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ANANSE AND THE OLD WOMAN’S DRUM

A long time ago, a mighty famine fell upon the people of Asem-be-ba-da-bi, where spider-man Kwaku Ananse lived with his wife Yaa and son Ntikuma. Ananse lazed around the house while his wife and son tried to coax a little crop-yield from the near-desolate fields, with only a little success. Such was their vigor and determination that Yaa fell ill with exhaustion. Despite Ntikuma’s plea for Ananse’s help his father continued to loaf around the house, content to beg—sometimes even steal—from the little food one or the other of his neighbors had in store. Ntikuma, unable to bear the embarrassment of his father’s behavior and worried no-less about his mother’s illness, set off from Asem-be-ba-da-bi, determined to go as far as his legs would carry him in order to bring home some food.

Ntikuma climbed over hills and trotted down valleys, waded through streams and swam through rivers, walked across sand and limped through bushes until he came to a rock beside which lay a pile of palm-nuts. Famished, he decided to make a temporary meal from the kernel of the nuts. He picked the rock and set himself to this task. However when he tried to crack a nut open it jumped and disappeared into a nearby hole. He tried another nut, then another, a third and then a fourth, a fifth and then the sixth. All jumped and disappeared into the nearby hole. Ntikuma picked up the seventh—the last nut—and begged it, “please don’t go into the hole or else I shall be compelled to come after you.” The nut did not heed his plea. Barely had he touched than it jumped and disappeared into a nearby hole. Sighing desperately Ntikuma jumped into the hole, chasing after the nut.

It was a long, dark and winding hole. Ntikuma found himself blind-tumbling down its depths, thrown to the left one moment and then to the right another moment, till he landed inside a dimly lit cave, at the foot of a seated old woman. Her head, uncovered, was near-bald with small tufts of grey above the ears. Her lids were shut, covering age-blinded eyes. With her bony, long fingers she beckoned Ntikuma up. “Rise, my grandson and do me this favor” she asked. “If you would kindly cut off my gnarled, overgrown toenails and scratch away the mold off my back I shall be most grateful.” Ntikuma glanced at the mold on the old woman’s bared back. It was an unseemly sight but he was a compassionate young man. He broke off pieces of her toenails and scratched off every scrap of the mold. “Thank you,” she said. “Now tell me your business here and I shall see what I can do to help you.” So Ntikuma told her about the famine at Asem-be-ba-da-bi, about his mother’s illness and long tired quest for food, about the nuts that kept jumping into the hole and how he had followed the last nut, only to find himself in the old-woman’s cave.

“I shall help you with your quest” assured the old woman. “Butt your eye-lids three times and say the magic words ‘sankrakaja.’ You will find yourself in a large garden, before mounds of big fat yams screaming ‘pull me, pull me, pull me!” and small skinny yams yelling ‘don’t touch me!’ When you hear them scream and yell ignore the big fat yams and uproot the small skinny ones. Ntikuma repeated the magic words “sankrakaja” and found himself in the garden just as the old woman had said. He did as she had told him and returned with the thin skinny yams. The old woman asked him to peel the yams, throw away the flesh and cook the skin. Ntikumah obeyed and to his surprise the skin of the skinny yams turned into the most delicious meal of yam-fufu, complete with soup and meat. After eating to his fill, he requested to take the large amounts left to his family but the old woman refused. However, she asked him to choose one drum from a set—some big, some small—by the side of the cave and to take that, instead, to play for his family. Ntikuma considered the long-journey he had to make back home and decided to take something he could carry—the smallest of the drums.

Ntikuma bid the old woman goodbye and headed back home with the drum. He walked across sand and limped through bushes, waded through streams and swam through rivers, climbed over hills and trotted down valleys, until he arrived back at Asem-be-ba-da-bi. Ananse, disappointed with his son for not bringing food, scolded him endlessly until Ntikuma began beating the drum. Suddenly, out of nowhere, all kinds of food emerged: apra-pra-nsa, kenkey, waakye, banku, fufu, nwoma—name it, was there. There was so much food Ntikuma’s drum fed the whole hungry village, making him a hero.

Ananse, jealous of his now-famous son, decided to set out on his own journey to bring home something that will outdo Ntikumah’s feat. So he too climbed over hills and trotted down valleys, waded through streams and swam through rivers, walked across sand and limped through bushes until he came to a rock beside which lay the pile of palm-nuts. The nuts Ananse found refused to jump into the hole. Undeterred he pushed them all in and jumped after them. Like Ntikuma he found himself by the feet of the old woman after falling through the winding hole.

The old woman requested Ananse’s help in removing the mold on her back, which had re-grown since Ntikumah’s visit. Ananse refused the unpleasant task, chiding the old woman for her audacity to make such a request. “I have come here for food,” he said, “not to scratch your nasty mold.” The old woman told Ananse the magic words and the same instructions she had given Ntikuma. “Stupid old woman” Ananse said when he appeared before the yams, and went ahead to uproot the big, fat ones against her orders. Upon returning to the cave he refused to cook the skin and was therefore disappointed to find that it all turned to skin after he put it on fire. “Give me a drum to take home” he ordered the old woman. When she pointed to the set of drums by the cave Ananse rushed for the biggest one he could find and headed out. He trudged across sand and through bushes, through streams and rivers, over hills and down valleys, till he arrived back at Asem-be-ba-da-bi.

Upon arrival Ananse called everyone to the village square hoping to impress them with meals from his drum. However, instead a sumptuous variety of dishes what he beat out of his drums were scorpions, snakes and bugs that bite. The creatures he unleashed would have consumed the village were it not for Ntikuma who, realizing the predicament beat a rhythm that coaxed them all back into Ananse’s drum. Spider-man Ananse, instead of outdoing the town became the scourge of it, while his son continued to enjoy a hero status.

M’Anansesem yi, eye de o, enye de o, m’a me nko na obi nso nka bi