Research and the author's doubt

edited - some content transferred to newer post.

ANANSI: researching the West African stories

Ask an average passer-by what he or she knows about Anansi, and if you get an answer at all, you are guaranteed to hear that they are children's stories, thanks to the many children's films and books about Anansi. There are indeed children's stories about Anansi, but there is more: the spider Anansi is a mythical figure and a sly trickster in Akan culture in West Africa. He is the son of the Akan earth goddess Asase Yaa, and his folk tales have been told for centuries. 

 

village scene in central Ghana copyright H.Schalkwijk 2012

The word Anansi literally means "spider" in the Akan language, which is spoken in today's Ghana and across the border in Ivory Coast. The stories are usually told after dark because the spider and its legs have the shape of the sun with rays, and it isn’t wise to tell the tales in daylight. The stories of Anansi travelled to Suriname and the Caribbean with the slave trade. Anansi gave slaves on the plantations courage as his devious tricks made him equal even to a powerful enemy.

Anansi... copyright Ted Polet

There are a few good examples of the stories on the Wikipedia page about Anansi. They were transcribed a hundred years ago in West Africa by Africanist R.S.Rattray, and they are also told on the Caribbean islands and in Suriname. Surinamese author Anton de Kom wrote down a collection of stories in his book Anangsieh Tories. On the Caribbean islands the spider is called Nanzi, or sometimes Aunt Nancy. 

Anansi is very similar in character to his European counterpart, Reynaerd the Fox. There is even a connection with the stories about Brer Rabbit, which were told on the North American plantations (well-known are the stories of Uncle Remus, written by Joel Chandler Harris). For example, Anansi fights with Tar Man, a sticky scarecrow, to which he becomes glued for his pains. There is a similar story about Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby.

Disclaimer

African storytellers often start with the disclaimer that their tale is just a rumour, a story that you should not pay too much attention to. Just in case someone in the audience feels slighted!

Like the African storytellers, I also have a disclaimer. I may have done a great deal of research, but I also know my limitations. As an author without African, Caribbean or Surinamese roots you can never actually penetrate the culture beyond few millimetres - skin deep, so to say. My book Anansi is a story that never really happened, but it is set against the background of the slave trade and the plantations. I have researched the subject as well as possible, but undoubtedly there is much that I overlooked. If I have made mistakes, at least I can say they are honest mistakes.

Research and doubt

ANANSI (like my other books) has as its primary theme a relationship between two people from different cultures, who in spite of persecution hold on to each other. I use the slave trade in all its horrors as a background for the story, but the true subject is the hope of freedom shared by the main characters, about love and perseverance and the sacrifices that you make for one another. 

I worked on the book for a year and a half and often doubted the wisdom of my choice of colonial slavery as a background, especially since you can never satisfy everyone with such a controversial subject: some will find that I am not 'woke' enough (I hate that terrible word), others that I am blotting the 'glorious' past. That is why I tried to look objectively at all the available material during my research. That proved quite difficult: the more I read about this black page in history, the more I was dragged into it.

source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/slave-trade

I recently bundled all my notes into a single text file, containing texts of websites, articles by historians and extracts that I made myself - lists with points of attention after reading books or websites. The entire list covers a stunning 95,000 words, as much as the size of the book itself. 

Comparing all the source material turned out to be a huge task, because a lot has been written about slavery and much cannot be considered complete or correct. Authors of articles on the internet sometimes contradict each other, or their opinion is biased. But after filtering out all the contradictions, a deeply disturbing picture about the slave trade and the plantation economy remains. I have described some atrocities in Anansi, but I never exaggerated a thing. If anything, reality was worse than I dared write, or the book would make too unpleasant reading.

Even now, I still discover new sources that put some things I wrote in Anansi in a different light. Then doubt hits me again: did I write well enough? Can I do better? Doubt is the author’s best tool.

To be continued.

ANANSI and slavery

In November 2022 I wrote ‘not before time’, in view of the long-delayed announcement of slavery excuses by the Dutch government. The final date of these excuses, December 19, was subject of more controversy, both in the Netherlands and in our former colonies of Suriname and the Caribbean islands. July 1st, 2023, would have been more fitting - 160 years after slavery was formally abolished, and 150 years after the 10 year-long State supervision period ended.

source: national archive of Curaçao/Caribbean network

Whether December 19 was chosen out of political opportunism, with interim elections coming up soon, or because the Cabinet only wanted to clear away another agenda item before Christmas, we will never know. 

It takes empathy and modesty to make proper excuses, neither of which come easily to politicians. An ‘awareness fund’ was announced, but who will properly begin to address the still extant consequences of slavery in present-day society? I’d have thought that the most important issue.

Compensation for slave owners, not the victims

In 1863, the slave owners in Suriname received compensation for the ‘damages’ they incurred to the amount of 300 guilders for each released slave (if I remember correctly the amount paid on the Caribbean islands was 200 guilders), but the people themselves received nothing. Under State supervision, they had to continue working for their former masters for 10 more years, against minimal wages, and in addition the former owners’ duty of providing food, housing and medical care had been cancelled. As a result, those released sank back into dire poverty, and in some cases they are said to have begged for a return to slavery. Even then, there was no end to human exploitation in the colonies. Recently I wrote of the treatment of contract labourers, with the brutal suppression of the rising at the Mariënburg sugar works as a notorious example.

Text from the 1863 law abolishing slavery

ANANSI

Let us return to my new book ANANSI, an historical novel against the background of the slave trade. The Dutch manuscript was recently submitted to the publisher, following initial editing, re-reading and correcting the text many times. The planned publication date of the Dutch version is the middle of June, shortly before Keti Koti, the ‘broken chains’ celebration of Abolition on July 1st. The English edition of the book is in an advanced stage, and release of this is planned later in summer.

The book contains many historical elements, which were carefully researched and forged together to create the background for a gripping tale. One of these is the mutiny in the Paramaribo garrison in 1688, and the ensuing murder of Van Sommelsdijck, the governor. The story begins in what used to be the Gold Coast, the African headquarters of the Dutch West India Company (WIC). Evert Adriaansz is a rebellious sailor hailing from Amsterdam, who is sent to Elmina after a conflict over the daughter of one of the Directors of the WIC. Having arrived there, he is shocked by the horrible excesses of the slave trade. He is all alone there without friends or prospects, but after a time he meets the attractive slave girl Efua.

Elmina, Ghana

They feel irresistibly attracted to one another, but as the forbidden relationship comes to light, the girl is sold and put aboard a ship bound for Suriname. Evert manages to get aboard another ship and after many wanderings sets out to find her on the far side of the Atlantic Ocean, a search full of hardship in the interior of 17th Century Suriname.

The Suriname River, Gunsi

The ANANSI story revolves around the folk tales of the smart spider Anansi, which are handed down in West Africa from mother to daughter and travelled with the slave trade to Suriname and the Caribbean. Efua is a storyteller, who relates the tales she learned from her grandmother, and takes them with her to Suriname. Eventually, the Anansi tales also play a part in the ending of the story.

Writing and research

You may wonder how my books take shape. Naturally, each author has his or her own approach. My manuscripts develop like a tree or an organism, branching this way or that before I see my way forward. At the beginning of the project I have no idea where the tale takes me and how it will end, but often I have a hunch which leads to a string of new chapters. And sometimes I have a key scene in mind which must have a place in the story, such as the reunion between the main protagonists of The Batavian, Mark and Leila, who after several years encounter one another in a scruffy little health centre in Greece, where Mark also meets his daughter for the first time.

I do a great deal of research for my books, which generally keeps pace with writing. Not everything can be learned from books, so I often find inspiration and ideas in the actual places where a scene in the book is set, talking with people and so laying the foundation of an authentic story. It also works the other way round, when a story results from having visited a place when travelling.

slave dungeon, Elmina

Ten years ago Henriette and I visited Ghana, and the horror I felt in the slave dungeons of the former Dutch West India Company fortress of Elmina undoubtedly contributed to the theme of ANANSI. And last year we travelled in Suriname for three weeks, where we were immersed in the culture and I learned much that made its way into the book. I spoke with many people there, including several from the Maroon community, and they taught me a great deal about their culture. Who knows for instance, that many Surinamese consult their ancestors before taking an important decision? They have a strong bond with their ancestors, which they inherited from their African roots.

Our slavery history is a controversial topic in the Netherlands, which I have done much research into. Opinions about the subject are very divided and even among renowned historians there is a heated debate between those who regard slavery as just another historic detail, and those who think it is about time to face the unwelcome facts.

And how about my own opinion? We cannot measure the past against present-day norms and values, but even in the historical context the sheer scale of exploitation, humiliation and cruelty in the Colonies is astonishing. And although it is often disregarded, there was criticism of slavery even in the 17th and 18th Century, before the Abolition movement became established. There were Churchmen such as Justus Heurnius and Gisbertus Voetius who preached against slavery in no uncertain terms, and I found part of a letter written by an 18th Century sailor, who does not hide his horror at the living conditions in the slave quarters aboard a slave ship. So nobody should claim that slavery in those days was such a fact of life that no one cared. If you do, you haven’t understood a thing.

translated from a letter written on an 18th Century slave ship

When I was interviewed by the newspaper De Ware Tijd in Paramaribo, I was asked whether my novel wasn’t going to romanticise slavery too much. A valid concern especially if you wonder why a white Dutchman takes it into his head to write a book with such a controversial subject as its background. I gave the journalist a clear reply: in my book ANANSI, I am not going to mince words about slavery.

At this stage I won’t yet tell too much about my new book to avoid a spoiler, but in the weeks to come I will occasionally lift a tip of the veil still surrounding the book.