Page 32 - 201205 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - May 2012

The Mermaid Mystery The Mermaid Mystery Explained 6?BI "66 GB:D6C KN*96 property of the sun. These animals are round, plump, expressive face of a seal, the extremely rare (only one buffalo in roughly 5 beautiful, limpid eyes, the hand-like fore-paws, million was an albino), and many Indian tribes, Encounters with mermaids are the sleek body, tapering towards the flattened including the Blackfeet, Southern Cheyennes, generally attributed to missightings hinder fins...might well give the idea of an Mandans, and Omahas, placed immense value of various sea mammals. But the animal having the anterior part of its body on their hides, using them only for their most important ceremonies and sacrificial rites. human and posterior half piscine.” In addition, speculations of one eminent marine the seal habitually basks on rocks, as mermaids In 1867 the trader George Bent came biologists raise and intriguing are said to do, and whereas sea cows have no across a fascinating Cheyenne ceremony question: Could there exist in the voice, some listeners claim that the seal utters involving a white buffalo hide. His account was humanoid creatures as yet known melodious sounds. published in The Cheyenne Indians (1923) by George Bird Grinnell. The hide was brought on But could the mermaid sightings be to science? based on a creature as yet unknown to science? horseback to the camp, where a master of In 1960 eminent British marine biologist Sir ceremonies painted it blue. Women and children Many researchers probing the world of myth Alister Hardy speculated that man’s apelike then tied calico beads and other gifts to a and legend believe that the creatures certain ancestors might have passed some evolutionary sacrificial pole, as offerings to the sun. Finally, observers have identified as mermaids have time in the sea. the master of ceremonies reverently tied the been in fact sea mammals of one kind or If such sea apes did exist, is it possible hide to the pole and said fervent prayers. another. For example, the mermaids that that some might have remained in the sea Columbus thought he saw are believed by instead of moving onto land? Such an idea is Ivory scales, ruby eyes scientists to have been manatees, one of the two purely speculative, but, as Irish author and In India, the most sacred of all cobras are families of sea cows. These large, slow-moving research Peter Costello wrote in The Magic Zoo albinos, with their ivory scales and gleaming mammals, which inhabit the Caribbean and the (1979): “We could imagine that some of these ruby-like eyes. The ancient Egyptians may also coastal waters of West Africa, often appear in an apes...might give rise to stories of mermaids. By have revered such snakes; archeologists upright position above the water (they need to now, after several million years...aquatic excavating a courtyard inside the temple at surface in order to breathe), suckling their man...would eb a very strange creature indeed.” Luxor in 1989 unearthed a magnificent 42-inch- young. The theory suggests that sailors who had [] tall statue of a white cobra, carved from cream- been at sea a longtime viewing this humanlike colored granite. This may have been an image picture of maternity, have thought the manatee Flawed Deities of the snake deity Mertsager, goddess of silence. to be a kind of demi-woman. In Europe, white snakes have always been associated with magic and the Ugly and Ungainly In various parts of the world certain supernatural. Witches were thought to carry Other reports fo mermaids have been attributed physically abnormal animals, such white adders to increase their powers. to sightings of dugongs, the other family of sea as albino snakes and four-tusked Certain physical deformities in animals cows (found in the Indian Ocean and western have raised them to supernatural status. In the Pacific). They are smaller than manatees but elephants, have been venerated Ituri Forest of Zaire, the pygmies of the region have similar habits. In 1982 anthropologist Dr. because of their rarity. worship any bull elephant born with extra pair Roy Wagner, of the University of Virginia, of tusks. The pygmies regard such animals as reported seeing mermaid-like creatures off the elephant kings, whose divine powers render island of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. But them immune to injury by spears. Sometimes, closer investigation revealed these mysterious after a lizard sheds its tail to free itself from a beasts to be dugongs. predator, the replacement tail it grows is forked. The problem with linking all In the Middle Ages freak lizards of this kind “mermaids” with sea cows is that the former are were associated with the devil. Two-headed usually described as beautiful and graceful, snakes are still held in rural parts of rural while the latter are ugly and ungainly. In Zoo France. Quest to Guiana (1956) celebrated British G:=5=:76 2ED9@B 2?5 *,KAB6C6?D6B ):B 2F:5 Abnormal feet Attenborough describes a manatee as follows: Excavations of the temples of Tishuanaco, the “She was not a pretty sight. Her head was little great pre-Hispanic empire that stretched from more than a blunt stump, garnished with an Bolivia to southern Peru, have revealed the extensive but spare moustache on her huge skeletons of llamas with abnormal feet - five blubbery upper-lip. Her minute eyes were Albino animals, those lacking normal pigment, toes per foot instead of the normal two. Thus it buried deep in the flesh of her cheek...” and thus color, have fascinated humanity since seems that the same physical abnormalities that earliest times, and such creatures, with their would cause su to call certain animals freaks of “Beautiful, limpid eyes” white skin and hair and their pink eyes, have nature served, in many primitive cultures, to A more convincing marine candidate for the often been worshiped. American Indians elevate the to some form of divine status. [] mermaid is probably the seal. In Sea Fables believed that white buffaloes were the hallowed