Yemayá

Cuban Santería · deity · Cuban Santería traditional religion; continuing · deity

Yemayá is the oricha of the sea and the archetypal mother, 'mother whose children are the fish', from whose watery womb much of the Lucumí pantheon is said to have issued. She rules the surface of the ocean and is at once the nurturing source of all life and, when angered, a drowning, storm-tossed force. Her colors are blue and white, her number seven, and her emblems are seashells, a fan, oars, and a small anchor kept in a blue-and-white tureen. She manifests in several avatars keyed to moods of the sea, from the deep and majestic Awoyó to the turbulent Okute. She is sister to the river-oricha Ochún and mother or foster-mother of Changó. In Cuba she is syncretized with Our Lady of Regla (Nuestra Señora de Regla), the black Madonna venerated across the bay from Havana.

Children

Domains

Powers

Epithets

Relations

Sources

Open in the interactive app →