Nasara Journal of Humanities Vol. 5 No.1, June, 2012 132 Telling the Anansesεm, Decoding Meanings and Symbols: Myth and Mythography in Efua T. Sutherland’s the Marriage of Anansewa Stephen O. Solanke Ajayi Crowther University myacada@gmail.com Abstract The study of myths has generated critical attentions as scholars have attempted to discern encoded meanings behind the different codes designed to pass on messages, secular or spiritual, across generations. This paper, through the examination of Efua T. Sutherland‟s The Marriage of Anansewa, situates mythic tendencies and reveals mythographic meanings in the lives of Ghanaians (Africans). The findings show that encoded in the work are the beliefs accrued from past experiences of the Ghanaian (Akan) people to be used in all facets of their lives: not only for the present but also for the future. The symbols and encrypted messages, which are decoded with the use of the archetypal model, are found and shown to have, and still have impact, on the lives of Africans in general, and Ghanaians (Akans) in particular. Introduction The generic development of a people necessitates the recording of facts and creation of fiction in respect of their socio-economic, religious and physical experiences. Overtime, these mixtures of facts and fiction become shrouded in mysteries and are rendered either sacredly or secularly. Folktales and myths are thus created. After generations of transmission, changes to the themes, context, style (of delivery, of form) occur though the essence remains. Some of these stories considered mythic are rendered imaginatively and symbolically. Most of the time, the culture and traditions of a society exist on this structure. Antecedently, myths