"Devotees identification with Mami Water in possession experiences and in ritual and praxis also appear to function as a means for Africans to transform themselves into foreigners, and foreigners into Africans.  In so doing, Africans resist their own transcription by foreigners to as 'the other,' and at the same time they negate the efforts of foreigners to resist assimilation into African Cultures by claiming them as African (Book 3)"

Henry Drewal has drawn from the evidence the conclusion that Mami Water's foreignness is essential to her nature and that in face, s/he is either an African representation of foreigners or of 'an exotic European water spirit (Book 3).'

The emphasis on foreigners, divine or human, in Mamy Wata ritual and praxis is evidence for Africans creative appropriation of 'the other' for themselves to allows Africans to gain access to the wealth Europeans and Indians possess, by involving either the foreigners themselves, personified as Mami Wata, or their divinities (Book 3).

Men often avoid fair-skinned and beautiful women passing in thought her to be dangerous and powerful.  Women are known to make herself unattractive to the point of ugliness in order to disassociate herself from the spirit (Book 1)