Sculpture of Mami-Wata - Culture Ewe

The figure represents the vodu goddes Mami-Wata, who appears seated on the floor, whilst apparantly protecting a small feminime figure which shalters between her legs and hands, which are placed upon it. In accordance with her habitual iconography, she presents long hair, here gathered into various plaits, and a snake-a symbol of water and fertility- around the neck. The piece is somewhat coarse but with a very expressive face. It is totally covered by white slip, which perhaps alludes to the pale skin of the goddness. As well as from its iconography, the sculpture is identified thanks to an inscription placed on the front of the piece at the bottom, in which can clearly be read "wata", together with other signs of a decorative nature distributed all around. This divinity, on other occasions designated "spirit or Queen of the water", "Queen of Women" or " The Mermaid", is the result of a strange mixture which combines Africa, Hindu and European influences. In spite of the link with feminity, the sexual identity of this deity is ambiguous because in relaity it is not a human being, but a spirit. It is usually represented as a seductive woman full of eroticism, with long hair and even with naked breasts. She is the mother of the waters, feared by fishermen beacuse she symbolises both the sea that provides and the destructive ocean. She grants her followers wealth, power and influence, but at the same time she is capricious and irascible: blood sacrifices are not enough to placate her anger, she demands perfumes, necklaces and liqueurs. The colours with which she is symbolically associated are red and white, which allude to creation and destruction. She communicates with humans via the "priestesses of the snakes", mamisi, who are prophets and healders. She has currently become a habitual topic in popular urban art and plastic dolls are offered on her altars, together with copies of Hindu divinities and reproductions of the said "Snake charmer" by Schleisinger.