African Diaspora Religion
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A scholarly examination of the simbi, the Kongo water-spirit that survived the Middle Passage to become the serpent-lwa of Haitian Vodou and the cymbee of the drowned South Carolina Lowcountry. Tracing cosmology, catastrophe, and reclamation, this field study reads the spirit dwelling at the threshold between the living and the dead.
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Yemaya, the Yoruba water goddess, transformed from a river deity in Africa to the oceanic Mother of the Diaspora in the Americas. Syncretized with the Virgin Mary, her worship survived the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, flourishing in Candomblé and Santería. She embodies motherhood, fertility, and female power, governing the moon’s tides and human creativity. Celebrated in…