"feejee mermaid : lasting hoax"
by sondra nalley

p.t. barnum was the lou pearlman of the 1800's. without any semblance of shame, he fabricated the best entertainment the american public had ever seen. his legend lives on still 150 years later with the ever lasting popularity of his circus, and of course for his greatest hoax, the feejee mermaid.

the feejee mermaid was introduced to the world in august of 1842 when an englishman named dr. j. griffin stopped in new york claiming to have a real mermaid that had been captured near the feejee islands. he agreed to exhibit the mermaid for a week before taking it to a british museum. darwin had just introduced the theory of evolution, and the public was hungry for natural oddities. barnum purchased the "american museum" where the feejee mermaid was moved to and exihibited, becoming the number one attraction in america over the next twenty years.

the hideous creature has an uncannily wide-eyed stare. tufts of coarse hair cling to the shriveled skeleton of its head and left shoulder. only one arm remains. it bares its tiny, pointed teeth, daring anyone to voice doubts concerning its authenticity. it looked nothing like the bare-breasted maiden mermaids of the sea of which sailors told so many tales.

the "real mermaid" turned out to be the dried husk of a orangutan's torso and baboon head sewn to a salmon's tail. dr griffin was in fact a long-time friend of barnum's, whose actual name was levi lyman. but that didn't stop throngs of people from wanting to see the mermaid - even after it became public knowledge that it was a fake.

the mermaid was supposed to have burned in a museum fire in 1864 and the barnum museum created an artist's rendition and now displays the replica. in 1992, the original mermaid was discovered at the st. bonaventure university along hidden under a stairwell. it is now displayed in their arts center. with the rise in popularity, other mermaids were fabricated and "discovered" throughout the world. the most famous of these knock-offs, known as the peabody mermaid, is currently on exhibit in harvard.

why do we continue to be fascinated by the feejee mermaid well over a century after it was revealed as a hoax? long after the death of the great entertainer p.t. barnum, people still flock to see it for themselves. the feejee mermaid may be a fake, but our fascination with it is still very real.