The Penguin Book of Mermaids

by The Penguin Book of Mermaids (retail) (epub)

  Although these tales are current among the Indians, I am inclined to think that they were introduced by the Portuguese. But there was, undoubtedly, an aboriginal myth which bore a considerable resemblance to the Old World stories, which have been tacked to it. The myth, as given by Dr. Couto de Magalhães, represents the Oiara (or Uauyará) as a male, not a female:

  “The fate of the fishes was confided to Uauyará; the animal into which he transformed himself was the river-porpoise. No one of the supernatural beings of the Indians furnishes so many legends as this. There is not a settlement of the province of Pará where one may not hear a series of these stories, sometimes grotesque and extravagant, often melancholy and tender. The Uauyará is a great lover of our Indian women; many of them attribute their first child to this deity, who sometimes surprises them when they are bathing, sometimes transforms himself into the figure of a mortal to seduce them, sometimes drags them under the water, where they are forced to submit to him. On moonlight nights the lakes are often illuminated, and one hears the songs and the measured tread of the dances with which the Uauyará amuses himself.”

  The Pincoya1

  Francisco Javier Cavada (1864–1950), a Chilean priest and scholar from the city of Ancud in Chiloé, writes about the Pincoya as a water spirit in the Chiloé Archipelago, which was colonized by the Spanish in the late 1560s and has been controlled by the Chilean government since 1824. The first peoples of Chiloé were originally the Chono, the Huiliche, and the Cunco, and while their descendants tell tales about las sirenas, they also continue to speak of the Pincoya and her husband, the Pincoy, who is also her brother. There are important differences between las sirenas and the Pincoya-Pincoy water spirits, and, as Bernando Quintana Mansilla’s work shows, between the Pincoya and the Pincoy. To begin with, unlike typical mermaids, the Pincoya does not have a fishtail but appears completely human, while her husband has a human face and the body of a large seal with silver fur. Moreover, the Pincoya is not associated with seduction, but with the fruitfulness of the sea. She controls edible marine resources and is able to increase or decrease the number of fish and shellfish at will. The Pincoy, however, is attracted to human women and sometimes seduces them.

  The Pincoya is a type of nereid or sea fairy, that, together with the Pincoy, her husband, attracts an abundance of fish and shellfish to the place or area of the sea where they live.

  To summon abundance, the Pincoya puts shellfish in the sand while taking care that her face is turned toward the sea. When she wants the seafood to become scarce or ngal, she turns her face toward the mountain.

  Some regularly set out in their boats to search for these sorcerers to take them to other places where they desire abundance; but it is necessary that girls with a happy disposition and cheerful smiles accompany these men because the Pincoyes are always in a good mood.2 Both are blond and attractive.

  It is said that when fishermen fish too often in a single spot, the Pincoya gets angry and leaves those places, which then become barren.

  Some confuse the Pincoya with the Serena (Sirena); but they are mistaken because the Serena does not live only in the sea, but also in lakes and even pools, where she has been seen combing her luxuriant blond hair with a golden comb and holding a mirror in her hands.

  The pools in which some Serena live have a whitish and milky water.

  Whoever sees a Serena in one of these pools or ponds will have a short life.

  The Mermaids1

  Julio Vicuña Cifuentes (1865–1936), a preeminent Chilean folklore scholar and founding member of the Sociedad del Folklore Chileno, raised the question of whether beliefs about las sirenas (mermaids) were the result of Chileans being introduced to Greek Siren stories. What is striking about Cifuentes’s treatise is that as he was writing it, he read Francisco Javier Cavada’s essay on Chiloé water spirits, which changed his mind, but rather than rewrite his work, he added to it. Thus, not only do we gain deeper insight into his thinking process, but we can better appreciate the degree to which the familarity (or unfamilarity) with just one local tradition can critically influence scholarly understanding of folklore. In fact, Vicuña Cifuentes ends his treatise by citing the opening paragraph of Cavada’s essay. To avoid repetition, we have omitted that passage because we include Cavada’s account in full.

  Our folk are not unfamiliar with the legend of the Mermaids. It is known of them at least that they are monstrous half fish, half women; that with their sweetest songs mislead mariners, especially fishermen, as mermaids prowl in preference near the coast. Some tales without interest reference this point, connected to the disappearance of young and good-looking individuals, who were “perhaps” abducted by mermaids; but the complete absence of details that reveal the nationalization of the legend suggests that it has no roots in our tradition.

  However, in my childhood, I remember hearing in La Serena the following tale, which relates an incident that supposedly happened in that same city.

  Many years ago, an old woman lived with her daughter, whose name was Serena, a girl of tough and headstrong character. One day, she wanted to go for a bath at the river, but her mother was sick and could not go with her. As the old woman tried to stop her, the daughter, who lacked any natural affection, hit her, wounding her in the face. Then the mother cursed her. But the girl ignored the curse and went alone to the river as she had planned. The river had grown, and engulfed the daughter in its turbid current, dragging her to the sea; and when the mother, hours later, went to look for her, seized by anguished despair, some fishermen who had huts in the same area of the river told her they had seen pass, with its head above the waters, a horrendous monster, half woman, half fish, which waved its arms and tail as if it wanted to fight the current to reach the shore. Later, on several occasions, the fishermen of those coasts saw the monster, and upon spotting her, collected their nets, not because of fear that the strange animal would fall on them and break them, but because they knew that the fish would abandon the waters when it appeared.

  I recall that I observed to my informant that the name of the cursed daughter must be Sirena, and not Serena, as he pronounced it. The good man affirmed it was so, probably because this name was familiar to him, and the other was not.

  I do not know what diffusion this tale has achieved, forged, apparently, not as an independent legend, but to explain the origin of mermaids, by someone who knew of the Greek fable.

  Since I have written this account, I have come across information that I will transcribe immediately, which modifies in part my judgment about the absence of details that reveal the nationalization of the fable concerning the mermaids. Undoubtedly, at least in the Chilean tradition, the legend is sufficiently rooted, as it has led to several local superstitions.

  AFRICAN WATER SPIRITS IN THE CARIBBEAN

  These tales come from the Caribbean islands of Trinidad and Tobago. Originally inhabited by Native peoples, Trinidad and Tobago were colonized by the Spanish in 1498. In 1797, they were ceded to the British, but at various points in time they have also been controlled by the Dutch, the Coulanders, and the French. Due to slavery and indentured servitude, Africans and Indians are the two largest ethnic groups in these islands: the French brought slaves of African origin with them in the late eighteenth century, while a great number of East Indians were imported as indentured laborers after slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1833. Snakes abound in both Africa and India, and there are many stories of water spirits whose forms incorporate both human and serpentine features. This holds true also for Trinidad and Tobago. Between these two islands, more than forty species of snakes have been identified; among these is the green anaconda, also known as the water boa. The dread that the peoples of Trinidad and Tobago feel for this snake is justified, as it is one of the largest in the world. In 2013, an anaconda that was seventeen feet, nine inches long and weighed 220 pounds was caught in Caroni, Trinidad. The fear of being attacked and swallowed alive by such an
anaconda, justified or not, is understandable.

  Mami Wata, or “Mother Water,” a powerful, transnational water deity, may appear either as a beautiful woman or as an anaconda from the hips down. Wherever Mami Wata is worshipped, her devotees generally call her their linguistic equivalent of “Mother Water” or “Mother of Water,” such as Maman de l‘Eau, Maman Dlo, Mamy Wata, Mammy Wata, etc. In her human-anaconda form, she is described as dreadful to behold. In her mermaid form, be it piscine or reptilian, Mami Wata dwells in the waters of the forests she protects, but just as often, she might pass you by in her human form as she walks down the street in high heels, dressed to the nines and wearing stylish sunglasses.1 She takes seduction to a whole new level, using her beauty and promises of wealth to attract followers, and is not above sleeping with her devotees or taking them as spouses.2

  Significantly, she has the power to transform a human into a water spirit by changing the lower half of their body to that of a fish. Beautiful young women should beware, for Maman Dlo might transform them so that they can act as her assistants, as seen in “Ti Jeanne,” a story about a young woman named Ti Jeanne who has a life-changing encounter with Maman Dlo. If a man damages the forest or pollutes its waters, however, Maman Dlo might “punish” him by taking him as her husband—an arrangement that does not end with his death. But as the tale “Mama Dlo’s Gift” shows, this water spirit is also capable of kindness to those who honor her. This tale also mentions Oriyu, the Amazonian water spirit.

  Ti Jeanne1

  Maman Dlo, whose name is derived from the French “maman de l’eau,” which means “mother of the water” is one of the protectresses of the forest and its rivers, waterfalls and pools.

  It was towards the end of the rainy season. Ti Jeanne, who lived with her grandmother in Blanchisseuse, went to the river pool with her basket of laundry.

  She tied up her skirt around her waist, waded into the water, and her round, brown arms moved rhythmically up and down as she beat the laundry against a stone. Her voice rang out in the forest, mingling with the song of birds high up in the trees, the screech of parrots and the more mysterious sounds of the forest. Whap, whap went the wet laundry.

  “La rene, la rene, la rene rivé,” sang Ti Jeanne.

  “Qu’est-ce qu’elle dit?” asked the kiskidee, who never really understands anything. Ti Jeanne worked away in the solitude of the ravine, the sun travelled its course across the sky, and when the last piece of laundry was washed and wrung and laid out to bleach on the stones, Ti Jeanne sat down, splashing her feet in the water, and looking at her reflection in the water of a small, clear pool, turning this way and that to catch a glimpse of her pretty features.

  “Who’s that singing so fine?” came a hissing, creaky voice from the dark greenery. “Who’s that splashing in the water? Who’s that looking at herself?”

  Ti Jeanne got scared, because she heard the voice but couldn’t see who it belonged to. Not daring to move, she asked in a feeble voice:

  “Who you talkin but not showin youself?”

  A throaty chuckle came from the dark, then a rustle. Ti Jeanne saw circular ripples on the water emerging from under the foliage, and then the face of an old old African woman emerged from the water. She had tattoos, and wore large earrings and strands and strands of necklaces made of colourful beads.

  “Ti Jeanne, Ti Jeanne,” the woman sang in her rusty old voice, “Ti Jeanne, so beautiful, washerwoman, blanchisseuse! Ti Jeanne, mmh, mmh.”

  As her song changed to a humming sound, rising and falling, the old woman rose and rose, and Ti Jeanne, who was by now totally entranced in spite of her fear, saw that the hag had the body of an anaconda.

  “Maman Dlo,” Ti Jeanne whispered. “Maman Dlo, I didn’t mean to be rude. I didn’t hurt anything.” For the girl knew that punishment awaits the one who offends the forest creatures, the plants or the animals, and she was in great fear to be talked to by the great water spirit.

  “Vanity, vanity, my child,” said Maman Dlo, who was now fully seven feet erect on her snakebody, swaying from side to side. “Looking at yourself in the water’s reflection. But beautiful you are, ssssssso beautiful! Mmh, mmh!”

  Ti Jeanne, entranced, started to swing along with Maman Dlo. As she listened to her song, the girl got up from her seat, and slowly walked into the water. Maman Dlo’s tail flapped furiously, creating bigger and bigger splashes, waves, and foam started to rise. Ti Jeanne’s chemise fell from her, her hair grew long, covering her round shoulders and her bare breasts, and when the girl’s lips reached the water’s surface, the bubbles covered the pool as if hundreds of laundresses had been working.

  Maman Dlo had enchanted Ti Jeanne, who was to live with her and serve her forever after. She gave the girl a fishtail, and Ti Jeanne was to become one of the most beautiful of the fairy maids, playing with the other river spirits and protecting the forest, its waters and pools for a long time to come.

  When the villagers came to look for her, they found only the laundry she had washed, and next to it on the riverbank the chemise she had been wearing and seven shiny fishscales.

  Ti Jeanne in later times also chose a husband from amongst the village folk, but that is another story and shall be told another time.

  * * *

  * * * * *

  “Mama Dlo” or “Mama glo,” whose name is derived from the French “maman de l’eau,” which means “mother of the water,” is one of the lesser-known personalities of Trinidad and Tobago folklore.

  A hideous creature, her lower half takes the form of an anaconda. She is sometimes thought to be the lover of Papa Bois, and old hunters tell stories of coming upon them in the “High Woods.” They also tell of hearing a loud, cracking sound, which is said to be the noise made by her tail as she snaps it on the surface of a mountain pool or a still lagoon.

  Mortal men who commit crimes against the forest, like burning down trees or indiscriminately putting animals to death or fouling the rivers, could find themselves married to her for life, both this one and the one to follow.

  Sometimes she takes the form of a beautiful woman singing silent songs on still afternoons, sitting at the water’s edge in the sunlight, lingering for a golden moment, a flash of green—gone. If you meet Mama Dlo in the forest and wish to escape her, take off your left shoe, turn it upside down and immediately leave the scene, walking backwards until you reach home.

  Maman Dlo’s Gift1

  From the time of her earliest memories, she always entered the forest quietly, silently stepping, slowly moving through the dew-wet underbrush, trying not to tread too hard.

  She paused, not so much to listen but to learn, to learn the feel of the day, for every day was different in her forest. Her forest—it lay along a steep valley through which rushed a river called “Shark,” halting only in selected places to make pools deep and sure with eddies that swirled backwards in their own placid repose, slick on the surface, secret in their tumultuous depths, where enormous, ancient trees stood sentinel. All fast asleep in ageless repose, same height, same girth, same breadth as though created simultaneously by some mighty hand that reached out from eternity and sowed their dreams in unison so long ago, before words like day or night were made to punctuate the passage of time.

  Time had been invented by one of her ancestors, she was sure. Before she entered her forest, she left it, together with her shoes, down by the road. Papita had told her about the Caribs of long ago, their family, the old people who owned all the land. She had told her about the river and of the Oriyu, the water spirits. She always felt that she had just missed them and that, had she come a little earlier, she would have seen them. But she was always just in time to see the ripples they left on the water fade away into placidity. Sometimes, she heard a loud slap upon the surface of the pool. Once, she saw an enormous shape turn around and around in the water like a wheel. Today, she saw the face. A shimmer just beneath the surface of the
pool, it seemed to call out with open mouth. A song, she thought. Now she knew for certain that there was a Maman Dlo living in Shark River.

  After that, she would bring flowers and pretty buttons, a buckle from a shoe, a dolly’s head, quite pink, with staring eyes of blue and tiny holes where hair would have been implanted. She brought little gems made of red and green glass, pins and pretty bow clips. One morning, as she slipped in silence through the woods, the river, coursing with a roar through the rocks and bolders, gray and striped with white lines, she saw something glimmer in the water. It was a lovely comb made of shell and silver, gold-tipped. She stood there entranced, the river foam, a lacy frock around her legs. She picked up the comb and ran it through her hair. At once, she heard music, a song, sighing, which filled her heart with yearning—for what? She had no idea. She knew she must keep this gift a secret.

  She would spend her days sitting in the sunshine where the water fell from high up to crash upon the rocks, its spray a brilliant rainbow iridescent about her, combing her long, black hair and listening to Maman Dlo’s comb. She learnt that Amana was her true name and that she had a sister who was called Yara, “beautiful river,” which flew into a bay not too far away. Others were called Marianne, Madamas and Paria. She heard the sirens’ song of sailors who had been dashed to death upon the rocks at Saut d’Eau, and learned not to dread the deafening silence of the forest.

  She saw the stranger come into her forest. He grew afraid at her sight, his eyes were startled. She did not smile but combed her hair, listening to the melody of Maman Dlo’s song. The river’s spray made iridescent colours swirl about her. He ran away. They laughed at him. He would return.