How Beasts and Serpents First Came into the World

The famine had dragged on for nearly three years. Kweku Tsin was so hungry that every day he searched the forest for something to eat. One day he was lucky enough to find three palm-kernels lying on the ground. He picked up two stones to crack them. But when he struck the first nut, it slipped away and dropped into a hole behind him. The same thing happened with the second, and then with the third. Annoyed at losing all three, Kweku decided to climb down the hole and look for them.

To his surprise, the hole turned out to be the way into a town he had never even heard of. When he got there, everything was utterly silent. “Is there nobody in this town?” he called, and after a moment a voice answered. He followed the sound and found an old woman sitting in one of the houses. She asked why he had come, and he told her.

The old woman was kind and sympathetic and promised to help him. “But you must do exactly what I say,” she told him. “Go into the garden and listen carefully. You will hear the yams speaking. Pass by any yam that says, ‘Dig me out, dig me out!’ Take the one that says, ‘Do not dig me out!’ and bring it to me.”

When he brought it, she told him to cut away the inside and throw it away, and then to boil the peel. As it boiled, she said, the peel would become yam. It did, and the two of them sat down to eat. Before they began, the old woman asked Kweku not to look at her while she ate. Being polite and obedient, he did just as she asked.

That evening she sent him into the garden to choose one of the drums that stood there. “If you touch a drum and it says ‘Ding-ding,’ take it,” she warned. “But be very careful not to take one that sounds ‘Dong-dong.’” He followed her directions exactly. When he showed her the drum he had chosen, she looked pleased. Whenever he was hungry, she told him, he had only to beat it, and food would come in plenty. Kweku thanked her warmly and went home.

As soon as he reached his hut, he gathered his household together and beat the drum. At once food of every kind appeared in front of them, and they all ate as much as they wanted.

The next day Kweku Tsin called all the villagers to the Assembly Place and beat the drum again. That way every family got enough to eat, and they all thanked him heartily for feeding them.

Kweku’s father, Anansi, was not at all pleased to see his son able to feed the whole village. He felt that he ought to have a drum too; then the people would be grateful to him instead of to Kweku. So he asked the young man where the wonderful drum had come from. His son did not want to tell him, but Anansi gave him no peace until he had heard the whole story. Then Anansi wasted no time. He hurried to the hole, taking an old nut with him. He pretended to crack it, tossed it down the hole, jumped in after it, and rushed along to the silent town. At the first house he shouted, “Is there no one in this town?” The old woman answered as she had before, and Anansi went into her house.

He did not bother to be polite. “Hurry up, old woman, and get me something to eat,” he said rudely. She calmly told him to go into the garden and pick the yam that said, “Do not dig me out.” Anansi laughed in her face. “You must think I’m a fool. If a yam doesn’t want me to dig it up, I certainly won’t. I’ll take the one that wants to be picked.” And so he did.

When he brought it back, she told him, as she had told his son, to throw away the inside and boil the peel. Again he refused. “Who ever heard of anything so silly as throwing away the yam? I’ll do no such thing. I’ll throw away the peel and boil the inside.” He did, and the yam turned into stones. Then he had no choice but to do as she had first said and boil the peel, which turned into yam as it cooked.

Anansi turned on the old woman angrily. “You are a witch,” he said. She ignored him and went on setting the table. She put his dinner on a small table, lower than her own, and said, “You must not look at me while I eat.”

“I’ll look at you if I want to,” he answered rudely. “And I’ll eat at your table, not that little one.” She said nothing, but she left her own dinner untouched. Anansi ate his meal and then took hers and ate that too.

When he had finished, she said, “Now go into the garden and choose a drum. Don’t take one that sounds ‘Dong-dong’; take only one that says ‘Ding-ding.’”

“Do you think I’ll take your advice, you witch?” Anansi snapped. “No, I’ll choose the drum that says ‘Dong-dong.’ You’re only trying to trick me.” He did as he pleased, and once he had the drum, he marched off without so much as a thank-you.

The moment he got home, he was eager to show the villagers his new power. He called everyone to the Assembly Place and told them to bring their dishes and trays, because he was going to feed them. The people hurried there in great excitement. Anansi took his place proudly in the middle of the crowd and began to beat his drum. But instead of the heaps of food Kweku had called up, Anansi saw, to his horror, beasts and serpents of every kind rushing toward him. No such creatures had ever been seen on earth before.

The people ran in all directions, all except Anansi, who was too terrified to move, and the tale leaves his punishment undescribed. Luckily, Kweku, with his mother and sisters, had been standing at the edge of the crowd, so they escaped easily to shelter. Before long the animals scattered every which way, and ever since they have roamed wild in the great forests.

Where this story comes from

“How Beasts and Serpents First Came into the World” is story XVI in Barker and Sinclair’s West African Folk-Tales (1917). It follows a pattern the book uses often: Kweku Tsin succeeds through courtesy and obedience, and his father Anansi copies him with the opposite manners and gets the opposite result.

The book’s list of drawings includes “Anansi saw, rushing toward him, Beasts and Serpents of all Kinds.” The original leaves Anansi’s punishment unspecified. Its ending offers a story about the origin of wild animals, not a biological account.

Read the original: West African Folk-Tales, Barker and Sinclair (Gutenberg ebook 66923)

Best for ages 9–12 with discussion: famine, an insulting guest and a crowd threatened by wild animals. Anansi’s final punishment is not described. Respecting a host does not mean that every instruction from an unfamiliar adult should be obeyed.

Reading the story closely

Anansi wants the villagers’ gratitude before he has tested his drum. Kweku first feeds his household and then shares a working gift; his father assembles a hungry crowd chiefly to claim the same status. The comparison concerns attention and purpose as well as manners. The yam episode has already shown Anansi that his assumptions about this magical place can fail.

Make a two-column sequence of the visits, matching the yam, the meal and the drum. Separate acts that harm another person—taking the woman’s dinner, for example—from choices whose danger only makes sense under the story’s magic. Which earlier event gives Anansi reason to reconsider his certainty?

Think about it

• What instructions did the old woman give Kweku Tsin, and why do you think he followed them?
• How did Anansi behave differently at the old woman’s house?
• Why do you think the drum Anansi chose called up wild beasts instead of food?

You may also like

• The Grinding-Stone That Ground Flour by Itself — another magic food-giver and a greedy Anansi
• Thunder and Anansi — Anansi gets a punishing gift the second time
• How Wisdom Became the Property of the Human Race — Kweku Tsin is wiser than his father