Mami Wata figure

Object Details

Anang artist

Ibibio artist

Label Text

Depictions of Mami Wata testify to the dynamism and creativity with which Africans respond to imported ideas and images. Mami Wata is recognized today by peoples throughout Africa as a powerful water spirit. Her origins can be traced to a late 19th century lithograph of a female snake charmer in Hamburg, Germany. In the 1950s this image was reprinted in a calendar from an Indian company that was circulated widely in western and central Africa.

In southeast Nigeria among the Anang Ibibio, figures and masks of Mami Wata blended with ideas of earlier water spirits and deities. She was considered a giver of wealth and was also linked with curing problems of infertility. Her brightly painted images often include long fiber tresses.

Description

Wood torso of a female with upraised arm holding one snake in her proper right hand, draped over her shoulders with the tail paralleling her proper left arm. A second snake circles her waist with its head under the woman's chin. The hair is made of raffia and the face and arms are painted pink with a blue blouse and a white belt. The snakes are black with small white spots and larger yellow spots.

Provenance

Flora Kaplan, New York, purchased in the main market, Port Harcourt, Nigeria, Spring 1983 to 2009

Exhibition History

Currents: Water in African Art, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., June 2016-ongoing

Conversations: African and African American Artworks in Dialogue - From the Collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art and Camille O. and William H. Cosby, Jr., National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, November 7, 2014-January 24, 2016

Mami Wata: Arts for Water Spirits in Africa and the African Atlantic World, Fowler Museum, University of California, Los Angeles, April 6-August 10, 2008; Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin, Madison, October 18, 2008-January 11, 2009; National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., April 1-July 26, 2009; Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University, September 29, 2010-January 2, 2011

Published References

Kreamer, Christine Mullen and Adrienne L. Childs (eds). 2014. Conversations: African and African American Artworks in Dialogue from the Collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art and Camille O. and William H. Cosby, Jr. Washington, D.C.: National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, p. 115, pl. 45.

Salmons, Jill. 2008. "Mammy Wata among the Annang Ibibio." Mami Wata: Arts for Water Spirits in Africa and Its Diasporas, ed. by Henry J. Drewal. Los Angeles: Fowler Museum of Cultural History, University of California, p. 125, no. 6.10.

Content Statement

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Image Requests

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Credit Line

Gift of Flora Edouwaye S. Kaplan

Late 20th century

Object number

2009-16-1

Restrictions & Rights

Usage conditions apply

Type

Figure

Medium

Wood, paint, raffia

Dimensions

H x W x D: 67.5 x 53 x 28 cm (26 9/16 x 20 7/8 x 11in.)

Geography

Nigeria

See more items in

National Museum of African Art Collection

Exhibition

Currents: Water in African Art

On View

NMAfA, Third Level Corridor

National Museum of African Art

Topic

snake

Mami Wata

male

female

Record ID

nmafa_2009-16-1

Metadata Usage (text)

Usage conditions apply

GUID (Link to Original Record)

http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ys7cccb826f-d66c-45dc-80cb-1e29b2fc53bd