Fiji mermaid

Lore & Background

American sea captain Samuel Barrett Edes bought Barnum's 'mermaid' from Dutch sailors in Batavia in 1822 for $6,000, using money from the ship's expense account. Another account says that a captain of an American whaler bought it for $5,000 in Batavia, the Dutch East Indies. Either way, the mermaid is believed to be one of many being manufactured commercially in Japan, by fishermen with a sense of humor as well as profit-mindedness. The widely accepted canon confirms it was a composite of a monkey torso and a fish tail. A Dutchman who was posted as warehouse keeper on Dejima, Nagasaki 1820–1829 writes that such a mermaid could be obtained for a handy price and resold for a fortune in Dutch Indonesia. According to J. F. van Overmeer Fisscher, the object from the Japanese workshop merely cost 30 ryō or 60 guilders, but might fetch 2,000 Spanish dollars in Batavia.

Reader's Guide

The Fiji mermaid is significant as a landmark example of a manufactured hoax that captivated 19th-century audiences and was masterfully promoted by P. T. Barnum. Its legacy lies in the way it exploited public curiosity about exotic creatures, blending genuine craftsmanship with outright deception. Barnum's use of anonymous letters, a fake naturalist named 'Dr. J. Griffin' impersonated by his associate Levi Lyman, and staged displays in hotels and museums set a template for modern publicity stunts. The object itself disappeared, likely consumed in one of the many fires that destroyed parts of Barnum's collections, but its influence persists. Later incarnations, including exhibits at Ripley's Believe It or Not! and Coney Island's Sideshow by the Seashore, claim to be the original, though none are considered authentic. The hoax also inspired a modern guide to constructing a Fiji mermaid using papier mache and modelling putty, published in Fortean Times magazine in 2009.

Did You Know?

• P. T. Barnum exhibited the original Fiji mermaid in Barnum's American Museum in New York in 1842.
• The mermaid was possibly a composite of a 'blue-faced monkey and a salmon'.
• Barnum printed 10,000 pamphlets describing general information about mermaids and stories about his specimen.
• The mermaid was displayed in London in 1822, advertised in a publication by J. Limbird in the Mirror.

Anatomy of a Fabrication

The Fiji mermaid was never a creature of the sea. Its body consisted of the torso and head of a juvenile monkey stitched to the posterior half of a fish, a composite that Japanese fishermen apparently produced with equal parts humor and commercial intent. The original specimen bore fish scales overlaid with animal hair across its body, two drooping breasts on its chest, and its jaw stretched wide with teeth exposed. The right hand pressed against the right cheek while the left was tucked beneath the lower jaw. Barnum himself later characterized it in his autobiography as a grotesque, desiccated, dark-colored figure barely three feet in length, its tail flipped upward and limbs flung in a posture suggesting it perished in terrible suffering—a far cry from the graceful, attractive mermaids of folklore. The object was supposedly caught near the Fiji Islands in the South Pacific, though its true origin was almost certainly a Japanese workshop, perhaps assembled from a blue-faced monkey and a salmon.

The Griffin Ruse and Barnum's Marketing

When Moses Kimball of the Boston Museum brought the mermaid to New York in the summer of 1842, P. T. Barnum had a naturalist examine it. The expert refused to certify its authenticity, yet Barnum saw only a ticket-selling opportunity. He leased the creature from Kimball for twelve dollars and fifty cents per week. To manufacture a sense of genuine discovery, Barnum orchestrated an elaborate publicity campaign: an agent dispatched anonymous letters to newspapers in Montgomery, Alabama, and Charleston, South Carolina, claiming a Dr. J. Griffin had captured the specimen in South America. Griffin was in fact Levi Lyman, one of Barnum's associates. To sustain the ruse, Lyman checked into a Philadelphia hotel and showed the mermaid to the landlord, who then begged to introduce it to friends—many of them newspaper editors. Lyman traveled to New York, displayed the object to a small audience, and then exhibited it in the concert hall. Barnum printed ten thousand pamphlets detailing mermaid lore and his particular specimen. The public display lasted only five days before Barnum convinced Griffin to transfer the mermaid to the American Museum of Natural History.

A Global Curiosity Trade

The Fiji mermaid was one node in a broader international market for fabricated natural wonders. American sea captain Samuel Barrett Edes purchased the specimen from Japanese sailors in 1822 for six thousand dollars, drawn from his ship's expense account; another account places the purchase at five thousand dollars in Batavia, the Dutch East Indies. A Dutch warehouse keeper stationed on Dejima in Nagasaki between 1820 and 1829 recorded that such a mermaid could be acquired for a modest sum and resold for a fortune in Dutch Indonesia. According to J. F. van Overmeer Fisscher, the Japanese workshop price was merely thirty ryō or sixty guilders, yet the same object might fetch two thousand Spanish dollars in Batavia. When the Dutchman expressed interest in the speculative trade, vendors displayed a staggering array of curiosities: two-headed men, a face-on-belly figure, devil-headed people, and twin-headed dragons. Several of these oddities ended up in his personal cabinet collection in The Hague. The Fiji mermaid, then, was not an isolated hoax but a product of a thriving, cross-cultural curiosity economy.

After the Fire — Echoes and Imitations

The original Fiji mermaid vanished, most likely consumed in one of the many fires that destroyed portions of Barnum's collections at his American Museum in New York. Yet the legend proved remarkably durable. Joe Nickell, in his work Secrets of the Sideshows, catalogued several modern claimants to the title of Barnum's true original, which he dismisses as fakes of Barnum's fake. Exhibits at Ripley's Believe It or Not!, Coney Island's Sideshow by the Seashore, and Bobby Reynolds' traveling sideshow all staked their own claims, none of which Nickell found credible. The tradition also evolved into theatrical illusion: one performer used an elaborate projection system to cast the image of a live woman into a fishbowl, making her appear only an inch or two long. On one occasion, a patron confronted the man outside after noticing the mermaid smoking a cigarette in her hidden chamber. The craft itself was revived in 2009 when special effects expert Alan Friswell published a construction guide in Fortean Times magazine, building his version from papier-mâché, modelling putty, wallpaper paste, and doll's hair glued to the scalp.