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At once beautiful, protective, seductive, and dangerous, the water
spirit Mami Wata (Mother Water) is celebrated throughout much of Africa
and the African Atlantic. A rich array of arts surrounds her, as well
as a host of other aquatic spirits--all honoring the essential, sacred
nature of water. Mami Wata is often portrayed as a mermaid, a snake
charmer, or a combination of both. She is widely believed to have
"overseas" origins, and her depictions have been profoundly influenced
by representations of ancient, indigenous African water spirits,
European mermaids, Hindu gods and goddesses, and Christian and Muslim
saints. She is not only sexy, jealous, and beguiling but also exists in
the plural, as the mami watas and papi watas who comprise part of the vast and uncountable "school" of African water spirits.
Mami Wata's presence is pervasive partly because she can bring good
fortune in the form of money. As a "capitalist" deity par excellence,
her persona developed between the fifteenth and twentieth centuries,
the era of growing trade between Africa and the rest of the world. Her
very name, which may be translated as "Mother Water," is pidgin
English, a language developed to facilitate trade. Countless enslaved
Africans forcibly brought to the Americas as part of this "trade"
carried with them their beliefs, practices, and arts honoring water
spirits such as Mami Wata. Reestablished, revisualized, and revitalized
in the African Atlantic, Mami Wata emerged in new communities and under
different guises, among them Lasirèn, Yemanja, Santa Marta la
Dominadora, and Oxum. African--based
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