Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology (15 page)

Okay, so Africa

it’s a big place

full of a lot of dudes with a lot of myths

so it’s not like there is this big established canon of pure uncut AFRICAN MYTHOLOGY

more like there’s a bunch of little African mythologies scattered all over the place

but like every single one of my girlfriends has told me with a smile and a pat on the back

“It’s not the size that matters

but if you ARE gonna have a tiny penis, you gotta at least be really freaky in bed to make up for it.”

Uh

anyway

what I’m trying to say is that I can’t tell all the myths from all the mythologies here

so I’m just gonna pick all the sweetest ones

in order to give you what I hope is a balanced picture of what I think is the main through-line of African mythology:

ordinary dudes

making ordinary mistakes

except those ordinary dudes happen to be gods so then there’s problems.

So there’s this dude Obatala.

He’s one of the
orisha

which are basically a bunch of gods that exploded out of some other god’s corpse

when one of his slaves dropped a big rock on him.

So, already this story is shaping up to be pretty sweet

but then it hits a major roadblock real fast:

Obatala wants to make a world

but he has NO IDEA HOW TO DO IT.

Frankly, I find the realism in this myth to be highly refreshing.

I mean, can any of us honestly say we know the first thing about creating a world?

Oh, look at me, I’m Ra

let me just will myself into being out of nothing

and then create land with nothing but my left nut and PURE GUMPTION.

NO.

THAT’S NOT HOW THIS WORKS.

You have to SIT YOUR ASS DOWN and you have to BRAINSTORM.

So that’s what Obatala does.

He hits up his buddy Olorun, the sky god

and he’s like “Yo, Olorun I wanna make a world with some people in it.”

and Olorun, who is the king of the gods

is like “Oh man, that sounds great

but it also sounds REALLY HARD.

Do you have any plans? Like some blueprints or something?”

And Obatala is like “Uhh . . .

I’ll get back to you.”

So at this point Obatala really only has one option

and that is to go see Orunmila, their resident fortune-teller.

So Obatala goes over to Orunmila’s house and Orunmila is like “Duuuude!

I can totally tell you how to make a world.

Let’s go into my back room and stare at my nuts for a while.”

(He tells fortunes by throwing palm nuts and reading their patterns

but I failed to clarify that because I was looking for an excuse to write “stare at my nuts.”)

So after peering intently into his nuts for a while

Orunmila is like “All right, dude here’s what you gotta do:

Step one

descend down to Earth on a GOLD CHAIN ATTACHED TO THE SKY.

Oh man

that would make such a sweet album cover.

Uh, uh . . . STEP TWO!

Go down to Earth carrying a hen, a black cat a palm nut, and a snail shell full of sand.”

And Obatala is like “What?”

And Orunmila is like “What?

Sorry, dude, I’m pretty high right now.”

But it’s not like Obatala has any better ideas

so he goes about trying to make this ultimate gold chain

but he doesn’t have NEARLY enough gold

so he gives the gold he DOES have to the celestial goldsmith

and then he goes all over the sky, collecting investors.

He’s like “GUYS

GUYS.

Have I got a deal for YOU!

So I don’t know if you’ve noticed

but there’s a whole world of untapped real estate down underneath this sky place.

Why, I ask you

are we totally underutilizing this prime acreage

when AS WE SPEAK

dudes could be down there
CAUSING PROBLEMS
??

Think about it

a whole world full of wretched, fleshy problem machines

for you to set on fire and put your dicks in.”

And all the gods are like “SIGN ME UP.”

So Obatala goes back to the jewel smith with a big sack full of gold

but it STILL won’t quite reach the Earth

so Obatala is just like “Screw it, man just make it as long as you can.

I’ll figure something out.

There’s gotta be some reason I exploded out of my dad’s corpse, right?”

And then he takes the chicken, the cat, the palm nut and the snail shell full of sand

and he starts climbing down to Earth.

I am kinda curious where he got the chicken and stuff from

seeing as there is not really any land or animal life or anything

but I’ll let it slide.

THIS TIME.

So he gets down to the bottom of the chain

and he can’t quite reach the dim, watery morass that is the whole world

so he’s trying to figure out what to do

when here comes Orunmila’s voice from the sky like “Duuuude:

Empty out that snail shell.”

So he does, and the sand falls down below him and it makes some land

and then Orunmila is like “Duuuude:

Drop your chicken on the sand.”

You know what this feels like?

This feels like one of those adventure games

where you spend like seventeen hours wandering around the haunted mansion

with a backpack full of junk and a heart full of fury

because you didn’t think to stuff the pigeon in the jukebox or something.

Like, how was Obatala supposed to figure this shit out?

But anyway, he drops the chicken

and the chicken kicks the sand all over the place

and it turns into all the land

and then Obatala drops down there with the cat

but then he’s totally out of ideas

so he just kinda sits there and waits for something to happen.

About a week later Olorun sends one of his dudes to see what’s up

and Obatala is like “Man, I dunno.

This seemed like a great idea, but it’s really dark down here and I’m starting to lose motivation.”

So this message gets passed along to Olorun

who is just like “Oh, no problem. Boom.”

And he makes the sun.

Are you telling me this dude knew how to make the sun all along

but couldn’t figure out how to populate the damn Earth?

Well, whatever.

What’s important is that Obatala gets super jazzed by all the sunlight

and he plants that palm nut

and it turns into a palm tree

and then he decides to make a bunch of humans out of clay

because he forgot that that was why he came down here in the first place.

So he’s working on the hot sun sculpting all these dudes

and he gets pretty thirsty

so he starts drinking some palm wine

because it’s not like he’s SURROUNDED BY WATER or anything.

So he’s sculpting all the dudes

and drinking all the wine

and by the time he’s sculpted the last dude

he is so tipsy he is basically like a one-man teeter-totter

like if he were to breathe into a Breathalyzer

the BREATHALYZER would get drunk.

Dude is triggity-trashed, is what I am trying to say.

So Obatala goes and passes out and sleeps off all that wine

and when he wakes up he goes to admire all the dudes he made

but he notices that some of the dudes got a little messed up

because he was so totally plastered when he was molding them.

Actually, they’re more than a little messed up

because this is where shit like POLIO and BLINDNESS comes from.

Great job, Lushy McDrunkenstein

you invented birth defects.

Huzzah!

But to his credit

Obatala does feel REALLY bad about all this

and I don’t know whether it’s his guilt

or the WICKED hangover he must be dealing with

but he is like “Ugh

I am NEVER drinking again.”

And then he doesn’t

and he also devotes his life to helping crippled dudes

so I guess it turns out okay.

So the moral of the story

is that if you die and it turns out reincarnation exists

try to come back as a cat

because that little bastard got a free pass to Earth and he didn’t have to do SHIT.

One day Anansi the Ashanti spider-man is dicking around in the wilderness outside his town

and he gets bored and thirsty

and he sees this house with an old man sitting on the porch.

Now, when I say old

I mean OLLLLD

this guy makes the Crypt Keeper look like Natalie fucking Portman.

So Anansi walks up to this old man

and he’s like “Excuse me, you fugly sonofabitch

can I get some ice-cold drinking water?”

And the old man doesn’t say anything.

So Anansi is like

“I said: CAN I GET SOME ICY COLD WATER PRODUCT UP IN HERE?”

And the old man says nothing.

So Anansi is like “Please continue sitting motionless if you want me to go inside and raid your fridge.”

And the old man says nothing

so Anansi goes inside and has a gay old time.

He has such a gay time that he comes back the next day

and the next day

just straight up pillaging this dude’s pantry.

And I don’t know what this dude has in his pantry

but whatever it is, it must be pretty good

’cause one day Anansi brings his eldest daughter with him to the house

and he is like “Thank you so much for all this free food, creepy silent old guy.

To thank you, here is my eldest daughter.

You guys are married now. Have fun.

Also, daughter?

Go inside and make me a sandwich.”

And then he eats the sandwich and leaves his daughter and goes home.

So the next day he goes back for more free food

and maybe to see his daughter, I guess.

But his daughter isn’t there.

WHERE DID SHE GO?

He knows she likes to play hide-and-seek so he starts looking all over the house

and finally he goes and looks in the last possible place

THE OVEN

and what does he find in there?

THE WEDDING RING HE GAVE HIS DAUGHTER.

So he runs outside to the old man like “HEY ASSHOLE

WHY DID YOU TAKE OFF MY DAUGHTER’S WEDDING RING?

SHIT WAS EXPENSIVE.”

And the old man FINALLY starts talking.

He’s all “Do you know who I am?

I’m Death.

You showed up at my house

you ate all my food

and then you married me to a gross ugly spider chick without my consent

so I ATE YOUR DAUGHTER

and now I am also going to eat YOU.”

And Anansi is like “No no no.

I like not having consequences for my actions.

This seems like a consequence. This is terrible.”

So he starts running.

He figures Death is probably pretty slow given how old he is

but no, he’s keeping up

and Anansi starts getting tired, so he climbs a tree

and he’s about to jump to another tree

when he looks down and sees Death just standing there

because guess what, guys:

DEATH CANNOT CLIMB TREES.

I guess this explains why squirrels are immortal?

So the personification of death itself is just standing at the bottom of this tree

and he starts chucking everything in arm’s reach at Anansi

and eventually he runs out of shit to throw

and goes to find more shit

at which point Anansi jumps out of the tree and books it for his house, screaming “HEY, HEY

WIFE AND KIDS:

CLIMB UP TO THE CEILING

DEATH IS COMING.

MY WILD IRRESPONSIBLITY HAS ONCE AGAIN ENDANGERED MY ENTIRE FAMILY

AM I, PERHAPS

THE BEST HUSBAND AND FATHER?”

And his wife is like

“WHAT’S THAT?

I CANT HEAR YOU OVER THE SOUND OF OUR FOUR STARVING CHILDREN

STUCK HERE ALL DAY WHILE YOU RAID DEATH’S KITCHEN FOR YOURSELF.”

And Anansi is like “FINE. I’ll take them up to the ceiling MYSELF.”

So he runs into the house and drags everybody up to the ceiling

and Death runs in after him and sees everyone up on the ceiling

and he can’t do a thing about it except pull up a chair

grab a burlap sack

and just sit there

waiting.

So it’s not too long before Anansi’s youngest son starts losing his grip on the ceiling.

Wait. Since when has a spider had ceiling problems?

Spiders LIVE on my fucking ceiling.

THEY WON’T LEAVE.

The only explanation is that these spiders are like . . . reverse Spider-Man

with all the disadvantages of a spider

coupled with all the disadvantages of a man.

So anyway, this kid is like “DADDY, HELP!”

And Anansi is like “HOLD ON, JUNIOR.

IF YOU FALL, DEATH WILL EAT YOU.”

So Junior falls

and Death catches him and is like “I’m only after your dad, kid.

But I’m still gonna stick you in this burlap sack.”

Then Anansi’s youngest daughter falls off

and the same thing happens

and again and again

until it’s just Anansi up there

and he’s about to lose his grip

when he goes “WAIT!

DEATH!

I am SOOOO FAT

from eating SOOO MUCH OF YOUR FOOD.

If I fall to the floor I’m totally going to explode on impact

and then what are you gonna eat?

Spider guts?

Gross.

What you SHOULD do

is go get my big barrel of flour from the kitchen and put it under me

so that when I fall, you get a nice breading on me.”

So Death is like “Dur, okay.

Just let me leave you alone in the room real quick.”

And Anansi is like “YESSSS.

Man, I am such a genius. Holy shit!

I can’t believe I have LITERALLY CHEATED DEATH with my sheer genius!”

But by the time Anansi is done congratulating himself Death has come back in with the barrel

and Anansi is like “Balls.”

But all is not lost

because when Death leans over the barrel to make sure it’s centered

Anansi drops down on the back of his head

which freaks him out

because, you know

spider on his head

and in the resulting confusion and flour-induced blindness

Anansi is able to grab his wife and kids and run out the door

and he’s been escaping Death ever since.

Actually, that’s why those spiders won’t leave my ceiling.

It’s because Death still hasn’t figured out how to use ladders.

So now you know, guys.

The secret to immortality

is to duct tape yourself to the ceiling

You’re welcome.