ABC 24: Mamy Wata and the Monster

It's already time to jump into the November calendar for Anansi Book Club (plus you can see all the Anansi Book Club posts at this blog, plus the previous calendars). I am super-excited about this week's book because it offers to many themes to talk about: Mamy Wata and the Monster, written and illustrated by Véronique Tadjo.

As you can see already from the cover, this is a beautifully designed book with gorgeous artwork on every page that is an important part of the message that the story communicates. For example, here are the animals who all come to drink from the waters:

Notice the snake there off to the side? The word snake or serpent never appears in the text of the story, but the snake is an important part of Mamy Wata's iconography, and to learn more about that, I would urge everyone to take a look at the detailed article about Mami Wata at Wikipedia. The article covers a whole range of topics: the historical and contemporary importance of Mami Wata across many regions of the African continent as well as her importance in the Diaspora, the ways in which she is worshiped, the stories that are told about her, and also the ways in which she is depicted in paintings and sculptures. For example, here is a beautiful Mami Wata figurine form Nigeria:

The Smithsonian Institute has an online display about Mami Wata: Water Spirits in Africa and Its Diaspora, which is the source for this beautiful scultpure by John Goba of Sierra Leone:

Because of her wide range of powers and domains, Mamy Wata can be involved in many different kinds of stories, and in this story Tadjo has brought together two different genres in a really ingenious way: this both a swallowing-monster type of story, and it is also a fairy-tale type of story. Today I'll write about the swallowing-monster aspect of the story: that is the monster of the title! See the big tongue in the big mouth with the sharp teeth? That is for swallowing people and animals with (and, yes, the monster has just one eye):

You will find swallowing-monster types of stories all over Africa, especially in southern Africa; see this useful article for more information: The Swallowing Monster in Southern African Folklore by Samuel A Dseagu. We've met some swallowing monsters already in Anansi Book Club like in the story Masilo and Masilonyana and The Giant Ant, just to name two.

The focus of Tadjo's story is what happens when this dreadful monster begins swallowing the people and animals who come to drink from her waters:

**There will be spoilers beyond this point: you have been warned.** Normally in a swallowing-monster story, there is a heroine or hero, often an unlikely character, who slays the monster and cuts it open, either from the inside or from the outside, releasing the people and animals who have been swallowed. That is not what happens in Tadjo's story, however. In this story, the monster is not a monster at all, but someone who has been changed into a monster. Because Mamy Wata does not attack the monster but instead seeks to understand him and becomes his friend, and that breaks the spell: he becomes the person he was before, and everyone that he swallowed re-emerges. So it is a happy ending for everyone, including the former monster.

One of the things I like about swallowing-monster stories is when all the swallowed people and animals re-emerge... and this time, it is not because the monster is dead, but because he is transformed. This fairy-tale motif of someone who has been transfigured is found in many African stories, and now Tadjo has crossed that with the swallowing-monster story: it's a beautiful combination!

You might also recall the great combination that led Tadjo to create the book we read last month: Lord of the Dance: An African Retelling. For that story, Tadjo combined the words and themes of an English hymn, "The Lord of the Dance" of the title, with the music and dance and masking traditions of the Senufo people of western Africa. You can read all about that in last month's blog post.

You can also find some more books by Tadjo at the Internet Archive, like this poetry anthology: Talking Drums, and also this wonderful book of stories that she edited and also illustrated: Chasing the Sun: Stories from Africa.

And there are lots of videos at YouTube too; here she is talking about children's literature:

Meanwhile, here's the link to this week's book: enjoy!

Mamy Wata and the Monster
by Véronique Tadjo