Marc Verha
Tue, Feb-01-05, 18:17
The Secret History of Mermaids
by William Bond
(Published in my book, "Make Love Not War" available at -
http://www.publishamerica.com/books/5015 )
The official explanation of the mermaid myth goes like this.
Sailors see manatees, walruses or seals, and mistake them for
women with a fish's tail. It is claimed that even famous
explorers like Christopher Columbus and Henry Hudson have made
this error because they also reported seeing these creatures.
As did John Smith, who became the Governor of the Virginia
Colony in the early 17th century. So are we to believe that
even Columbus, Hudson and Smith were so stupid as to mistake a
sea cow or walrus for a mermaid? These men were experienced
sailors and very well acquainted with marine life in the
ocean. Either they were half-bind and credulous or is there
some other explanation for the mermaid myth?
To explain the apparent confusion some people have pointed out
that the vagina of female sea-cows is very similar to that of
a human female. It could be that sailors may have had sex with
manatees, and to cover up this act of bestiality they claimed
they had intercourse with a mermaid. The problem is that there
are thousands of stories about shepherds who have sex with
sheep and they certainly don't invent a mythical creature to
hide this act. They simply keep quiet about it. Another
explanation supposes that sailors on long sea voyages without
the company of women, become so sex-starved that anything
remotely resembling a woman in the sea becomes a `mermaid'.
But most mermaid stories come from Europe, spread by local
fishermen who don't spend months or years at sea.
Mermaids are reported all over Europe. In Ireland they are
called Merrows or Murirruhgachs, in Cornwall, Merrymaids, in
the Shetland islands, Sea-trows, while the Germans on the
Rhine called them Meerfraus. The Scandanavians called them
Navmands and the Russians, Rusalkas. Reports of mermaids go
right back to the ancient Greeks and continued right up to the
end of the 19th century. There have even been a few in the
20th century. So what are we to make of this?
Perhaps we need to look at the mermaid story from a different
perspective. In most stories of mermaids, a female is sighted.
There are very few reports of mermen. Whereas logic would say
there should be as many reports of merman as there are of
mermaids. In many mermaid stories we are told they come out of
the sea and even marry fishermen. This is a very clever trick
for someone with a fish's tail, except that in some reports a
fish tail is not always mentioned. The ancient Greeks called
mermaids `sea nymphs' or `nereids' and describe them as simply
nude women who swam in the sea, similar to a reported sighing
in the 19th century.
On September 8 1809 and school master in England wrote to "The
Times" stating that twelve years previous he was on the shore
of Sandside Bay when he saw a naked woman sitting on a rock.
He then realised that the rock she was sitting on was too
dangerous for swimmers and concluded she must be a mermaid.
She then dropped in the sea and swam away, and other people
also witnessed the same incident.
The School Master clearly states at first, that what he saw
was a naked women, he made no mention of a fish's tail. It
seems he only changed his mind when he realised that where she
sat was dangerous for swimmers. Another question he may have
asked himself was, what was a naked women doing swimming in
the sea in 19th century Britain? Such behaviour may not be so
unusual in the 21st century, but women in those times didn't
go in for athletic sports like swimming in dangerous waters,
or parade themselves completely nude in public.
Reports of mermaids having legs are not that unusual. In
Ireland old tales claim that the mermaids lived on dry land
below the sea. (Which sounds like a very Irish story). In the
Shetland islands they say that mermaids wear animal skins to
swim in the water and then take them off to walk on land. (A
early form of wet-suit?). These islanders also report that
they themselves are descendants of mermaids. The Orkney
Islanders claim that mermaids don't have fish's tails, but
instead wear long petticoats that resemble a fish's tail when
they swim in the sea. There are also many reports of mermaids
having two tails. Could they be two legs instead, ending in an
early type of flipper? (In 1500 Leonardo da Vinci invented
flippers for divers, so this is not a new idea).
The key to making sense of all these tales comes through the
story of a Dutch seaman called Hamel. He was on a Dutch ship,
`Sperwer' that was wrecked near the Korean island of Cheju in
1653. Where he and the other survivors of the wreck spent ten
months on the island. On returning to Holland, he wrote a
book about his experiences and claimed that there were
mermaids on the island. What's interesting is that even today
women from the island dive for shellfish and edible seaweed.
Does this mean that what we refer to as mermaids are simply
women divers?
There have been reports of women divers working of the coasts
and islands of Japan going back 1500 years. They dive for
shellfish, seaweed, starfish, octopuses and pearls and do this
all year round, even in the winter were the water temperature
is down to 50°F. They have been known to dive as deep as 30M
and stay underwater for over 3 minutes. The food they gather,
they place in a net around their waists and many keep on
diving to up to 60 years of age or more. In the past they only
dived in a loincloth but in more recent times they use modern
flippers, face masks and snorkels. Scuba gear was banned by
the authorities as they feared that the use of modern
equipment would over fish the area. In Korea they allow wet
suits but they are banned in Japan. There are a few male
divers as well but women are able to work far longer in cold
water than the average man.
In the 1960's western journalists discovered these divers and
topless photos of some of the more attractive women appeared
in magazines and books. Yet it seems these women were not just
half-naked bimbos, swimming in the warm shallow waters of a
tropical sea. They are tough working women. A clue to how
tough they are comes from the fact that both the Chinese and
Japanese call mermaids, `dragon- wives'. The Cheju-do women
are referred to by some Korean commentators as amazons,
because they are far more assertive than ordinary Korean
women. It seems that while the women are out diving, the men
stay at home and look after the children and house. In the
extremely "macho" society of Korea, these "tough" women and
their "weak" husbands are an embarrassment. For this reason at
one time no documents exist about the women divers in Korea,
because historically records concerning them were forbidden.
It suggests that because of the embarrassment of women
doing a tough job better than they could, patriarchal
institutions have kept silence about women divers. If this
was true in Korea, could it also have been true in Europe
and the Americas?
Now the waters around Japan and Korea are fairly cold but
north of Japan in the Ussuri Territory, there was also once a
local tradition of using professional women-divers. Even in
these freezing waters women divers would continue diving even
in the cold autumn months. Then in the 1920's the Russian
authorities began to use modern diving gear and motorboats
equipped with dredges. Needless to say, when they adopted
modern equipment the area in time became over fished until
shell fishing was banned in 1960. Demonstrating the wisdom of
the Korean and Japanese authorities in banning modern
equipment for shell fishing.
According to the late Jacques Cousteau there was once women
who dived completely naked for clams and crabs in Tierra del
Fuego. These islands are at the most southern point of South
America in waters of 42°F. So how is it that women divers
were able to dive in very cold waters near the Arctic and
Antarctic circles? Conditions that would kill a normal man
within twenty minutes. It seems that 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. The fact that women can survive in
these waters was proven by Lynne Cox. In 1987 this American
women swam across the Bering Strait, from the U.S. to the
Soviet Union with water temperatures down to 38°F. She
achieved this without a wet-suit, wearing only a normal swim
suit, cap and goggles.
In the sporting world we are used to men outperforming women,
yet there is one sport where women now outperform men, the
sport of marathon open water swimming. The first woman to swim
21 miles across the English Channel, was Gertrude Caroline
Ederle of USA. In 1926 she broke the record held by the
fastest man by one hour and fifty- nine minutes, in spite of
having to battle through heavy seas in the second half of her
swim. Since then the record for the fastest channel swim has
been held at different times by both men and women. It seems
that the longer the marathon swim the easier it is for women
to beat men.
Another sport where women can out-perform men is the very
modern sport of "free-diving", that is to say, diving without
the use of air tanks. This sport has surprised scientists who
have found that in deep dives the bodies of trained
free-divers reacts exactly like that of a marine mammal. Where
the human heart beat goes right down until it is barely
beating. The water pressure crushes the lungs until they are
the size of a drink can, without no ill effects to the diver.
Then what little oxygen is left in the body is used to keep
the heart and brain just ticking over. This is exactly what
happens to the bodies of whales and dolphins when they deep
dive. This makes the human body more than capable of dealing
with the problems of deep diving. As we can see from the
following information.
On August 17, 2002- A new Freediving World Record was set by
Tanya Streeter, at a depth of 160m/525ft in a total dive
time of 3 minutes and 26 seconds. This dive shattered the
previous women's No Limits World Record held by Canadian,
Mandy-Rae Cruickshank (136m/446ft) and even surpasses the
men's No Limits World Record of 154m/505ft held by
Frenchman, Loic LeFerme.
If we assume that mermaids are in fact women divers, then it
means that the many sightings of mermaids indicate a past
tradition of women divers throughout Europe, (as well as
America before it was conquered by Europeans). What is more,
judging by the sightings of mermaids, this tradition must have
continued into the 19th century. However this leads us to
another mystery. If this was the case, why do we not read
about it in our history books? Why was it kept secret? We can
get a clue to the reason from historical accounts dating back
to Medieval times. Where there were bizarre stories of priests
who encountering mermaids on the sea shore, would curse them
as devils and threaten them with eternal damnation. The
mermaids' usual response was to burst into tears. These
stories only sounds weird if we take the traditional view of a
mermaid. If we assume that mermaids are women divers then it
makes a lot of sense and gives an insight into the Christian
Churches' hostility to these working women. It seems that
mermaids were associated with witches as being evil women and
we know what the Christian Church did to the witches. The
infamous witch hunts of the Middle Ages completely wiped out
the profession of women healers and herbalists, allowing this
vocation to be taken over by male doctors. It must also be
remembered that up until the 20th century women were
discouraged from doing any work except the lowest paid menial
jobs. Or work with no pay as a housewife. The experience from
Japan and Korea shows that divers were well paid and this may
be true of divers in Europe. Then the coming of anti-female
religions like Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Confucianism
brought about a change in attitude towards this ancient
tradition. It is of interest that one of the foods banned by
Judaism is shell-fish. Was this because it was women who
traditionally harvest this food? Likewise in the 19th century
pearl industry, western traders were horrified to learn that
the locals used women pearl divers and even banned them in the
Torres Strait islands.
Many mermaid stories are about a mermaid marries a fishermen
and has children, but still has a yearning to return to the
sea. In some tales she does do this and leaves both her
husband and children behind. This resembles the plight of
modern day women who try to juggle a job, husband and children
at the same time. A woman working as a diver full time
wouldn't have the time or energy to look after a husband and
children as well. So these mermaid stories may be about the
dilemma faced by women divers concerning society's rules that
women should look after the home and children as her primary
responsibility. Female wool spinners before the industrial
revolution had the same problem. Spinning wool by hand was a
high skilled job and women on average were far better at it
than men. This gave these women a well paying job and the more
highly skilled even become wealthy. So it is of interest that
the word spinster comes from the word spinner. This indicates
that even hundreds of years ago many women preferred the
independence a well paying job like wool spinning, than
becoming a wife and mother. Another point is that in some
fairy stories, the wicked witch has a spinning wheel and use
it to perform magic. So we find a connection of witchcraft to
both spinners and divers.
What comes across is a form of discrimination against women
similar to black people in the southern state of USA, after
slavery was make illegal. Where successful or educated blacks
were attacked and murdered by the Ku-Klu-Klan. Likewise
successful women healers, herbalists, spinners and divers were
probably threatened by witch hunters. The only reason wool
spinners and divers escaped persecution was that they were
unable to replace them with men.
It seems that women divers completely undermine patriarchal
stereotypes of men and women. Up until the stirrings of
feminism in the 20th century, women throughout the world were
referred to as the "weaker sex". Men claimed that they were
not only bigger and stronger than women, but more intelligent
and more capable doing everything better than women, (except
of-course childbirth). Women divers were a big blow to men's
fragile egos because it was one job that women could do better
than they could. It also seems that being able to out perform
men, gave women a strong ego boost. Because throughout the
world, women divers seem to have been very confident and
assertive women. As mentioned before the Chinese and Japanese
referred to mermaids as dragon wives while in Africa they were
called river-witches. It seems the only reason why women
divers survived in Korea into modern times is because they
lived on remote islands and diving for food was vital for the
islander's survival.
The same thing must have happened in Europe. Male hostility
would have discouraged the use of women divers, but in remote
fishing villages along the coast, people living on the edge of
starvation couldn't afford to ignore an important food
resource like shell fish and edible seaweed. So they continued
this ancient tradition, in secret. The problem would be that
outsiders, who are unaware of what is going on, would
occasionally see the divers working. In an age when women were
supposed to be physically weak, modest and submissive, these
outsiders would be shocked to see, naked, athletic and
assertive women confidently diving for marine food. It would
be unlikely that the women would be clothed because wet
clothing would be too much of a drag in water, and swimming
costumes were not introduced until the Victorian times. Though
reports from Shetland islands of mermaids wearing animal skins
make sense providing they are from marine mammals. But the
claim from the Orkney islands of mermaids wearing petticoats
sounds incredible as not only would they give too much drag in
the water but would be dangerous if caught in rocks, while
underwater.
It means that it was sightings from outsiders that created the
mermaid legend. Fishing villages that used women divers would
greatly encourage this legend and embellish it even more, to
divert attention away from the fact, it was village women who
were the mermaids. Because they didn't want their women to be
accused of witch-craft. The Church may even have gone along
with this, preferring to have stories of mythical mermaids
rather than accounts of diving women who could a job better
than men. So everyone involved had a reason to keep it secret.
This then is why mermaid stories are really a secret chapter
of women's history.
END
SOURCES
"Mermaids, Nymphs Of The Sea" by Theodore Gachot
"The Diving Women Of Korea And Japan", Scientific American.
May 1967 Hermann Rahn and Su Ki Hong.
http://www.gmsys.net/prosjekt/csp/glimpses4.htm#Gentle divers
of an ancient sea
http://members.cox.net/mermaid3.merhist.htm
http://rubens.anu.edu.au/student.projects/mermaids/folk-
lores.html
http://www.orkneyjar.com/folklore/finfolk/mermaid.htm
http:www.mariner.0rg/exhibits/women/myths/mermaids.htm
http://www.hhp.ufl.edu/keepingfit/ARTICLE/femaleswim.htm
http://www.globaltechnoscan.com/18thApr-24thApr01/abyss.htm
http://www.apneamagazine.com/tanya_record-eng.html
www.ivin.narod.ru/scallops/fishing.htm
http://rubens.anu.edu.au/student.projects/mermaids/sigh-
tings.html
by William Bond
(Published in my book, "Make Love Not War" available at -
http://www.publishamerica.com/books/5015 )
The official explanation of the mermaid myth goes like this.
Sailors see manatees, walruses or seals, and mistake them for
women with a fish's tail. It is claimed that even famous
explorers like Christopher Columbus and Henry Hudson have made
this error because they also reported seeing these creatures.
As did John Smith, who became the Governor of the Virginia
Colony in the early 17th century. So are we to believe that
even Columbus, Hudson and Smith were so stupid as to mistake a
sea cow or walrus for a mermaid? These men were experienced
sailors and very well acquainted with marine life in the
ocean. Either they were half-bind and credulous or is there
some other explanation for the mermaid myth?
To explain the apparent confusion some people have pointed out
that the vagina of female sea-cows is very similar to that of
a human female. It could be that sailors may have had sex with
manatees, and to cover up this act of bestiality they claimed
they had intercourse with a mermaid. The problem is that there
are thousands of stories about shepherds who have sex with
sheep and they certainly don't invent a mythical creature to
hide this act. They simply keep quiet about it. Another
explanation supposes that sailors on long sea voyages without
the company of women, become so sex-starved that anything
remotely resembling a woman in the sea becomes a `mermaid'.
But most mermaid stories come from Europe, spread by local
fishermen who don't spend months or years at sea.
Mermaids are reported all over Europe. In Ireland they are
called Merrows or Murirruhgachs, in Cornwall, Merrymaids, in
the Shetland islands, Sea-trows, while the Germans on the
Rhine called them Meerfraus. The Scandanavians called them
Navmands and the Russians, Rusalkas. Reports of mermaids go
right back to the ancient Greeks and continued right up to the
end of the 19th century. There have even been a few in the
20th century. So what are we to make of this?
Perhaps we need to look at the mermaid story from a different
perspective. In most stories of mermaids, a female is sighted.
There are very few reports of mermen. Whereas logic would say
there should be as many reports of merman as there are of
mermaids. In many mermaid stories we are told they come out of
the sea and even marry fishermen. This is a very clever trick
for someone with a fish's tail, except that in some reports a
fish tail is not always mentioned. The ancient Greeks called
mermaids `sea nymphs' or `nereids' and describe them as simply
nude women who swam in the sea, similar to a reported sighing
in the 19th century.
On September 8 1809 and school master in England wrote to "The
Times" stating that twelve years previous he was on the shore
of Sandside Bay when he saw a naked woman sitting on a rock.
He then realised that the rock she was sitting on was too
dangerous for swimmers and concluded she must be a mermaid.
She then dropped in the sea and swam away, and other people
also witnessed the same incident.
The School Master clearly states at first, that what he saw
was a naked women, he made no mention of a fish's tail. It
seems he only changed his mind when he realised that where she
sat was dangerous for swimmers. Another question he may have
asked himself was, what was a naked women doing swimming in
the sea in 19th century Britain? Such behaviour may not be so
unusual in the 21st century, but women in those times didn't
go in for athletic sports like swimming in dangerous waters,
or parade themselves completely nude in public.
Reports of mermaids having legs are not that unusual. In
Ireland old tales claim that the mermaids lived on dry land
below the sea. (Which sounds like a very Irish story). In the
Shetland islands they say that mermaids wear animal skins to
swim in the water and then take them off to walk on land. (A
early form of wet-suit?). These islanders also report that
they themselves are descendants of mermaids. The Orkney
Islanders claim that mermaids don't have fish's tails, but
instead wear long petticoats that resemble a fish's tail when
they swim in the sea. There are also many reports of mermaids
having two tails. Could they be two legs instead, ending in an
early type of flipper? (In 1500 Leonardo da Vinci invented
flippers for divers, so this is not a new idea).
The key to making sense of all these tales comes through the
story of a Dutch seaman called Hamel. He was on a Dutch ship,
`Sperwer' that was wrecked near the Korean island of Cheju in
1653. Where he and the other survivors of the wreck spent ten
months on the island. On returning to Holland, he wrote a
book about his experiences and claimed that there were
mermaids on the island. What's interesting is that even today
women from the island dive for shellfish and edible seaweed.
Does this mean that what we refer to as mermaids are simply
women divers?
There have been reports of women divers working of the coasts
and islands of Japan going back 1500 years. They dive for
shellfish, seaweed, starfish, octopuses and pearls and do this
all year round, even in the winter were the water temperature
is down to 50°F. They have been known to dive as deep as 30M
and stay underwater for over 3 minutes. The food they gather,
they place in a net around their waists and many keep on
diving to up to 60 years of age or more. In the past they only
dived in a loincloth but in more recent times they use modern
flippers, face masks and snorkels. Scuba gear was banned by
the authorities as they feared that the use of modern
equipment would over fish the area. In Korea they allow wet
suits but they are banned in Japan. There are a few male
divers as well but women are able to work far longer in cold
water than the average man.
In the 1960's western journalists discovered these divers and
topless photos of some of the more attractive women appeared
in magazines and books. Yet it seems these women were not just
half-naked bimbos, swimming in the warm shallow waters of a
tropical sea. They are tough working women. A clue to how
tough they are comes from the fact that both the Chinese and
Japanese call mermaids, `dragon- wives'. The Cheju-do women
are referred to by some Korean commentators as amazons,
because they are far more assertive than ordinary Korean
women. It seems that while the women are out diving, the men
stay at home and look after the children and house. In the
extremely "macho" society of Korea, these "tough" women and
their "weak" husbands are an embarrassment. For this reason at
one time no documents exist about the women divers in Korea,
because historically records concerning them were forbidden.
It suggests that because of the embarrassment of women
doing a tough job better than they could, patriarchal
institutions have kept silence about women divers. If this
was true in Korea, could it also have been true in Europe
and the Americas?
Now the waters around Japan and Korea are fairly cold but
north of Japan in the Ussuri Territory, there was also once a
local tradition of using professional women-divers. Even in
these freezing waters women divers would continue diving even
in the cold autumn months. Then in the 1920's the Russian
authorities began to use modern diving gear and motorboats
equipped with dredges. Needless to say, when they adopted
modern equipment the area in time became over fished until
shell fishing was banned in 1960. Demonstrating the wisdom of
the Korean and Japanese authorities in banning modern
equipment for shell fishing.
According to the late Jacques Cousteau there was once women
who dived completely naked for clams and crabs in Tierra del
Fuego. These islands are at the most southern point of South
America in waters of 42°F. So how is it that women divers
were able to dive in very cold waters near the Arctic and
Antarctic circles? Conditions that would kill a normal man
within twenty minutes. It seems that 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. The fact that women can survive in
these waters was proven by Lynne Cox. In 1987 this American
women swam across the Bering Strait, from the U.S. to the
Soviet Union with water temperatures down to 38°F. She
achieved this without a wet-suit, wearing only a normal swim
suit, cap and goggles.
In the sporting world we are used to men outperforming women,
yet there is one sport where women now outperform men, the
sport of marathon open water swimming. The first woman to swim
21 miles across the English Channel, was Gertrude Caroline
Ederle of USA. In 1926 she broke the record held by the
fastest man by one hour and fifty- nine minutes, in spite of
having to battle through heavy seas in the second half of her
swim. Since then the record for the fastest channel swim has
been held at different times by both men and women. It seems
that the longer the marathon swim the easier it is for women
to beat men.
Another sport where women can out-perform men is the very
modern sport of "free-diving", that is to say, diving without
the use of air tanks. This sport has surprised scientists who
have found that in deep dives the bodies of trained
free-divers reacts exactly like that of a marine mammal. Where
the human heart beat goes right down until it is barely
beating. The water pressure crushes the lungs until they are
the size of a drink can, without no ill effects to the diver.
Then what little oxygen is left in the body is used to keep
the heart and brain just ticking over. This is exactly what
happens to the bodies of whales and dolphins when they deep
dive. This makes the human body more than capable of dealing
with the problems of deep diving. As we can see from the
following information.
On August 17, 2002- A new Freediving World Record was set by
Tanya Streeter, at a depth of 160m/525ft in a total dive
time of 3 minutes and 26 seconds. This dive shattered the
previous women's No Limits World Record held by Canadian,
Mandy-Rae Cruickshank (136m/446ft) and even surpasses the
men's No Limits World Record of 154m/505ft held by
Frenchman, Loic LeFerme.
If we assume that mermaids are in fact women divers, then it
means that the many sightings of mermaids indicate a past
tradition of women divers throughout Europe, (as well as
America before it was conquered by Europeans). What is more,
judging by the sightings of mermaids, this tradition must have
continued into the 19th century. However this leads us to
another mystery. If this was the case, why do we not read
about it in our history books? Why was it kept secret? We can
get a clue to the reason from historical accounts dating back
to Medieval times. Where there were bizarre stories of priests
who encountering mermaids on the sea shore, would curse them
as devils and threaten them with eternal damnation. The
mermaids' usual response was to burst into tears. These
stories only sounds weird if we take the traditional view of a
mermaid. If we assume that mermaids are women divers then it
makes a lot of sense and gives an insight into the Christian
Churches' hostility to these working women. It seems that
mermaids were associated with witches as being evil women and
we know what the Christian Church did to the witches. The
infamous witch hunts of the Middle Ages completely wiped out
the profession of women healers and herbalists, allowing this
vocation to be taken over by male doctors. It must also be
remembered that up until the 20th century women were
discouraged from doing any work except the lowest paid menial
jobs. Or work with no pay as a housewife. The experience from
Japan and Korea shows that divers were well paid and this may
be true of divers in Europe. Then the coming of anti-female
religions like Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Confucianism
brought about a change in attitude towards this ancient
tradition. It is of interest that one of the foods banned by
Judaism is shell-fish. Was this because it was women who
traditionally harvest this food? Likewise in the 19th century
pearl industry, western traders were horrified to learn that
the locals used women pearl divers and even banned them in the
Torres Strait islands.
Many mermaid stories are about a mermaid marries a fishermen
and has children, but still has a yearning to return to the
sea. In some tales she does do this and leaves both her
husband and children behind. This resembles the plight of
modern day women who try to juggle a job, husband and children
at the same time. A woman working as a diver full time
wouldn't have the time or energy to look after a husband and
children as well. So these mermaid stories may be about the
dilemma faced by women divers concerning society's rules that
women should look after the home and children as her primary
responsibility. Female wool spinners before the industrial
revolution had the same problem. Spinning wool by hand was a
high skilled job and women on average were far better at it
than men. This gave these women a well paying job and the more
highly skilled even become wealthy. So it is of interest that
the word spinster comes from the word spinner. This indicates
that even hundreds of years ago many women preferred the
independence a well paying job like wool spinning, than
becoming a wife and mother. Another point is that in some
fairy stories, the wicked witch has a spinning wheel and use
it to perform magic. So we find a connection of witchcraft to
both spinners and divers.
What comes across is a form of discrimination against women
similar to black people in the southern state of USA, after
slavery was make illegal. Where successful or educated blacks
were attacked and murdered by the Ku-Klu-Klan. Likewise
successful women healers, herbalists, spinners and divers were
probably threatened by witch hunters. The only reason wool
spinners and divers escaped persecution was that they were
unable to replace them with men.
It seems that women divers completely undermine patriarchal
stereotypes of men and women. Up until the stirrings of
feminism in the 20th century, women throughout the world were
referred to as the "weaker sex". Men claimed that they were
not only bigger and stronger than women, but more intelligent
and more capable doing everything better than women, (except
of-course childbirth). Women divers were a big blow to men's
fragile egos because it was one job that women could do better
than they could. It also seems that being able to out perform
men, gave women a strong ego boost. Because throughout the
world, women divers seem to have been very confident and
assertive women. As mentioned before the Chinese and Japanese
referred to mermaids as dragon wives while in Africa they were
called river-witches. It seems the only reason why women
divers survived in Korea into modern times is because they
lived on remote islands and diving for food was vital for the
islander's survival.
The same thing must have happened in Europe. Male hostility
would have discouraged the use of women divers, but in remote
fishing villages along the coast, people living on the edge of
starvation couldn't afford to ignore an important food
resource like shell fish and edible seaweed. So they continued
this ancient tradition, in secret. The problem would be that
outsiders, who are unaware of what is going on, would
occasionally see the divers working. In an age when women were
supposed to be physically weak, modest and submissive, these
outsiders would be shocked to see, naked, athletic and
assertive women confidently diving for marine food. It would
be unlikely that the women would be clothed because wet
clothing would be too much of a drag in water, and swimming
costumes were not introduced until the Victorian times. Though
reports from Shetland islands of mermaids wearing animal skins
make sense providing they are from marine mammals. But the
claim from the Orkney islands of mermaids wearing petticoats
sounds incredible as not only would they give too much drag in
the water but would be dangerous if caught in rocks, while
underwater.
It means that it was sightings from outsiders that created the
mermaid legend. Fishing villages that used women divers would
greatly encourage this legend and embellish it even more, to
divert attention away from the fact, it was village women who
were the mermaids. Because they didn't want their women to be
accused of witch-craft. The Church may even have gone along
with this, preferring to have stories of mythical mermaids
rather than accounts of diving women who could a job better
than men. So everyone involved had a reason to keep it secret.
This then is why mermaid stories are really a secret chapter
of women's history.
END
SOURCES
"Mermaids, Nymphs Of The Sea" by Theodore Gachot
"The Diving Women Of Korea And Japan", Scientific American.
May 1967 Hermann Rahn and Su Ki Hong.
http://www.gmsys.net/prosjekt/csp/glimpses4.htm#Gentle divers
of an ancient sea
http://members.cox.net/mermaid3.merhist.htm
http://rubens.anu.edu.au/student.projects/mermaids/folk-
lores.html
http://www.orkneyjar.com/folklore/finfolk/mermaid.htm
http:www.mariner.0rg/exhibits/women/myths/mermaids.htm
http://www.hhp.ufl.edu/keepingfit/ARTICLE/femaleswim.htm
http://www.globaltechnoscan.com/18thApr-24thApr01/abyss.htm
http://www.apneamagazine.com/tanya_record-eng.html
www.ivin.narod.ru/scallops/fishing.htm
http://rubens.anu.edu.au/student.projects/mermaids/sigh-
tings.html