The Famous Trickster of African Culture, Re-introducing Gizo the Spider.

Folktales are stories passed down orally from generation to generation. The authors are usually unknown and the stories talk about everyday life.

 The trickster tales are short imaginative narratives that usually use an anthropomorphic animal that has magical powers and is characterised as a compendium of opposites. Trickster is an ambiguous and anomalous character.

The trickster figure is found all over the world. A good trickster should be mischievous, humorous and cunning and should have the ability to change between animal and human form.

 Gizo is the human acting spider who uses his cunning to overcome the best of bigger and strongest animals including humans. He is the king of tricksters in Hausa folktales. He comes from the northern part of Nigeria and speaks Hausa. Gizo has many stories to his name. He is married to Koki. He is usually a villain to the Hausa people. He is cunning, shrewd, greedy, wise and sometimes foolish.

He is known by many names across the world.

Gizo- Hausa tribe of West Africa.

Kweku or Kwaku Anansi- Ashanti and related Akan peoples of West Africa.

Ture-  Zande People Of Central Africa.

B’anansi-Suriname.

Aunt Nancy- in South Carolina America.

Annancy or Anancy- Jamaica, Grenada, Costa Rica, Coloumbia, Nicaragua.

 Gizo is not known to many children, in the past a famous song had been written about Gizo and his wife Koki.

Some of the folktales written about Gizo include :

The spider pays his debts.

The spider ,the old woman and the wonderful bull.

How the spider ate the hyena- cubs foods.

The spider, the guinea fowl and the francolin.

The greedy spider and the buds.

The spider, the Hyena and the Corn.

How the spider outwitted the Snake.

The Snake and the Dove outwit the Spider.

The SpIder has a feast.

The spider outwitted by the Tortoise

The greedy spider and the birds.

Spider deals with famine.

Botorimi and the Spider.

 Anansi proves he is the oldest.

Anansi owns all stories that are told.

Anansi borrows money.

Anansi plays dead.

How debt came to Ashanti.

The spider usually uses his wit to gain wisdom and to overcome his larger foes. The spider is creative in his ingenuity of thinking outside the box.

 Trickster tales help us to understand human behaviour and they teach us to think on our feet. They show us how to differentiate between the good and bad. 

Open Wound, Hidden Shame. A review of Born on a Tuesday.

Elnathan John is a Nigerian novelist writer and satirists. He has twice been shortlisted for the prestigious Caine prize for African writing (2013&2015). His writing has been published in Per Contra, Evergreen Review and Chimurenga’s The Chronic. He is a Civitella Ranieri Fellow and lives in Abuja, Nigeria. The book was published by Cassava Republic.

The themes of the book are love, trust, betrayal and religious schism. The religious schism in this book, raised questions but provided no answers, this perhaps is the reason why the author succeeded in writing a book about religion.

The only answer I can offer is that we need to try hard on dialogues and reintegrating different sects in to the society. 

The life of Dantala is an open wound and hidden shame to Northern Nigeria. The book is a bildungsroman as Dantala starts out as an Almajiri and ends up as a student of a Salafi Mallam. Almajiranci is child abuse but it started out as a beautiful tenet of religion, it was coined from the word al muhajiroon which means emigrant.

 The author’s decision to write about religion is unconventional, but it moved the plot forward. The author brought the Dantala to life with irony. The book was written in the first person point of view and Dantala has different goals at each section of the book, in the beginning it was to escape from the police in Bayan layi, in doggon icce it was to see his mother, in Sokoto it was to marry Aisha and at the end it was to save Jibril. It is disheartening because Dantala had no real desire for himself.

The life of Dantala and other former Almajiris like him end up as tools in election violence or as thugs and miscreants. Almajiranci is an open wound in our society and it is time we treat the wound with brotherly love.       

Etisalat in my next book the characters will use your network- please make my book a brand ambassador.

We need book tours in Nigeria, but authors have two jobs and it is hard to survive on writing alone. The cost of publishing, Internet subscriptions, and phone recharge cards, paying rent and feeding is high. Then add it to the unstable fuel price and the picture is dark. Writing is a gift, and people who love to write need to be motivated.

Nigeria needs to be reading books written for Nigeria, by Nigerians. We need all the genres of literature in order to develop our society.

Authors sell ideas to people and open the imagination. We need to build a society of problem solvers, and we need new innovations. We all agree that Nigeria needs structural development, and so does the writing profession. We need structure in publishing, creative writing courses and book sales. Writing is a profession that can bring profit; authors are a good source of advertisement. Authors need to sell the ideas of peace, nation building, innovations and positive mindset.

 We need opportunities to sell our books.One way of selling our books is to have book tours; we have 90 Nigerian universities in Nigeria. An author does not have the resources and time to travel to all the universities but with a partnership with a network provider and literature/art departments of the university and secondary schools. The author can organise book readings on Skype, Google, Facebook and twitter etc.  

This can be organised on weekends and in return the authors can help the university/ Secondary schools by offering courses in creative writing. Literature departments can afford to pay authors to give courses on literary fiction, children’s fiction poetry and drama etc.  The network provider will also gain by advertising their products.

The author of this article uses Etisalat network to call and browse and for research purposes. In the future authors will be able to give book readings across Africa and the world and at the same time create change.

Words Are The Eggs Of Poems. A review of DANCe H.E.R.E by Laura .M. Kaminski.

DANCe H.E.R.E

By Laura .M. Kaminsky

Origami Books, 114 pp.

Words are the eggs of poem is a metaphor for words given birth to words, a line in the poem incubation, a symbol for the collection of  poetry written in six sections-incubation, dance here, red ink, messages, blinders and drawing water.

The poet used her words to capture the fragments of someone’s life, a dear word, and to capture the fragment of someone’s death, a dear one whose words were stifled forever.

The Six sections were written in free verse, the words took form with the cadence of natural speech. Free verse was first use in Italian Opera and in the king James translation of the bible.

The poet’s words lay eggs and formed images that captured my emotions, the words labelled fragile with red ink made me cry for Jos, Maiduguri, our girls and Hashem Shaabani.

Laura M. Kaminski’s collection of poetry is not a song of sorrows, but a song of life, a gift of friendships, and words of lessons.

Treating Ageism In Literature, A Review Of Season Of Crimson Blossoms.

Season of Crimson Blossoms.

By Abubakar Adam Ibrahim.

Parresia Books, 347 pp.

Abubakar Adam Ibrahim’s season of crimson blossom is a novel that portrayed the life of Hajiya Binta Zubairu. The author used the third person omniscient point of view, the characterizations and the themes of relationships, ageism, forced marriage and the custom of not showing affection to the first born child.   

The Omniscient point of view represents freedom - it prevented the author from being limited to the inner life of one character. The omniscient point of view worked for this novel because the author was able to travel to the past and present at will. The choice of point of view helped to link the relationship between Binta and Hassan, Binta and Yaro, Hassan and Maimuna.

The omniscient point of view helped us to visit Kibiya, Jos and Marraba. The setting of the book brought the characters to life, the protagonist Hajiya Binta is not a type and she has lived through her share of tragedies and pain.

 The themes ageism, relationships forced marriage, abandonment, and the customs lead to a greater theme of life.

 Ageism is stereotyping and discriminating against individuals or groups on the basis of their age.

The Love affair of Hajia Binta and Hassan was fleeting but it had far reaching consequence. It helped us to see clearly that northern Nigeria society will not readily accept the relationship between an older woman and a younger man but thinks nothing about the relationship between an older man and a younger woman like in the case of Hassan's parents.

The themes of forced marriage, bereavement , abandonment and custom of not showing affection to your first child had an intense effect on the characters like in the case of Yaro who could not stand the lack of affection shown to him by his mother Hajiya Binta. She called his name only once in his life term.

The abandonment of children by their mothers after the loss of a spouse or divorce also has an adverse on the growth and development of children.

The book is contemporary realistic fiction and even though the author has some realistic fiction in The Whispering Trees, the stories that were written with magical realism had caught the attention of literary enthusiasts. The modern realistic fiction is also good but with the northern Nigerian society it’s unrealistic to expect that people will be favourable towards a younger man, older woman relationship. 

Why Solitude?

Solitude is the lack of contact with people. It is the joy of being alone by choice. One of the greatest example of solitude is the life of poet Emily Dickinson.it was clearly good for her creativity.

Most people choose to be alone to escape from bad experience. The worst experience is losing a loved one to death. You need time to deal with it. You don’t want to talk unnecessarily because you are grieving and you are remembered of your mortality.

My first encounter with solitude was when I was a teenager.  I liked to go strolling in the afternoon and stare at the water. It made me feel close to God. My mum stopped me from going

In the night I sit outside and watch the stars. A neighbour said he noticed I always liked to be alone. He said I should cherish the time I have left with my family.

I was annoyed with him for intruding in my personal time. I could not say anything to him because he lost his mum at a very young age. Therefore he clearly missed her.  I was not conscious of doing it. I stopped going outside to watch the stars.

Today I have perfected the act of solitude. I stare at my lap top screen and write away in the midst of my family. All of my siblings do not feel the need to talk much. We hardly watch films together, even though we have the same interests. If you have an interesting film you place it on your flash and pass it on to the next person.

I have only one friend in real life. He sends me messages every Friday and we talk a little on line. The remaining friends are my Face book friends. I doubt if they know me, I prefer to speak with images shared from peoples Face book wall. Sometimes I write short poems or share poems from my favourite poet expressing my thoughts.

Solitude is not a choice for me but a necessity   because I like to write and I need the peace to read books and write freely. I think about how hard it was to be alone in the past.

 All the people who left drawings on murals   probably had to pretend to be sick when their family went hunting in the Stone Age. There is this image that stuck to my mind. I saw it on a picture somewhere under a topic about ancient civilisations. It showed an Egyptian with polio. It touched my soul. I imagine the man in the past limping away on his stick to the future. I might not know the person but I can feel his pain a now. 

I realised that the reason why I love solitude so much is because I am an introvert. Introverts seek solitude because being around people drain their energy. They go out and socialise but they are always the first person to leave.

Extroverts do not like solitude. They are energised by being around people.

I am glad I came to this world when computers and Internet help you to be alone with your thoughts.

The most profound negative effects of solitude I saw were on documentary called scars of solitude by Cosma Beny. It showed a woman who was born in 1925 in her village in Romania. It was deserted 22 years ago and she refused to live. The woman said she was willing to die there. The woman said that with the fall of Ceausescu all the Saxons left. I   watched her talk when she heard noises made by animals. It looked like she was replying to the horse and chickens. I realised that solitude is not necessary good. It can be bad too when it alienates you from human beings.

 I think I will learn to interact with more people in real life not only on social media. I wish myself the best of luck because giving up solitude is difficult. 

Salt, Sauce,And Spice,Onion Leaves, Pepper And Drippings.

Begin by reading a collection of fairy tales by Angela Carter. You see a fairy tale titled African and Hausa. You read the title and it holds you captive because it’s salt, sauce, spice and onion leaves, pepper and drippings. You trace the story to African folktales by Roger D. Abrahams published in 1983.

This story is about Salt and Sauce and Spice, and Onion leaves and Pepper and Drippings heard a report of a certain youth who was very handsome, but the son of the evil spirit. They all rose up, turned in to beautiful maidens and then they set off.

As they were going along, Drippings lagged behind the others, who drove her still further off, telling her that she stank. But she crouched down and hid until they had gone on, and then she kept following them. When they had reached a certain stream, where they came across an old woman who was bathing, Drippings   thought they would rub down her back for her if she asked, but one said,

‘May Allah save me that I should lift my hand to touch an old woman’s back.’ The old woman did not say anything more, and the five passed on.

Soon Drippings came along, encountered the old woman washing, and greeted her. She answered, and said ‘Maiden, where are you going?’ Drippings replied, ‘I am going to find a certain youth.’ And the old woman asked her, too, to rub her back, but unlike the others, Drippings agreed. After she rubbed her back well for her, the old woman said, ‘May Allah bless you.’ And she said, too, ‘This young man to whom you are all going, do you know his name?’ Drippings said, ‘No, we do not know his name.’ Then the old woman told her, ‘He is my son, his name is Daskandarini, but you must not tell the others,’ then she fell silent.

Drippings continued to follow far behind the others till they got to the place where the young man dwelled. They were about to go in when he called out to them, ‘Go back, and enter one at a time which they did.

Salt came forward and was about to enter, when the voice asked, ‘Who is there?’  ‘It is I,’ she replied, ‘I, Salt, who make the soup tasty. He said, ‘What is my name? ‘She said, ‘I do not know your name, little boy, I do not know your name.’  Then he told her,   ‘Go back, young lady, go back,’ and she did.

The same thing happened with the others except Sauce  made the soup sweet, Spice makes the soup savoury,Onion leaves made the soup smell nicely and pepper made the soup hot.

When it was drippings turn she made the soup smell and she told him his name Daskandarini. And he said enter. A rug was spread for her; clothes were given to her, and slippers of gold. And then Salt, Sauce, Spice, Onion leaves and pepper became her handmaidens. 

 Then you read the same story in Hausa folklore by Maalam shaihua in 1913. You are startled to see ground nut added to the spices. You wonder at why this word was added. You start thinking about the birth of the story and at its retelling. What was the storyteller thinking of and how they related to the story? You notice that in Abraham’s version there is no Groundnut but Drippings thought they would help the old woman rub down her back if she asked. The other spices tell her to enter and meet the youth because they wanted her to fail.

You wonder at the differences of the stories, how did a word get included. Who changed the word and whose opinion are you reading.

Then you hear an oral retelling of the story and the handsome son of a woman and an evil spirit has turned in to a human prince and the spices were names of beautiful maidens.

You go in search of traditional Hausa names and you discovered that it’s plausible for girls to be named after spices before 1901.

You wonder why everybody in the story were handsome and beautiful.

Then the fact that the only two important details the girls had to learn was the name of the handsome youth ‘Daskinadari’, his character was not important .and that the nicest girl Drippings should win the prize.

The spices/beautiful youth had to state at least one function; pepper said she was the one who makes the soup hot. The handsome half evil spirit/ human prince did not need to tell what he was good for but at the end he gave drippings a rug, slippers of gold and new clothes.

You conclude that the story is not just a Dummling [simpleton] story nor is it about the premise of a name. It is about acquiring something without knowing anything about it and giving up after failing. The other maidens could have travelled back home and gone in search of other handsome youths.