Family Intervention

The second case involves an entire family. The informant is a middle-aged man
of the Loma tribe who had one attack of severe mental disorder connected with
Mammy Water, but his been entirely free of symptoms since 1961. He is the
second son of a Loma clan chief, who was regarded as a famous country Zo.

His father told him of having seen Mammy Water for the first time while
he was clearing bush one afternoon. She beckoned to him from behind the
bushes. He went to her and they had intercourse. His father was a simple rice
farmer then. ‘From the time, Mammy Water would reveal herself to my father in
the night. He would expect her visit every Friday night. When the day came he
would drive woman from the house. Mammy Water made him rich. He became clan
chief, had more than twenty wives and nearly sixty children. Twice every year
he made sacrifice to Mammy Water. He would kill a white sheep beside the river
and let the blood run into the water. Then he would say prayers inside the
river and wash himself. That night the sheep would be cooked and the whole
family would have to eat some of it. He died in 1942, but was not very old
then. They say he spoiled the law Mammy Water gave him. I was in school at the
time. Since then this spirit always attacks some of us, and each time we lost
our senses over it. Three of my brothers have had it already.’

The informant was married, worked as a government inspector and had
three children before he had his first contact with Mammy Water in 1960. ‘A
sudden spell just got on me, like a vision. She looked like a young white
woman, very pretty with long hair way down at the back. She asked me to go
with her. We were just playing so I said let’s go together. She took me to her
mansion under the water and we had sex together. She gave me an order not to
drink or smoke. There was no trouble then until I started to drink cane juice.
I began to drink heavily. She came to me in my dream and told me plain, ‘you
can’t obey my order so I will give you hardship.’ We started fighting then and
I woke up. Since that time I lost my senses altogether. They used to say I
would cuss the people, tear off my clothes and run through the village. Once
time they say I took all the money I had save (it was nearly$1500) and threw
it in the swamp. I could hear peoples’ voices but I couldn’t see them. I had
no appetite to eat and I could hardly sleep at all...Since that time all my
little money, my little property I had, it’s all gone. I’m still struggling
yet. They say I was out of my senses for ten months. My people carried me to a
country Zo who gave me medicine to drink and put in my eyes. Sometimes he
would wash me with the medicine. After the first two months the sickness was
not too heavy on me. After I recovered, my friend persuaded me to change
my working place because the people there may have poisoned me, and I have
been a clerk ever since. I paid forty dollars for my treatment.

Two years after he had recovered he consulted a 'sand player' lose his
senses again one day. The 'sand player' told him he was being followed by
Mammy Water and she wanted something he had not done. She wanted him to
sacrifice a white sheep by the river and let the blood run into the water.
Then, he was informed, Mammy Water would appear to him again and grant him his
wish--to be rich. Since then he has had dreams of her each month.
She takes him to her underwater mansion and they talk. He has asked to
have intercourse with her but she tells him to wait until later. He
thinks that she will have intercourse with her once he has found the money to
go to his village and carry out the sacrifice. He has not touched
alcohol or&tobacco since he recovered from his attack of mental illness.
Since 1960 his wife been living with one of his brothers at the Firestone
Rubber Plantation. Although he denies that Mammy Water has ordered him
not to have intercourse with any woman but her, he says: ' I don't go to
Firestone very much. In fact I don't like to deal with women these days.
Sometimes my wife has a boyfriend, but I don't worry over that. I don't
bother her too much because she's been with me a long time..' He feels
confident that he will never lose his senses again; 'because I have gone
through the native doctor's process. However, for further reassurances
he asked for medicine for the purpose of preventing any relapse; He
wanted to keep up his contact with Mammy Water, but without risking another
attack of psychosis

This man originally came to the Center to arrange treatment for his younger
brother, aged 3, who was under close guard at the Monrovia prison; The
brother had broken into the presidential suite of the Executive Mansion and
declared to the President that his term of office was finished and that he was
proclaiming himself the new President of Liberia; This brother had been
working very effectively at the pharmacist's assistant until that time, living
quietly by himself; He had been experiencing recurrent dreams of Mammy
Water for years, but she had recently ordered him to take over the Presidency
and save Liberia from chaos by making everyone equal.

Testimonies from Liberia

Mammy Water: Folk Beliefs and Psychotic Elaborations in Liberia