Brother Tiger and Brother Tacoomah seek their revenge in the second story, but Anansi is just too sly for them to catch! The Brer Rabbit version of this story is called Cutta Cord-La.
[Notes by LKG]
This story is part of the Jamaican Stories unit. Story source: Jamaica Anansi Stories by Martha Warren Beckwith (1924). I have removed the eye-dialect.
Shut Up in the Pot
And the two go back from Anansi yard and just dodge him now and hear his wife call, "Here! Dinner ready!"
And Brother Tiger and Brother Tacoomah go back to the house knock on the door. The wife open the door and Anansi go right out of the house — ashamed! The wife give them some of the food to eat and it was only fresh beef.
They come back to Brother Anansi now and Anansi tell them say, "I will get the beef, but whatever I tell you to do, you must be sure to do it."
And he put on a big pot of water on fire, and him, Anansi, get into the pot of water and gonna tell them shut him up in him pot, and tell them as soon as him knock the pot, open the pot.
And him come out now, tell Brother Tiger he must get in the pot. Tacoomah alongside in the pot too. And shut them up, and he get a heavy weight and put it on the pot top.
And he went right outside and tell him wife must shove up the fire, make the fire bigger and bigger. And when him come back, them was properly cooked,
They gonna eat now, he was tuning up his fiddle:
I got them now! I got them now!
Them think they got me, but I got them now!
So Tiger and Brother Tacoomah dog him and see when he send down the rope and swing up whatever he provide for the family. So Brother Tiger go to a tin-smith to give him a fine voice and went to the tree and him sing,
Mama, mama, send down rope,
Send down rope, Brer Anansi there ground-a!
Then the mother find out it was not Brother Anansi from the coarseness of the voice.
So he go to a gold-smith now, and he come back again and sing again. Now he get a voice same as Brother Anansi.
Mama, mama, send down rope,
Send down rope, Brer Anansi there ground-a!
Then the mother let the rope down to receive him.
Brer Anansi coming from a distance see the mother swinging him up in the tree now and say,
Mama, cut the rope! Mama, cut the rope!
And she cut the rope and Brother Tiger fell and broke his neck. Brother Anansi take him and have him now for him dinner.
They couldn't eat Brother Anansi at all; him was the smartest one of all.
(500 words)
