Yemayá

The Orisha of the sea and motherhood.

In Santería Yemayá is the orisha of the sea and motherhood. She is seen as the mother of many orishas and of all living beings: just as life came from the ocean, so it comes from her. Her name goes back to the Yoruba Yemoja, often explained as mother whose children are the fish.

In Africa Yemoja was connected with the river Ogun in Nigeria. In Cuba and elsewhere in the Americas she became the goddess of the sea, perhaps because the crossing of the ocean was so decisive for the enslaved. Her colours are blue and white, her number is seven, and shells, fish, waves and the moon belong to her. She is connected with the Catholic Virgen de Regla, patron saint of the harbour of Havana.

Yemayá is described as loving, protective and nurturing, but also as powerful and unpredictable, like the sea itself: calm and rocking, or stormy and overwhelming. She protects women, pregnant women and children, and is invoked for fertility and worries about the family. Many initiates bring her offerings at the sea, such as flowers or melon.

According to the tradition Yemayá is often recognised in dreams by the sea, blue and white, a pregnant or motherly woman, waves or shells. A calm sea is read as protection and comfort, a wild sea as emotions or a situation bigger than you. Dreams about pregnancy or children are sometimes connected to her in this light.

Such a dream is discussed in the tradition with a padrino or madrina. Dreamkin does not establish that a dream comes from Yemayá; we describe how such dreams are often read in Santería.