“Sea maiden with stars” by Karin Miller
Mermaids (1000 BC- ) are creatures of the sea that look like women, often with a fish’s tail instead of legs. Best known in the West is the tragic mermaid in Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid” (1836), made untragic by Disney in a film of the same name in 1989.
Mermen are their male counterparts but hardly anyone ever talks about them.
Mermaids were sometimes seen as good luck – in China the ones with purple tails were said to smell of happiness – but they were often bad news. Blackbeard and other pirates, for example, avoided them as having the power to make men give up their gold and drag them down to the bottom of the sea. In Shakespeare and Homer they drew men to their destruction with their songs.
Things to see in St. John’s Harbour, Newfoundland, 1610
Some reported sightings of mermaids:
- 1493: in the Caribbean by Columbus
- 1609: in the Hudson River (near present-day New York City) by Henry Hudson
- 1610: St John’s Harbour, Newfoundland by Richard Whitbourne
- early 1700s: by Blackbeard
- late 1800s: near Vancouver and Victoria in British Columbia, Canada
- 2009: off the coast of Kiryat Yam, Israel
- 2012: near Gokwe and Mutare, Zimbabwe
Columbus saw them well enough to report that they are ugly, unlike in their pictures.
Hoaxes:
- 1500s: Jenny Hanivers in Europe, made out of the bodies of rays or skates
- 1842: the Fiji mermaid, which appeared in P.T. Barnum’s museum in New York. It was made out of a baby monkey and a fish sewn together. Robert Ripley later copied the idea and put one in his sideshow at Coney Island.
“Yemanja”, by Karisma
Mermaids appear in stories, art and religion all over the world: Europe, the Middle East, India, Cambodia, Java, the Philippines, China, Japan, the Caribbean, West Africa, etc. Narnia had mermaids. The sirens of Homer and Ovid are often pictured as mermaids. So sometimes is the Yoruba orisha Yemanja, called La Sirène in Haiti.
The earliest recorded mermaid is from 1000 BC in the story of the goddess Atargatis, mother of Queen Semiramis of Assyria.
According to science there is no proof of mermaids. The National Ocean Service of the American government stated in 2012:
No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found. Why, then, do they occupy the collective unconscious of nearly all seafaring peoples? That’s a question best left to historians, philosophers, and anthropologists.
Things that may have led to mermaid stories:
- Manatees and dugongs, sea mammals that at a distance might look like mermaids. They were in fact called mermaids as late as the 1800s.
- People born with sirenomelia, who are born with their legs stuck together. They rarely live more than a day or two because their kidneys and bladders are screwed up too.
- Ama divers, who can stay under water a long time. Most are women. When they come back up they breathe in a deep sighing that the Japanese call the “song of the sea”. It is something women can train themselves to do but is hard for men. In the past the practice may have been more widespread.
See also:
Like this post. Mythical creatures always have been my favorite thing to read about.
I co-sign with mary burrell. Mermaids have always interested me. A few years ago, there was a popular Philippine tv drama about a mermaid. It was a remake called “Dyesebel”. The actresses who played the mermaids were very pretty.
http://i48.tinypic.com/o06s8w.jpg
http://i48.tinypic.com/drf482.jpg
I looked at manatees from a distance, and in my opinion, they resemble mermaids like I resemble Hulk Hogan.
If mermaids were actually portrayed to look like manatees, that would once and for all end the myth of them.
I suppose no one talks about mermen because the idea of them just seems, I don’t know…creepy?
The Mami Wata–Yoruba for “water maiden” shows up often in West African literature; however she is not necessarily half fish/human, she is a very beautiful young woman who can grant fertility to barren women in return for something else.
She can also give a man prosperity in return for his love.
I also love reading about mythological creatures and the tales surrounding them. It’s fascinating and really stirs the imagination. I think the fact that my brother and I both believe we saw a mythological creature when we were children also piques my curiosity.
Well there is that creepy merman on Spongebob lol!
In many southern African Cultures, mermaids are always part and parcel of folklore. When talking to elders, a lot of them will tell you stories about them and some claim even to have seen them or know someone who has. Before reading this passage I thought mermaids were ones of the so-called “African superstitious beliefs”.
@ Brothawolf
I have heard that Manatee Explanation several times but I have never bought it myself. For one thing, the descriptions themselves rule it out. Columbus, for example, was close enough to see their faces. So was Whitbourne:
Manatees look nothing like that.
The range is also wrong – I added a map to the post showing where manatees and dugongs live
From my perspective The Little Mermaid is quite tragic. If you know what I mean.
http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pennymermaid3_2375.png
I think mermaids would be more interesting if they had a fish top and woman’s bottom:
(http://www.fleen.com/uploads/2011/02/reverse.jpg)
Hopefully, a better picture of the above tragedy
http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/215552517_ZppPp-L-2.jpg
@satanforce, SomeGuy
“Ama divers, who can stay under water a long time. Most are women. When they come back up they breathe in a deep sighing that the Japanese call the “song of the sea”. It is something women can train themselves to do but is hard for men. In the past the practice may have been more widespread.”
Yes, it would be more difficult for men.
Perhaps this mermaid-like ability is linked to orgasmic potential, as there’s a recurring theme of women’s affinity with another sea creature, the octopus – side by side the mermaid – in some mythologies, it seems.
I used to collect Japanese Shunga and noticed it then.
Traditional:
http://weheartit.com/entry/5837340
Modern:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/77242869/japanese-mermaid-art
But the free-divers who can keep their breath the longest, are all men. Bigger lungs, higher capacity. Nothing to do with orgasms, which I agree, women have a higher capability. Besides, amas were well known, only foreign seafarers would have made the mistake.
I always thought the highest likeness of human face of all sea creatures was that of the ray: http://pcdn.500px.net/3000274/e3e889b76ac2843b98d3b113667056549a380676/4.jpg
I personally think that during long sea journeys many sailors were so desperate of female company (and malnourished, tired, possibly delirious), that they started seeing the object of their desire in marine animals/mammals. A bit like mirages of the seas. Human beings have the innate tendency of seeing forms and patterns everywhere, even in totally random context, like seeing Holy Mary’s face in a burnt toast.
@Hannu
But, I did not say that men do not have orgasmic capacity, did I?
I agreed with Abagond: more difficult, but not impossible. Competitive, much?
I think we may be talking about 2 different things.
Malnourished and probably delirious men seeing things…
And women who live and fish by the sea who are also capable of devising their own erotic fantasy….see what I mean>>>>
(Very) loosely linked to mermaids, is the legend the Sea Serpent, which is thought of originated from sailors seeing surfacing Oar Fish. What a magnificent creature:
http://simbania.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/1230588103myxdskx.jpg
@Bulanik
I did not try imply that you meant men have no orgasmic capacity. I don’t think it is related at all to the mermaid lore. Just making a notice.
I suspect the octopus fantasy is a male fantasy. Not sure about the other artists depicting similar encounters, but Hokusai was surely a male. I could be all wring here. After all, octopuses having sex with female divers sounds a bit far fetched. Female sexuality has traditionally been surpressed, especially in Japan.
Mermaid lore is a global trend, not just a japanese one (especially if you think that Japan was very isolated for centuries). But like in the case of most mythologies, the original source or inspiration is nearly impossible to find.
I think the mermaid myth can be attributed to the obvious olfactory references concerning the opposite gender.
What is wrong with you? I guess you read Bulanik’s post and thought sushi , huh?
In Brazil, there is the story of the Amazon dolphin , who at night, turns into a man , dressed in white with a white hat, and , he comes into the river villages to seduce the women
Im always fascinated to see dolphins, which come only occaisionaly, there is something almost human to hear them breathe in the water
sorry, I thought I had entered B. R. in the id, that is me above
It may not be Politically Correct in today’s world, but I think the reference is fairly obvious. Sometimes the cigar is not actually a cigar.
^ I have no problem with political incorrectness, as long as it is in the form of disrespecting black women (sometimes, a monkey is actually a monkey) or dissing white people. Anything else is just wrong
@Hannu
Yes, you’re right about the global trend, you’re right about the origins being impossible to find. And, the ray’s ‘face’ is pretty anthropomorphic – it really resembles a human face.
To clarify, the article says that many of those Japanese divers were women, and this was so because it was more difficult for men to learn this kind of diving, not that they couldn’t learn it, or that when a man learned it, he wasn’t really good at it. Or better than most women – something which I don’t doubt at all.
Who can say whether the octopus-fantasy is a male-only fantasy? Could it be any less far-fetched than seeing a creature in the water and thinking it is a woman who is half-fish?
Also, suppression of sexualit doesn’t shut down sexual fantasy. People will fantacize in the privacy of their own minds no matter what society says.
Fantasy is fantasy, not actual ‘doing’. This is why I’m not sure you can rule out
this this octopus-fantasy is unrelated to the mermaid lore (in Japanese culture).
(You’re also right about Hokusai, but his daughter painted too, and many drawings/paintings that are ‘anonymous’ were not always done by men.)
I wonder whether human beings the world over like mermaid stories because it appeals to our earliest origins?
What if human beings are descended from some kind of aquatic ape?
Wiki says that:
It’s not a proven theory, but it hasn’t been squashed either – because it’s a hypothesis that is generally ignored.
I don’t know what the scientific thinking is here, but I believe one theory put forward these days is that Africa was most probably covered with vast bodies of water at the time humans first evolved. Perhaps many scientists now acknowledge that the savannah theory is defunct, preferring the midway “mosaic theory” that the landscape was a patch work of forest, grassland and lake.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_ape_hypothesis#Reception
SomeGuy:
I think the mermaid myth can be attributed to the obvious olfactory references concerning the opposite gender.
Satanforce:
What is wrong with you? I guess you read Bulanik’s post and thought sushi , huh?
LOL…..but it reminded me about the creams for the lads…
http://unclestinky.wordpress.com/2008/01/25/nodoro-eliminates-mgo-male-genital-odor/
…all because the olfactory sense is more sensitive in the female…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1796447.stm
So how do mermaids differ from sea nymphs?
@phoebeprunelle
Aren’t the sea nymphs restricted to the 50 “daughters” of the Greek sea deities (Neredes or something). I believe they are the hand maidens of Poseidon, who is helpful to sailors?
^Bulanik,
I don’t know i’m asking. I watch too much Charmed.
Bulanik:
i thought I was merely offering other alternatives, not being competetive ‘much’ nor little. By no means did I try to ridicule your idea.
If that was the impression people got, I apologize in general and especially you, Bulanik. Your vast knowledge and understanding has impressed me. Believe, it was not my intention to undermine you. Maybe my habit of having an online discussion needs an improvement.
I apologize everyone for the inconvienince. It’s just that mythology is my quilty pleasure, but by no means do I try to claim any expertise in this fascinating subject.
@Hannu – “I thought I was merely offering other alternatives, not being competetive ‘much’ nor little.”
Oh no! Not at all. Your alternatives were way better!
You have made me re-consider all together, and I wonder now, whether we are looking at this from the wrong angle.
What about: the body’s tolerance to cold water?
The waters around Japan are pretty cold.
Women possess more subcutaneous fat.
From stories about mermaids in Northern Europe as far as Russia, the story goes that mermaids had legs when on land, but used animals skins (an early form of wet suit?) that looked like a fish-tail under water.
Do you know of similar myths?
There are also stories that humans are the descendants of mermaids and fishermen. But maybe these stories refer to ordinary women who dived frequently for plentiful and nutritious food sources under water…
I was watching an old film of marine explorer Jacques Cousteau not long ago, and Cousteau said that once women would dive completely naked for clams and crabs in Tierra del Fuego, the most southerly tip of South America. The waters around these islands’ are cold: 42F or less. So, how is it that women divers were able to dive in very cold waters near the Arctic and Antarctic circles?
It seems women possess a higher percentage of subcutaneous fat all around their bodies that protect them from the cold in the water. In much the same way, marine animals like dolphins and seals have a layer of blubber to keep them warm. It seems men store fat differently, and – do they also run the risk of infertility because the reproductive organs are external, and sperm dies during prolonged exposure to these levels of cold underwater? Idk if this is correct.
In 1987 an American women swam across the Bering Strait, from the U.S. to the Soviet Union with water temperatures down to 38°F. She swam without a wet-suit, wearing only a normal swim suit, cap and goggles. AFAIK, this is harder for men to do.
Hannu, I wonder if – along with the widespread suppression of female sexuality that you mentioned early – this was combined with other social restrictions and punishments? Suppression such as: restricting the freedom of movement, women working independently, in nakedness, the associations made with witchcraft… we know what the Church did to witches during its history of witch-hunting in Europe, don’t we? They were terrorized and tortured to death. The women healers and herbalists were wiped out during this era and replaced by male doctors, exclusively.
And in other lands where the Abrahamaic religions prevailed, and where missionaries went – weren’t women forced to cover up, stay on land, at home and forget all that shameful diving naked nonsense? Could any of this have contributed significantly to the stories and ‘mysteries’ of today?
Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long Distance Swimmer
@ Bulanik
Having worked in the porn industry, I can assure you, women can be far worse than men in that department.
@ Someguy – this is indeed true of that industry.
For several months once I worked on a project that brought me into contact with the Dutch side of it, and I made a few friends who were sex workers that sometimes did film-work. It became pretty clear from from listening that they often shared their bacterial infections among each other (Gardnerella vaginalis, in particular), and apparently, the olfactory evidence of this was always as its most gross after filming ‘activity’.
These bacteria often recur after anti-biotics, and were a permanent feature and hazard of working life for many of these women, and men.
That being said I’m not sure if I would conclude – from the pornographic industry alone – whether odour and degree of malodour – are actually ‘quantifiable’ purely on gender lines…. After all, an individual’s level of personal health-hygiene-habit has a greater bearing on odour or, degree of malodour, than whether one is a female or a male.
Arthurian Legend is also a story of mermaids.
Hans Christian Anderson, Homer and Shakespreare stories of the mermaid are well-known, however it could be argued that the legend of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table is the most powerful and enduring in the western world.
Legend says that as a child, Lancelot (du Lac – of the Lake) was left by the shore of the lake, where he was found by Vivien, the Lady of the Lake, a mermaid. And, it is the mermaid that holds the secrets of the sword of power, Excalibur.
I believe in mermaids…i also believe in fairies, wood nymphs,vampires etc…
hey these things exist
REALLY?!
Anyway, they didn’t have no black mermaids in Pirates Of the Caribbean. SUCKS!
The earliest recordings of mermaids are of the greek lore, so I believe. The origin of mermaids is a fascinating one, one that seems to be as old as the maritime history of humans.
@Bulanik
No, I have no knowledge of land faring mermaids. Very interesting and fascinating idea. I suppose it might be intertwined with the human race’s habit (and fear) of the connection with the more primitive, animal side of us. Much like the werewolf lore, being afraid of the animal ancestry within us.
After all, mermaids are mostly depicted of being treacherous (like women are often seen), luring men with their feminine charms, but eventually inviting them to their wet grave in the arms of the cold ocean.
Might it be another version of men’s lust for the opposite sex as well as the assumed danger of female sexual power?
Interestingly, in the much known “Arabian Nights” collection of stories of different eras, female sexuality is seen (and tested in one of the stories) to be stronger than that of the man.
@Hannu L
True enough what you say about human fearfulness.
My feeling is that people who lived next to water found:
1. nutrition in the form of sea vegetables (seaweed) and fish/shell, as well as
2. a way of making a living from this sort of harvest under water.
Women – because of anatomical features that gave them natural insulation against cold-water conditions – often did this this kind of work more than their menfolk.
We can speculate that it was common sense to go without clothing, because once on-land their skin would dry quickly: unlike wet clothes which stay wet and cold. I would also guess and say that divers found that using flippers on their was also helpful. In fact, I would go so far as to say that divers only had to look at the creatures that swam in the waters to realize that using a “monofin” (instead of flipper for each foot) was the the most efficient and effective kind of swim-aid for a human diver.
Even today freedivers know that by slowly oscillating the surface of the monofin when submerged, they can generate large amounts of thrust even with small or slow movements. This preserves energy which helps with breathholding (apnea).
@Hannu
Making a monofin is not the most difficult thing in the world, and it’s possible that people of the past could have made them from leather or thin, bendable pieces of wood that they could have shaped and stuck together.
The modern day monofin was made popular in the 1970s by a Ukrainian swimming club, and have been used for finswimming competitions ever since. It probably started off as a fun event where competitors attached artificial fish tails to their feet, but the power and speed produced by these monofins was so impressive, it became a regular event, and was adopted by other swimming clubs.They quickly encountered a problem, because the sheer power of the monofin created such a large bow-wave in the swimmer’s face that they couldn’t breathe. To get around this, they had to use a snorkel to breathe in air, which means the monofin is better suited to swimming underwater!
What happened was that freedivers adopted it because they found the monofin gave them speed and power swimming underwater without their using too much effort. This is very important to freedivers because the more effort they use, the quicker they use up the air in their lungs, forcing them to come to the surface sooner than they would like.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Czay-ZPWJ8k/Ty1TesIdBxI/AAAAAAAABv4/QF83929rgLE/s1600/Humpback.jpg
On a practical level, a big advantage of a monfin in deep water, is that the mermaid can use it’s power to drive herself quickly to the bottom of the sea, without using weights to make her sink faster. When she has collected what marine food she can find, she can then use the monofin to drive herself to the surface.
I doubt if any of this is new discovery – or practice – since human beings started to use their experimental intelligence! People in the past must have realised that one of the reasons why fish and dolphins are so fast in the water is because of their tails. So someone could have tried to make an artificial fish tail. Could mermaids have used swimming aids like monofins and flippers in the past? Imo, definitely possible. I once read that the Polynesians of the distant past had flippers which they made out of palm leaves.
I did a bit of research on the monofin and swimming aids, and it turns out that the official history of swimming aids is that the first person to propose flippers or swimming fins was Leonardo Da Vinci, followed by Giovanni Alphonso Borelli in the 17th century. But the man credited with making and using them was the inventor and politician Benjamin Franklin! As a young man he made flippers out of two thin pieces of wood, in the shape of artist palettes. They never caught on, and it wasn’t until the 1930s when inventors started to make flippers out of rubber, that they were widely used. Later on the monofin was invented by the Ukrainians.
I don’t think it too far-fetched that sailors and fishermen seeing mermaids with monofins and flippers on their feet would report them as women with a fish tail or two fish tails. They might be perfectly aware that these tails are artificial, but they wouldn’t have words like monofin, flippers or swimfins, to describe them and people, who never saw them, would take literally, and think they are women with actual fish tails.
Apparently free-divers of today prefer the longer monofin – which give the impression of a ‘long tail’, because it gives them more power and leverage. Making the tail look a lot longer endows it with the whip action you see when dolphins flick their tails. Why wouldn’t free-divers from the distant past have observed and implemented the same thing?
One of the YouTube videos didn’t come out: here it is again:
I’m aware of the monofins. They definitely give superior thrust o divers. But when were the first such devices invented?. I could be wrong, but I am under the impression that it is a fairly new invention. But if it was used in classical times, it definitely would have helped to crete mermaid lore.
So, if the monofin was created in the ancient times, would the users of them be mostly female divers – in the mediterranian? That would explain a lot. I agree that female divers probably would have influenced to the birth of mermaid lore, After all, a monofin is able to give a thrust way superior compared to to two separate fins.
Buti is there any archeological evidence to support this theory?
@Hannu
I mentioned the ancient Polynesians – but that was something I read a long while back, and have to dig that up for you. I don’t know if things like leaves or leather would survive to this age, especially exposed to salt water…
Btw, you have probably heard of the properties of seal skin.
I know that the Native Alaskans have retained the technique of making sealskin boats. http://www.nativetech.org/inupiat/sewingsealskinindex.html
The women clearly know how to hollow out a sealskin and fashion it into another form using water-proof stitching. Could this know-how have been adapted for divers? Is it inconceivable?
Is it plausible that people from the past that lived in cold climates have applied that know-how by: cutting off the head of a seal, removing all the flesh and bone without damaging the skin, and used the seal-skin as a primitive wet-suit?
It is doubtful if the seal’s ‘feet’ could be used as a monofin, but perhaps a wooden one could be attached to the suit instead?
People seeing this costume would easily believe they are seeing a woman who is half woman and half seal.
An added benefit from the seal costume, is that it would protect the diver’s feet from frostbite. It would also allow mermen to dive in cold waters.
Upthread I mentioned the problem men have swimming in cold water for prolonged periods, but a sort of wet-suit seal skin – over the sex-organs – would have provided some protection from the elements.
@Hannu
Owen Churchill was an expert yachtsman from Los Angeles who won a gold medal for yachting at the 1932 Olympics. Even though he excelled in boating, he did not swim well. In the 1930s, he visited Tahiti and noticed Tahitian native swimmers using woven palm fronds on their feet to help them swim faster. Owen developed a rubber version of the Tahitian flippers and patented his design in 1940. The fins had channels running down the sides that helped reduce drag in the water, and open sling backs.
http://www.livestrong.com/article/374154-the-history-of-swimming-fins
It’s possible of course that the Tahitians Owen Churchill saw and copied had been using their swimming flippers for many centuries before.
Monofins were actually so efficient, that they had to arrange separate competitions for them. I have tried them once, and the extra thrust it gives is incredible.
However, record breaking freedivers used weights to descend to the desired level and after that use a carbon oxide ampul to launch them up to the surface. Having used all of their oxygen they would barely have had any energy to swim up to the service.
But of course I agree, that humans must have observed sea mammals and trying to copy their efficient and energy saving ways of propulsion. It might have lead to the misconception of them being confused for mermaids. I’m still not totally convinced, since mermaids are a global lore. But maybe different kind of sightings were mixed together by foreign sailors meeting up in ports like in Shanghai and telling themselves of the oddities they had encountered on their voyages in far away seas, eventually forming a somewhat unified lore of the sea dwelling, beautiful but potentially treacherous marinefemals. After all, what could be more dangerous for a sailor than jumping overboard to chase an elusive female charms… leaving him alone on the mercy of the cold, deep sea…
@Hannu
What is inconsistent about the mermaid legends being a global lore?
After all:
- Don’t human beings swim and dive in pretty much the same the world over?
- Don’t populations who live near water, harvest foods from under-water in fairly similar ways?
Look at the aboriginal peoples of Tasmania – now extinct.
A staple in their diet was the black lipped abalone (and green lipped abalone): also known as mutton-fish. Also prized were certain shells used as jewelry. Finding both was the work of Tasmanian women.
http://www.tmag.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/32654/Voices_of_Aboriginal_Tasmania_ningenneh_tunapry_education_guide.pdf
What about the naked women diving off Tierra del Fuego that marine explorer, Jacques Cousteau spoke of? These were the Ona and Yamana people of southern South America, who hunted and gathered shellfish, mineral-rich sea vegetables, seals, whales.
The land they occupied was useless for anything, these peoples were mostly left alone until 1880s when gold was discovered there. The gold soon ran out but the ex-miners took up sheep farming and claimed all the land as their own. Unfortunately, some of the Ona men began to kill the sheep for food and clothing, so the sheep famers paid bounty hunters to exterminate the tribes, making no distinction between the Ona and Yamana. (The official version is that they were wiped out by diseases like measles and smallpox).
What these 2 peoples had in common was that they were considered primitive, offensively primitive. Naked – despite the cold. Like women who dive naked in this way today, they do so in order to condition their bodies to withstand low tempertures. So the Yamana and Tasmanian Aborigine were probably doing the same to acclimatize their bodies to the cold weather to help them swim for prolonged periods in cold water?
Tasmania, Australia, South America are just a few places, but reports come from places like Burma, Thailand, Malaya, Indonesia and the Philippines of the Sea Gypsies or Sea People who live in boats or huts on stilts in shallow water. Also in India and Sri Lanka. As well as the Melansians and Polynesians.
In Kerala on Kollam beach,Southern India, there is a giant statue of a mermaid that is far larger than the famous little mermaid statue in Copenhagen Harbour.
Archaeologists have found mounds of shells all over the world. They have been found In the places mentioned, as well as South Africa, Northern Europe and on the Mediterranean coast. Human beings it seems, have always hunted, gathered and foraged for food sources near and under water, and it seems this kind of gathering and foraging under water was the work of the women in the community.
http://archaeology.about.com/od/boneandivory/a/shellmidden.htm
I find it really difficult for experienced sailors to make a mistake between a human female diver and a half human-half fish female. Sailors couldn’t possibly have been so blind as to mix a human female from other marine mammal.
No doubt female divers did a lot of underwater foraging, but the traditional depictions of mermaids differ significantly from female divers. I find it difficult to believe that sailors would have mixed them to, because they more than likely saw the female divers to be completely human, lacking any kind of fish tail.
Anyway, I’m tired of this useless crap. This or that, the mermaid lore’s origin can probably never be solved.
Over and out.
@Hannu
Oh yeh? Well the same experienced sailors were also said to think that these very strange-looking creatures were half-human female, too!
Did they really think manatees and dugongs looks like girls and women?
Could the sailors have been drunk rather than blind? LOL.
Begging your pardon, Hannu, but the subject of the origins behind the lore is not a thesis to prove to you and convince you of, whilst you look down your nose on it critically
Many people all over the world obviously find the subject rather fascinating, and this world-wide lore doesn’t come out of nowhere….
{Bulanik turns and swims away….}
Conventional science has not yet comprehensively disproved the “Aquatic Ape” – something which would go a long way to explain why the mermaid is an enduring legend worldwide.
Could the mermaid legend be a leftover from our early human origins as an aquatic ape?
Whenever I’ve heard sports commentators mention that swimmers remove their body hair to reduce hydrodynamic drag and help propulsion in the water, it reminds me that huge numbers of humans have always spent a portion of their lives living near, or in, water, and that made them adapt their lifestyles because it was to their advantage.
Evolutionary science has also tells us that humans are the only primate that lacks fur. Fur is one feature that sets us apart from other apes and primates. This science says, further, that any fur-ess mammals only either lives:
1. underground, or
2., in water.
Scientists don’t agree on the “aquatic” origins of the early humans, but they are finding evidence that more animals than had previously been thought lived at least some of their lives submerged in waster:
It was only discovered in 2000, for example, that the Rhino (the now extinct Teleocera) was semi-aquatic. And, it was only in the last few years that it was found that the nearest relative of the hippo is the whale, rather than say, cattle. The rhino, whale and hippo all lack fur – as does the elephant, which has also been discovered (in 2008) as belonging to the same semi-aquatic group of mammals:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7347284.stm
One of the first to speculate about the difference between humans to other primates was Alistair Hardy (marine biologist). Hardy said that the layer of fat tightly bonded to the skin is exclusive to humans, but no other primates. Such layers of fat are only found in water mammals.
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The biology of breathing in humans also points to the possibility of humans being suited to a semi-aquatic origins, for example: primates and land mammals are “involuntary breathers”. None have the capability to hold their breath.
Sea mammals such as dolphins and whales are “conscious breathers” which is why only half their brains can ever go to sleep at one time, otherwise they forget to breath and drown.
A small 3rd groups exist which can both consciously and unconsciously breathe, these are amphibious mammals, such as seals and otters, who can hold their breath, dive underwater for food and return to the shore revert back to unconscious breathing. Apparently humans are the only primates with this capacity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammalian_diving_reflex
An explanation of the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis and why mainstream science will not take it seriously:
I have also read that among pre-Christian, non-European peoples that lived in coastal regions, it was traditional for women to go into the sea to give birth. This only ceased when the missionaries thought it wrong and made them stop.
One of the main fears about babies being born under water is that they will drown, but they don’t, this is because of what’s called the diving reflex. The human diving reflex, that if water is on the face, the throat closes off, is strongest in new born babies. Babies are very at home in the water and amongst coastal peoples swimming is so natural it is common for children to learn to swim and dive under water before they can walk.
In the 6th century B.C., Aristotle concluded that water was the first principle of life. He observed that the seeds of everything had a “moist nature”.
However, there is little written about water and its role in human births in the ancient world, as this was only a subject that started to appear in books as late as the 18th century.
What does exist, according to Barbara Harper, midwife, are:
“…. legends such as that the ancient Egyptians birthed selected babies under water. These babies became priests and priestesses. The ancient Minoans on the island of Crete are said to have used a sacred temple for water birth. Art on frescoes in the Minoan ruins depict dolphins and their special connection with humans and water…
the Maoris of New Zealand and the Samoan people of the Pacific, may have given birth in shallow ocean or river environments….
Traditions from the Hawaiian Islands maintain that certain families on the islands have been born in water for many thousands of generations….
(from her book, “Gentle Birth Choices”)
Professor Peter Wheeler, Dean of Science at Liverpool St John Moore’s University is the leading opponent of the Aquatic Ape theory, strongly disagrees. He believes giving birth in water cannot be an evolutionary adaptation because:
“Human babies lose heat very easy”.
Nonetheless, in Russia it was not unknown for women to give birth in the Black Sea at relatively low temperatures!
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One more thing about human birth little studied is, Vernix Caseosa, Latin for ‘cheesy varnish’ and the name of the white fatty/greasy coating on the skin of a human baby when it is born. One theory is that it protects the baby’s skin while it is submerged in amniotic fluid. If so, surely all mammal babies would have it, but they don’t, not even any other primates, in fact the only other mammal that has it is seals.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2763724/
I stumble across this full length documentary that address many of the questions about mermaids. Like:
- what they are
- how they came to exist n just about everywhere in the world, and,
- what happened to them.
It separates truth from fallacies about mermaids.
I am sure the answers given in this film are not definitive, but they make a lot of sense and tell the viewer a lot about how human societies developed, how societies are controlled, how we get food…and why mermaids have become the stuff of “myth” and “legend” instead of the casualty of economics and power.
It’s well worth the 1 hour and 24 minutes.
In my culture there are water spirits as Yemanja. I do not know if they exist on the other continent. I do not know if they are the ones who have inspired legends of mermaids. But the spirits of the water in the stories I’ve heard are always women.
I know a man who said he saw a white woman (certainly not Mrs. Merkel) in the river not far from his village when he was a child.
I have a friend who laughingly told he was returned to his village after many years in the city. The first night he had a strange dream. A young woman was very beautiful mulatto presented to him. She welcomed and she told him she was here. Looks like she wanted him to understand that protecting the village and he could count on her.
In June, I had a curious dream. A young black woman and pretty gave me water to wash myself. I had come to the river side. I thought it was just a dream. A few days later, my sister was taking a shower was a visualization of this young woman.
But we are Christians. So, in the family, it is as if nothing had happened.
I have learned that these spirits can take any human appearance. One that could please us.
I don’t think manatee or dugond explain the origin of legend of mermaid in Africa.
In Africa, Before the coming European people, we had divinities male or female were associated to water. But they mainly women. They had legs. They had associated to snake some lands and kingdom.
In Congo for an example, we have the “mamba muntu” (snake man). In west Africa, they had goddess with snake. demon or goddess, people invoke them to wealth. Some people accuse them to sacrifice to divinities their fertility, children or parents. And we have many scaries stories on that. But, in Brazil, Yemanja is a good goddess. Mami Wata too has seen as a good goddess. But not everywhere and not to everybody. So followers can’t say they pray Mami Wata.
Today, these divinities are represented with fishtail because european legend of mermaid have influenced ours legends.