Ripples in the Atlantic: Revisiting the Role of Water In Africans' Vision of Reality and Survival

Abstract

This research aims to connect Africans from the continent to Africans dwelling in the diaspora through ripples of retention. This thesis examines the role of water and African water divinities as markers of cultural and spiritual retention in African communities abroad and on the continent of Africa. Drawing mostly from secondary sources for the investigation, this work revisits texts already documented to uncover the role of water in the survival and lived reality of Africans. The investigation starts by the Nile in Kemet (Egypt in antiquity) and travels through time and space. By beginning at the source of African civilization, this study solidifies the role of water in the ontology and cosmology of African people that is found in antiquity, in a number of ethnic groups along the west coast of Africa, and in the diaspora. Analysis of figures like Oshun, Yemaya, and Mami Wata reveals that external factors, one’s lived reality, and one’s social and physical environment is reflected in the characteristics and attributes of the water divinity abroad. For water spirits must reflect the African people; thus, the tremendous social and geographical changes African people undergo throughout the centuries can be noted as variations in a collective African culture. While this work is conducted in three chapters, future investigation is needed to explore the emancipatory features of water to Africans that are still burdened by the effects of colonialism, assimilation, imperialism, and slavery. Yet, this research in its present state adds to the collection of works in the field of Africana Studies and Africology by reestablishing the strong link among Africans from around the globe.