Of storytelling, spinning and weaving
Most spiders that survive till autumn are females, because Sir is usually eaten by Madam after the lovemaking. In the West African and Surinamese or Caribbean culture however, the spider Anansi is a male. He is called Kwaku Anansi, a man born on a Wednesday, and in the Twi language of the Akan people of Ghana, the word Anansi literally means a spider.
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| Anansi descending from Heaven |
In today’s almost incomprehensible world ravaged by power play, inequality, suppression, war and genocide, often it is better to turn to a relaxed theme, such as wondering about the parallels between cultures. Last week I had the pleasure of giving another lecture about the spider Anansi in the African, Surinamese and Caribbean folk tales that play such an important part in my book of the same title: Anansi.
Ovid and Arachne
Where spiders are concerned, I found a parallel between African and Greek-Roman mythology. I recently visited an exposition of art inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphoses in the Dutch National Museum in Amsterdam, together with other members of my Latin study group which is run by our inspiring teacher of classical literature.
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| Ovid (source: Wikipedia) |
Publius Ovidius Naso was a Roman poet in Augustus’ day, who in his extensive work wrote a great number of stories from Greek and Roman mythology, concerned with enigmatic transformations of people into animals, plants and objects. Often his tales contain a moral warning about the risk of hubris (brashness or presumption) and other human shortcomings. Implicitly, despite his own flamboyant lifestyle, Ovid also addressed the corruption of the Roman elite of his day, including the Imperial family, which eventually would lead to his banishment to a remote place on the Black Sea. Even then apparently, people felt strongly about the excesses of the rich elite.
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Arachne turned into a spider by Minerva source: Wikipedia |
One of the tales in the Metamorphoses describes the brash over-confidence of Arachne, a young woman who presumes she can challenge the goddess Minerva (Athena in Greek mythology) to hold a weaving contest. Minerva herself is good at weaving, but at the loom she meets her match in Arachne, who, adding insult to injury, wove an image which was a mockery of the gods! Minerva is furious, hits Arachne three times over the head with her weaving shuttle and curses her, changing her into a spider doomed to eternally weave her web. All spiders now are members of an entomological family called Arachnida.
I wonder if Arachne’s tale, like other stories in Greek-Roman mythology, isn’t an ancient folk tale, the origin of which was lost even before the advent of written history. The wool spindle is said to have been invented 7000 years ago, and the loom as long ago as 5000 years, but in Georgia dyed flaxen thread has been found that was dated 34,000 years ago, and probably used for weaving or knitting. And undoubtedly, in prehistoric days many tales were told after dark at the cooking fire, or during spinning or weaving.
Anansi
This is certainly the case with Anansi, a low-ranking deity in the Akan mythology, the son of Asaase (Mother Earth), who according to legend descended from Heaven on his spinning thread to bring humankind a message from the gods. Asaase must be related to the Egyptian goddess Isis, who was revered in the Nile valley, and like her is the embodiment of the life cycle and the protector of the deceased. Isis originally came from Egypt and Nubia, and the Akan people are thought to have migrated from the Nile valley to West Africa, a thousand years ago.
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Anansi represented by an Ashanti mask (photo: author) |
In African culture, Anansi isn’t just a deity, but also a storyteller and a messenger who cannot always be trusted, because he also tells you lies. With his thread he weaves a web of lies so dense that you cannot see through. The English language has a proverb of spinning someone a tale, and spin doctors are professional liars employed by politicians. On the other hand there is the saying spinning a yarn, which means telling a long and involved story that isn’t necessarily a lie.
Weaving a tale
There are more connections between stories, spinning and weaving. Our word textile is derived from the same source as text, i.e. the Latin word textilis, which means woven. Africa even today has a rich storytelling tradition, which during the centuries-long slave trade also ended up in the Americas and the Caribbean. On the plantations, where the white colonists suppressed the dignity and culture of the people kidnapped from Africa, the oral tradition went underground and assumed the role of covert resistance.
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Kente cloth made in Ghana (author's photo) |
Not just storytelling tells a tale in Africa, but also traditional weaving. The colourful patterns of the Kente cloth woven by the Akan people in Ghana have a meaning. Kente is made in narrow strips on a tiny loom, which are sown together into a cloth. Every pattern in Kente has its unique meaning.
The tradition of conveying a message with textiles has also taken root elsewhere. A woman of the Surinamese Maroons receives a bolt of virgin cotton from her husband at her wedding, upon which she embroiders figures and patterns telling her own story. And then there is the angisa, the traditional headdress of a Surinamese woman, which tells its own message. By its colours and the pattern she folds it into, she tells of her mood, whether she is happy, whether she is grieving, or whether she accepts or rejects a man. This secret language was conceived during slavery, when people were forbidden to speak their own language.
Thus, we can see that text and textiles come together again: both tell their own story.
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embroidered Surinamese Maroon cloth (author's photo) |
