Ch. 1: The Price of the Stories

We do not really mean, we do not really mean, that what we are going to say is true.

That is how the old people of Asante begin, and so that is how we will begin. Sit down. Move the stool closer to the fire. If you are a child, sit where your mother can see you; if you are a grown person, sit where you can pretend you are not listening. Either way, listen.

There was a time, a long time ago, when the world had no stories in it.

When night fell and the fires were lit, nobody had anything to tell. People sat and looked at one another. Somebody would cough. Somebody would say, “The moon is bright tonight,” and somebody else would say, “Yes, it is,” and that would be the end of the evening.

Where were the stories, then? They were up in the sky. They belonged to Nyankonpon, the Sky God, whom some people call Nyame, and who sits above everything with his elders around him. He kept the stories in a great carved box beside his stool, and every one of them was his. When he wished, he took one out and enjoyed it, and then he put it back and closed the lid. Nobody below had ever heard a single one.

Now, down on the earth there lived Kwaku Ananse, the spider.

You know him already, even if you think you don't. He is small. He is clever. He is greedy in the stomach and greedier in the head. His voice is thin and a little nasal, as though he is always speaking through a cold, and when he wants something he talks very, very fast. He had a wife, Aso, who was cleverer than he was, though he did not like anyone to say so. He had children, many of them, who ran about the compound getting into trouble in eight directions at once. And he had his old mother, Ya Nsia, who sat in the shade and watched everything and said little.

One evening, Ananse sat by the fire with his family, and the silence came down on them the way it always did.

“The moon is bright tonight,” said his eldest son.

“Yes, it is,” said Aso.

Ananse looked from one face to another. He drummed his many fingers on his knees. “This is unbearable,” he said. “Every night, the same. We eat, we sit, we look at the moon as though it owes us money. Somewhere there must be something better to do with an evening.”

“There is,” said old Ya Nsia from her corner, without opening her eyes. “But it is not here. It is up there.” And she pointed one finger at the sky.

Ananse followed the finger. Up above, past the tops of the odum trees, past the clouds that were drifting like loose cloth, was the house of Nyankonpon. And everyone knew what Nyankonpon kept in his house.

“The stories,” said Ananse slowly.

“The stories,” agreed his mother.

“I will buy them,” said Ananse.

Aso laughed so hard she had to put down her calabash. “You? Buy the Sky God's stories? Rich men have gone to ask. Great chiefs have gone, with gold dust in their bags and drummers walking in front of them. Every one of them came home with nothing but sore feet. And you, who still owe the palm-wine tapper for last market day, you are going to buy them?”

“I am small,” said Ananse, with great dignity, “but I am not nothing.”

The next morning, before the cocks had finished arguing about who should crow first, Ananse spun himself a thread. He spun it long and fine and strong, and he threw one end up, up, up until it caught on the edge of the sky. Then he climbed.

It was a long climb. But Ananse kept climbing, talking to himself all the way, practising what he would say.

At last he pulled himself over the edge and stood up in the courtyard of Nyankonpon.

The Sky God sat on a stool covered in gold, under a great umbrella that turned slowly in the bright air. Around him sat his elders, his chiefs and counsellors, men of the Kontire and the Akwamu, of the Adonten and the Gyaase, the Oyoko and the Ankobea and the Kyidom. Each one was dressed in kente so fine it hurt the eyes.

Ananse bowed very low. Then he bowed a little lower, just in case.

“Who is this?” asked the Sky God, though of course he knew.

“It is Kwaku Ananse, the spider, from the earth below,” said the linguist.

“What does he want?”

Ananse cleared his throat. His voice came out thinner than he would have liked. “Nana,” he said, “Grandfather, I have come to ask whether you will sell me your stories.”

There was a silence. Then one elder snorted into his cloth. Another one coughed so as not to laugh. Even the linguist's staff seemed to tremble.

Nyankonpon did not laugh. He looked down at Ananse for a long moment, the way you look at a small thing that has said something large.

“Kwaku Ananse,” he said. “Great and wealthy towns have come to me, one after another, and they have not been able to buy them. What makes you think that you, who are so small, can do what they could not?”

“Name the price, Nana,” said Ananse. “Only name it. A man cannot refuse a load until he has felt how heavy it is.”

The elders murmured. That was a good proverb, and they all knew it. Nyankonpon's eyes glinted, just a little.

“Very well,” said the Sky God. “My price is this. Bring me Onini, the python. Bring me Osebo, the leopard. Bring me Mmoboro, the hornets, who sting like fire. And bring me Mmoatia, the fairy, the little one of the forest whom nobody ever catches. Bring me all four of them, alive, and the stories are yours.”

The elders looked at one another. Some of them shook their heads. One of them, an old man of the Kyidom with very few teeth, leaned over to his neighbour and whispered, loudly enough for everyone to hear, “That is the end of the spider.”

“I will bring them,” he said. “And I will bring something more. I will bring my old mother, Ya Nsia, the sixth child of her mother, to stand with them. That way you will know I am serious.”

The Sky God raised his eyebrows. “Your own mother?”

“She has wanted to see the sky her whole life,” said Ananse. “Why should she not come along?”

At that, Nyankonpon did laugh, a great warm sound like thunder rolling a long way off. “Go, then, Kwaku Ananse,” he said. “Go and fetch my price. We will be waiting.”

So Ananse bowed again, very low, and climbed back down his thread to the earth, and the elders of the sky went on chuckling about him for the rest of the afternoon.

When he dropped into his own compound, Aso was waiting with her hands on her hips.

“Well?” she said. “Did he throw you off the edge?”

“He named his price,” said Ananse, and he told her.

Aso was quiet for a moment. Then she sat down on the stool beside him. “Python,” she said. “Hornets. Leopard. Fairy. Husband, you have been given a very heavy load.”

“I know,” said Ananse. “That is why I am going to need a very clever wife to help me carry it.”

And for once, Aso did not laugh at him.