One of the most recognizable images of an African water goddess is based on a mass-produced 1880s German poster of a snake charmer. That verifiable fact sits at the heart of this episode on Mami Wata, the spirit of water, wealth, and dangerous beauty venerated across West, Central, East, and Southern Africa. The conversation traces her name through coastal Creole languages, her identity as a shapeshifting foreign outsider, and the imported perfumes, sunglasses, talcum powder, and sodas offered at her shrines.

The episode follows her evolution as a cultural sponge absorbing global contact: a Sapi ivory mermaid carved between 1490 and 1530, Portuguese twin-tailed mermaids in Benin, a European ship's figurehead enshrined in Ijebu Ode, the Hamburg chromolithograph of the snake charmer Nala Damajanti, and the Hindu prints brought by Indian merch ...