Mami Wata figure

Igbo artist

1950s

Wood, pigment

Minneapolis Institute of Art

A wooden sculpture depicts a figure with a snake wrapped around its body. The figure wears a yellow skirt and a decorated top, with snakes also wrapped around its arms. The figure has a necklace and is standing on a black base. Beautiful, seductive, powerful, and fearsome—that is Mami Wata, a water spirit usually represented as a snake charmer or a mermaid. Her name may be an African derivation from “Mother Water, ” but it is also possible that the term existed long before colonization and the use of English in Africa. Associated with health and wealth, love, and good fortune, she is celebrated throughout Africa and the African diaspora as a being of great spiritual power. Her non-African appearance is perhaps due to the fact that many Africans associated the early European traders and explorers with the sea and water spirits. For her followers today, howe