Mommy Wata

                 

The myth of Mamy Wata extends over a wide area of the African continent, especially along the Atlantic side. Of imprecise origin, the character seems to have been influenced by myths by European mermaids with a mixture of ideas taken from Christian and Muslim saints and Hindu and Oriental beliefs. Mami Wata is the "mother of water", a kind of protective goddess, beautiful and seductive at the same time dangerous. In the cults in his honor, practiced since the century XV, acquires many different names, Oxum, Santa Marta la Dominadora, Lasirén, Yemanjá and very different forms according to the regions in addition to the new forms implanted in America since the arrival of the first slaves of the Atlantic Route, but either in the form of mermaid or Hindu deity the company of the snake is always indissociable to him. This divinity of waters is implored to improve health and fortune and arouses an infinite number of feelings of love, fear and devotion. Dispensing material and spiritual goods distributes wealth and heals bodies and spirits, favors loves, fills aspirations and desires and alleviates fears. But it is also capable of provoking the greatest evils and dangers and its destructive power reaches lives and fortunes and material goods. In addition to the religious cults and feelings it arouses in Africa, mamy Wata is closely related to the practices of voodoo in Haiti, Brazil and the Dominican Republic.

Like many ethnic groups in the West Africa, the Baulés have represented this female divinity associated with water and snake, in the settler style, of which they are the highest representatives.