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    How Elephant Lost His Huge Bottom and Other Ananse Stories: African Fireside Classics, #5
    How Elephant Lost His Huge Bottom and Other Ananse Stories: African Fireside Classics, #5
    How Elephant Lost His Huge Bottom and Other Ananse Stories: African Fireside Classics, #5
    Ebook71 pages1 hour

    How Elephant Lost His Huge Bottom and Other Ananse Stories: African Fireside Classics, #5

    By A. Sakyiama

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    About this ebook

    *Why do crickets have black teeth?
    *Why do chickens have beaks?
    *Why do spiders have small waists?

    The short answer is . . . Ananse did it!

    You can find the long answers to these and other intriguing questions in this collection of West African folktales. 

    All twelve stories feature Kweku Ananse, the trickster, who is sometimes a man and sometimes a spider. Follow along as he works his mischief. 

    On the way, you'll discover why spiders look the way they do, why termites are so angry and what happened to the crocodile's ears.
     

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAso House Press
    Release dateAug 1, 2014
    ISBN9781501419041
    How Elephant Lost His Huge Bottom and Other Ananse Stories: African Fireside Classics, #5
    Author

    A. Sakyiama

    A. Sakyiama was born in Ghana, West Africa. She grew up hearing many of the stories that she now retells for all of us to enjoy. She writes of the antics of wily folktale characters like Ananse, his son, Ntikuma and his clever wife, Aso. She tells stories of naughty and nice ghosts; scared but brave boys and girls; monsters that eat disobedient children; as well as fantastical tales about why things are the way they are.   A. Sakyiama currently lives in the USA with her family. She is also an avid gardener or more accurately, a fierce warrior who defends her territory against marauding gangs of deer, woodchucks, rabbits and crows. Visit her at www.asakyiama.com.

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      Book preview

      How Elephant Lost His Huge Bottom and Other Ananse Stories - A. Sakyiama

      HOW ELEPHANT LOST HIS HUGE BOTTOM

      AND OTHER ANANSE STORIES

      Sankofa bird adinkra symbol

      African fireside classics

      told anew

      by

      A. SAKYIAMA

      HOW ELEPHANT LOST HIS HUGE BOTTOM AND OTHER ANANSE STORIES

      African Fireside Classics, #5

      Copyright © 2014 A. Sakyiama

      All rights reserved.

      Other Books by A. Sakyiama

      Today's Water & Other Ananse Stories

      The Yam Child & Other Tales

      The Missing Mouth & Other Ananse Stories

      The Girl in the Tree and Other Tales

      Visit www.asakyiama.com for the latest on the the African Fireside Classics series. All sorts of goodies await you there. You can join the readers group, find out how you can stream the audio of some stories for free, or try out an audio-ebook (read-along) version.

      Table of Contents

      Cover

      Title Page

      Epigraph

      1. How Elephant Lost His Huge Bottom

      2. How the Zebra Mouse Got its Stripes

      3. Why Crickets Have Black Teeth

      4. Why Termites Destroy Things

      5. Why Crocodile Hides His Ears

      6. Why People Hate Contradiction

      7. Why Spiders Have Big Bottoms

      8. Why Spiders Are Flat

      9. How Ananse Lost His Hair

      10. Why the Spider Has a Small Waist

      11. Why Spiders Gather Under Stones

      12. Why Chickens Have Beaks

      Author's Note & More

      More to read

      Coming Soon . . .

      Pronunciation guide

      Ananse, The Trickster

      Sometimes a man,

      Sometimes a spider,

      Sometimes both.

      Heed my words though:

      Ananse is always a trickster.

      Sometimes the hero,

      Sometimes the villain,

      Sometimes both!

      Heed my words though:

      Ananse is always the trickster.

      Listen to these stories of Ananse;

      Appalled, elated, annoyed, amused?

      Don’t say you have not been warned;

      Ananse is always the trickster.

      How Elephant Lost His Huge Bottom

      If you let someone else plan for you, you will always find that their plans work out to their own advantage.

      — Akan Proverb

      A LONG TIME AGO, elephants used to have big and wide bottoms that stuck out quite far behind them. In fact, their bottoms stuck out as far behind them as their noses stick out in front.

      Nowadays, their bottoms are quite flat and don’t go past their back legs. This is how it happened …

      It was a time of famine and everyone was hungry. From the time they woke up in the morning to the evening, everyone was concerned with finding enough to eat.

      Ananse was very good friends with Elephant at the time. He liked to scavenge for food with the elephant because he was so big and strong. Elephant could quickly dig for wild yams or reach high into the trees for fruit. He could move obstacles out of the way and scare off the bigger animals, who liked to take food from the weaker ones.

      There was just one problem though. One day, as they were walking through a rough part of the forest, Ananse brought it up:

      Elephant, pardon me for saying this, but your bottom is too big.

      So what? Elephant said, I am big. My bottom is just as big as the rest of me.

      Pardon me again, but I must say it. Your bottom is a big problem. We’re spending too much time getting you untangled or looking for wide enough paths to walk. We could be spending that time looking for food.

      That is just the way of these things, my friend, Elephant said, patiently. He was not at all upset about his big bottom.

      No, it does not have to be like that, Ananse said. I know how we can solve this problem.

      Tell me, Elephant said.

      If you would let me take some of your bottom off, we can cover more ground and find more food. You can always stick it back on when we’re done.

      The elephant thought that was perfectly reasonable, so he gave Ananse permission:

      Go ahead and take some of my bottom off if it would help us.

      Ananse took big pieces off of Elephant’s behind. There was so much of it that it filled three large baskets. Then he said,

      Why don’t you go forage by yourself for now. I will take this meat from your behind home to keep it safe. I’ll return to forage later.

      Elephant agreed and took off. Ananse took the meat home. He was laughing and happy as he crowed to his wife,

      Aso, look at what your clever husband has brought home!

      Rather suspicious, Aso asked, Where did you get it?

      "Oh ho ho ho,

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