THEY SAY that once upon a time Arlum Silla, the sky-god, cleared a very large plantation and planted okras, onions, beans, garden-eggs, peppers, and pumpkins. The weeds in the garden became thick and nettles grew up. The sky-god then made a proclamation by odawuro to the effect that his plantation was overgrown with weeds and that anyone who could weed it without scratching himself might come forward and take his daughter, Kuse, in marriage. The first one who went to try scratched himself where the nettles tickled, and they hooted at him. The next one who tried was also hooted at. All men went and tried and all failed.

Now Spider, said, “As for me, I am able to do it.” The sky-god’s plantation was situated on the side of the path, and the path was the one people used to take when going to the market every Friday. The spider, because he knew this fact, used only to go and clear the weeds every Friday. When he was hoeing, the people who passed by used to greet him, saying, “Hail to you at your work, Father Spider!”

Then he would answer, “Thank you, Aku.” They would continue, “A plantation which no one has been able to clear – do you mean to say you are weeding it?”

The spider would answer, “Ah, it’s all because of one girl that I am wearing myself out like this. Her single arm is like this.” And he would then slap and rub his arm where it was tackling him, and when he did so, he would get relief from the irritation. Then another person would pass there and hail him at his work, and he would again slap the place that was itching. For example, if it was his thigh, he would say, “That single girl! They say her thigh is like this,” and he would slap and rub his own thigh.

In this manner he finished clearing the plantation. Then he went off to tell the sky-god how he had finished the weeding of his farm. The sky-god asked the messenger, “Has he really finished?”

The messenger said, “Yes.”

The sky-god asked him, “Did he scratch himself?”

He said, “No, he did not scratch himself.”

Then the sky-god took Kuse and gave her to Spider in marriage.

One night Spider and his bride went to rest and the bride questioned him, saying, “However was it that you of all people were able to clear father’s plantation of weeds? A plantation like that – from which everyone who tried turned back! However were you able to clear it?”

Then the spider said, “Do you suppose that I am a fool? I used to hoe, and when anyone passed by and said to me, ‘Spider, are you clearing this farm which no one else has ever been able to clear?’ I would thereupon slap with my hand any place on my skin that was tickling me and scratch it, and declare to the person that your thigh, for example, was like the thigh of a buffalo, and that it was beautiful and polished. That is how it came about that I was able to weed the plantation.”

Thereupon Kuse, the ninth child, said, “then tomorrow I shall tell father that you scratched yourself after all.”

But the spider spoke to her, saying, “You must not mention it. This is a sleeping-mat confidence.”

Kuse, the ninth child, said, “I know nothing whatever about sleeping-mat confidences, and I shall tell father.” Kuse took her sleeping-mat away from beside Spider and went and lay down at the other end of the room.

Now Spider’s eyes grew red and sorrowful, and he went and took his sepirewa, and he struck the strings and sang:

“Kuse, the ninth child, this is not a matter

About which to quarrel.

Let us treat it as a sleeping-mat confidence.

‘No!” she says. She has a case against me,

But some one else has a case

which is already walking down the path.”

Then the spider went and lay down. After Spider had lain there for some time, he rose up again. He said, “Kuse.” Not a sound save the noise of the cicada chirping dinn! Spider said, “I’ve got you!”

He took a little gourd cup and slashed it full with water and poured it over Kuse’s sleeping-mat. Then Spider went and lay down. After he had lain there a while, he said, “Ko!” Kuse, whatever is this! You have wet the sleeping-mat, you shameless creature! Surely you are not at all nice. When things become visible, I shall tell everyone. It was true then – what they all siad – that when anyone went to your father’s plantation, he would say, ‘A girl who wets …. ! I am not going to clear a nettle plantation for such a person.’ “

Then Kuse said to him, “I implore you, desist, and let the matter drop.”

But spider said, “I will not leave it, for my case came first. You said you would tell your father. I said, ‘Desist’; but you said, ‘No.’ Because of that I will not drop the case.”

And Kuse, the ninth child, said, “Leave my case, and your case, too about which I spoke. I shall drop it, for if you do not leave mine, my eyes will die for shame.”

Then Spider said, “I have heard. Since you so desire, let it be a sleeping-mat confidence. So the matter ends there.”

That is how the elders came to say, “Sleeping-mat confidences are not to be repeated.”

[ ASHANTI ]