So here we are: our second Anansi Book Club book for 2023! You can see the January Calendar at the website, and you can also see all the Book Club posts from 2022 here at the blog (and additional information at the website about previous months).
The book for this week is something both familiar (we read a book by Donna Washington last month: A Pride of African Tales)... but as soon as you open this book, you will notice something very different about it: How Anansi Obtained the Sky God's Stories: An African Folktale from the Ashanti Tribe.
As you can see there on the cover, there's no author listed; instead, it lists the illustrator: Janice Skivington. That's because... the book is a picture book, with no words until you get to the back of the book! That's where you will find the story that goes with the pictures as told by Donna Washington (click on the image for a larger view):
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Personally, I think this is a genius idea for the book! For me, since I know this story already, I was able to enjoy the pictures just for their own sake, telling the story out loud to myself, prompted by the pictures, but of course anyone not familiar with the story can jump to the back, read Donna Washington's version, and then explore the story through the Janice Skivington's illustrations!
As you can see there on the page with Donna Washington's note about herself (and this is back in the day: 1991, over 30 years ago!), there is a wonderful portrait of her drawn by Janice Skivington... and look: Washington is the storyteller IN the story too! Here's the storyteller at the beginning of the story:
Notice that bag she is holding? Well, that's going to be the bag for the stories. See how the Sky God is holding the bag when you turn the page?
The way Washington uses the motif of the bag in her version of the story is a great detail, and it echoes with another famous story about how Anansi gathered all the wisdom in the world into a pot. This time: it's a bag full of stories! And just in terms of attention to detail, notice how the illustrator has used the same design from the back on the inside papers as you open the book:
It's that kind of attention to visual detail that makes this book such a pleasure to explore, and I hope you will enjoy looking at every page.
The use of this bag for the stories is such a great way to develop the plot, too. This type of folktale is sometimes called "trickster seeks endowments," and the variety of ways in which the story can be told is really astounding. The trickster's identity varies, so you can find this type of story told not just about Anansi but also told about Rabbit and Tortoise. The goal of the quest varies too: sometimes the trickster wants wisdom, sometimes it is a bride, sometimes stories, etc. The story can be about a divinity, like the Sky-God here, but sometimes it is about the "king" or sometimes a powerful character like Leopard. One of my favorites is the African American story about Brer Rabbit seeking wisdom from the Witch, who is sometimes named Mammy-Bammy Big-Money. I've retold a version of that story here, in a small collection of stories about Brer Rabbit and the Witch-Rabbit; the particular story is about how Rabbit decided he needed to get some more smarts: Brer Rabbit Gets Some Smarts, which closely follows Joel Chandler Harris's version of the story. The illustration is from Milo Winter:
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In this version of "trickster seeks endowments," you see a twist commonly found at the end: exactly because the trickster is already very wise, the test proves only how dangerous it would be to give him any more wisdom, so he does not end up getting to have what he set out to acquire. So, Brer Rabbit does not get any more smarts from Mammy-Bammy, unlike the "Anansi seeks stories" type of story, where Anansi does get to be the keeper of stories in the end, but even there you'll find a twist at the end... although I don't want to spoil the surprise, so just make sure you see what finally happens to that sack of stories!
Another feature that varies tremendously in the "trickster seeks endowment" type of story is the list of quests that the trickster must complete. In this Anansi story, he must catch Momboro the hornet, Onini the python, and Osebo the leopard (the animals have their Ashanti names). Here is Anansi luring the hornet into a gourd:
This is a very typical list, but you can also find other kinds of challenges that the trickster faces: sometimes birds instead of insects, sometimes crocodile instead of snake, sometimes the tears of a deer, and so on. The quests can also number one or two or three, etc. If you look at the chapter on this type of folktale in Bascom's amazing African Folktales in the New World, you can find summaries of 78 (!!!) examples of this story type from across Africa and the African Diaspora. Bascom also includes Native American versions of the story, like this one from a Creek storyteller in Georgia, where there was a profound back-and-forth between Native and Africa storytellers; you can find more in Swanton's Myths and Tales of the Southeastern Indians.
57. (Georgia: Creek Indians) Rabbit asked Christ for more knowledge and was given a sack to fill with blackbirds. He told some blackbirds that people said that they were too few to fill the sack. They flew into the sack until it was full, and Rabbit carried them to Christ. Christ told Rabbit that he would be given more knowledge if he brought a rattlesnake. Rabbit made a sharp arrow and told a rattlesnake that Christ said it was not as long as the arrow. The snake let Rabbit measure it, and Rabbit ran the arrow through it and carried it to Christ. Christ said, ”If I gave you any more knowledge. you would set the world on fire,” and threw Rabbit into a brier thicket, saying that that would be his home. (Swanton [1929]. pp. 59—60)
For today's update, here are two more books in this series where Donna Washington provided the story:
illustrated by Ching
illustrated by Melodye Rosales
Plus, since I really love this "Adventures in Storytelling" book series, I want to share a few more of them that you can find at the Internet Archive:
illustrated by Estefanita Martinez
illustrated by Francisco Mora
illustrated by Cheryl Hamada
We are so lucky that the Internet Archive has these books because they are not in wide circulation as used books, so many of them are very expensive. Hopefully more of the books in this series will make their way to the Internet Archive eventually... and maybe some enterprising storytellers and illustrators will release some more books like these. I think they are wonderful!
Meanwhile, I hope you will enjoy looking through the Anansi book! I had never seen a book set up like this before, and I know I would have loved something like this as a child, being able to read the story in the back and then try telling it to myself while looking at the beautiful pictures. And even as someone who is all grown-up... who is OLD in fact... I enjoy doing that too. Give it a try and see what you think!
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