Drawing Challenge #36: Mermay

[minoanmiss]

Title: Mami Wata
Artist: minoanmiss
Rating: G
Fandom: The Religions of the African Diaspora
Characters/Pairings: Mami Wata and her Snake
Content Notes: warning: artist has a sociopolitical essay to go with this one





So one aspect of this challenge I wanted to do was mermaids from
"other cultures". As a Black woman from the African diaspora living in the US, I'm pretty thoroughly soaked in the US version of Western Culture.

My explorations led me to a goddess from my own ancestral culture whom I had never heard of before. Mami Wata, mermaid water goddess of the African diaspora. I felt at once cheated and revivified to learn of Her, and I had to draw Her.

(I owe Her another drawing. I never got Her symbolic mirror into this one.)

Comments

[minoanmiss]

Oh goodness, thank you. I actually don't draw most of the patterns I use (although I did draw the one for the deep sea mermaid), but collect them from free art sources and archaeology articles. This one is from Ancient Egypt.