By Sicebise Msengana
Medusa, a real woman, was an Afrikan serpent-goddess said to have worn a pouch around her waist containing live snakes that represented wisdom and renewal. She purportedly carried the original Gorgon mask to frighten off the unskilled. It was painted red to symbolize the power of menstrual blood, featuring “gruesome glaring eyes, bared fanged teeth and, like the Hindu Goddess Kali, a protruding tongue” (Goddess Inspired). Her name derived from the Egyptian Maat (Truth), “which also gives us the words medicine, mathematics, and Sanskrit medha (female wisdom).” According to Blacked Out Through Whitewash, “The Gorgons were a trinity whose names were Medusa, Stheino, and Euryale—or Wisdom, Strength, and Universality.”
