This will be the first of my series of posts on strange creatures. As my regular readers should know by now, I love the unknown. I find it extremely interesting and thought provoking as it challenges our assumptions on what the world is. Today, many people like to think they are rationale and logical, leaving no space for the supernatural in their daily lives. Well, humans have existed for thousands of years and our history is steeped with superstition, stories of weird creatures, spirits and demons around us. I would also like to point out that superstition seems to be pretty uniform across cultures. Isolated cultures such as the Aztecs, Vikings, Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Chinese and Polynesian all have tale of dragons, mermaids, etc. Is it because we have the same ancestral origin? Or is it because our ancestors have encountered such creatures before? So are these creatures myths or legends (albeit rare or extinct today)?
So today, I shall focus on mermaids. Mermaids are aquatic creatures with a human head and torso but a tail of an aquatic animal, normally a fish. Some cultures portray mermaids as saviors of drowning sailors, other say that mermaids cause nothing but trouble by distracting sailors and thereby wrecking their ships. Given that most sailors are horny wrecks after being out at sea for months, it is hardly surprising that anything resembling a woman is enough to catapult them into state of ecstasy, making them oblivious to any form of danger. Please note that when there are mermaids, there are mermen. =) Nature is about balance.
The earliest known mermaid story appeared in Assyria about the Goddess Atargatis who killed the mortal shepherd that she loved. Ashamed, she threw herself into a lake to take n the form of her fish. Unfortunately, her divine beauty would not be concealed so she took the form of a mermaid. The earliest representation showed her as a fish with the head and legs of a human. Later it evolved into the “traditional” form of a humanoid head and torso with a fish tail (it’s all about symmetry I guess). The story about Atargatis also went on to inspire the story of Derketo the Nereid of Greece, tales of the Sea people in Arabian Nights, malevolent and benevolent mermaid-human interactions throughout other cultures globally.
Now, let me examine the evidence of the existence of mermaids in the modern context. There have been claimed sightings of living and dead mermaids throughout history. Let me list a few:
- 5th century CE- Physiologus described a “real” mermaid in his book, Bestiary.
- 1493 CE- Christopher Columbus reported seeing three mermaids playing and jumping out of the water. He did lament that they weren’t as beautiful as he expected, but human enough in the face.
- 1560 CE- Autopsy performed on 7 mermaids caught by fishermen in Ceylon (Sri Lanka).
- 1608 CE- Henry Hudson and his crew saw a mermaid near Russia. Unlike the typical fish tail, he said that she had a “tail of a porpoise and speckled like a mackerel”.
- 1718 CE, a "sea wife" is caught off the island of Borneo and put in a large vat, where it died after a few days. It was heard to utter cries like a mouse.
- 1739 CE, sailors of the ship, Halifax, caught and ate several mermaids in the East Indies. Apparently they tasted like veal.
- 1830 CE, a farm woman in the Outer Hebrides spotted a mermaid frolicking in the water. They were unable to capture her alive but did manage to kill her with a rock. The corpse was seen and described in detail by Alexander Carmichael, a well-known scholar.
In addition the claimed sightings, we have preserved bodies of "mermaids" to show! They are namely the ningyo mummies stored in Japanese temples. Eating their flesh is said to give one longevity. Please note that these mummies are not real, they were "proven" to be made of animal parts that were stitched together. But it could be the influence of science on superstition too! So you decide for yourself whether you want to believe in these photos. Either way, I'll never ever going to look at kiam-he (salted fish) the same way again.
This mummified 6-feet mermaid carcass was from Shikoku, Japan.
What I find most creepy about this mummy is the eyes... Staring right back at you. Hehehe, just joking, I don't get creeped out by mummies because I love to study them! This one is cute because of the eyes. It is normally one of the fastest organs to rot due the high levels of liquids. This is one of the few mermaid mummies with fully scaled bodies.
This is a foot long Ningo that was actually created in Japan in the 19th century. A mummified monkey and a dried fish were sewn together to produce this creature.
Look carefully at this mummy, I would agree that this is a fake because of the sudden break between humanoid and aquatic components of the body. If you look at preserved bodies, there should be a form of harmonious "shrinking" during the drying out process.
This mermaid mummy at Zuiryuji Temple in Osaka, which was bestowed to the temple as an offering from a Sakai-area trader in 1682.
Again, this mummy has a remarkably preserved set of eyes. You might note that the break between the scales and skin seems pretty harmonious and the corpse/carcass looks "intact" after the process of drying out.
Another mummified mermaid is preserved at Myouchi Temple in the city of Kashiwazaki in Niigata prefecture. This mermaid is about 30 cm long and is posing with its hands up near its cheeks.
This Mummy is very unique because of its head. It has 2 holes for the eyes and 2 holes for the nostrils and sharp teeth. It looks like there is a layer of clay on it due to the visible cracks on in. In a sense, it looks like a chinchirro mummy, which has a layer of clay painted onto it.
This mermaid mummy is preserved at Karukayado Temple outside the city of Hashimoto in Wakayama prefecture. The 50-cm long mummy has fang-like teeth that protrude from its wide open mouth and both of its hands are raised to its cheeks, like the previous mermaid. Its lower body is covered in scales, and there appear to be the vestiges of fins on its chest, as well as a pair of nipple-like protuberances.
This mermaid is amazing to me because of the amount of care devoted into the details.
This mummy is in the possession of a Shinto sect headquartered in the city of Fujinomiya near the base of Mt. Fuji. At 170 cm tall and 1,400 years old, it is the largest and oldest known mermaid mummy in Japan. The mermaid has an unusually large head that is bald, except for some hair growth that extends from its forehead to its nose. Its eyes and mouth are open. It has webbed hands with sharp claws, and a 20-cm long tail. The lower body has a bone structure similar to that of a fish, but it is unclear whether or not the upper body has a bone structure. The entire body shows signs of having been ravaged by moths.
Legend has it that this mermaid appeared to Prince Shotoku (Shotoku Taishi) as he was passing along the shores of Lake Biwa (about 1,400 years ago). The hideous beast told the prince about how it had been transformed into a mermaid as punishment for making a living as a fishermen within the boundaries of an animal sanctuary. The mermaid claimed that over many years it had come to a clear understanding of the horrors of destroying life, and that it was prepared to move on to the next world. As a final wish before dying, though, it asked the prince to establish a temple using the mermaid’s body as a centerpiece, where it could be used to educate people about the sanctity of life. The mermaid then died. The prince took the mermaid’s body and set up a temple as requested. But after a number of strange occurrences, the mummy was passed on to another temple. The mummy changed hands several times before ending up at its current location at the base of Mt. Fuji.
Isn't it interesting how physical evidence does not match the sightings reported by people? Or how physical evidence cannot express a mermaid's ability to communicate with people as the stories tell? Every mermaid mummy that has been examined by scientists have been declared fake. And yet, hundreds of people every year claim to see mermaids frolicking in the waters. So are mermaids real or merely figments of our imagination that have been constructed by cultural beliefs?
There seems to be a fixed set of poses and features that these mummies share, such as the curved tail, stiff arms held up to their faces, scales, etc. On the personal level, I'm inclined to say that these mummies are fakes due to their dramatic posing. If they are truly natural mummies, they would have been a little more "relaxed" in their poses. If you have seen a kiam-he, you should realize that their bodies and limp, with the tail lying straight, not the curved tail that you see on these mummies. The only way to create such poses is to bind the body in a fixed position during the mummification process. I did another post on preserved bodies before, you can read it here.
Personally, I've never examined the Ningyo mummies, nor have I seen any documentries performing CT scans on them. So I can't concretely declare if they are fakes or not. To me, to fully qualify them as fakes, I would like to see CT scans establishing that the mummie's innards and bone structures do not match in anyway. However, given their status as sacred objects, I think that is highly unlikely.
So do you believe that mermaids exists for real? Do we need concrete evidence to prove that something exists?
Research taken from:
http://www.beautiful-mermaid-art.com/real-mermaid.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mermaid
Pictures of mermaids and desciptions are taken from:
http://www.pinktentacle.com/2006/08/mermaid-mummies/
