The Fiji Mermaid

In 1842, Dr. J. Griffin arrived in New York City from London and promptly checked into his hotel.  Soon after, he was being swarmed by reporters who were tipped off to his strange cargo by foreign correspondents.  It seemed that Dr. Griffin has in his possession the remains of a mermaid that he had acquired while exploring the Fiji islands.  Dr. Griffin begrudgingly showed the reporters his "mermaid," and the news spread like wildfire.

P.T. Barnum, the venerated American showman, visited the offices of all the major newspapers in the city, telling anybody who he would listen that he tried to get Griffin to display the mermaid at Barnum's American Museum, but Griffin had refused.  Barnum then offered the newspapers the use of a woodcut drawing of a beautiful mermaid he had planned to use in the advertisements of the attraction that wasn't to be.  With each paper thinking they had scooped a story, they all printed Barnum's woodcut mermaid.  Around the city, Barnum also distributed thousands of pamphlets he had made depicting the sensual mermaid.  Soon the entire city was talking about the mythical creature.

Griffin, realizing the potential of his prized object, decided to display it for one week at a concert hall on Broadway.  Griffin himself gave lectures to the fascinated crowds, explaining how everything on land had an equivalent in the sea.  There were sea-horses and sea-lions, so no doubt there had to be sea-humans.  When the week was over, Griffin allowed Barnum to display what was now being called the Feejee Mermaid at Barnum's American Museum.  Barnum displayed it for a month, without charging anything extra on top of the normal admission cost.  Attendance tripled.

Unknown to the public, Dr. J. Griffin was a fraud.  In fact, his real name was Levi Lyman and he was Barnum's accomplice in the hoax.  Barnum wrote letters to the papers, tipping them off to "Dr. Griffin" and his unique find as a way to build up hype for the attraction.  

The Fiji Mermaid was nothing more than an immature monkey's head & torso sewn onto the lower half of a fish and covered in papier-mâché to give it a mummified look. Barnum did not create the mermaid but rather leased it from Moses Kimball, a collector of curiosities from Boston.  Kimball had purchased it from the son of a sailor.  The sailor had purchased it in 1822 from Dutch merchants who had acquired it somewhere in Japan.  The sailor paid $6,000 for the mermaid, which was a huge sum of money back in those days.  Believing he could make more money off exhibiting the mermaid in London, the sailor sold his ship in order to pay for the mermaid.  Unfortunately, he was only co-owner of the ship.  When he arrived in London, he let British naturalists inspect his acquisition.  They thoroughly debunked its authenticity and word got out to the press that it was a fake, diminishing public interest in it.  The sailor was sued by the other boat owners and he was forced to work for them without pay until his debt was paid.  He died long before that could happen and his son sold the mermaid to Kimball for a fraction of what his father paid.

For a much more detailed (and better written) history of the Feejee Mermaid, including the fate of this historic piece, check out The Museum of Hoaxes website.

And for detailed instructions on how to make your own fiji mermaid, check out this blog.