Case file · Sacred site
Yemọja of the Ogun River
Yemọja is a great Yoruba water orisha, patron of the Ogun River in Nigeria, who became the mother of the sea as Yemayá in Cuba and Iemanjá in Brazil.
1500 CE · 7.16, 3.35 · status: legend
The account
She is motherly and protective, cures infertility and is rich in cowrie shells, but floods like an angry river when roused. In the Atlantic diaspora she was linked to Our Lady of Regla in Cuba and to other Virgins, and is often pictured as a mermaid. Some priests say her fresh water helped Ọbàtálá mould humans from clay. The pin is at Abeokuta on the Ogun.
The sceptical view
A living religious tradition; the atlas records belief and practice.
Connections in the atlas
- Mermaids stop work on Zimbabwe's dams
- Festa de Iemanjá, Rio Vermelho
- Olokun, ruler of the ocean depths
- Mami Wata