occasionally even loving, should he feel
like it. But it's a side of him that very few get to see. It's not that
he's afraid of anybody seeing this part of him, it's him just like
anything else, and he's just as proud of it as all the rest. It's just
that he rarely finds anybody deserving of it. Those who he has
considered good enough can be counted on the fingers of one of his
eight legs.
History: Come sit, childrens. Come learn of Compé Anansi and all the wonderful terrible things he has done to the world.
The Anansesem are plentiful and colorful. Some of them are
lies, and some of them are truths, but even the ones that are lies are
truths. Every Anansesem holds at least one fact of the Web Walker.
Long,
long ago, Anansi was born to Nyame the Sky God and his wife, Asase Yaa
Goddess of Earth and Fertility. In the beginning, Anansi created the
sun, the moon and all of the stars in the sky. He then decided that
there should be an order in which they appear. Telling the sun to run
from the moon, the moon to run from the sun, and the stars to bridge
the gaps between them.
For a long time, Anansi did as he was told by Nyame. When
the fires would come every year, Anansi would wait until he was
instructed, and then send the rain to put out the fires and give new
life to the lands. When the rains would become too much for the rivers
and the oceans, Anansi would draw borders for them to make sure that
they did not go too far and kill off all life.
One day he made a figure out of mud, rocks, sticks and clay,
proud of his work, he showed it to his mother, Asase Yaa, who saw
beauty in the ugliness of the figure, and breathed life into it. The
mud became a man, and man began to populate the earth. Anansi declared
himself First King of Men and watched as they tried to grow and
prosper. Seeing that his creations needed help, Anansi taught them how
to use a hoe and a shovel, to till the earth and grow crops for food.
That was about the last thing that he ever did to benefit human beings.
Knowing
that he was wily and cunning wasn't enough for Anansi. He was not wise
like his mother was wise, he was not wise like his father was wise. He
was not even wise like the humans were wise. He decided to fix this and
went about the task of hoarding all the world's wisdom into one
calabash. Anansi went from door to door asking everybody for a little
bit of their wisdom. Each time he asked, the people chuckled a bit,
thinking that of all the creatures, Anansi was the one who needed the
wisdom the most. He got a bit of wisdom from everybody until his
calabash was filled to spilling, and tried to find a place to hide it.
The best place that Anansi could think of to hide his wisdom was at the
top of a tree. He tried and he tried to get up the tree, and found no
way. Along came Anansi's youngest son, who wondered aloud if it
wouldn't work better if the calabash were tied to Anansi's back. Anansi
told his son to go home, then tied the gourd around his back. Easily
then he climbed the tree. Once at top, he yelled up at his father, the
Sky God, that he had collected wisdom enough to make him the wisest
being on earth, and yet his baby son was still more wise. In anger,
Anansi spilled over the calabash, sending wisdom washing over the
world.
The most famous of the Anansesem is the one how Anansi became King of all Stories, not just his own.
Anansi
decided one day to go to his father and ask to be named King of
Stories. Nyame told Anansi that there had been many others asking for
the same thing, but not one of them had been deserving. They had
offered him riches and prizes, women and sacrifices, but all that Nyame
wanted was Mmoboro, Onini, and Osebo: the hornets, the python, and the
tiger. No others had been smart enough or strong enough to gather these
three for Nyame. But Anansi tricked all of them.
The Mmoboro were tricked into a gourd when Anansi made them
think it was raining. Onini was tricked into being tied to a stick when
Anansi faked a fight with his wife over the length of Onini versus the
stick. And Osebo was tricked into a hole and tied his own tail to a
bent tree, when Anansi let the tree up, he killed Osebo and took his
body along with Mmoboro and Onini to Nyame. There he was proclaimed
King of All Stories.
There is only one time when Anansi was beaten at his own
game, and that was when he met the tar baby. The other animals, sick of
Anansi and his tricks, made a girl out of tar and sat her at the side
of the road with a pot of stew. Anansi wandered by and caught a whiff
of the food cooking. He asked the girl what she was making, she didn't
answer. He asked the girl if he could have a taste, and she didn't
answer. He yelled at the girl to answer, and still she said nothing.
Anansi threatened that if she didn't speak, he would slap her, and she
didn't answer. He slapped her and his hand stuck, so he told her to
release him, or he would slap her again. She refused to let go. Anansi
slapped her again, and then and again, until all of his legs were stuck
to her and the rest of the animals came out from hiding and beat him
up.
As his stories spread from the Ashanti tribe in Ghana to
other parts of Africa, and then on to Jamaica, the West Indies,
Suriname, and the Netherlands Antilles, he grew stronger from the tales
that were told about him. He grew bolder in his actions and his
activity in the world. When they moved to Curaçao, Aruba, and Bonaire,
he stopped fearing the other gods, and did as he pleased (moreso than
he had ever). And when his stories finally made their way to the
Americas, Anansi knew that he could do whatever he wanted, whenever he
wanted. People everywhere were telling about him, spreading knowledge
of him. All of this, in the mind of the Web Walker, elevated Anansi to
a status higher than his own father, higher than his mother.
Anansi took to wandering around the world, observing humans
and new human culture. Listening to the stories they told. Collecting
them and feeding off of them. All the stories were his, after all. They
belonged to him and he could listen as much as he wanted to.
He started favoring humans who were nice to spiders,
hoarding their whispered secrets and occasionally granting their wishes
for them. Not all of his favors ended up the way that the hope-rs
wanted, of course. There were times when the wishes were granted too
literally, often because Anansi wanted to see what would happen, or he
was just in that sort of mood.
Miscellaneous: Kweku Anansi means Uncle Anansi; and Compé means companion, but the kind of companion you see as your equal specifically.
It's
said here and there that Anansi had children, but I haven't found
anything but vague references to them, so in this version of Anansi,
I'm going to make it that all spiders are Anansi's children, and when
there are references to them in fables and myths, that's what it means.
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