18/01/2016
Local digital artist Kalifa Damani portrays Mami Wata. "Mermaid", by Kalifa Damani.
Stories of "water spirits" are prevalent all across the continent of Africa. Two of the most popular are the "Mami Wata" and the "Jengu".
Mami Wata (which may be translated as "Mother Water" or "Mistress Water") is a water spirit widely known across Africa and the African diaspora, and her origins are said to lie "overseas," although she has been thoroughly incorporated into local beliefs and practics.
Mami Wata is often portrayed with the head and torso of a woman and the tail of a fish, is at once beautiful, jealous, generous, seductive, and potentially deadly. She can bring good fortune in the form of money, and her power increased between the fifteenth and twentieth centuries, the era of growing international trade between Africa and the rest of the world. Her name, is pidgin English, a language developed to lubricate trade. Africans forcibly carried across the Atlantic as part of that "trade" brought with them their beliefs and practices honoring Mami Wata and other ancestral deities.
The Jengu, from Cameroon, differs in appearance from person to person, but it is said to be a beautiful, mermaid-like figure with long hair and a gap-toothed smile. A Jengu (plural "Miengu") is a water spirit in the traditional beliefs of the Sawa ethnic groups of Cameroon. They live in rivers and the sea and bring good fortune to worshippers. They are also healers and intermediaries between people and the spirits.
A Jengu cult has long enjoyed popularity in Cameroon. For the inland Bakweri, Jengu worship is a rite of passage for eight to ten-year old girls. During this time, the girl must wear a dress made of fern fronds and follow a series of taboos. After this period, she is a full member of the cult.
