Mama-Ji

The name Mama-Ji also exists outside Neil Gaiman's book American Gods, but I could not find much more about it than that it is another name for Kali or Kali-Ma (except for one source in which the mother of a family was lovingly called Mama-Ji, but this probably also points to the mother goddess Kali). Of course the perfume Mama-Ji was named after the American incarnation or appearance of Kali as she appears in this book. There are series of perfumes named after characters from several books by Neil Gaiman, I earlier wrote about The Marquis de Carabas from the book Neverwhere.


I have wanted to try Mama-Ji for a long time, but since these series are special there are no regular imps (samples) of any of these scents. In fact I have read American Gods because of Mama-Ji whose perfume I still had not smelled. But I have now, and it is as good as I hoped it would be. I shall one day need a bottle of this.

Shadow saw the old woman, her dark face pinched with age and disapproval, but behind her he saw something huge, a naked woman with skin as black as a new leather jacket, and lips and tongue the bright red of arterial blood. Around her neck were skulls, and her many hands held knives, and swords, and severed heads.

Spices, cardamom, nutmeg, and flowers.

To me Mama-Ji is sweet and spicy and very comforting, obviously more the mother part than the destroyer part.