sailorgil:“ The Capture of a Mermaid – The Killing of a Syren [1
sailorgil:“ The Capture of a Mermaid – The Killing of a Syren [1868] “ … A copperplate print news article illustration from the 1860’s. It depicts a fatally wounded woman, with fin-legs held by her hair surrounded by confused seamen. She is bleeding out on the deck while menaround her seem to argue amongst each other. The story accompanying it has been retold from anecdote 9 months before in December of 1868. Whilst sailing in the Philippines sea, they harpooned and hauled a woman out of the sea who they then described as having serpentine fins instead of legs. Did they theriomorphize a Sulu Sea Gypsy? The Sulu sea fisher women were common in the Northern Philippines, just like the Ama women of Japan. Perhaps they feared what they did not understand and to justify killing a woman, they made her into an abominable creature. Half human, half sea-legged. One can directly imagine the incomprehension of seeing such a thing befalling for the first time on Western eyes without the knowledge of culture in Asia. What is interesting to note here, is that this art was produced some 8 months after-the-fact to help sell the periodical. It is still a journalistic piece of evidence, in that as popular art in print we can understand the culture of the audience it was meant to fascinate and appease and the seamen it was meant to placate (their guilt for murder?). Not once did they refer to her as a woman, preferring instead the word creature, describing her in length about 4’10” with long black hair. Not dissimilar to the general size and appearance of Philippinas even today -- source link