Author Archives: Angelina Gonzalez

Freakshow Mermaids and Sightings: The Science of Racism and Racial Superiority

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The article “the Mermaid” featured in the “Penguin Book of Mermaids”, originally published by the New York Herald in 1842, detailed mermaid sightings from the 18th and 19th century. This article, which was made in response to the sensation of P.T Barnum’s Fiji mermaid, marked a period in which the fascination with mermaids coincided with the conflicting politics of racial superiority, scientific advancement, and imperial colonization. This is seen in the articles juxtaposition of description between two detailed sightings, The “negro” mermaid in 1758 France, and the Asiatic mermaid in 1775, London, as well as the author’s prefatory emphasis on the theory of evolution, for the possibility of mermaids, as de-evolved humans, existing. This is relevant in understanding that the Feejee mermaid hoax, and others like it, were believed because of the United States and Western Europe’s involvement in imperialistic colonization throughout the globe, as well as the enslavement of Black Africans in the south; as a result of the trans-atlantic slave trade. Due to these involvements around the globe, the public was primed to believe in these hoaxes and supposed sightings. The combination of new-fangled science and mythos characterized the close of the Enlightenment and the beginning of the  Romantic era in which this fascination with the freakshow mermaid took place, and western nations capitalized on the public interest of the exotic and oriental to assist in the support for imperialism and subjugation of people of color, by continuing the public’s regard of black and non-white people as backward, and exotic, through the mermaid. 

Two of the mermaids described were living freakshows, unlike Barnum’s Feejee mermaid mummy. In 1758 a black mermaid was “exhibited at the fair of ST. Germain” and is described as such: “It was female, with ugly negro features. The skin was harsh, the ears very large, and the back parts and the tail were covered with scales(p.243).” Besides this physical description, the mermaid was kept and fed in a tank where it swam with “seeming delight(p.243)” despite its being caged.

The second live exhibition described took place in London 1775: “It was therefore an Asiastic mermaid. The description is as follows: –Its face is like that of a young female– its eyes a fine light blue– its nose small and handsome– its mouth small– its lips thin, and the edges of them round like that of the codfish–its teeth are small, regular and white–its chin well shaped, and its neck full …it’s breast are fair and fall …the belly is round and swelling(p.243-244)

The sheer difference in these two descriptions makes a stark comparison between the races of these two creatures, one is black and the other is assumed to be white or asian (from the Aegean sea). Despite both being hybrid creatures, there is a clear preference in regard to beauty, which mirror European beauty standard of whiteness, thinness, and desired sexuality (having small breasts). However, The negro mermaid is described as ‘ugly’ and harsh, where the asiatic mermaid is described as ‘handsome.’ Although both creatures came from the deep, the description of their features clearly maps onto them human ethnicities, and mirrors the societal beliefs that different ethnicities are the result of a species divide. 

Science at the time was motivated, along with global expansion and imperialism, by the difference between races or ethnicities to categorize and validate the subjugation of other humans. Such explanations of racial difference would have come from the understandings of science at the time, such as phrenology and naturalism, which heavily favored whiteness. The connotations of the negro mermaid are also discussed by Vaughn Scribner who states that this article’s descriptions were influenced by the sentiments on biologically supported racial difference: “early modern Europeans concentrated on African women’s supposed ‘sexually and reproductively bound savagery’ – especially notions of their abilities to constantly suckle their various children – in order to ultimately turn to ‘black women as evidence of a cultural inferiority that ultimately became encoded as racial diference(115).” Thus, the author of the Mermaid continues to perpetuate the black mermaid’s sexualized features as vulgar in comparison to the petite and elegant description of the Asiatic mermaid. 

To preface the arrival of the Fiji mermaid in England, where “our citizens and the professors  of natural history especially” would have had the opportunity to verify the existence of “this animal,” the feejee mermaid, The author suggests that the mermaid may be the “connecting link between fish and the human species(241)” in the same fashion that the “ourang outang” was discovered to be the “connecting link between the human and animal race (241).” Although the Theory of evolution would not be published by Charles Darwin until over a decade after this frenzy, scientists at the time were still concerned with ideas of evolution and human and animal history, specifically the divide or ‘missing link’. Vaughn Scribner writes in his book “Merpeople: A Human History”, about freakshows and fantasies, and the scientific and philosophical discussions that framed the obsession with freakshow mermaids during the 18th and 19th century: “As with other creatures they encountered in their global travels, European philosophers utilized various theories – including those of racial, biological, taxonomical and geographic difference – to understand merpeople’s and, by proxy, humans’ place in the natural world.” Naturalism favored the missing link theory, and along with Phrenology, worked to provide context to the biological superiority of white people over people of color.

The juxtaposition of descriptions of the mermaids in “The Mermaid” article, points to a cultural shift in the mermaid’s symbolism in popular culture as no longer strictly a myth, but as a means of discussing racial differences. As ideas about racial superiority expand with the shifting boundaries of race relation in the west, so do views on the wilderness. The insecurities of western society become mapped onto the bodies of its mermaid, just as the needs of an increasingly industrial society become mapped onto the ‘wilderness’. This shift between fear and admiration of nature is discussed by William Cronon in “The Trouble with Wilderness Or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature.” Cronon discusses this shift in consciousness during the eighteenth century, wherein the wilderness goes from the sidelines of what is considered civilized to the new found call to protect nature from human influence, and keep it in pristine condition:

“As late as the eighteenth century, the most common usage of the word “wilder-ness” in the English language referred to landscapes that generally carried adjectives far different from the ones they attract today. To be a wilderness then was to be “deserted,” “savage,” “desolate,” “barren”-in short, a “waste,” the word’s nearest synonym. Its connotations were anything but positive, and the emotion one was most likely to feel in its presence was “bewilderment” or terror(10).” 

By the nineteenth century however, with the increasingly romantic notions about the preservation of the wilderness, “even as it came to embody the awesome power of the sublime, wilderness was also being tamed-not just by those who were building settlements in its midst but also by those who most celebrated its inhuman beauty(12).” Wilderness, though it came to be valued in all its glory, and preserved within national parks and reserves, still existed as a space experienced and altered by humans and their proximity, thus even within these spaces wilderness is not truly wild. 

This perspective of the wilderness as valuable is included in conversation with the freakshow, negro, and asiatic mermaid, because they represent the divide in what comes to be considered good and bad and ‘other’. A wilderness devoid of humans created a space in which only the wealthy and privileged were able to afford interacting with nature, conveniently after Europeans had colonized and removed indigenous populations to secluded reservations. The exclusivity of wilderness retreats, and reserves, excluded Black and indigenous people of color, and coincided with the way mainstream western society implemented segregation between white and BIPOC communities. The mainstream media influences what is considered valuable, and just as the romantic interest in the sublime declared the wilderness as valuable, it also positioned white mermaids(white women) as more desirable, beautiful, and civilized, in comparison to black mermaids (black women, people of color). Wherein the asiatic mermaid was positively regarded despite being a hybrid creature; it’s supernatural qualities and beauty being emphasized, the negro mermaid was diminished and othered through it’s blackness.

This account of mermaids is a reflection of its time, and the beliefs of mainstream society influenced how non-human creatures were regarded based on desirability, racism, and the limitations of knowledge and science. ‘The Mermaid’ presents a documentation of the social upheaval experienced during the 18th and 19th century, and this article on mermaid sightings in which the race and gender of these mermaids are emphasized was a means of not only sexualizing the female body, but of using the exotic and the supposed vulgarity of African women to uphold racism and white superiority, at the expense of and subjugation of black bodies, viewed by the masses in freakshows as a pass time.

Works Cited:

Bacchilega, Cristina, and Marie Alohalani Brown. “The Mermaid.” The Penguin Book of Mermaids. New York, New York, Penguin Books, 2019, pp. 241-244.

Scribner, Vaughn. “Three: Enlightened Experiments.” Merpeople, Reaktion Books, Limited, 2020.

William Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness” (1996)

Final Takeaways!

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I had such a wonderful experience in this class. Responding every week was a challenge, but one that pushed me to be a more consistent writer. I absolutely loved the topic of this class and felt it was so refreshing! I remember having had no idea that we would be focusing on mermaids. I was pleasantly surprised, and as much as I love analyzing the classics, or deciphering fragmented post-modern literature, I was overjoyed to look into how we as humans engaged with the environment through literature, most importantly our relationship with water and land. This is something that has helped me look at the texts I’ve studied, even in other classes, through a different angle, and ask what it’s saying about the ways we’ve been conditioned to regard our dominance over nature, and how we might be able to shift the conversation by broadening our scope for what we consider to be important. The texts we’ve covered in this class has helped us further in this direction, wether that be looking at ancient, or cultural myths, or modern stories and poems that incorporate our histories as well as a new interest in the blue humanities.

This final week we are reading Stephanie Burt’s poem, “We are Mermaids,” and I’d like to share a few lines which stuck with me and remind me to stop and take a moment:

“You don’t have to be useful. You are not required to come up with something to say”

You can spend your life benthic or brackish, subsisting and even thriving where a fingertip come back saline and still refreshing, exploring the estuary, and congeries of overlapping shores, on the green-black water, the harbor, the bay

You can live with your doubt, that’s why it’s yours

Some of us are going to be okay.”

In a moment where our culture and society ask us to produce, and keep producing or consume and keep consuming, I think it is important to stop and consider the fact we don’t have to “be useful”, that we can just be, and still be beautiful, and wonderful, and important. Our value, as people, or creatures on this earth does not hinge on the ability to maintain a persona, or consume a product, or toil endlessly in a system that excludes us.

I’ve been very lucky to share this space with all of you! Reading your discussions, and getting to hear your perspective in class has broadened my experience of the texts we’ve read together, and I’d like to thank everyone who gave me feedback and was willing to hear me out, even if I was still in the process of understanding! I hope you all have a very happy holiday season!

Week 15: The Deep

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Immediately, I was entranced with this world created by Rivers Solomon, and the way life underwater was described, specifically the sensation and connection Yetu feels within the deep, of which she has to drown out. She describes what it feels like to let her guard down, connecting to her senses, and immediately being overwhelmed:

“Yetu closed her eyes and honed in on the vibrations of the deep, purposefully resensitizing her scaled skin to the onslaught of the circus that is the sea. It was a matter of reconnecting her brain to her body and lowering the shields she’d put in place in her mind to protect herself. As she focused, the world came in. The water grew colder, the pressure more intense, the salt denser. She could parse each granule. Individual crystals of the flaky white mineral scraped against her (2).”

As interesting as having this deep connection to the ocean may be, it seems to take a toll on Yetu. The currents and creatures within the deep, the remembering, these are sensations that seem to be normal to her people, but affect her differently, degrading her proprioception, her sense of self within space. It translates to me as depression that Yetu may be suffering from, and relates this fantastical premise to reality, in which mental health is seriously overlooked when it comes to young people, and in my experience, to young women. I can only speak from experience, but I’ve observed that especially within POC families, who have experienced poverty, abuse, racism, and who have endured, it is difficult to explain mental illness without being guilt-tripped. The same seems to be happening with Yetu, who is so affected to the point of putting herself in dangerous situations, stifled by the lingering grasp of the past: “Yetu did know what it was like. After all, wasn’t cavity just another word for vessel? Her own self had been scooped out when she was a child of fourteen years to make room for ancestors, leaving her empty and wandering and ravenous.(6)”

Final Proposal: Sirenomelia

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Thesis: The mermaid, from Emilija Škarnulytė’s short film Sirenomelia, bridges nature and human isolation from nature, through her hybrid existence and her ability to explore the human civilization’s remnants in the Arctic Circle. She explores the tunnels that once docked submarines, and views the facility’s equipment from the water, but she also observes the way the base of the facility has become part of the underwater ecosystem. The human facility she explores used the ocean as a means of exploration and a strategic location to conduct submarine intelligence and warfare during the Cold War. Her hybrid existence, however, supersedes what the mechanizations of war were capable of discovering. She can explore this facility through the water, through sight and sound, but this comes at the cost of what is seemingly an apocalyptic post-human world, where humanity has left behind its legacy of destruction by evolving and becoming a hybrid creature. Her existence bridges the human and underwater realms, and is important because it suggests a future in which our evolved selves can grow from the issues of the present and past and learn from humans’ self-destructive tendencies and the imprint they leave on the earth. 

I will be using Twine to present my creative essay through non-linear story telling. Within this non-linear storytelling mode, I will discuss the history of submarine warfare in the arctic during the cold war, as well as citing not only the imagery and sound in the short film, but Emilija Škarnulytė’s commentary on this project: https://www.vdrome.org/emilija-skarnulyte/ 

I was interested in incorporating some creative writing through this non-linear method, by weaving in the thoughts of the siren as she explores the NATO base, which I would write myself.

Wk 14

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I wanted to make a creative and immersive project by creating a twine story/game, which I saw an example of in the sample project tab. I thought I might use sirenomelia to develop a type of sci-fi, futuristic mermaid’s day-in-the-life. It would culminate with her exploration of the base, and perhaps a discovery of her/and humanity’s past. Because we know so little about the mermaid, I thought I would create a storyboard that you could follow, exploring who she (you) might be and her process that leads her to explore the abandoned NATO base. I want to incorporate sound in this experience, as I was really drawn to the video’s entrancing use of sound and the exploration of space through sound.

I want to incorporate the little mermaid’s fascination with humanity, and what it might mean to the mermaid to view such a different landscape and environment. I also wanted to explore some of the prompts from Helen M Rodzadowski’s Vast Expanses: A History of the Ocean’s

“The opacity of the ocean
guarantees that we see reflected back from its surface our fears and
desires.”

“The connection forged between people
and oceans has changed both and tied their fates together. Our future
may depend on acknowledging the ocean as part of – not outside of – history”

I want to focus the mermaid’s story on these passages, as well as Rodzadowski acknowledging scientific advancement as a way that humans explored and used the ocean, thus interacting and becoming a part of the ocean’s history. The mermaid in Sirenomelia is our future, calling out to our past selves, telling us that we’ve gone about it all wrong, and that there is a wealth in acknowledging that our relationship with the ocean is not one-sided

Freakshow Mermaids, Sexism, and Justifying Racism

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The 1842 article “The Mermaid” included in the Penguin Book of mermaids, responds to the sensation of P.T Barnum’s Feejee mermaid, along with accounts throughout history that have proven mermaids to be real through sightings and observations of mermaids. The descriptions of these sightings varied greatly, from 1187 to the present publication in 1842, specifically on descriptions of race and beauty. The article detailing the human treatment of mermaids, as well as perceptions of beauty inform how this era of imperialist expansion, colonization, and enslavement of Africans in the U.S viewed female and ethnic bodies, and justified their subjugation.

Two of the mermaids described are living freakshows, unlike Barnum’s Feejee mermaid mummy. In 1758 a black mermaid was “exhibited at the fair of ST. Germain” and is described as such: “It was female, with ugly negro features. The skin was harsh, the ears very large, and the back parts and the tail were covered with scales(p.243).” Besides this physical description, the mermaid was kept and fed in a tank where it swam with “seeming delight(p.243)” despite its being caged

The second live exhibition described took place in London 1775: “It was therefore an Asiastic mermaid. The description is as follows: –Its face is like that of a young female– its eyes a fine light blue– its nose small and handsome– its mouth small– its lips thin, and the edges of them round like that of the codfish–its teeth are small, regular and white–its chin well shaped, and its neck full (p.243)

The Mermaid editorial, points to a cultural shift in the mermaid’s symbolism in popular culture. This cultural shift occurs in the West as the United States becomes an imperialistic force in the global south, and conversations of slavery and the subjugation of Black people in the southern states come into focus in the years prior to the Civil War. 

The sheer difference in these two descriptions makes a stark comparison between the races of these two creatures. The attempt to comment on this growing fascination with the link between animals and humans, “also comments on the prevalence of racial pseudoscience, such as phrenology, being used to perpetuate racism as a norm in the scientific community. The 19th-century mermaid becomes a vehicle to explore and support the supposed logic in scientific racism and the growing eugenicist movement that will define the century to come. 

Week 13: Maman Dlo’s Gift

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This story felt so much like an alternative version of Adam and Eve, where Eve chooses of her own volition to leave the garden, or forest, to join man. Wherein Eve in her story is secondary to Adam, here he is almost absent, and is an intruder upon her home, her forest, and is a spark of her curiosity.

As a response to her worship, Maman Dlo offers her a gift, a comb for her hair “made of shell and silver(p.279).” Maman Dlo’s gift is like a telephone, which opens communication between the young women and the Oriye. Her comb reminded me of Gabrielle Tesfaye’s seashell headphones that she plugged into the sand, in “The Water Will Carry Us Home.” This gift, the ability to listen and understand, is not one given lightly; her follower, the young woman who receives the gift, shows a deep appreciation for the forest and the spirits of the water.

Through the song of the comb, she learns Maman Dlo’s name, her sister’s name, and they share with her “the sirens’ song of the sailors who had dashed to death upon the rocks at Saut d’Eau, and learned not to dread the deafening silence of the forest.” This connection teaches her about the history of the water and builds upon her respect for it.

Maman Dlo’s treatment of her young follower is like that of a mother, not just because she is a female spirit/deity, but because she communicates with her followers directly and, in a sense, does not abandon them. Although she can no longer hear Maman Dlo, Maman Dlo can hear her prayers through the comb and answers them

Maman Dlo offers women a view of religion and nature that speaks to them, about love, connection to nature, and separation from the rules and laws of men. Maman Dlo offered her follower the greatest gift of all, a history and a community among women. Her fall from grace with Maman Dlo comes from her defiance, and her punishment, by rejoining the world of men, is no longer being connected with the siren song. However, what was beautiful about this story is that despite having been separated from the siren song, Maman Dlo still came to her aid. This story’s focus on water as a form of connection is important because it offers a feminine perspective of bodies of water and humans being connected for the better, when humans endeavor to treat it with respect

Week 12: The Ocean as Archive

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 Enslavement of the African people and colonization of the Americas took place during what is described as the ‘rebirth’ or the peak of Western European civilization, the Renaissance. It is omitted from History or purposely emphasized as two separate entities of human cultural movements. The exploration of the seas, the discovery of the Americas, enslavement and massacre of indigenous Americans, and the forced enslavement and commodification of Black Africans occurred at the same time that all these civilizations were experiencing a strong rebirth in culture, that were the result of complex and intricate organizations of cities and kingdoms. However, the European perspective of history can only attest to its own grandeur.

Derek Walcott reminds us of this in ‘The Sea is History’ when he links the movements of the middle passage, the Transatlantic Slave Trade, to a period highly regarded as the scientific, artistic, and architectural overhaul of European culture:

“but where is your Renaissance?

Sir, it is locked in them sea-sands
out there past the reef’s moiling shelf,
where the men-o’-war floated down;

strop on these goggles, I’ll guide you there myself.
It’s all subtle and submarine (lines 33-38)”

A civilization underwater is a byproduct of the atrocities committed against black bodies on a crowded cargo ship, which, like we saw in Gabrielle Tesfaye’s short film “The Water Will Carry Us Home,” readily disposed of unwanted bodies in the waters of the Atlantic: children, pregnant women, the sick, the dying, or dead.

The ocean represents the history stripped from the people that were conquered and enslaved, a massive interruption and erasure of the written and oral histories of multiple cultures, and the disappearance of their people. Walcott shows us a culture carried down to the depths of the ocean, a history as distorted as our vision underwater, of which we need goggles to see better.

This poem, which repeatedly tells us what isn’t history, until nations are organized, which is history, makes us question the validity of History. Why are certain events omitted? Why do some histories count but others do not. Is there a danger in verifying that while millions of people were forced across the middle passage, and thrown into the ocean, and the survivors forced into harsh labor; that Europeans were luxuriating in what slavery and colonization had to offer: raw materials, sugar, gold, silver?

Under History, our legacy and contribution to the world did not exist until the moment everyone arrived on solid land and worked for one crown or another. What is taken from us when history is viewed from this lens but proof of our existence on earth: our lineage, our story, where and who we come from. What was experienced in the water is erased by History, but is witnessed by the Ocean and the ones buried in “that grey vault, the sea,” and there is still more to learn and recover.

Week 11: Sirenomelia; She Swims Away

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Emilija Škarnulytė’s film Sirenomelia explores a distant imprint of humanity on the world’s surface. In siren form, her exploration of the decommissioned NATO base in the Arctic circle, is as beautiful as it is haunting. This human construction is an abandoned effort by northern powers to position itself, and control movements between the northern nations. But it appears to us as remnants of an alien world, accompanied by quasar sounds, or noises of distant objects.

Like whales who can echolocate distant objects through their sonar, this siren creature might have similarly found this distant human construction. Though, now devoid of human life, but encrusted upon its submerged foundations is ocean life growing upon it, even in frigid temperatures, as seen through the eyes of the mermaid.

The mermaid is perhaps our future selves, wading through our past and trying to decode our creations; our legacy. As the namesake of this film, the condition called sirenomelia, are we viewing a potential future of humanity, adapting to the rapid change of the climate by returning to the water. And what is the cost of this evolution, but to view our past through an alien lens, of a collapsed civilization from a bygone era.

The siren explores the base, but unlike the lively civilization that entrances the little mermaid, there is nothing to truly hold her attention. She swims through its canals and docking bays, past it, away from some human archeological site; remnants of old empire, and back to the open Ocean. She swims away. Perhaps our future is no longer on land.

The Seal Woman

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I really enjoyed getting to celebrate Halloween in class with everybody who dressed up. As an homage to the origins of this beloved holiday, I chose to dress up as a Selkie from the legend in our Penguin Book of Mermaids. Upon reading these stories, which cover both Scottish myths and Irish legends, I was struck at the way these women, either as mermaid or seal, are taken against their will and forced to become mothers, especially in the case of Tom Moore and his Selkie bride.

Although this version ends with the seal woman kissing her children goodbye, and returning to the ocean, there are versions in which she drowns her children in her attempt to take them to sea. This reminded me of the story I grew up with, La llorona, about a weeping woman who is abused and abandoned by her husband, and in a sort of mercy killing, drowns her children in the river and herself. She haunts lakes and watery spaces and weeps for her children.

These two myths from completely separate parts of the world, position the water as both a danger to humans, and a power beyond our comprehension, that a mermaid could prefer returning to it, than to life on land. These stories discuss the limited options that women have in cases of abuse, forced marriage, or marital rape, which is to leave by any means. It deeply contrasts to the Grey Selchie (male) having custody of his child, but the mothers having to leave their children behind in an act of desperation.

I appreciated that in the Penguin version, when she leaves, her children and descendants are marked by webbed feet and the ability to swim. Through her, the Ocean becomes a part of their DNA. Their relationship with their mother becomes one with the Ocean. This physical mark of the relationship with sea creatures on humans bodies, reminds us of the deep connections with the Ocean we are capable of having, if we respect it´s autonomy.