Mami Wata Mother of The Waters

African Spirituality

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The African spiritual tradition of Mami Wata (Mother Water)

Source: https://www.nms.ac.uk/explore-our-collections/stories/scottish-history-and-archaeology/scotland-and-the-caribbean/dive-in/mami-wata/ 

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“The Sibyl [prophecies] was ancienter than all the Heathen Learning; that told real events; and whose words you have put into the mouths of your [Christian] prophets . . . “Roman theologian, Tertullian (c.160-c.230)

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Mami Wata (Mother Water) is an African spiritual tradition that encompasses worship of a pantheon of water spirits. Especially popular in South East Nigeria among the Efik, Ibibio, Igbo and Annang people, trading routes expanded Mami Wata's influence across a region stretching from Senegal to Zambia.

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With a female human upper half and a fish or serpent lower half, Mami Wata symbolises many aspects of life including good fortune, wealth, and healing but also the threat of destruction; she is sometimes depicted with a snake around her neck which represents both divinity and the art of divination. She is celebrated near to and in water through communal transformative rituals of music and dance that transferred history and memories from the African continent.

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The Mami Wata tradition survived the centuries-long Transatlantic slave system and, entwined with elements of Indigenous Caribbean worship, continued to express itself in a variety of ways across the Americas. That children were snatched from their mothers in their home communities in Africa or later in the Americas, makes Mami Water’s role as protector of mothers and children especially poignant. Her worship created a sense of strength and unity to fight against enslavement and retained respect for women as healers and leaders.

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Under slavery, African religions were demonized as ‘devilish’, and practices were carried out in secret or under cover of Christian ritual, due to the constant threat of punishment by deportation to other colonies or even death. Colonial laws, such as Jamaica’s ‘Obeah Act’, which are yet to be repealed, continue to criminalize African spiritual traditions to this day.

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But somehow Mami Wata finds a way to live on... even in some of the Caribbean’s most popular dance tunes. A traditional song, Ai Sa Si, from the Saamaka Maroon people of Suriname, remixed by soca star Alison Hinds from Barbados and Faluma, remains a classic party anthem across the region.

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MAMI WATA
From Myth to Divine Reality

Based on Book: Mami Wata: Africa’s Ancient God/dess Unveiled
By: Mamaissii Vivian Hunter Hindrew, M.Ed.

Source: https://thesevenworlds.wordpress.com/2014/09/19/mami-wata/ 

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From the outset, it must be emphatically stated that the name Mami Wata is plural, meaning it refers to a pantheon of ancient water deities.  Mami Wata are not part of the Yoruba pantheon of Orishas (i.e., Yemoja, Oshun etc.,), nor are their initiation ceremonies or means by which they are identified the same. The history of the priesthood of Mama Wata is overwhelmingly matriarchal, meaning that the Mami Watas are a part of the old African matriarchal, sacerdotal religious systems that once ruled and denominated Africa and many parts of the ancient world for thousands of years. 

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Anyone, from anywhere (the world over) can be born to Mami Wata, for any number of reasons. This article briefly discusses its ancient presence in Africa, and more particularly, Togo, West Africa and other West African regions where many Africans in the North American Diaspora descend. The mystical pantheon of Mami Wata deities are often pictured in their most ancient primordial aspects as a mermaid, half-human or either half-fish or half-reptile.

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Mermaids are not a recent phenomena in African history. For example, according to the Dogon’s creation myth, they attribute the creation of the world to mermaid/mermen like creatures whom they call Nommos. They claimed to have known about the existence of these mermaid-like divinities for more than 4000 years.

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Also according to Dogon mythology, the ancient home of these (originally crude) reptilian (half-woman/half-men/fish) pantheon of water spirits is believed to be the obscure and celebrated star system in the belt of Orion known as Sirius (or Sopdet, Sothis), more popularly known as the “Dog Star” of Isis.

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When asked where their ancestors obtained these stories of mermaids and mermen, they quickly point to ancient Egypt (Griaule, 1997, Winters 1985, p. 50-64, Temple 1999, p.303-304). Mermaid/mermen "nymphs" worshiped as goddesses and gods born from the sea are numerous in ancient African cultures history and spiritual mythology. Most were honored and respected as being "bringers of divine law" and for establishing the theological, moral, social, political, economic and, cultural foundation, to regulating the overflow of the Nile, and regulating the ecology i.e., establishing days for success at sailing and fishing, hunting, planting etc., to punishment by devastating floods when laws and taboos were violated.

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However, just as not all serpents were revered, not all mermaids/mermen were considered "good." In one story, the famed London, Naturalists Henry Lee (1883) recounts that "in the sea of Angola mermaids are frequently caught which resemble the human species. They are taken in nets, and killed . . . and are heard to shriek and cry like women (p. 22)."

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More contemporary stories and images show the deity as a human-like figure dressed in the latest fashions. Despite these manifestations being almost universally female in appearance, Mami Wata is actually a pantheon of water deities consisting of both male and female, such as the ancient Densu in the Togo Mami Wata pantheon, and Olokun of the Yoruba.

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These deities are understood to be non-human, so those who are born and initiated to them consider questions of gender and race unimportant. Today, the most frequently encountered image of Mami Wata is a long-haired woman with a snake circling her torso, based on a 19th century chromolithograph of a snake goddess.

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The name “Mami Wata,” was believed by Western scholars to be a derivative either directly from pidgin English, or is an anglicize version of the two words “mommy/mammy” and “water.” However, though phonetically similar to the English words, the name “Mami Wata” does not have its linguistic roots nor any cultural, mythological or historical origins in the West.

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Mami Wata are ancient, African deities whose primordial origins and name can be traced linguistically through the languages of Africa. According to some renowned scholars, the name “Mami Wata” was originally formulated in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and is derived from a composite of two African words, “Mami,” and “Wata.” Both words are rooted in the ancient Egyptian and Ethiopian (Coptic), Galla and Demotic languages.

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“Mami” is derived from “Ma” or ”Mama,” meaning “truth/wisdom,” and “Wata” is a corruption of not an English, but the ancient Egyptian word “Uati,” (or "Uat-ur" meaning ocean water), and the Khosian ("Hottentot") "Ouata" meaning “water.” Further, we discover from Mesopotamian myths that the first great water goddess in the story of the Creation Flood was known as "Mami," (Mami Aruru) as she was known in ancient Babylonian prayers as being the creator of human life (Dalley 2000, p. 51-16, Stone 1976, p. 7,219).

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“Uati” is perhaps the first of more than ten thousand appellations of Isis (logos/wisdom) in her oldest generative form as the Divine African Mother, or Sibyl (Mamissii/Amengansie) prophetess. Furthermore, Massey (1994, p. 248) informs us that the word “Wata, Watoa, Wat-Waat” which means “woman,” are all exact spellings in the ancient Sudanic languages spoken by the Baba, Peba and Keh-Doulan groups.

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In ancient Egypt, Uati was Isis’ oldest appellation, and was the first Mami goddess worshiped by the Egyptians as “the Holy Widow”, “the Genitrix,” the “Self-Creator”, “the one who reigned alone in the beginning”, “the one who brings forth the gods,” “she who was mateless”, and “the Virgin (meaning ‘unmarried’) Mother.” Thus, we have Isis originally worshiped as “Mama Uati” in ancient Egypt, and as Mami (Uati/Aruru) in ancient Mesopotamia, where she is first addressed and immortalized in prose by the gods. (Massey 1992, p. 204, 227).

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Mami Uati, is an ancient and sacred name which remarkably, after thousands of years, has survived as “Mami Wata,” in West African Vodoun and other African religious systems, having changed little in its original phonetic form. In Togo, West Africa, and in the United States, the priestesses of Mami Wata are called Mamisii (Mamissi, Mamaissii, Mammisi). Certain paths of high-priestesses who are called to open an Egbé (spirit house) are known as "Mamaissii-Hounons" which translates as “queen of the ship,” or literally “mother wisdom” (Alapini 1955, Massey 1994, p. 227, Rosenthal 1998, p. 116-117).

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This is an ancient name probably having its etymological roots in ancient Egypt, where we find the name Mammisi meaning “motherhood temple,” as the sacred shrine where the queen/ priestesses gives birth to spirit. (Walker 1983, p. 572-573).

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Mammisi temples are traditionally built as attachments to the main shrines. Above, temple of Hathor at Dendera, (Egypt) The names “Mammissii” and “Hathor” are actually one and the same, both symbolizing the sacred womb which only part of their sacerdotal function was giving birth to the solar gods who ruled as kings.  These temples are credited to the Greco-Roman Ptolemaic period.  However, they were actually refurbished by them, or are exact copies of the more ancient temples designed by the indigenous (black) Egyptian themselves.

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 “When, in the days of Mark Antony, soldiers were destroyed by storms, and owls and wolves invaded cities, when unexpected sun eclipses darkened the republic, when a thunderbolt damaged the scepter of Jupiter, and when animals brought forth creatures outside their species, the Sibylline oracles were made known with the result that some men became inspired and uttered prophecies.”   -Titus Livius (59 BC – AD 17) Roman Historian.