Reading Notes: West Africa, Part A

How Wisdom Became the Property of the Human Race

by William H. Barker and Cecelia Sinclair. 

Anansi and the Pot of Wisdom. Source: Storynory. 

For this week's reading, I'm doing the West Africa unit. I had seen some people who wrote about the spider Anansi so I wanted to read those stories as well.

One story that I really enjoyed reading was How Wisdom Became the Property of the Human Race. I thought it was so ironic and funny.

Father Anansi is the main character. He possesses all of the wisdom of the world. One day when the men of the country offended him, he decided to punish them. His idea of punishment was that he would go and hide all of the wisdom from the world so that only he had all of the wisdom.

Anansi's son, Kweku Tsin, began to suspect his father so he follows his father when he leaves the house with his pot. This pot had all of the wisdom.

Anansi goes and finds the tallest tree that no one could easily climb. He kept trying to climb it but kept failing. The pot he had hung in front of him was making it hard for him to climb. Kweku Tsin watched as his father constant trying and grew tired of him. He finally speaks up and goes "Father, why do you not hang the pot on your back? Then you could easily climb tree." Anansi says something like "I thought I had all of the world's wisdom, but I think you have more." Then he throws his pot and it ends up breaking and releasing all of the wisdom to the world.

I thought this was so ironic for a few reasons.

• Anansi had all of the wisdom so people came to him for advice. Yet he couldn't even figure how to climb the tree without the pot getting in the way.
• He wanted to hide the wisdom but instead ends up releasing all of it to the world.