Who Is Mami Wata: My Encounters from Africa to Asia

Who Is Mami Wata: My Encounters from Africa to Asia

My father (center), my brother (left), and myself (right)in Kpando Volta Region, Ghana in 1996

Although I was born and raised as a third-generation Ewe Vodu priest, I didn’t learn or experience Mami Wata until adulthood. My father, who has run a Vodu shrine, Afrikan Magick Temple, in Ghana for over 29 years, was deeply skeptical about Mami Wata, warning us about “charlatan priests using the name Mami Wata, promising get-rich-quick solutions because of its popularity.” Despite hearing its name in songs, films, and stories growing up in Ghana, I never learned about it deeply as a boy.

Even today, Mami Wata represents a truly pan-African deity. Contemporary Afrobeats songs like Omah Lay’s “Holy Ghost” (2023), French-Guinean Gazo and Tiakola’s “Mami Wata” (2024), or the global African surf brand Mami Wata prove this. Scholars like Henry John Drewal (1988) have explored Mami Wata’s pan-African presence, iconography, and cultural significance across Africa.

Mami Wata, meaning Mother Water in pidgin English, refers to a pantheon of African marine deities from various water bodies. Although the term is relatively new, it includes age-old African and…