Ghanaian Folktales: Why the Spider hides on the roof - 22/12/2020

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This is going to be my first input for the Ghanaian folktales and i hope i do a good job entertaining you with some good old fashion Ghanaian tales. Every Ghanaian has heard of Ananse the spider once in their life before and we all know how cunning he is in all his stories and how he end up outsmarting everyone but in this story i am abou to tell you which i will try to be as brief as possible, ananse was outsmarted. Just so you know or for the sake of those who may be a bit lost, Ananse is the twi name for spider and in our folktales he is personified and great many stories are told about him.

Ok so to the start of the story, Ananse lived with his wife Kunole and his son Nti Kuma in a beautiful small town somewhere in Africa. Then there came a time when a great famine hit the land, to ensure their survival Ananse and his family decided to start a big farm, during the cause of the farming Ananse always had one excuse or the other to be excused from work, he either feigned illness or a headache or weakness, anything to get the job done and so by the time the goodies were ripe and ready for harvesting he had done nothing but he came to the farm one day and seeing how succulent everything looked he plotted to find a way to ensure the fruit of the labor he did not commit.

He told his family and townsfolk he is coming to die and that when he dies they should burry him close to the farm, the should add cutlery set to his coffin, salt, spices, sugars etc anything you can think of that may be used to prepare food or juice etc and that they should not hammer the coffin shut. Then the next day he died or so he claims, he was buried as he instructed but then from then onwards any time Kunole and her son went to the farm to find food they discovered someone had been to the farm to steal and so they also hatched a plan to catch the thief.

The used a sticky substance to make a statue and kept it in the farm as a scarecrow, then the next night ananse got there and saw the statue, he thought someone was also stealing from his family and went to fight the person however he ended up getting sticked to it and could not escape, the day broke and the family and the townsfolk came to find him as the thief stealing from his own family when everyone though he had died and so they got infuriated however immediately he was released from the statue he run fast and hid in the ceiling and roof his home never to come down again for fear of been murdered.

And so thus how Ananse the spider ended up becoming the kind of animal or personified subject always found on walls and on ceilings, he still believe that when he gets down he may be killed for his deeds. That ends my story thanks for reading and have good time.

@elyon

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