Something that struck me about the portrayal of Omambala is how caring and maternal she and the mermaids she creates are. In a lot of folklore surrounding mermaids and water spirits, these spirits tend to be flighty and capricious, erring on the side of malicious towards humans. You wouldn’t trust these spirits to protect you or your watercraft and you’re probably more likely to believe that they’d drown you if they fell in.

With Omambala, her powers are used to transform the pregnant women tossed overboard from the slave ship into mermaids with the ability to swim and survive in their water, even extending that transformation to their unborn children. She manipulates the weather to stop the slave ships from sailing to their destinations. She watches over the slaves stored at the bottom of the ship when the weather is not enough to stop the traders. This portrayal of an ancestral water spirit reflects not just animistic but ancestral worship, as well. Water as the source of all life makes the ocean everyone’s ancestor. Ancestral worship involves the belief that our ancestors watch over and take care of us.

This class taught us to view the ocean not just as a lifeless road for ships or a blacktop for watersports, but as a living being with a history of its own. This stop-motion animation short invites us to not only see the ocean as a living being but as a family member or a common ancestor that connects and takes care of us all.