Caribbean Folklore: Anansi’s Antics in Antigua & Barbuda

Antiguan Folktales: Anansi's Wisdom and Lessons

In this episode of The Moreish Podcast, Kesha Christie, a renowned storyteller and Ted Talk speaker, joins the show to explore the rich tapestry of Caribbean folktales, focusing on the iconic trickster hero, Anansi. This captivating Anansi story from Antigua & Barbuda has it’s origins in Ghana (Africa).

Hema and Kesha discuss how these stories reflect and preserve cultural and spiritual beliefs, the nuances and variations across different Caribbean islands, as well as the impact of historical influences, understanding pre-colonial African history and how these timeless stories continue to adapt while maintaining their core messages.

To learn more about Kesha and her work:

Website
Instagram
Walk Good Podcast

Resources:
The Caribbean Storyfinder by Sharon Barcan Elswit 

More episodes with Kesha Christie:
Exploring Caribbean Folklore
Trickster Tales

Transcript

Kesha:  These are the stories where we're passing down our traditions, our beliefs, and our spiritual beliefs as well are all kind of woven into the stories that we tell. So at first listen, it's like, oh, haha,  Anansi’s doing this. But then when we think about it a little bit more, where is he? What is he doing? Let's see how that mirrors the time and the place where the story originates from. 

Hema: Hi Kesha. Welcome back to The Moreish Podcast.

Kesha: Thank you so much for having me back again. I'm so excited.

Hema: We recorded a couple of episodes, and the very first one was an overview of folktales and folklore in the Caribbean, and you gave some really good information on the background and the history of where some of these stories may come from. Moving forward, we're gonna dive into folktales from specific islands and countries.

Kesha: Yes. I'm really excited to share them with you because when you visit the different islands, some of the stories have similar characters, for example, Anansi is strong and familiar throughout most of the Caribbean, but his antics or the situations that he gets himself into are very different from island to island.

And even some of the supporting characters are a little bit different as well. And what I found is the story of, say Anansi and Tiger in Jamaica is a little bit different than Anansi and Tiger in the Bahamas. And it's very interesting to see their overlaps and their differences.

Hema: I’m really excited to hear some of these overlaps and differences, because you talked about, in that initial episode, that the same genre or the same sentiment of the character, whether it's a trickster or some specific lesson, there are commonalities, but slight differences and maybe called something different in each country.

Kesha: When I thought about us getting back together again and sharing these stories, I was like, okay, I definitely wanna tell you some of the variations. And when I first started telling stories, I needed to find them. And so my Bible was a book called The Caribbean Story Finder. And so in this book, it gives you like different folk tales, a little, little synopsis of the stories. And it also highlights a few variations in different islands. So you find out what the story is called on another island and their little, their little variances. But then when you dive deeper, you find the richness and the similarities, which could be simply because the Taino people weren't just in Jamaica, they were all over the Caribbean so that comes through. 

The love of nature comes through, the stories as well as other influences through the European and, at the different times of being colonized, also affects the story just a little bit. And it's kind of interesting to hear how they intertwine together.

Hema: I can't wait to hear the story you're gonna share today. But before we dive in, let's do a little brief introduction, who you are, some of the things that you do.

Kesha: My name is Kesha Christie, and I am a storyteller. I love connecting people to their culture and to themselves, helping them to rediscover their identity and find their voices to firmly stand in this world as who they're truly meant to be. And so, along with storytelling, I do a little bit of public speaking I'm also a Ted Talk speaker. And yes, I relaunched my podcast called Walk Good where we go into a little bit of the folktales, so it's, uh, folktales and other stories.

Hema: So let's dive into the story for today. What island or country are we talking about?

Kesha: So today we're talking about Antigua and Barbuda, and the story that I have for you is of course an Anansi story. This story is an interesting one, but you'll notice that when I tell you this story, it always starts with a bit of, um, somber moment. So in this story, there's a famine. Are you ready for this one?

Hema: I'm ready.

Kesha: Well, long time ago, long before I know, Anansi lived on the island and there was a famine throughout the land. Food was hard to find, and Anansi was trying, but struggling, and he knew that if he did not get a meal anytime soon that he would die a horrible death. And so he started to think about the things that he could do, but everything took so much effort that Anansi wanted to find something that was easy. Well, he knows that he has a relationship with Father God, and so he went to see Father God and said, you know something, Father God, I think there should be a new law in the land. Everyone who is busy with other people's business, anyone who is nosy about their neighbour's business should just die just like that. 

And God thought about Anansi's recommendation and thought, you know, the world could be a better place if everyone wasn't in everyone else's business. And so he agreed and the new law was set. If anyone gets into anyone else's business, especially uninvited, they would die. Well, Anansi went to work. He made himself a rock garden on the side of a mountain, and he's got his tools. He had his pick ax, his shovel, and he was out there planting his garden. 

Well, the first person to walk by was goat, and goat was looking at everything that Anansi was doing and asked Anansi, what are you doing? And Anansi was humming away. He's working in his garden. Goat said, What fool would make a garden in a rocky place? Boom. Just like that. Goat was gone and then Anansi picked up goat, took him home, and Anansi had an amazing meal. Well, Anansi liked this and he thought, you know, I should try it again.

The very next day, Anansi went back to his rock garden, picked up his tools and his pick ax, and he was clammering away. Well, pig walked by this time and pig looked at Anansi and couldn't help himself and as soon as pig finished his sentence, boom, pig dropped dead right there on that spot, and Anansi pulled him in. And another great meal for Anansi. 

Well, Anansi is not one to give up a good thing, and so he went back day after day. There was buffalo, vulture, lion, elephant, parrot, ugh. It went on and on. But guinea bird happened to be watching all that  Anansi was doing and thought, hmm, alright, I'm going to teach you a lesson. 

So guinea bird was bald with a little sprig in the top of his head. But he had a plan. He got himself a horse and he practiced for a whole month riding this horse up and down and singing the song. Anybody who goes to the barbershop gets a haircut like me, and he would sing the song back and forth, back and forth until he had it memorized. Now he was ready for  Anansi and so he rode his horse past  Anansi's rock garden. Well,  Anansi looked up and saw guinea bird, but he went back to work. Pick, pick, pick, pick, pick, pick. Well, guinea fowl started to sing. Well, anyone who goes to the barbershop gets a haircut like me. Waving and turning his head and flashing that one little curl. 

Well,  Anansi thought to himself, ah, but he knew the law. He couldn't say a word. Guinea fowl went up, didn't hear from  Anansi, turned around, came back again, and sang the same song, with that one little sprig out of his head. He kept singing the same song. Anybody going to the barbershop gets a haircut like me. He even stopped in front of  Anansi's garden and combed his sprig.

Well,  Anansi was struggling and  Anansi couldn't help it. He wanted to say something, but he held it in. And he thought guinea bird will eventually go away and this song will stop. But it didn't. Guinea bird came back and forth and back and forth and up and down and round and round, singing the same song as loud as he could.

 Anansi breathed, but it didn't help.  Anansi thought about sunshine. It didn't help.  Anansi thought about all the food that he had in his house and that he was good. He didn't need this foolishness. So he started to lean on his pick and he watched guinea bird go back and forth and back and forth. 

Well,  Anansi's mouth twisted. He had something to say. He blinked his eyes. He had something to say. His eyes started to water 'cause he couldn't help it. He had something to say till finally  Anansi said, God, does guinea fowl not know that he only had one sprig of hair on the top of his head?  Anansi died on spot. And just like that,  Anansi learned his lesson very quickly. You see, when you make laws like that, you should really remember what they are, because if you happen to get involved in someone else's business, you too, boom. Might drop dead pon spot.

Hema: I love these stories because they're so interesting, but the way you tell them is captivating.

Kesha: Thank you. Thank you so much.

Hema: So let's break this down a little bit because, you've talked about this. These are not just fun folktales, stories, there's lessons to be learned. There's reasons for characters. So let's start at the beginning. 

Kesha: Alright.

Hema:  For anybody who doesn't know  Anansi.

Kesha:  For anyone who doesn't know who  Anansi is.  Anansi is a mythical creature whose origins is in Africa, in the place that we now know as Ghana. And so these stories travelled with our ancestors to the Caribbean, and these were the stories that were told during this time to provide fortitude and inspiration, comfort to our displaced ancestors. 

And so each of the stories that we hear about  Anansi are usually have that flare, some type of overcoming, some type of challenge, some type of witty ability to outsmart. So though Anansi, um, is described as having the face of a man and the body of a spider. We would say small in stature, right? We like to say he's small, but he was mighty.

He used his brain to get himself in and out of things. So even though the world is challenged around challenging around you, you can use your your brain to to, to get you in and out of situations, both good and sometimes not so good. 

So,  Anansi is known for being a trickster. He is known for outsmarting friends, family, human or animal. He is well known for doing that, but he also has some other habits. Being lazy, which we heard in the story as well as, okay, maybe a little funny, but the things that he does either help or hinder. And a lot of the times our stories talk about  Anansi outsmarting others, but there are a few stories like this one where  Anansi gets outsmarted and has to learn his lesson the hard way.

Hema: This story  Anansi was too smart for his own good.

Kesha: Yes.

Hema: So you talked about  Anansi, the origins of the story being Africa, specifically what we know as Ghana now. That makes a whole lot of sense because in Antigua and Barbuda, historically,  the population has predominantly African ancestry because of way back when colonization and the slave trade.

Kesha: Yes. Correct.

Hema:  Is there, is there anything in this story, because  Anansi shows up in so many different Caribbean countries, many others, but we talk, we're talking about the Caribbean. Is there anything specifically Antiguan about this story, this particular tale?

Kesha: This particular tale, I would say the term guinea bird is Antiguan because in Jamaica per se, I'm Jamaican, it's guinea fowl is the term that's used, so that that gives a little hint to where the story is from. And I could have made the story longer by giving you a little more in the, talking about the environment a little bit, a little more of the nature, and as well as some of the animals that were mentioned, would not, are not normally found in other stories in the Caribbean. For example, the elephant, the vulture. Vultures are, are called different things on different islands. So the vulture could appear again in other stories, but just some of the animals that would name give little hints to where the story, originates from which island.

Hema: I love these little indicators of where this story is predominantly told, right? The little things like the use of bird versus fowl or the animals, because as somebody just listening to the story, I wouldn't pick up on that. But as somebody who is knowledgeable about the country or who lives there or who is from there, you're gonna have little bits and pieces that are very familiar. 

Kesha: Yes, yes. So it's so important for us to kind of be able to capture, remember our, our stories are more than entertainment. So these are the stories where we're passing down our traditions, our beliefs, and I would say our spiritual beliefs as well are all kind of woven into the stories that we tell. 

So at first listen, it's like, oh, haha,  Anansi doing this. But then when we think about it a little bit more, where is he? What is he doing? Let's see how that mirrors the time and the place where the story originates from. And it's kind of, it's, it's nice to do those little deep dives every now and again to be able to shine a different light on the story. 

Hema:  In this story,  Anansi is speaking to God. Would there have been a specified God mentioned in the story or is are, are we using the generic God.

Kesha: We are using, we're using the generic because, when we, when our ancestors were displaced and brought to the Caribbean, there was a concerted effort to remove our beliefs, our spiritual beliefs, because we believed in deities and orishas and there was a, an effort to remove that. And so they couldn't say, you know, which God that they would be praying to.

And so just using the term God, they found it was appeasing. So you may know which one, but if you just say God, they're fine with that. But if you were to say specifically which one, there would be a challenge or some type of pushback, discipline. So using the term God was kind of a universal phrase that was kind, that was put into the stories, but knowing who we'd be able to, to understand the story deeper.

Hema: Your use of of language is very gentle. The pushback or discipline.

Kesha: It is, but what I believe, here's the thing. I feel like our today's generation, our children are, are, um, young people. They need to know that our history begins before slavery. There's more to us than that and I, there we do spend a lot of effort helping 'em to understand that whole experience that we've had. 400 years and more of slavery is not something easy, but we don't have the, I'm choosing my words again, the Holocaust experience where we have the survivors that are in museums and different things. 

The museums don't talk about the before. I don't, I've not seen a museum that has been specific, oh, well before slavery here's all the jewelry, here's all the gold that was stolen. Here are all the, the, things that, you know, the mapping and all the places where our African ancestors have put placed feet. 

They're not there. They're not together. They're either stolen, scattered or hidden. And so I choose the words delicately because I feel like there's enough, there's a lot of conversation around slavery, but not a lot on the things that I survive, beyond slavery. And our stories are some of those things that survived beyond. We had them before. They took on a different meaning during, and here we are after sharing those same stories that still hit the same. They still have, you know, those gems of tradition that we're passing down to the next generation.

Hema: I really appreciate that you've said that because the truth of the matter is, depending on who you're talking to, history starts with Columbus or history starts with the Indigenous, again, it depends on who you're talking to. So it is a complicated, it's a complicated conversation. 

Kesha: Yes. Definitely. And so I try to, I, I know that it's a powerful conversation and I know that there's so much that we're still learning about slavery, the experience, but I feel it's so important to help our young people understand, 'cause some of them are just like slavery again? And it's like, sure, there is so much more before and we don't talk about the before and how, there are threads that continue on. The cornrows that you wear today. Before. It's just, it's nice to have to be able to highlight what happened before and we're still finding out what was before, and we're still learning about that in different ways. When I'm telling the story in my mind, think of that string that's connecting the before, the during. And here we are in the after. 

Hema: You've been doing this for a while and you have a deep knowledge of a lot of these folktales and the history and folklore. Do you anticipate these stories will morph and change in the future to accommodate modern life, or do you think they're going to maintain thread of the original story?

Kesha: Every time a story is told it's, it holds onto that thread. It's like every time you talk about our ancestors, you keep them alive. So these stories have energy. Will they change? Yes. There are some stories that I tell depending on the audience where I put a lot of more modern things in just to keep the audience engaged in that way. But there are stories that I tell in their original form, at least original to me, to keep them authentic. 

But what I've learned is some of the stories that I have that I love so much and I share so often, I thought they were a full story, but they're actually not. They're a part of another story. So, mind blown when you find that out. 

And so, and it's interested to see, oh, well this is how these stories connect to, from the bigger, from the whole. So I like to find a story and then go back and see how far back it goes and to see if it changes as it comes forward. But it always does because it depends on the teller. 

Each teller adds a bit of themself when they share the story, so it'll change a little bit. But that core lesson, that core meaning the core characters and and their experiences are generally going to remain the same. So that'll continue throughout.

Hema: In Antigua and Barbuda specifically we mentioned early, early in this conversation that the population is predominantly from an African background, descendants. But there were other people that hit the island. There was the indentured servants, the Irish, I think the Portuguese landed there for a little while. There was British and the Spanish. Did any of that folklore folktales remain?

Kesha: Yes, in the language. So the tricky thing is I found a whole, um, treasure, trust, treasure trove of stories from Antigua and Barbuda, but I have to decode or decipher them, um, might be a better word because the language is so different. Language of today, language of yesteryear is different. But I find that when I'm like, what is this word? How would I say this? And then I might have a conversation, I have an Irish friend and she'll, you know, she'll be saying some, uh, that word right there, how do you spell that? And then it's like, oh, it's right here. So it it, it's integrated into the language. And again, it's the time in which the story was written.

And so I find that the further back you go, you'll see more of that integration and then it kind of just blends and flows into current language.

Hema: Which is probably the current culture, right? There's, there's probably words that they use on a regular basis, that stems from some of these other people and populations.

But a lot of these things that are integrated are often from people that were enslaved, indentured, because it was perhaps their way of bringing the culture and their experiences and their life from their home country, which wasn't accepted or allowed?

Kesha: Exactly. And just like our, our experiences with food, food was one way, originally. And then, we added our different spices, we added our different techniques. You know, roti made in Trinidad is very different from roti that you might have in Jamaica. I say that, please don't come for me, but when I'm looking for like I. I love my people. When I'm looking for a certain feel, a certain comfort, a feeling, I won't get my roti from a Jamaican restaurant. We do it, we do it well. But I would be focused on a Trinidadian restaurant for that. Our curries island to island our curries taste different. Um, don't come for me, but I mean. Really they, they taste different. They have a different kind of comfort. There's different focus depending on, and our stories are the same way. We add a piece of ourself to our recipe. We add a piece of ourself to the story, and these stories continue on long after we're gone. And what an amazing way to leave a piece of ourself than in our stories.

And so, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's wonderful to have that, those differences. And they're important. I feel like if we were all the same, we wouldn't have that same flare that we're able to carry now as individuals and as a whole.

Hema: As we do more of these episodes, it's gonna come through is we have a very similar and shared history, right in the Caribbean. There were a lot of the same people that quote unquote discovered and colonized and came over and did the same things. But there are unique differences and every culture is a little bit different and every language is a little bit different, but these folktales, to me, show that connection. But sometimes some of the comments that I get on some of the clips that I publish are often trying to divide us and like one is better than the other. 

And I, this divisiveness really bothers me because it doesn't need to happen. And I think with this folklore and folktales... Because everybody will tell in Anansi story. It's not just, even though it's African origin, it's not that somebody else wouldn't tell this story.

Kesha: Quite true. It's the way that it's told that's, that's your difference. As a storyteller, they tell you don't tell stories that you can't make your own. Well, how do you make a story your own? You have to give a bit of yourself, put a bit of yourself in that story. And for me, when I think of, I of sharing these stories, I think of connecting, starting those conversations.

And that divide is an old, it's an old still dating back to colonialism. And you know, we had to be divided. We couldn't trust each other. And so there's still elements of that that show up in our life today, which is still, it's sad, but we've come a long way, and I'm sure we have a ways to go. And it might not ever be 100% true harmony that we hope for, but instead of having that, those in island or the internal cultural murmurs and fighting, why not celebrate everything we are? Sometimes we focus on the don'ts, what we don't have a little bit too much instead of things that we do have the things that make us great, beautiful, connected, and powerful.

And so the stories kind of highlight, yeah. Yes. There's those, those divides. But you can say Anansi anywhere in every island can claim Anansi. 

There are other characters that we'll continue to mention during our journey that everyone connects to. And the same experience I have is really, instead of focusing on those divides, I get the, that's not, you know, old hag, that's, you know, something else.

And it's like, okay. So, and then you, I dive into that to see how would I be able to mix the two, the, the two together to kind of give it a blended vibe to, to highlight the celebration of us. 

Hema: Thank you so much for the story, but also a little bit of a deep dive into the history and the background of the story. 

Let's talk about where people can find you, your, your website, and your podcast. 

Kesha: Well, you can find me at Talking Tales at www.talkintales.com, and my podcast is called Walk Good African and Caribbean Folk Tales. And it is everywhere you digest your podcasts.

Hema: And the podcast episodes are short and sweet and very much her style of telling these tales. So I encourage everybody to go take a listen. I will leave some links to your website and your podcast down in the show notes. 

Kesha: Awesome. Thank you so much for having me.

Hema: Thank you, and we will see you again soon.