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ArtistVisionary ceremonial textile painting inspired by Ghanaian sign painting and Indian devotional poster art. At the center stands a serene syncretic sea deity—the Indian King of Mami Wata—waist-deep in sacred waters. He has warm copper skin, a calm symmetrical face, sacred tilaka markings, and towering coiled hair like Shiva crowned with a golden halo. Long bead garlands and ritual necklaces hang over his bare chest, and he wears a flowing cream-and-gold dhoti. Behind him unfolds a radiant mandala of nineteen divine heads arranged in a great semicircle: human faces, blue-skinned deities, elephant-headed Ganesha forms, monkey faces reminiscent of Hanuman, and other celestial beings. From his shoulders extend many arms in perfect symmetry, each holding ritual objects—conch shells, bowls, bells, mirrors, flowers, drums, snakes, and sacred implements. Above the composition arches Dan Aida Wedo, the rainbow serpent, forming a brilliant multicolored canopy across a midnight sky filled with white stars and cosmic sparks. The background reveals a tranquil lagoon, rocky islets, and distant pyramidal hills. Two kneeling devotees in red-orange robes pray at the deity’s feet, offering reverence. The foreground is a marshy green landscape dotted with tufts of grass and small oil lamps glowing like votive offerings. Painted on cloth with visible brushwork, bold black outlines, jewel-like colors, and intricate folk-art detail. Highly symmetrical, spiritually charged, and visionary, uniting Ghanaian Mami Wata traditions, Haitian Damballa symbolism, and Hindu iconography into a single cosmic image of oceanic divinity.
Indian King of Mami Wata, 2005
Pigment, cloth; 267 cm (105”)
Fowler Museum X2005.5.1; Museum Purchase
Ghanaian artist Joseph Kossivi Ahiator, inspired by a Hindu print of Vishnu, created this complex painting of a host of Mami Wata spirits that he calls “India Spirits.” Kossivi was born with India spirits and he visits India often, sometimes in his dreams, sometimes while at the beach along Ghana’s coast. In 2005 Kossivi had vivid dreams of a nineteen-headed Indian king spirit together with his nine-headed queen. He dreamed that he was swimming with them in the ocean and thereafter called the male “King of Mami Wata” and his queen “NaKrishna.” He has gathered these spirits under the ancient African celestial rainbow serpent deity Dan Aida Wedo, thus forging links between Africa, India, the sea, and ultimately the African Atlantic where Dambala Wedo continues to be venerated by Haitians and others.
