we had two different cultures- african and then Afro-caribbean water spirits. while they had their differences, it was very interesting to see how similar they were to one another. Both of the main water spirits were mothers, which I felt could be connected to how water itself is a source of life, and how mothers / the feminine is also connected to life because birth.

and then that leads into a segway about Yemaja being a mother and then giving birth (after being raped) to all sorts of bodies of water, among other things like gods of diseases and iron and war, but also vegetables and lightning. But you could argue that water is necessary for all of these things to thrive (war im not so sure about)… water is necessary for life. water had to be created out of somewhere, much like how women bear children (which one could argue is like making something out of nothing), so there’s that parallel. to be honest (and sorry another tangent) there’s something kinda fucked up about how “woman suffers at the hands of a man and gives birth to a bunch of interesting demigods” because we see a similar parallel with medusa being decapitated and giving birth to pegasus and someone else.

weird how mermaid stories are so quick to go to women suffering for the sake of others… then again i think that’s more tied to how femininity is viewed in the lens of the patriarchy? its a little different because you have maman dlo, who seems to thrive in spite of her femininity (but then also takes pretty young women to become pretty mermaids…) interesting bits of folklore this week.