Mermaids

Über ein Mermaid-Bild auf Pinterest bin ich per Zufall auf einen interessanten Artikel von William Bond gestossen (Bislang kannte ich nur James Bond, aber der William Bond passt anscheinend schon viel besser zu meinem ganzen Sammelsurium von Evolution bis Esoterik!), zu dem’s auch noch weiterführende Links gibt.

Von der Aquatic Ape Theorie hab ich sogar schon mal irgendwo gelesen (allerdings schien man das nicht ganz ernst zu nehmen)… und dass man schwimmende und tauchende Frauen als Meerjungfrauen bezeichnen würde, scheint mir eigentlich auch noch ganz vernünftig; und klar, dass die vermeintlichen Herren der Schöpfung sowas dann vorsichtshalber aus den Geschichtsbüchern gestrichen und dafür lieber ins Reichen der Märchen verbannt haben!

Eh voilà.

Ich habe ein paar Abschnitte eingefügt – aber bei den Links gäbe es auch noch Bilder!

Nein, das hier ist ein Schmankerl von DeviantART, aus meiner Mermaid-Collection

Jetzt geht’s los, ernsthaft.

Why Mermaids are a Serious Issue

Are Mermaid Myths and Legends, a Censored History of Women?

[…]

Yet to me, mermaids are a serious issue, because in my research I have found that the mermaid legend conceals a hidden and censored history of women. I believe that mermaids were simply women divers like the Ama and Haenyo divers of Japan and Korea. At one time there were female breath-holding divers all over the world, who foraged underwater for marine food like seaweed, molluscs and crustaceans.

It seems that in these traditional communities, the reason why women were the divers is because women have more subcutaneous fat around their bodies. This allows women to keep warmer in the water than what men do. If that is the case why are we not reading about this in our history books?

The reason it seems is that in the Ama and Haenyo communities in the recent past, women were the main breadwinners. While the women were diving, the men stayed at home and looked after the house and children. Unfortunately, patriarchal religions like Christianity, Islam and the philosophical system of Confucianism totally disagreed with this way of life. These patriarchal institutions were very clear that men should be the main breadwinner and not women.

Witch Hunts

For this reason, many of the mermaids in Europe were killed in the Witch hunts of the middle ages, while in China female breath holding divers were completely banned.

Not only this, as these patriarchal religions and philosophies controlled the academic world at that time, they were able to write mermaids out of history. As the result we only know about mermaids today from the myth and legends, and the survival of Ama and Haenyo divers in Japan and Korea

Even modern science has problems with the mermaid legend as we see in theAquatic Ape Theory. The official scientific theory of how we evolved from apes to humans is the „Killer Ape Theory„. In this theory, our ape ancestor came out of the trees and lived on the African Savannah. In this very challenging environment it became a killer ape, hunting and killing animals to survive. Then through being a hunter, man learnt to walk upright, lose his hair, learnt to speak and developed a much larger brain. This theory was invented by male scientists who saw it all from a purely masculine point of view.

Aquatic Ape Theory

Then a feminist, Elaine Morgan in her book, „The Decent of Women“, challenged this view and asked the question. „While men were busy hunting what were women doing? How were they able to feed and care for their children on an open savannah?“

After all, an ape is not a fast runner, compared with most animals living on the African plains, and normally climbs the nearest tree when chased by a predator. So how would a female ape carrying her young, escape predators, in a environment where there are few trees? All she got was a deafening silence from male scientific establishment, who never considered this

Elaine Morgan preferred another theory about human evolution called the Aquatic Ape Theory which far better explained why humans could walk upright, lost their hair, could speak and had far larger brains than any other ape. In this theory, our ape ancestors also come down from the trees but found a safe environment on the sea shore

This is because when approached by predators these apes could run into the sea. They also found on the beach, easy to obtain food like, shellfish, seaweed, crustaceans and even fish trapped in tidal pools. Over evolutionary time, they began to forage in the shallows for food, then duck their heads below the water, and finally learnt how to swim underwater.

Mermaids are real!
My mermaid book/blog has now over 960,000 hits!

The Killer Ape

Wading in the water to forage for food, taught humans how to walk upright. Hair doesn’t keep an ape warm in the water so it lost its fur.

While at the same time gained subcutaneous fat like the blubber in marine animals that insulates them in water

Marine animals have far larger brains than land animals because they eat brain food which is omega-3 fatty acids and iodine. This is abundant in the marine food but in short supply on land, and this is the food our aquatic ape ancestors would be eating. Even speaking has to do with conscious breath control which our aquatic ape ancestors had to learn to do, when swimming underwater.

Killer Ape V Aquatic Ape

This then is why we are so different from any other ape. But unfortunately in this theory the staring role of human evolution wasn’t given to men

In fact if we take mermaids seriously, then it seems that women played a more important role in our evolution than men. So for this reason male chauvinist scientists rejected it

The problem is that if we believe we did evolve from killer apes, then this justifies violence, wars, genocide and aggression. It suggests we cannot stop wars or stop people using brutal force, because this is how we evolved. It also justifies patriarchy because according to the killer ape theory it was violent men who were the driving force in our evolution.

But if on the other hand we were to accept the Aquatic Ape Theory and the history of Mermaids, then it suggests we are not naturally violent and we do not have to go to war to settle our differences. Also it is not inevitable that men will always rule our world.

You can read more about my mermaid theory as well as the Aquatic Ape theory in my blog. As well as my mermaid video on Youtube…

Blog von William Bond: Mermaids are real!
http://mermaid-williambond.blogspot.com

Auch von William Bond:
Woman Thou Art God: The Secret History of Mermaids (Preview from the Book)
http://www.womanthouartgod.com/mermaids.php

[…] The key to making sense of all these tales comes through the story of a Dutch seaman called Hamel. He was on a Dutch ship, ‘Sperwer’ that was wrecked near the Korean island of Cheju in 1653. Where he and the other survivors of the wreck spent ten months on the island. On returning to Holland, he wrote a book about his experiences and claimed that there were mermaids on the island. What’s interesting is that even today women from the island dive for shellfish and edible seaweed. Does this mean that what we refer to as mermaids are simply women divers? […]

[…] Many mermaid stories are about a mermaid marries a fishermen and has children, but still has a yearning to return to the sea. In some tales she does do this and leaves both her husband and children behind. This resembles the plight of modern day women who try to juggle a job, husband and children at the same time. A woman working as a diver full time wouldn’t have the time or energy to look after a husband and children as well. So these mermaid stories may be about the dilemma faced by women divers concerning society’s rules that women should look after the home and children as her primary responsibility. Female wool spinners before the industrial revolution had the same problem. Spinning wool by hand was a high skilled job and women on average were far better at it than men. This gave these women a well paying job and the more highly skilled, even become very wealthy. So it is of interest that the word spinster comes from the word spinner. This indicates that even hundreds of years ago many women preferred the independence a well paying job like wool spinning, than becoming a wife and mother. Another point is that in some fairy stories, the wicked witch has a spinning wheel and use it to perform magic. So we find a connection of witchcraft to both spinners and divers. […]

[…]

It seems that women divers completely undermine patriarchal stereotypes of men and women. Up until the stirrings of feminism in the 20th century, women throughout the world were referred to as the “weaker sex”. Men claimed that they were not only bigger and stronger than women, but more intelligent and more capable doing everything better than women, (except of-course childbirth). Women divers were a big blow to men’s fragile egos because it was one job that women could do better than they could. It also seems that being able to out perform men, gave women a strong ego boost. Because throughout the world, women divers seem to have been very confident and assertive women. As mentioned before the Chinese and Japanese referred to mermaids as dragon wives while in Africa they were called river-witches. It seems the only reason why women divers survived in Korea into modern times is because they lived on remote islands and diving for food was vital for the islander’s survival.

The same thing must have happened in Europe. Male hostility would have discouraged the use of women divers, but in remote fishing villages along the coast, people living on the edge of starvation couldn’t afford to ignore an important food resource like shell fish and edible seaweed. So they continued this ancient tradition, in secret. The problem would be that outsiders, who are unaware of what is going on, would occasionally see the divers working. In an age when women were supposed to be physically weak, modest and submissive, these outsiders would be shocked to see, naked, athletic and assertive women confidently diving for marine food. It would be unlikely that the women would be clothed because wet clothing would be too much of a drag in water, and swimming costumes were not introduced until the Victorian times. Though reports from Shetland islands of mermaids wearing animal skins make sense providing they are from marine mammals. But the claim from the Orkney islands of mermaids wearing petticoats sounds incredible as not only would they give too much drag in the water but would be dangerous if caught in rocks, while underwater.

It means that it was sightings from outsiders that created the mermaid legend. Fishing villages that used women divers would greatly encourage this legend and embellish it even more, to divert attention away from the fact, it was village women who were the mermaids. Because they didn’t want their women to be accused of witch-craft. The Church may even have gone along with this, preferring to have stories of mythical mermaids rather than accounts of diving women who could a job better than men. So everyone involved had a reason to keep it secret.

This then is why mermaid stories are really a secret chapter of women’s history. […]