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.
ESHU ELEGBA IS PROBABLY THE LAST DUDE YOU WANT APPROVING YOUR FRIENDSHIP
Okay, so there’s this dude Eshu Elegba, right?
He’s one of the main gods in the Yoruba pantheon
and also a pretty crazy dude.
Basically, he is what it would be like
if Loki was pretty much allowed to run his whole pantheon.
He is associated mainly with roads, trickery, pipe-smoking, and dongs.
The last two may be interrelated.
Hell, the last three.
You know what?
Everything is related to dongs.
MOVING ON.
So there are these two farmers.
They are best buds, and they live across the street from each other.
So one day they’re sitting out on their respective porches
enjoying the sunshine and each others’ companionship
when Eshu Elegba walks by real fast
and the farmer on the north side of the road is like “Dude, did you see that guy just now?
The one with the red hat?”
and the farmer on the south side of the street is like “Uh, I saw a guy
but he was wearing a BLUE AND WHITE hat.
I think maybe you’ve had too much to drink.”
And the first farmer is like “Guess again, shit eyes.
That guy’s hat was clearly red.”
And the second farmer is like “YOU are the one with shit for eyes.”
And the first farmer is like “I’LL SHIT IN YOUR EYES.”
And just then, Eshu Elegba walks past in the other direction
and the first farmer is like “Holy balls, you’re right.
The dude’s hat IS blue and white.”
And the second guy is like “What are you talking about?
YOU are the one who is right.
That guy’s hat is CLEARLY red.”
And the first farmer is like “YOU KNOW WHAT’S RED?
MY FIST
AFTER I USE IT TO RIP YOUR STILL-BEATING HEART FROM YOUR CHEST.”
And the other guy is all “NOT AS RED AS HIS HAT, YOU SHANDY-PANCAKE.”
and the first guy is like “WHAT THE HELL IS A SHANDY-PANCAKE?”
and the second guy is like “I DON’T HAVE TO KNOW WHAT IT IS
TO CUT YOUR FACE OFF WITH IT.”
And then the neighbors show up like “Okay, guys, enough is enough.
We’re gonna take you both to the king and let him sort it out.”
So they go all the way to the king
and they get into the throne room
and then Eshu shows up like “POOF KLAZAM, DICKHEADS.”
And they see his hat from the front
because I guess they n
ever tried to look at him
while he was RUNNING TOWARD OR AWAY FROM THEM
and WHAT DO YOU KNOW:
IT’S HALF RED AND HALF WHITE/BLUE
IT IS BASICALLY THE ULTIMATE U.S.A. PARTY FEDORA
and Elegba is like “Guess what, guys:
YOU JUST GOT PUNK’D.
This is what happens when you make a new friend without consulting me first
BECAUSE I’M ELEGBA
APPROVER OF FRIENDSHIPS.
JK, guys, I actually just kinda wanted to see a fight.
CAUSING STRIFE IS MY GREATEST JOY.”
And then he runs off and everyone is like “Wow.
Who put that dude in charge of the universe?”
Which is a question I think has been asked many times about pretty much every god.
So the moral of the story
is make sure to eat your carrots
because good eyesight may just save your friendship.
CHINESE
So considering how the current official religion of China
seems to be something like “Stand still while we bulldoze your house to build this dam”
it’s hard to put a finger on the relationship between ancient Chinese tales
and any specific religion.
In fact
the way it really works
is that wayyy back in the day, some dudes got together and made up some sweet stories
but they kinda forgot to attach a religion to them
so then later on, all these other religions came along
like Taoism and Confucianism and Buddhism
they were all like “Whoa, these myths are pretty sweet!
Let’s steal them!”
So all the tropes of the old myths got repurposed to make the points of all these new religions
and meanwhile
a whole bunch of the old myths made it through more or less intact
so in this section
I’m gonna try to give you a little taste of all the different religions
that bastardized Chinese mythology
just like I’m about to.
PAN GU IS A PRETTY BIG DUDE
Okay, so Pan Gu, right?
Apparently he was a dude living inside an egg back in the day.
Where was the egg, you ask?
Probably in China
because that is where this myth is from.
BZZ
WRONG.
CHINA DOESN’T EXIST YET IN THIS STORY.
THIS IS A CREATION MYTH
TRY TO KEEP UP.
Actually this egg is pretty much all there is anywhere
and inside the egg is all this cool stuff
like lava and birds and mountains and boobs
and also this dude Pan Gu, like I said.
But even though Pan Gu literally has access to EVERYTHING THERE IS
he gets pretty bored inside this egg
and he’s like “OKAY, THAT’S ENOUGH.”
and he picks up an ax and breaks that egg in half LIKE A BOSS.
Then he proceeds to have an EIGHTEEN-THOUSAND-YEAR growth spurt
constantly holding the top of the egg balanced on his head in the process
which basically turns the top of the egg into the sky
and the bottom into the earth.
It is very important that Pan Gu maintain proper posture
because otherwise we’re all pooched.
But so yeah then his beard turns into forests and whatnot.
I think his bone marrow turns into rubies also
and something about his breath and wind and birds.
Whatever.
This dude is literally everything
so you can kind of assume that if there is a thing
it probably came about as a result of one of Pan Gu’s bodily processes.
But the best part is where humans come from
because apparently
humans are the lice that come off this dude’s corpse when he dies.
Yep
we are all lice, ladies and gentlemen.
So the moral of the story is
never bathe
because it is genocide.
CHANG’E IS A SUBSTANCE ABUSER
Okay, so you guys know about the sun, right?
It’s this big ball of fire and explosions that flies around giving people cancer.
But did you know there used to be TEN SUNS?
Yeah
it SUCKED.
It sucked so bad that Di Jun (aka Chinese Zeus)
(aka the father of all these rambunctious suns)
(Get it? Suns? Sons? It’s brilliant.)
had no idea what to do
so here’s what went down:
There’s this really great archer named Hou Yi
and he’s chilling in his heavenly crib with his wife Chang’e
and all of a sudden the phone rings and it’s Di Jun.
Hou Yi is like “Yo, Di Jun, my man, what’s cookin’?”
And Di Jun is like “My friend the entire Earth is cooking.
You could fry an egg on a goddamn glacier right about now
and it ain’t none of this sous-vide bullshit or nothing.
This is honest-to-goodness summer backyard barbecue
except instead of a big plate of watermelon on the back porch
everyone’s skin is melting off.
Can you solve this problem for me?”
And Hou Yi is like “You got it, buddy.”
So Hou Yi grabs his trusty arrows and goes outside
and just kills nine out of the ten suns
and then he stares at the tenth sun real hard and he’s like
“You best behave, sun.”
And the sun is like “OKAY DUDE, NO PROBLEM.”
And promptly dives underground and takes the subway home
and Hou Yi is like “Well, that was easy.
You’re welcome, Di Jun.”
And Di Jun is like “WHAT THE HELL, DUDE
YOU JUST KILLED 90 PERCENT OF MY SUNS.
I MEAN SONS.
I MEAN TECHNICALLY BOTH, BUT WHATEVER.”
And Hou Yi is like “Dude, do you even know who you called to solve your problem?
You called Hou Yi the immortal archer.
And you know what they say:
When the only tool you have is a hammer
every problem starts to look like you can solve it by shooting your friend’s sons.
Ummm, I think I may have mixed my metaphors a little bit.”
And Di Jun is like “DAMN RIGHT YOU DID.
I AM HEREBY REVOKING YOUR IMMORTALITY.
ALSO:
YOUR WIFE’S IMMORTALITY.”
And Chang’e is like “Wait, what did I do?”
So now Hou Yi and Chang’e are both mortal
and Chang’e will NOT stop bitching about it for good reason.
So finally Hou Yi is like “GRR, FINE.
I will go get us some immortality.”
So he goes all the way to the west
and he finds Xiwangmu, the good witch of the west
who gives him a couple pills of immortality
and she’s like “Careful, dude.
This is some heavy shit.
Don’t take too much.”
And Hou Yi is like “Sure, no problem.”
And then proceeds to go home and leave all the pills with his wife
while he goes out to shoot more things with arrows.
Now, different tellers of this story ascribe different motivations to Chang’e here.
Some say she was a g
reedy twank who wanted all the immortality for herself.
Some say that there were some robbers and she took all the pills to spite them.
Some say she got hungry and confused.
Whatever the reason, the point is that Hou Yi isn’t gone for fifteen seconds
before all the pills are in his wife’s mouth
at which point she proceeds to have THE ULTIMATE OVERDOSE.
But instead of throwing up and then dying
which would be SILLY
Chang’e becomes TOO IMMORTAL
and apparently immortality = buoyancy
so she floats to the moon
and her husband comes home and sees her floating to the moon
and he’s about to take out his bow and try to shoot her down
but everyone is all “NO, HOU YI
SOMETIMES YOU CANNOT SOLVE PROBLEMS BY SHOOTING THEM.”
And Hou Yi is like “Seriously?
Why did nobody tell me this before?”
and then his wife lives on the moon with a rabbit forever
and later another guy named Wu Gang gets sent there.
He’s like Sisyphus except with a tree instead of a rock
and chopping it down instead of pushing it up a hill.
So the moral of the story
is don’t do drugs
unless you wanna wake up on the moon
with nothing but a rabbit and a deranged lumberjack to keep you company.
Take it from me, man.
Take it from me.
FEI CHANG-FANG AND THE POOP MYSTIC
Okay, you are about to hear a story about magic and poop
and I wish I could say that the magic was the most important part.
So Fei Chang-Fang is a dude who is interested in the Tao from a very early age
and then at a slightly less early age he becomes a police officer
but then he quits because fuck the police.
So then one day he is hanging out at a restaurant
and he sees this old man come walking into the town square
and the old man sits down and pulls some medicinal herbs
(cough cough)
out of a large gourd
and proceeds to sell them all day.
Now Chang-Fang, having just quit his job
has nothing better to do than sit in the restaurant and watch this dude sell drugs all day
and at the end of the day
the old dude puts all his herbs back into the gourd
and then SHOOP
jumps into the gourd himself
and Chang-Fang just sits there like
Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology Page 14
