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Anansi
Anansi ( ; literally translates to ''spider'') is an Akan folktale character and the Akan God of Stories, Wisdom, Knowledge, and possibly creation. The form of a spider is the most common depiction of Anansi. He is also, sometimes considered to be God of all knowledge of stories. Taking the role of trickster, he is also one of the most important characters of West African, African American and West Indian folklore. Originating in Ghana, West Africa, these spider tales were transmitted to the Caribbean by way of the transatlantic slave trade. Anansi is best known for his ability to outsmart and triumph over more powerful opponents through his use of cunning, creativity and wit.Respond to this article at Despite taking on the role of the trickster, Anansi's actions and parables often carry him as protagonist due to his ability to transform his apparent weaknesses into virtues. He is among several West African tricksters including Br'er Rabbit and Leuk Rabbit, who have persisted in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
House Of Anansi Press
House of Anansi Press is a Canadian publishing company, founded in 1967 by writers Dennis Lee and Dave Godfrey. The company specializes in finding and developing new Canadian writers of literary fiction, poetry, and non-fiction. History Anansi started as a small press with only one full-time employee, writer George Fetherling. It quickly gained attention for publishing significant authors such as Margaret Atwood, Matt Cohen, Michael Ondaatje, Marian Engel, Erín Moure, Paulette Jiles, George Grant and Northrop Frye. The company also published many translations of French language works by authors such as Roch Carrier, Anne Hébert, Lise Bissonnette and Marie-Claire Blais. Anansi publishes the transcripts for many of the Massey Lectures. House of Anansi Press was purchased in 1989 by General Publishing, parent of Stoddart Publishing. In June 2002 it was acquired by Scott Griffin, founder of the Griffin Poetry Prize The Griffin Poetry Prize is Canada's most generous ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trickster
In mythology and the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a character in a story (god, goddess, spirit, human or anthropomorphisation) who exhibits a great degree of intellect or secret knowledge and uses it to play tricks or otherwise disobey normal rules and defy conventional behavior. Mythology Tricksters, as archetypal characters, appear in the myths of many different cultures. Lewis Hyde describes the trickster as a "boundary-crosser".Hyde, Lewis. ''Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art''. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998. The trickster crosses and often breaks both physical and societal rules: Tricksters "violate principles of social and natural order, playfully disrupting normal life and then re-establishing it on a new basis." Often, this bending or breaking of rules takes the form of tricks or thievery. Tricksters can be cunning or foolish or both. The trickster openly questions, disrupts or mocks authority. Many cultures have tales ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African-American Folktales
African-American folktales are the storytelling and oral history of enslaved African Americans during the 1700-1900s. These stories reveal life lessons, spiritual teachings, and cultural knowledge and wisdom for the African-American community African-American cultural heritage. During slavery, African-Americans created folk stories that spoke about the hardships of slavery and created folk spirits and heroes that were able to out wit and out smart their slaveholders and defeat their enemies. These folk stories gave hope to enslaved people that folk spirits will free them from slavery. Many folktales are unique to African-American culture, while others are influenced by African, European, and Native American tales. Overview African-American folktales is a storytelling tradition based in Africa containing a rich oral tradition that expanded as Africans were brought to the Americas as slaves. In general, most African-American Folktales fall into one of seven categories: tales ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Owuo
Owuo is the god of Death in the Asante and Akan mythology of West Ghana and the Krachi peoples of East Ghana and Togo. He is represented with the Adinkra symbol of a ladder. It is said that he was created by Odomankoma (could also be spelt Odomankama) just so he could kill humans (although, specifically for the Asante and Akan retelling, this attribute comes later during an altercation with Ta Kora, hinting that he might've been created before humans) and possibly other deities, such as Odomankoma himself. He signifies the termination of the creative process in the world, a reference to him killing Odomankoma, the Great Creator Names Owuo is also known as Odomakama Owuo', or the Destroyer (or the Death of Creation), due to his destructive nature of killing mortal life and the fact that he killed Odomankoma, causing Odomankoma to then get resurrected and then live through Nyankapon:''Onyankopon onye Odumankoma sunsum ' (literally 'Nyankopon is Odumankoma's personality )''Odoma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Br'er Rabbit
Br'er Rabbit (an abbreviation of ''Brother Rabbit'', also spelled Brer Rabbit) is a central figure in an oral tradition passed down by African-Americans of the Southern United States and African descendants in the Caribbean, notably Afro-Bahamians and Turks and Caicos Islanders. He is a trickster who succeeds by his wits rather than by brawn, provoking authority figures and bending social mores as he sees fit. Popularly known adaptations of the character was originally written by Joel Chandler Harris in the 19th century, and later by Walt Disney Productions adapted it for the film ''Song of the South'' in 1946. __TOC__ African origins The Br'er Rabbit stories can be traced back to trickster figures in Africa, particularly the hare that figures prominently in the storytelling traditions in West, Central, and Southern Africa. Among the Temne people in Sierra Leone, they tell children stories of a talking rabbit. Other regions of Africa also tell children stories of talkin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tano (Tano Akora)
Tano (Tanoɛ), whose true name is Ta Kora (abbreviated from Tano Kora/Akora), but is often confused with Tano Akora, and is known as Tando to the Fante is the God of war and strife in Akan mythology and God of Thunder and Lightning in the Asante mythology of Ghana as well as the Agni mythology of the Ivory Coast. He represents the Tano River, which is located in Ghana. He is regarded as the highest atano, or Tano god in Akan mythology. Names and epithets Tano is commonly as Ta Kora, Ta Akora,Tano Kora and/or Tano Akora in the Techiman-Bono area and that is his true name. The name Ta Kora most likely means the 'immense father' as Kora means “the immense” and Ta may be derived from a word meaning “father”, showing how he is the father of many abosom and is one of the strongest deities in Asante mythology. The word "Akora" also means "old man", which is reason why Tano's true name is Ta Kora, as the name "Kora" also means "to mend", meaning Tano's true name means "Tano the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ashanti People
The Asante, also known as Ashanti () are part of the Akan ethnic group and are native to the Ashanti Region of modern-day Ghana. Asantes are the last group to emerge out of the various Akan civilisations. Twi is spoken by over nine million Asante people as a first or second language. The wealthy, gold-rich Asante people developed the large and influential Ashanti Empire, along the Lake Volta and Gulf of Guinea. The empire was founded in 1670, and the capital Kumase was founded in 1680 by Asantehene (emperor) Osei Kofi Tutu I on the advice of Okomfo Anokye, his premier. Sited at the crossroads of the Trans-Saharan trade, the Kumase megacity's strategic location contributed significantly to its growing wealth. Over the duration of the Kumase metropolis' existence, a number of peculiar factors have combined to transform the Kumase metropolis into a financial centre and political capital. The main causal factors included the unquestioning loyalty to the Asante rulers and the Kum ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Curaçao
Curaçao ( ; ; pap, Kòrsou, ), officially the Country of Curaçao ( nl, Land Curaçao; pap, Pais Kòrsou), is a Lesser Antilles island country in the southern Caribbean Sea and the Dutch Caribbean region, about north of the Venezuela coast. It is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Together with Aruba and Bonaire, it forms the ABC islands. Collectively, Curaçao, Aruba, and other Dutch islands in the Caribbean are often called the Dutch Caribbean. Curaçao was formerly part of the Curaçao and Dependencies colony from 1815 to 1954 and later the Netherlands Antilles from 1954 to 2010, as Island Territory of Curaçao ( nl, Eilandgebied Curaçao, links=no, pap, Teritorio Insular di Kòrsou, links=no), and is now formally called the Country of Curaçao. It includes the main island of Curaçao and the much smaller, uninhabited island of Klein Curaçao ("Little Curaçao"). Curaçao has a population of 158,665 (January 2019 est.), with an area of ; its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Akan Language
Akan () is a Central Tano language and the principal native language of the Akan people of Ghana, spoken over much of the southern half of Ghana. About 80% of Ghana's population can speak Akan, and about 44% of Ghanaians are native speakers. It is also spoken in parts of Côte d'Ivoire. Four dialects have been developed as literary standards with distinct orthographies: Asante, Akuapem, Bono (collectively known as Twi), and Fante; which, despite being mutually intelligible, were inaccessible in written form to speakers of the other standards until the Akan Orthography Committee (AOC)'s development of a common Akan orthography in 1978, based mainly on Akuapem Twi. This unified orthography is used as the medium of instruction in primary school by speakers of several other Central Tano languages, such as Akyem, Anyi, Sehwi, Fante, Ahanta, and the Guan languages. The Akan Orthography Committee has worked on the creation of a standard orthography. With the Atlantic slav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Akan People
The Akan () people live primarily in present-day Ghana and Ivory Coast in West Africa. The Akan language (also known as ''Twi/Fante'') are a group of dialects within the Central Tano branch of the Potou–Tano subfamily of the Niger–Congo family.Languages of the Akan area: papers in Western Kwa linguistics and on the linguistic geography of the area of ancient. Isaac K. Chinebuah, H. Max J. Trutenau, Linguistic Circle of Accra, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 1976, pp. 168. Subgroups of the Akan people include: the Agona, Akuapem, Akwamu, Akyem, Ashanti, Bono, Fante, Kwahu, Wassa, and Ahanta. The Akan subgroups all have cultural attributes in common; most notably the tracing of matrilineal descent, inheritance of property, and succession to high political office. Oral tradition and Ethnogenesis Akan people are believed to have migrated to their current location from the Sahara desert and Sahel regions of Africa into the forest region around the 11th century. Many Akans ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Efua Sutherland
Efua Theodora Sutherland (born 27 June 1924 – 2 January 1996) was a Ghanaian playwright, director, dramatist, children's author, poet, educationalist, researcher, child advocate, and cultural activist. Her works include the plays ''Foriwa'' (1962), ''Edufa'' (1967), and ''The Marriage of Anansewa'' (1975). She founded the Ghana Drama Studio, the Ghana Society of Writers, the Ghana Experimental Theatre, and a community project called the Kodzidan (Story House). As the earliest Ghanaian playwright-director she was an influential figure in the development of modern Ghanaian theatre, and helped to introduce the study of African performance traditions at the university level. She was also a pioneering African publisher, establishing the company Afram Publications in Accra in the 1970s. She was a cultural advocate for children from the early 1950s until her death, and played a role in developing educational curricula, literature, theatre and film for and about Ghanaian children. He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peggy Appiah
Enid Margaret "Peggy" Appiah (née Cripps), MBE ( ; 21 May 1921 – 11 February 2006), was a British children's author, philanthropist and socialite. She was the daughter of the Right Honourable Sir Stafford Cripps and Dame Isobel Cripps, and the wife of Ghanaian lawyer and political activist Nana Joe Appiah. Early life The youngest of four children, Enid Margaret Cripps was born at Goodfellows in Gloucestershire, just across the county border from the home of her parents, Stafford Cripps and Isobel (née) Swithinbank, in the village of Filkins, Oxfordshire. The family had only recently moved into Goodfellows, the home in Filkins where Peggy grew up; a Cotswold-style manor house, whose decoration and development owed much to the influence of Sir Lawrence Weaver, the architect, who was, with his wife Kathleen, one of the Cripps' closest friends. Lady Weaver died in 1927 of pneumonia. When Sir Lawrence also died in 1930, their two sons, Purcell and Toby, were, in effect, ad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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