Japanese Mermaid in India February 19, 2018
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern , trackback
This mermaid account is perhaps most interesting for the insight it gives into the mermaid trade in the east. We are in Delhi (Anon 1870).
I was quite astonished to hear from some of my friends that a real mermaid exposed in the chouk of this city, could be seen on paying a single piece. So as this filled my mind with great curiosity, I went there yesterday, and saw that it was all true, and that a man sitting at the door with a bell in his hand was inviting the passersby to that spectacle. I, with two friends, went in, saw the animal and felt it with my own hands. I couldn’t make out anything fictitious in it.
The creature apparently came from even further away
On inquiring of the man who was present there, I was informed that it was a real mermaid found in the sea near Japan, and that the man brought it for 500 rupees at a public auction in Calcutta. He further told that another of the same sort, but as big as a man, was sold there for 1400 rupees. The length of the one I saw here was almost a foot and a half.
And what did this mermaid look like?
It exactly resembles a fish covered with scales in the lower half, and a monkey having a head and two arms with fingers and nails in the upper.
So many did… A cousin of the 1842 feejee mermaid perhaps…
Other mermaids: drbeachcombing AT gmail DOT com
[note the illustration is not from this account!]
