The Dark, Mysterious, Fiji Mermaid

Author: Da’Keya Nicholson

This is a photo of the Fiji Mermaid and it is showing how the top and bottom half of its body is half fish and half orangutan.

I am sure you’re all wondering, what could possibly be out in the ocean other than sharks, whales, etc.? There are plenty of answers to this question but, the most interesting, unique, creature is known as the Fiji Mermaid . A Fiji Mermaid is a creature with the bottom half of its body as a mermaid, or fish, and the top half as an orangutan. In 1842, an English Man and member of British Lyceum of Natural History, Dr. J. Griffin, spread the news that a Fiji Mermaid had been spotted and caught near Feejee Island in the South Pacific. The news reached the press fast, and Dr. J. Griffin used all of the media attention to host a mermaid exhibition and the Masonic Hall.

This is a photo of PT Barnum. He was the owner of Barnum & Bailey Circus. He often called it the “Greatest Show on Earth.” Some of his most famous acts were the Cowboy Giant, General Tom Thumb, the Bearded Lady, and the Living Skeleton.

The press later found out that Dr. J. Griffin was a fraud. His real name was Levi Lyman, and he wasn’t even an English Man. There was no such thing as British Lyceum of Natural History. All of his work was done under P.T. Barnum, including the exhibition. PT Barnum was known for his first hoax of a blind slave, known as being a 161 year old former nurse for George Washington. He found out that the mermaid was fake, but didn’t care. All that mattered was that it was that the world believed it was real. PT Barnum sold the first fake Fiji Mermaid from his museum, Barnum's American Museum, in 1822. It was bought by Dutch Merchants, and they resold it to Samuel Barratt Eades for $6000. Samuel sold his ship to buy this mermaid. After Barnum sold the first mermaid, he began making more fake ones to sell. He would hang up pictures, and send pictures to the newspaper company to get his message out about selling Fiji mermaids.

The original Fiji Mermaid spent a decade of it’s time between Kimbell’s Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, and Barnum’s Museum in New York City. No one knew where it’s last known whereabouts were, but people believed that it burned in the fire that caused Barnum’s museum to collapse to the ground in 1865.


Works Cited

Andrews, Evan. Life, Magnified, “10 Things You May Not Know About PT Barnum.” www.history.com, 2018.

Fischer, John. “A History of the Fiji Islands.” TripSavvy, www.tripsavvy.com, 2019.

American Social History Productions, “Barnum’s American Museum.”lostmuseum.cuny.edu/archive/barnums-american-museum, 2019.

The “Mysterious” Fiji Mermaid

Trevor Dent

 

The Art of Juan Cabana.

In today’s society, everyone has their opinions on mermaids and whether they are real or not. I believe mermaids are real. Mermaids have been around for as long as people can remember. Earth is over 70% water and about 95% of the oceans remain unexplored. Men back then have claimed to see mermaids and there have been multiple stories written and also movies about mermaids. They are believed, centuries ago to roam the seas and lure sailors into shipwrecks, and off the coast into rocky shoals. Mermaids are often associated with bad luck and misfortune. By definition, a mermaid is a beautiful woman, with long hair, and the lower body of a fish. Homer’s Odyssey tells the story of an encounter of a siren and how they were tortured by their sweet sounds. Another story is a young boy from Scotland claimed to have killed a mermaid in 1830 by throwing rocks of it. It definitely looked like a mermaid they said, but there hasn’t been real evidence of it. There are many more legends and many historical claims of MERMAID SIGHTINGS  and it leaves people with many questions, but until we see  better and more pictures and videos, mermaids will continue to be a myth.
           
Most people don’t think of certain mermaids, or a particular type when talking about them, but there once was a hoax about the legendary Fiji Mermaid by the famous known P.T Barnum. The FIJI MERMAID was an object composed of the upper body of a monkey sewed onto the lower body of a fish. This hoax is became a worldwide topic thanks to the legendary showman P.T. Barnum who was famous for these types of things. The Fiji Mermaid came into Barnum’s possession in 1842 via his business counterpart Moses Kimball and was reportedly found on the Fiji Islands in the South Pacific. Barnum would go ahead and put the mermaid up for display in his Boston Museum in the summer of 1842.  Barnum would lead people to believe that this was a true thing and would so for a very long time until his museum was burned down by a fire in 1865 and people to this day still question whether that was real or not.  P.T. Barnum even explains himself why he did what he did and his reason behind it in his own autobiography. He says the Fiji Mermaid first came to him from Moses Kimball in 1842 and it was made by fisherman. He never realized its value and at that time, it was a great time to examine the mermaid. Barnum claims that was the easiest part of the experiment. ‘How to modify general incredulity in the existence of mermaids, so far as to awaken curiosity to see and examine the specimen, was now the all-important question.’ (Barnum)
           

The Peabody Museum's "Feejee Mermaid" (photographed in 1998).

The Fiji Mermaid was actually thought to be made by hand by fisherman in Southeast Asia and sold for a profit to local stores. The first ever mermaid was brought to London by Captain Samuel Barrett. Even though it was handcrafted, this lead people to believe if there was a real thing and if so, why was it made.

Works Cited:
Barnum on the FeJee Mermaid, The Life of P. T. Barnum, Written by Himself, 1855. American Social History Productions, Inc., 1855. Web. 8 Oct. 2015.

""The Little Mermaid?"" The Harvard University Gazette. Harvard College, 17 Oct. 1997. Web.

"Legend of the Fiji Mermaid." The World Is a Myserious Place. Awesome Inc. Template. 1 Oct. 2013. Web. 13 Oct. 2015.

"The Incredible Myth Behind the Feejee Mermaid." Scribol. Scribol. Web. 15 Oct. 2015.

Links for further research:http://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/the_feejee_mermaid
The article above gives you a good overview of the Fiji Mermaid, and also tells everyone who was involved in it.

Legend of the Fiji Mermaid

Author: Malaika

A creature with the upper body of a human and lower body of a fish is heard to have circulated the world’s oceans for many years. With all the glamorized illusions of a beautiful, flowing hair, model-type, half fish, half women is what we think of when we hear the name mermaid. In the article “Barnum’s ‘Feejee’ no Disney Mermaid Monstrous wonder on display at Peale,” by Rafael Alvarez, he interviewed a publicist from the Peale Museum, and he said, “We've had a lot of children come here expecting to see the Little Mermaid or the cute mermaid on the tuna can -- and they look at this and cry their eyes out.”

                In 1822, the Turf Coffeehouse in London displayed a strange creature. It was a two-foot tall specimen with a baboon-like head covered in thin hair, and human eyes, chin, breasts and nails.  The face held an expression of fear. It is known as the Fiji mermaid. The mermaid had been brought to London by an American sailor, Captain Samuel Barrett Eades. By the fall of 1822, the mermaid had become one of the biggest showcases in London. Newspapers and articles named it “The Remarkable Stuffed Mermaid.”(Bondeson)

Eades is not the only one to be linked to the Fiji mermaid. P.T. Barnum is usually credited for the origination of the mermaid because he made it known around the world. The Feejee mermaid is one of Barnum’s biggest hoax.  Barnum leased the mermaid from Boston showman Moses Kimball, who intern had bought it from a seaman. The Feejee Mermaid is believed to have been created around 1810 by a Japanese fisherman. Barnum didn’t care that the mermaid was a fake, all that really mattered was that the public was led to believe it was real. So Barnum hired a phony naturalist, Dr. Griffin, to vouch for the creature's authenticity.

Barnum placed pictures of bare-breasted mermaids in the newspapers to manipulate the public into wanting to see it Barnum exhibited the mermaid for a month at his Museum, then he decided to send it on a Southern state tour. A correspondent from the Charleston Post & Courier said, “The Feejee mermaid was a sight that has forever robbed us and we shall never again think of a mermaid as beautiful because the Feejee mermaid is the incarnation of ugliness”.

During the next twenty years the Feejee Mermaid split her time between Kimball's museum in Boston and Barnum's museum in New York. The last known whereabouts of the mermaid was in June, 1859 in Kimball’s museum. One theory is she was destroyed when Barnum's museum burned down in 1865. But this would be unlikely, since she was said to have been at Kimball's Boston museum.

           

Work Citied:

Bondeson, Jan. “The Feejee Mermaid and Other Essays in Natural and Unnatural History”. Cornell University Press, 1999. Print

>Alvarez, Rafael. “Barnums ‘Feejee’ no Disney Meramaid Monstrous wonder on display at Peale.” The Baltimore Sun. 01 Mar. 1992. http://articles.baltimoresun.com. Web. 18 Oct. 2013.

Feejee Mermaid “Americas First Mermaid Obsession.” Animal Planet. 29 May. 2013. Animal Planet. Discovery Communications. Web. 18 Oct. 2013

Steampunk. “The Incredible Myth Behind the Feejee Mermaid.” http://www.environmentalgrafetti.com. Environmental Graffiti. 2009 Web. 18
Oct. 2013

Brennan Hagood, Catherine. “This Art Show is Full of Freaks.” Post and Courier. 12 May. 2005. nl.newsbank.com. Web. 18 Oct. 2013.

Links for further research:

Animal Planet

http://animal.discovery.com/tv-shows/mermaids/videos/mermaids-evidence.htm

This video shows recent evidence of mermaids.

The Feejee Mermaid and Other Essays in Natural and Unnatural History by Jan Bondeson

http://books.google.com/books?id=zsQAc_QlB5cC&printsec=frontcover&dq=feejee+mermaid&hl=en&sa=X&ei=KMlhUuriN5To9gSX84GgAQ&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=feejee%20mermaid&f=false

The link above takes you to a google books listing for an excerpt of Jan Bondeson book of a collection of essays on ten fascinating stories of myths and hoaxes.

Barnum, P.T. The Life of P.T. Barnum Written By Himself. Redfield. 18551855.http://chnm.gmu.edu/lostmuseum/lm/182/

This link above take you to an excerpt of P.T Barnums 1855 autobiography written by himself.