Trickster gods are often depicted as malevolent, or as plucky antihero sidekicks (looking at you, Loki). Some are more benevolent, seeking to teach through the medium of struggle. Tricksters can lead even the pious off their course, sometimes to test their wills, or to teach them a better way to live. Join us as we explore the great tricksters of the old traditions.
Lewis Hyde calls them "Boundary-Crossers," and for good reason; these guys won't be controlled, if they have their way. These characters aren't quite the chaos monsters of the last episode, but chaos serves their ends well--or at least, the appearance of chaos....
We examine Momus, Loki, Kokopelli, Gwydion, Lugh, Sun Wukong the Money King, Eshu, and Anansi; and we tell a couple spider stories along the way.
All this and more...
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[00:00:12] Preston Meyer: Trick or treat.
[00:00:14] Katie Dooley: What's the appropriate response to that?
[00:00:17] Preston Meyer: Get off my porch.
[00:00:19] Katie Dooley: Besides just silently handing a child candy and walking away. It's like a knock knock joke. But you know what you're supposed to say after.
[00:00:27] Preston Meyer: Right?
[00:00:27] Katie Dooley: Anyway, trick or treat. We're in the depths of spooktober. What are we talking about today?
[00:00:36] Preston Meyer: We're talking about trickster gods. One of these days, we're actually going to do an episode about the the legacy that built up what we have as modern Halloween, but not this year.
[00:00:46] Katie Dooley: We actually haven't said...
[00:00:48] Both Speakers: Holy Watermelon Podcast!
[00:00:51] Katie Dooley: Yet. So welcome to all our all our listeners today. We just were so excited to do Trickster Gods. I didn't actually, I couldn't have told you what a trickster god was before doing this episode. I could have only said Loki is a trickster god.
[00:01:07] Preston Meyer: Okay, well.
[00:01:08] Katie Dooley: So I learned lots.
[00:01:09] Preston Meyer: I'm glad.
[00:01:12] Katie Dooley: So let's start there with what the heck is trickster god? Lewis Hyde, an imagination and creativity scholar, says that tricksters are boundary crossers, breaking societal norms and disrupting things. Basically a shit disturber.
[00:01:27] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that's a pretty great summary. Done.
[00:01:30] Katie Dooley: Done. Uh, because I was reading about some of these gods and I was like, it says they're trickster god, but then, like, that's kind of it. And so you have to read between the lines about what attributes actually makes them a trickster. Which is why I, I do a whole bunch of research on specific gods. And I was like, I don't get this. So I went back.
[00:01:48] Preston Meyer: A bunch of the trickster gods that we're going to talk about, and broadly trickster gods in general. They aren't objects of worship. So very often, it does happen, but it's it's not normal because trickster gods by their nature aren't trustworthy, which means you wouldn't pray to them so much as pray to somebody else to keep them away.
[00:02:12] Katie Dooley: Yeah. They're in in polytheistic religions, they're this antagonist that often can be used to, not always, but can be used to describe the bad things that happen. Yeah, kind of like chaos monsters, right?
[00:02:26] Preston Meyer: Yeah. They in some cultures, they take on a new popularity in in folktales and whatnot, and they're always great for stories. They're just not great for worship. They're they're clever, they're cunning, and sometimes they're foolish. They're almost always keepers of secret knowledge. Even the foolish ones. I think that's kind of fun. They're rude to authority. One of the great stories of Loki that's really popular that I don't think is really that exciting of a story. It's just him roasting literally everybody at a feast until Thor comes in and says, no, this is over now. You're terrible.
[00:03:07] Katie Dooley: You're the worst. Yeah, that happens a lot. Mocking authority figures is a big thing.
[00:03:14] Preston Meyer: Yeah, sometimes they're shape shifters. Like Anansi is almost always a spider, but sometimes not. We'll talk more about him later. Um, we've talked about Loki. I feel like a lot through the course of this series. He's fun. Plus, you know, popular pop culture figure.
[00:03:31] Katie Dooley: There's a lot of info on Loki, too, which is nice.
[00:03:33] Preston Meyer: Yeah, and we'll say it again, Marvel is not a credible source for the mythology around this character. But yeah, he's all about that shapeshifter. We've talked about that one time he turned into a horse that was nuts.
[00:03:48] Katie Dooley: A female horse, yes. To carry a baby. Yeah, yeah. So lots of shape shifting, gender bending, disguises. Those are also common with trickster gods. These gods blur the lines between what is right and wrong, and they're often used to teach moral lessons in whatever religion they are. They're not necessarily evil, but they do bad things.
[00:04:13] Preston Meyer: Well, is doing bad things evil?
[00:04:17] Katie Dooley: I mean.
[00:04:17] Preston Meyer: Evil is a tricky thing.
[00:04:18] Katie Dooley: That's true, yes.
[00:04:21] Preston Meyer: But yeah, they tend to be defined by the chaos that surrounds them. Not that they're the same thing as chaos monsters, but they're dicks.
[00:04:30] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Selfish is also a really great way to describe them. So acting in their own self-interest, they don't care about the humans or the other gods in their pantheon. They just want what's theirs.
[00:04:43] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And sometimes what belongs to other people.
[00:04:47] Katie Dooley: Oh, I see what you're saying. I thought you meant generosity. No, you mean stealing?
[00:04:51] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:04:51] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:04:52] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Sometimes it's nice to have what somebody else has.
[00:04:54] Katie Dooley: Somebody else has, fair.
[00:04:57] Preston Meyer: Loki's a fun example out of dozens of trickster gods. It's a good example. I think we can start with even.
[00:05:05] Katie Dooley: Sure, I'll just say we're not. There's dozens and dozens and dozens of trickster gods across the globe.
[00:05:12] Preston Meyer: Most polytheistic traditions have 1 or 2.
[00:05:15] Katie Dooley: So we're not going to cover them all.
[00:05:17] Preston Meyer: No.
[00:05:18] Katie Dooley: We've selected a handful. Kind of at random.
[00:05:21] Preston Meyer: Yeah, pretty much.
[00:05:22] Katie Dooley: To go into detail and talk about. So I'll let Preston start with Loki.
[00:05:26] Preston Meyer: All right. So if you, uh, know Loki from Marvel only, some of this is not going to be very congruent with what you are familiar with. That's okay. So Loki is the son of Farbauti and Laufey. Laufey is his mother, and she may or may not have been a giant. Some sources suggest that she may have been a goddess. Whereas Farbauti was a giant, one of the Jötnar. Marvel combines these two figures. Giving the mother's name to the father... Doesn't confuse anybody.
[00:06:04] Katie Dooley: I mean, Loki's already confusing.
[00:06:06] Preston Meyer: It's weird that in the old sources, Loki is referred to as Laufeyson, and traditionally you would refer to somebody by their father's name. But the old texts are very clear that Laufey is the mother's name. So there's something that's a little countercultural about the Jötnar, which plays into Loki being a trickster.
[00:06:26] Katie Dooley: Oh, I like that.
[00:06:27] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I like it too. Oh, Marvel also seriously butchers the arrangement of the family tree. Uh, Loki has a wife named Sigyn, and she is a goddess of some kind. I couldn't find anywhere any clear statement of her being a Vanir or an AEsir. Together they had two sons, Narfi and Vali. But as we've talked about in our last episode, Loki does have another lover, the giant Angrboda. So at least Loki did find somebody of his own race as well as this goddess. But they don't have normal children at all.
[00:07:04] Katie Dooley: Oh no.
[00:07:06] Preston Meyer: There's Jormungandr and Fenrir and there's Hel. Hel is normal ish. I mean necrotic, but she's...
[00:07:15] Katie Dooley: That's fine. Yeah. Happens to the best of us.
[00:07:17] Preston Meyer: And then Fenrir the wolf and Jormungandr, the giant snake monster. No big deal.
[00:07:23] Katie Dooley: That's weird.
[00:07:24] Preston Meyer: And like we had alluded mentioned before, bonus of being a shapeshifter. You can have sex with a stallion. There's a story that is important, kind of, that Loki had to distract the stallion Svadilfari from his work. And so the best way to do that is present a sweet piece of ass. And instead of going to find another horse. He's like. I got to distract him now. I guess it's going to be my own ass.
[00:07:57] Katie Dooley: I'm just imagining doing it like a sexy horse dance.
[00:08:00] Preston Meyer: Right? Walking backwards.
[00:08:01] Katie Dooley: Yeah, it's just a real, like, exaggerated saunter. Da da da.
[00:08:07] Preston Meyer: Well, anyway, Svadilfari knocked Loki up, and that's how he got Sleipnir, Odin's eight legged horse. Because if it's not Sigyn, those babies are coming out bad. Yeah, all kinds of great fun. Being a trickster can be fun, I guess.
[00:08:28] Katie Dooley: Da da da.
[00:08:30] Preston Meyer: Good old archeological research. Nobody has found any ancient devotional statuettes of Loki. And most scholars are like, well, obviously, because you would pray to Odin to keep Loki away. Because he's a troublemaker. He ruins your plans. He's connected with all kinds of bad stuff, so just keep that fella away. Loki isn't technically a god, even though we usually call him a trickster god. The god of mischief. Whatever. But he is a sworn brother of Odin. Sometimes they call them blood brothers. It just means they're share blood. But that they have shared blood. Yeah...
[00:09:09] Katie Dooley: You lost me, okay. Okay. I just gave Preston a look that showed I did not comprehend.
[00:09:17] Preston Meyer: They're not genetic siblings.
[00:09:18] Katie Dooley: Okay.
[00:09:19] Preston Meyer: But they have sworn a blood oath together. That's the way to phrase that.
[00:09:23] Katie Dooley: Oh. Thank you.
[00:09:25] Preston Meyer: So not the adopted son of Odin. Not the adopted brother of Thor, but the sworn blood brother of Odin.
[00:09:33] Katie Dooley: Perfect.
[00:09:34] Preston Meyer: So Marvel screwed the whole thing up.
[00:09:37] Katie Dooley: Whole thing up.
[00:09:38] Preston Meyer: It's terrible.
[00:09:39] Katie Dooley: They paraphrased excessively.
[00:09:43] Preston Meyer: I guess. Yeah. To the point where you start saying things that aren't right.
[00:09:48] Katie Dooley: Excessive paraphrasing and creative liberties.
[00:09:52] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So all of the stories about Loki pretty much are of him spoiling the gods plans or just being a dick to them. And he always makes things right, or accepts his punishment with at least some poise.
[00:10:09] Katie Dooley: As we all should.
[00:10:11] Preston Meyer: But there's always this moral that not even the Jötnar can escape the consequences of mischief. So don't be a dick.
[00:10:18] Katie Dooley: Don't be a dick.
[00:10:19] Preston Meyer: Yeah, because humans are certainly inferior to the Jötnar as far as might and power goes.
[00:10:25] Katie Dooley: Absolutely. Our next trickster god is Momus, from the Greek pantheon. He is the personification of satire and mockery and also of ridicule and harsh criticism. So he is dick.
[00:10:40] Preston Meyer: Pretty bold for a trickster.
[00:10:40] Katie Dooley: Right? I found one article saying he's the god of trolling.
[00:10:45] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:10:46] Katie Dooley: Which I thought was great. Great way to put it. He was actually kicked out of Mount Olympus for constantly mocking the Olympians.
[00:10:53] Preston Meyer: See, the Olympians have a lot less patience than the Asgardians. The AEsir just. They're more or less took Loki's punishment. And then Thor is just like, okay, you need to stop now. These guys are like, no, no, we're getting rid of you. We don't want you on this mountain anymore.
[00:11:11] Katie Dooley: Now, there are also versions of Mom's that have softened him to a more harmless figure of fun. So more modern artwork. Can I say modern artwork? Still really old artwork. When we're depicting Greek gods, but not nearly as old as the ancient Greeks, paint him as a jester.
[00:11:29] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that's fair.
[00:11:29] Katie Dooley: So quite literally a trickster or jokester.
[00:11:33] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:11:34] Katie Dooley: I'm going to interrupt this trickster god with a mini story. We have a couple stories today. This one's actually paraphrased from Aesop's Fables. So Zeus had created a bull, Prometheus, a man and Athena a house, and they selected Momus as the judge of their handiwork. Momus was jealous of their creations, and began by saying that Zeus had made a mistake in not putting the bull's eyes on the ends of his horns so that he could see where he was striking, and he said that Prometheus was wrong and not hanging man's heart on the outside so that scoundrels could be detected, and so that it would be evident what everyone had on his mind. Finally, he said that Athena should have put wheels on her house so that a man could easily move if he had a bad neighbor. Zeus lost his temper with Momus over this spitefulness and threw him out of Olympus.
[00:12:26] Preston Meyer: Well, at least we've adopted Athena's ideas. We all love the mobile home.
[00:12:29] Katie Dooley: Loads of mobile homes. I've also seen one version also said that he told Prometheus that there should be a window, as opposed to it being on the outside, so you could look in and see but..
[00:12:40] Preston Meyer: Okay,
[00:12:41] Katie Dooley: Anyways.
[00:12:42] Katie Dooley: That couldn't go wrong at all.
[00:12:44] Katie Dooley: I mean, having your heart on the outside. I'd rather have a window in than my heart hanging out.
[00:12:48] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:12:49] Katie Dooley: But yeah, Momus's just a judgy bitch.
[00:12:52] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:12:55] Katie Dooley: Oh, I love Kokopelli. Can I do Kokopelli, too?
[00:12:59] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:13:00] Katie Dooley: All right. We're gonna talk about Kokopelli, another trickster god. I need to figure out a different... That's the theme of the episode. So Kokopelli is a deity in the Hopi First Nations indigenous tribe in southwest United States. This is prominent primarily in Arizona. So Kokopelli is a fertility deity, but also falls under the trickster umbrella. He's a master braider and the spirit of music. There's actually a really common depiction of Kokopelli playing a flute. A modernized version, because... The original version actually just had him with a big old schlong because he's a fertility god.
[00:13:47] Preston Meyer: And so we modified it and put the tip in his mouth.
[00:13:51] Katie Dooley: No, he always had the tip in his mouth. But then he also had a penis.
[00:13:55] Preston Meyer: Oh.
[00:13:56] Katie Dooley: He had his flute and a giant dick. We got rid of the giant...
[00:13:59] Preston Meyer: He's holding fewer things now.
[00:14:00] Katie Dooley: Holding fewer. He was never holding the dick. It was just. It was holding itself.
[00:14:03] Preston Meyer: Fully erect.
[00:14:03] Katie Dooley: Always erect.
[00:14:04] Preston Meyer: Like a champ.
[00:14:05] Katie Dooley: Like a... if you have an erection for more than four hours, please see your doctor. So the symbol of him without this, this wiener has become, has become a really common symbol throughout the southwestern United States. We actually have a choir here called the Kokopelli Choir. And it is exactly that symbol, sans phallus. So...
[00:14:28] Preston Meyer: Nice.
[00:14:30] Katie Dooley: He represents the playfulness of music and is represented as this minstrel figure. There is one story, so we haven't touched on indigenous religion yet. Often deities will cross pollinate.
[00:14:44] Preston Meyer: Sure.
[00:14:45] Katie Dooley: So there's a story from the Winnebago tribes, not the Hopi tribe, that he would detach his penis.
[00:14:54] Preston Meyer: This is traumatizing already.
[00:14:56] Katie Dooley: He would detach his penis and then send it down the river to have sex with any innocent maidens that might be bathing in the river downstream. He just like pew! and his penis would go and sentiently.
[00:15:11] Preston Meyer: So this is a weird, alarming story. But imagine the...
[00:15:19] Katie Dooley: Thinking it's a fish and?
[00:15:21] Preston Meyer: But like, what's better? Like having a fish slime its way up in there, or a water snake or whatever. You got a lot of options here.
[00:15:29] Katie Dooley: Eels.
[00:15:29] Preston Meyer: Or a trickster gods wiener. I mean, what's worse?
[00:15:36] Katie Dooley: I have I have follow up questions that cannot be answered so... To make that determination, Then there's like a, there's like a size and girth factor, like you got to compare whatever river creature and wiener. Yeah. And there's a rigidity factor you need to know as well. So there's a view. Oh my goodness. I don't know how much of this. This is trigger warning X rated episode. This is too late. We're too late.
[00:16:05] Preston Meyer: But for real, there's definitely real world encounters that people have had. And this was the explanation they came up with.
[00:16:13] Katie Dooley: I mean...
[00:16:13] Preston Meyer: For sure.
[00:16:13] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:16:15] Katie Dooley: So yeah, if you're ever traveling the southwest United States, like I said, the the symbol of Kokopelli is quite common. So enjoy that now.
[00:16:23] Preston Meyer: And be careful in the rivers.
[00:16:24] Katie Dooley: Be careful in the rivers, children.
[00:16:27] Preston Meyer: All right, let's move on. The Celts have a trickster god known as Lugh. Celtic god of mischief, as they call him. He's also a representation of kings, justice and rulership, which is a little irregular, kind of like when Loki pretended to be king for a little while.
[00:16:44] Katie Dooley: Totally. This was the one where I had to go and look up what made a trickster god a trickster god. Because Lugh is like the top of the pantheon.
[00:16:52] Preston Meyer: But he's a little chaotic.
[00:16:54] Katie Dooley: But he's also a trickster god. So I was like... Yeah. Chaotic neutral? Chaotic good. Something...
[00:17:01] Preston Meyer: Hard to say.
[00:17:01] Katie Dooley: Hard to say. I don't know enough about him.
[00:17:04] Preston Meyer: He was known for being cunning, and that's where a lot of people just staple the trickster god label on. Because of that. Possession of hidden knowledge is also super important in this particular situation. But he was also a stealer, a stealer, a thief.
[00:17:22] Katie Dooley: There's a word for that, yeah.
[00:17:24] Preston Meyer: And a liar and a cheat and would do whatever it takes to win. Which, I mean, you got to do what you got to do.
[00:17:31] Katie Dooley: Gotta do what you gotta do.
[00:17:32] Preston Meyer: Especially when, say, a Christian empire is rolling into your gates and just tearing stuff up.
[00:17:38] Katie Dooley: Or the Fomorians.
[00:17:39] Preston Meyer: Sure, all kinds of stuff needs to happen. So here we have a tricky king God.
[00:17:46] Katie Dooley: Pretty cool. You can take Gwydion to do a couple Celtic ones.
[00:17:50] Preston Meyer: I feel like we've talked about Gwydion recently. Or maybe.
[00:17:54] Katie Dooley: Maybe you're just so into our research.
[00:17:56] Preston Meyer: Maybe. Who knows? Anyway, Gwydion is Welsh. He is a magician and a trickster, known for being witty, as one would expect. He's also compared to Merlin because of his magicalness. Merlin of the good old Arthur tales. Because Wales, close to England. He's not good. He's not evil. He will do all kinds of things. He can help you out in a time when you're in need, sometimes. Especially if your needs might put somebody else in harm's way. Yeah. Good and bad.
[00:18:30] Katie Dooley: Yes. Yeah. He has deeds attributed that are really good. And then I read one that about sexual assault. So.
[00:18:37] Preston Meyer: Of course.
[00:18:37] Katie Dooley: Also really bad.
[00:18:38] Preston Meyer: He takes what he wants.
[00:18:39] Katie Dooley: Takes what he wants when he wants it. So. Eh...
[00:18:43] Preston Meyer: Right. Just like in good old Kokopelli. Sending it down the river when he wants. And he can surprise you because he doesn't have to have his head out of the water to breathe.
[00:18:54] Katie Dooley: Hahaha. Get it? It's a wiener joke. Do the balls go with it?
[00:18:59] Preston Meyer: That's a great question. Is he there for enjoyment or is he there to inseminate? It's all magic.
[00:19:06] Katie Dooley: I was gonna say. Why not both? Uh.
[00:19:11] Preston Meyer: Anyway.
[00:19:12] Katie Dooley: Wow. Am I taking Sun Wukong? All right. Sun Wukong is or also known as the Monkey King, comes from Chinese culture and probably the Chinese native religion, Taoism. He is a very important character in Chinese culture, and he's been adapted often for television movies, including like Dragon Ball and like super common things. He was born from a rock.
[00:19:39] Preston Meyer: Okay.
[00:19:39] Katie Dooley: I included that because I thought it was a great detail.
[00:19:42] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it is a great detail.
[00:19:44] Katie Dooley: So he has a lot of stories associated with him. And again, a lot of these have been adapted for television and film and books and whatever. But one of the first tricks he played was actually escaping death. So Yan Wang, Yan Wang and the Ten Kings of Hell came to collect the Monkey King. However, he tricked Yan Wang and managed to get a hold of the Book of Life and Death. So the Monkey King erased his name from his book and put his soul beyond the reach of these kings of hell.
[00:20:14] Preston Meyer: Fun.
[00:20:14] Katie Dooley: So that was the first trick he... So immortal. Then he spent some time hanging out in the heavens. Not like we think of it in like a Judeo-Christian dead heavens, but in the heavens. Things like Mount Olympus and...
[00:20:27] Preston Meyer: The realm of the gods.
[00:20:28] Katie Dooley: The realm of the gods above. Thank you, preston. And the Jade Emperor was so sick of his shit. He got kicked out.
[00:20:34] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:20:35] Katie Dooley: He spent time mocking the Emperor and being critical and doing all sorts of trickster things like that, just generally being a dick. And they were like, we've had enough of you.
[00:20:47] Preston Meyer: I really like turning the monkey into the trickster god. It makes perfect sense that you would warn people, be careful around monkeys. They're just going to take your stuff and ruin your day.
[00:20:59] Katie Dooley: Right? There was a great National Geographic show. I forget what it's called now, but yeah, like followed monkeys in Jaipur and they would break into homes and.
[00:21:08] Preston Meyer: Yeah
[00:21:09] Katie Dooley: Yeah, yeah. I like binge. I binge watched on New Year's Day because that's what was on TV. I don't. It's a mad, wild day. I'd like fallen asleep and then watch these monkeys.
[00:21:22] Preston Meyer: Nice.
[00:21:23] Katie Dooley: Anyway.
[00:21:26] Preston Meyer: So Eshu is a cool Yoruba African spirit. He is the deity of orderliness and law enforcement, which is really weird for a trickster god.
[00:21:37] Katie Dooley: Right? But it all makes sense when you read more.
[00:21:42] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Keep listening. He is the personification of mischief and teaches that there are always two sides to every story. You worry about the law, but you got a lot of freedom within that law, I guess.
[00:21:57] Katie Dooley: Well, I think it's more of a like you need to hear both sides before you make a judgment.
[00:22:03] Preston Meyer: Absolutely.
[00:22:04] Katie Dooley: Right. That's where the law enforcement piece comes in.
[00:22:07] Preston Meyer: So Eshu is necessary to an ordered life. This also makes sense from a law enforcement justice perspective, Eshu controls and regulates the extremes by balancing happiness and hopelessness, destruction and fulfillment, joy and sorrow. In the 1800s, the name Eshu was incorrectly translated as Satan. Back when, people were translating their records because people are super racist and let's just make people from Africa look bad, I guess. People suck. Because he is kind of a devil's advocate playing for that second side of the story.
[00:22:43] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:22:44] Preston Meyer: That's pretty cool.
[00:22:45] Katie Dooley: I thought that was an interesting kind of like Lugh, where you don't expect the God of law and order to be the trickster god. You don't expect the king King god to be the trickster god.
[00:22:56] Preston Meyer: Right?
[00:22:56] Katie Dooley: A couple of interesting ones.
[00:22:58] Preston Meyer: We got some great diversity in these various pantheons.
[00:23:00] Katie Dooley: Oh, is it a spectrum, Preston?
[00:23:03] Preston Meyer: I don't know if this is a spectrum, but maybe.
[00:23:05] Katie Dooley: Okay.
[00:23:06] Preston Meyer: I guess if you were to chart things out, it would look pretty spectrum-y. My instinct was no, but that was a wrong instinct.
[00:23:13] Katie Dooley: Oh, Preston learned something new today, too.
[00:23:17] Preston Meyer: That's what this is all about. All right. And from another part of Africa, in West Africa, the Akan people have a pretty awesome chaotic. Well, he's not that chaotic sort of, sort of crazy.
[00:23:32] Katie Dooley: Wild, wild child.
[00:23:34] Preston Meyer: He is a wild child. If you can picture Orlando Jones. That's what I do when I think of Anansi. Mostly because. Well, specifically, exactly because of the American Gods TV show.
[00:23:46] Katie Dooley: There you go.
[00:23:48] Preston Meyer: So Anansi is a spider. He is the god of knowledge of stories, not of knowledge in general, but of knowledge of stories. In fact, he had to trick the Creator God into giving up his stories.
[00:23:59] Katie Dooley: Wow.
[00:24:00] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So trickery is super important here. He is super important in West African folklore, but also all across the Caribbean. And anywhere you have people who are transferred around the world because of the slave trade from West Africa. So Jamaica is where you get some really great stories too.
[00:24:18] Katie Dooley: Oh, nice.
[00:24:19] Katie Dooley: One of the stories I want to tell a little bit later on comes from a Jamaican tradition. So he's known for his cunning and wit, just like all the other trickster gods, because he can always outsmart his opponents. Every time, even when it's the creator God. Not even Loki could trick everybody. Thor always saw right through him. Well, almost. And they actually have, well, they're called spider tales. None of this fairy tale nonsense. Spider tales.
[00:24:47] Katie Dooley: This one here doesn't like spiders. Eh.
[00:24:51] Preston Meyer: Well, well, it'll be great.
[00:24:52] Katie Dooley: Okay.
[00:24:56] Preston Meyer: And outsmarting his opponents is always the climax of these stories. And the moral of most spider tales is generally don't mess with weaker people. They're probably smarter than you are.
[00:25:07] Katie Dooley: I like that. As a kid who was smart and not particularly strong.
[00:25:12] Preston Meyer: Right. Also worrying about spiders being tricky. Really good reason to stay away from what is definitely a wide variety of very dangerous venomous spiders in Africa.
[00:25:22] Katie Dooley: Smart. Yeah. That's true. To be able to be like. That's Anansi.
[00:25:27] Preston Meyer: Right?
[00:25:28] Katie Dooley: Don't mess with him.
[00:25:29] Preston Meyer: Right.
[00:25:30] Katie Dooley: Yeah.
[00:25:31] Preston Meyer: He's also very greedy. Not terribly considerate. All kinds of fun stuff. Uh, there is some lore that tells of Anansi getting temporary powers from other gods. So as much as we say you don't generally pray to trickster gods, um, Anansi is one of the exceptions that sometimes you might. You could pray to Anansi for rain or some sort of blessing instead of asking other gods, even though it's not specifically encouraged. My inclination is to say that people started praying to him and then validated the practice by saying, well, yeah, he got temporary powers from other gods that had been forgotten in the moment of need, but that's just my instinct. It's super hard to prove any of that because that's ancient history. But overall, his divine status not really thought of as terribly important. Kwesi Yankah, one of the great scholars on the subject, says that it's way more important that he has a connection to the Akan people through their folk stories, rather than through any claim to divinity.
[00:26:35] Katie Dooley: And I was I was going to add that, much like Sun Wukong, Anansi appears in like a lot of popular culture, you can find kids storybooks on him. Like to this day, I'm sure he's a feature on television and kids movies as well.
[00:26:50] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I feel like Neil Gaiman has helped a lot in that. But of course, we can't give all credit to a white guy who's not from Africa. He's not the only one writing. He's just the one that makes white people aware, I guess?
[00:27:04] Katie Dooley: Yeah, I definitely found kids books that told Anansi stories, so that's pretty cool.
[00:27:08] Preston Meyer: Yeah. All right.
[00:27:09] Katie Dooley: A longer storytime. Longer story than mine but.
[00:27:12] Preston Meyer: So I, I paraphrased this to make this shorter.
[00:27:15] Katie Dooley: Okay, well I'm ready.
[00:27:17] Preston Meyer: We're doing what we can. One day, Anansi was hungry and couldn't find anything to eat. He grabbed a basket and a pot and went to the sea to go fishing. The spider made a fire for his pot and shouted toward the sea. Hey big fish, come here! Big fish came and he caught some of them, putting them in his basket. Next announced Anansi shouted, big fish, go make little fish come! Scaring the big fish away. Smaller fish came and he caught them too, putting them in his pot. Anansi spared no time cooking all of the fish he'd caught in his pot and started eating them. When he was full, Anansi picked up his things and headed back towards his home, hiding his empty pot in a bush along the way. On his way home, Anansi met Tiger and he was frightened because Tiger was very intimidating. Because, you know, tigers be intimidating.
[00:28:06] Katie Dooley: Tiger versus spider. Yeah.
[00:28:09] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And Anansi didn't hide because we're not talking spider the size of a dime. This is a spider that can't hide from a tiger.
[00:28:18] Katie Dooley: Like an Aragog.
[00:28:20] Preston Meyer: I mean, I think spider would be afraid of an Aragog. I mean, a tiger would be afraid of an Aragog.
[00:28:25] Katie Dooley: Fair. Okay, it's a little smaller.
[00:28:27] Preston Meyer: Like somewhere in between. Yeah, kind of like Jesus is somewhere between the size of a baby and a temple.
[00:28:34] Katie Dooley: Join our Discord for that reference.
[00:28:36] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Uh, anyway, Tiger demanded to know what Anansi had in his basket. Anansi told Tiger that his his basket was empty, so Tiger let the spider go about his way, but he was suspicious of Anansi because you should always be suspicious of Anansi. So he decided to spy on the spider. Tiger watched as Anansi sat near a tree and opened his basket with all the fish that he had caught earlier. Then Anansi emptied his basket of fish and gloated over them, counting them out, naming them, real happy with himself. Then Tiger jumped out of his hiding spot and confronted Anansi about his obvious lie. Anansi made an excuse that he'd gone to take a bath after they had met, and that he'd caught some fish while he was bathing. Tiger said, no, that's not. That's not what happened. And demanded that Anansi gave him all of the fish that he'd caught and the spider obeyed. Tiger ate all of Anansi's fish and left only the bones for Anansi to eat. Who took them up reluctantly and ate those instead. So at least he got something. Anansi complained under his breath that all of his hard work had gone to waste, and he decided to spy on Tiger, looking for some opportunity to trick him. The two continued down the road and saw a fruit tree. Knowing Tiger was greedy, Anansi pointed out that there was beautiful and delicious fruit in the tree. Tiger ordered Anansi to climb the tree and get some of the fruit, and Anansi obeyed. Anansi reached the top of the fruit tree and noticed that Tiger was standing directly beneath him. The spider warned Tiger that he could see lice in his hair. Tiger fell for Anansi's trick and demanded that Anansi catch the lice for him, but Anansi told Tiger that he needed him to lean against the tree first, Presumably so that he could wouldn't have to jump, but just climb down. Who knows? The tiger agreed, and Anansi came down, pretending to search for the lice that he had claimed to have seen. Because of how long it took, Tiger fell asleep while announce he climbed through his hair, and the spider wasted no time tying Tiger's hair to the bark of the fruit tree. When he finished the task, Anansi woke Tiger and told him that he couldn't find any other lice in his hair.
[00:30:53] Katie Dooley: Very thorough.
[00:30:54] Preston Meyer: Right? I mean, for all the time it took, it would have seemed thorough. Anyway, Tiger demanded that Anansi capture them all and not give up, but Anansi refused to help him. Tiger tried to attack Anansi in anger because he was stuck. Tiger realized that Anansi had what he had really done was tie him while he was asleep, so he ordered Anansi to untie his hair, but Anansi refused and he taunted Tiger, bragging that he'd tied him like a hog. Anansi was no longer afraid of Tiger, and he left him there while he returned home. Tiger's luck got worse. A hunter came and saw the tiger tied to the fruit tree and killed him.
[00:31:39] Katie Dooley: Wow. I don't know who to feel bad for in this story.
[00:31:45] Preston Meyer: Well, the tiger was the antagonist, and the spider was a bit of a dick, but only to exact his cruel form of justice. So neither of them are the good guy. But there is a moral to the story of don't screw around with the little guy because he might be smarter than you.
[00:32:05] Katie Dooley: I think we need to bring Eshu in to like, determine who's at fault here.
[00:32:09] Preston Meyer: Right? Little justice measured in not just Anansi's style.
[00:32:15] Katie Dooley: Right? There's definitely two sides to this story. And both of them are dicks.
[00:32:21] Preston Meyer: Right?
[00:32:22] Katie Dooley: Terrible. Ah what a nice story. Thank you for sharing.
[00:32:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:32:25] Katie Dooley: "Nice" story.
[00:32:27] Preston Meyer: It's a fun story.
[00:32:28] Katie Dooley: Fun story. Thank you. That's a better adjective.
[00:32:31] Preston Meyer: Trickster gods are all kinds of fun. And if this inspired you for Halloween. Cool.
[00:32:39] Katie Dooley: Oh, yeah. Dress up as Anansi.
[00:32:42] Preston Meyer: Right? Dress as spiders. No one will get freaked out at all.
[00:32:46] Katie Dooley: Be an obscure deity for Halloween.
[00:32:49] Preston Meyer: Right? All kinds of fun to be had. Don't be a dick.
[00:32:53] Katie Dooley: Don't be a dick. Um.
[00:32:55] Preston Meyer: There's all kinds of morals that these trickster gods leave us with. But mostly. Just don't be a dick. Is really what you can boil it down. To. Which I mean, we've been saying that for years.
[00:33:06] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Years now. Is this all we had? 52. We're well past our second year anniversary.
[00:33:13] Preston Meyer: Yeah.
[00:33:14] Katie Dooley: Wow.
[00:33:16] Preston Meyer: I mean, we started in October of 2020 as releasing these anyway.
[00:33:20] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Nice.
[00:33:23] Preston Meyer: Right?
[00:33:24] Katie Dooley: If you want this podcast to go for another two years.
[00:33:27] Preston Meyer: Or longer.
[00:33:27] Katie Dooley: Or longer, please, uh, there are some things you can do to help.
[00:33:31] Preston Meyer: Yeah, you can help by buying our merch from our merch store. You can subscribe on Patreon, get all kinds of exclusive content.
[00:33:41] Katie Dooley: Leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
[00:33:44] Preston Meyer: That goes a long way. We love that. Uh, we've also got Facebook and Instagram where you can learn more throughout the week as we post little things that you might not know about ancient mythology or the world of religious studies in general.
[00:34:00] Katie Dooley: All of the links are in the show notes, so check it out and thank you for listening.
[00:34:07] Both Speakers: Peace be with you.
