This article defines what I call the ‘crossing merfolk’ narrative, the idea that African people who jumped or were cast overboard during the Middle Passage became water-dwelling beings. While critical attention has been increasing for 1990s’ electronic music duo Drexciya, whose sonic fiction contains the most well-known example of this narrative, this is actually a recurring tradition in Black oral and artistic culture that can be traced to West and Central African religions. I focus particularly on what I call ‘crossing merfolk narratives of the sacred’, M. Jacqui Alexander’s term for African diasporic religious traditions anchored in West and Central African cosmologies. Analysing the role of the sacred in two crossing merfolk narratives, Nalo Hopkinson’s 2007 novel The New Moon’s Arms and Gabrielle Tesfaye’s short film The Water Will Carry Us Home (2018), I argue that these texts expand the Black Atlantic imaginary and transform mermaid lore. I develop the term ‘diasporic collage’ to describe the ways in which Hopkinson and Tesfaye reference and combine water spirits and ritual practices from multiple African diasporic traditions into narratives that intersect mermaids and the Middle Passage.
{"title":"Crossing Merfolk Narratives of the Sacred: Nalo Hopkinson’s The New Moon’s Arms and Gabrielle Tesfaye’s The Water Will Carry Us Home","authors":"Jalondra A. Davis","doi":"10.21463/shima.137","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21463/shima.137","url":null,"abstract":"This article defines what I call the ‘crossing merfolk’ narrative, the idea that African people who jumped or were cast overboard during the Middle Passage became water-dwelling beings. While critical attention has been increasing for 1990s’ electronic music duo Drexciya, whose sonic fiction contains the most well-known example of this narrative, this is actually a recurring tradition in Black oral and artistic culture that can be traced to West and Central African religions. I focus particularly on what I call ‘crossing merfolk narratives of the sacred’, M. Jacqui Alexander’s term for African diasporic religious traditions anchored in West and Central African cosmologies. Analysing the role of the sacred in two crossing merfolk narratives, Nalo Hopkinson’s 2007 novel The New Moon’s Arms and Gabrielle Tesfaye’s short film The Water Will Carry Us Home (2018), I argue that these texts expand the Black Atlantic imaginary and transform mermaid lore. I develop the term ‘diasporic collage’ to describe the ways in which Hopkinson and Tesfaye reference and combine water spirits and ritual practices from multiple African diasporic traditions into narratives that intersect mermaids and the Middle Passage.","PeriodicalId":51896,"journal":{"name":"Shima-The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85857012","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Fifty mermaid place names relating to landscape features have been identified in Britain (including the Isle of Man). The names are attested from the 16th to the 21st Century: some are extremely well documented, while others have only passing written references. Taken together these names allow us to distinguish different folklore traditions in different parts of the island. For instance, there is a freshwater ‘mere-maid’ in eastern England; and a more familiar marine mermaid attested in the southwest of England. There are also – just as interestingly – large areas of Britain for which no mermaid place names are recorded. The article concludes with a reflection on the ‘Archetypal Modern Mermaid’ (AMM) that dominated in British culture by the 1800s.
{"title":"Mermaids, Mere-Maids and No Maids: Mermaid place names and folklore in Britain","authors":"Simon N. M. Young","doi":"10.21463/shima.129","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21463/shima.129","url":null,"abstract":"Fifty mermaid place names relating to landscape features have been identified in Britain (including the Isle of Man). The names are attested from the 16th to the 21st Century: some are extremely well documented, while others have only passing written references. Taken together these names allow us to distinguish different folklore traditions in different parts of the island. For instance, there is a freshwater ‘mere-maid’ in eastern England; and a more familiar marine mermaid attested in the southwest of England. There are also – just as interestingly – large areas of Britain for which no mermaid place names are recorded. The article concludes with a reflection on the ‘Archetypal Modern Mermaid’ (AMM) that dominated in British culture by the 1800s.","PeriodicalId":51896,"journal":{"name":"Shima-The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures","volume":"39 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78985188","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
While mermaids have been found all around the world, their literary and cultural representations are traditionally associated with Europe. Recently attention has been paid to the particular resonance of mer-folk narratives in specifically Australian contexts. Hayward, Floyd, Snell, Organ and Callaway have drawn attention to examples of mer-worlds that directly intersect with and comment on Australian environments. Beginning in the late 19th Century, predominantly women writers relocate mermen and mermaids to explore relationships between land and sea, city and bush that have local resonance for young readers. These stories are often accompanied by rich illustrations designed to appeal to young imaginations. This note comments on three writers whose work relates mer-cultures to Australia: J.M Whitfield, Pixie O’Harris and Harriet Stephens, along with their illustrators, G.W Lambert, Ida Rentoul Outhwaite and O’Harris herself.
{"title":"“Distinct Characters of Their Own”: Mermaids in late 19th-mid 20th Century Australian children’s fiction","authors":"Marea Mitchell","doi":"10.21463/shima.133","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21463/shima.133","url":null,"abstract":"While mermaids have been found all around the world, their literary and cultural representations are traditionally associated with Europe. Recently attention has been paid to the particular resonance of mer-folk narratives in specifically Australian contexts. Hayward, Floyd, Snell, Organ and Callaway have drawn attention to examples of mer-worlds that directly intersect with and comment on Australian environments. Beginning in the late 19th Century, predominantly women writers relocate mermen and mermaids to explore relationships between land and sea, city and bush that have local resonance for young readers. These stories are often accompanied by rich illustrations designed to appeal to young imaginations. This note comments on three writers whose work relates mer-cultures to Australia: J.M Whitfield, Pixie O’Harris and Harriet Stephens, along with their illustrators, G.W Lambert, Ida Rentoul Outhwaite and O’Harris herself.","PeriodicalId":51896,"journal":{"name":"Shima-The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78424405","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Sea Lady (1901) is one of the more neglected early novels of H. G. Wells, particularly compared to his more famous scientific romances. Both a social satire and a mediation on the limits of human imagination, Wells’s only mermaid story has drawn surprisingly little attention as a mermaid story. The novel is highly intertextual with legends, written tales, and artwork about mermaids in the 19th Century, which, I argue, Wells deploys in pursuit of the narrative’s interests in gender politics, the critique of social conventions, and philosophical reflection on the possibility of reaching for greater knowledge. Traditional associations of mermaid figures with sexual and ontological transgression and with liminal zones of the sea and the seashore are used to invite reflection on late Victorian social practices around sea-bathing and clothing, as the mythological mermaid’s incursion into the real everyday world exposes its profound vulnerability to radical alternative ways of thinking and being.
{"title":"“A Thing of Dreams and Desires, a Siren, a Whisper, and a Seduction”: Mermaids and the seashore in H. G. Wells’s The Sea Lady: A Tissue of Moonshine","authors":"Emily Alder","doi":"10.21463/shima.142","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21463/shima.142","url":null,"abstract":"The Sea Lady (1901) is one of the more neglected early novels of H. G. Wells, particularly compared to his more famous scientific romances. Both a social satire and a mediation on the limits of human imagination, Wells’s only mermaid story has drawn surprisingly little attention as a mermaid story. The novel is highly intertextual with legends, written tales, and artwork about mermaids in the 19th Century, which, I argue, Wells deploys in pursuit of the narrative’s interests in gender politics, the critique of social conventions, and philosophical reflection on the possibility of reaching for greater knowledge. Traditional associations of mermaid figures with sexual and ontological transgression and with liminal zones of the sea and the seashore are used to invite reflection on late Victorian social practices around sea-bathing and clothing, as the mythological mermaid’s incursion into the real everyday world exposes its profound vulnerability to radical alternative ways of thinking and being.","PeriodicalId":51896,"journal":{"name":"Shima-The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84131829","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Beginning in the mid-19th Century, American boosters, business owners, and city planners fostered various mermaid-themed/named destinations. In doing so, these men and women contributed to the modern American tourism complex, which relied upon Americans’ efforts to commodify the natural world for market purposes and, in turn, distinguish their locales among a burgeoning network of tourist destinations. This article details 19th Century attempts to mermaid brand particular locations and, subsequently, the development of mermaid themed tourist attractions in the 20th and early 21st centuries.
{"title":"From Sailor Traps to Tourist Traps: Mermaid-Themed Tourism Destinations in the United States of America","authors":"Vaughn Scribner","doi":"10.21463/shima.144","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21463/shima.144","url":null,"abstract":"Beginning in the mid-19th Century, American boosters, business owners, and city planners fostered various mermaid-themed/named destinations. In doing so, these men and women contributed to the modern American tourism complex, which relied upon Americans’ efforts to commodify the natural world for market purposes and, in turn, distinguish their locales among a burgeoning network of tourist destinations. This article details 19th Century attempts to mermaid brand particular locations and, subsequently, the development of mermaid themed tourist attractions in the 20th and early 21st centuries.","PeriodicalId":51896,"journal":{"name":"Shima-The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90304962","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article introduces the philosophical underpinnings, themes and approaches explored in the audiovisual essay The Mystery of Melusine (2021). Its footage consists of a dramatic performance in which I am enacting the contents of a philosophical poem authored by myself as the titular character. The narrative of the film essay explores the nature of truth and espouses an ontology of magic through a re-interpretation of the myth of Melusine. In European folklore, Melusine is the reclusive and mysterious wife who agrees to marry upon the condition that she is granted her privacy every Saturday. On Saturdays, she spends her solitude secretly bathing her fish tail until one day her husband peeps through the keyhole of her bathing chamber. She learns he has broken his promise to not impede her privacy, and so she evanesces. In my film essay, Melusine is a metaphor for the secretiveness and elusiveness of truth, and the way life unfurls itself in secretive and clandestine ways. The notion of truth as elusive and secretive derives its inspiration from the philosopher Martin Heidegger, and this film essay can be considered a mythic interpretation of some of his ideas. In addition to a mythic interpretation of truth, the film essay provides a narrative for the way life meets itself through otherness and recounts the journey of personal transformation in which the querent must reconcile to truth; this is elaborated as a process of self-seeing and self-recognition that takes place through the alien other.
{"title":"Melusine as Emblem of Truth: Philosophical tentacles, themes and approaches explored in the audiovisual essay The Mystery of Melusine","authors":"C. Inkol","doi":"10.21463/shima.126","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21463/shima.126","url":null,"abstract":"This article introduces the philosophical underpinnings, themes and approaches explored in the audiovisual essay The Mystery of Melusine (2021). Its footage consists of a dramatic performance in which I am enacting the contents of a philosophical poem authored by myself as the titular character. The narrative of the film essay explores the nature of truth and espouses an ontology of magic through a re-interpretation of the myth of Melusine. In European folklore, Melusine is the reclusive and mysterious wife who agrees to marry upon the condition that she is granted her privacy every Saturday. On Saturdays, she spends her solitude secretly bathing her fish tail until one day her husband peeps through the keyhole of her bathing chamber. She learns he has broken his promise to not impede her privacy, and so she evanesces. In my film essay, Melusine is a metaphor for the secretiveness and elusiveness of truth, and the way life unfurls itself in secretive and clandestine ways. The notion of truth as elusive and secretive derives its inspiration from the philosopher Martin Heidegger, and this film essay can be considered a mythic interpretation of some of his ideas. In addition to a mythic interpretation of truth, the film essay provides a narrative for the way life meets itself through otherness and recounts the journey of personal transformation in which the querent must reconcile to truth; this is elaborated as a process of self-seeing and self-recognition that takes place through the alien other.","PeriodicalId":51896,"journal":{"name":"Shima-The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90452167","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
European colonists applied terms from their language cultures to various geographical features in territories they explored, occupied and/or settled in. In Canada this resulted in a number of locations being named after mermaids, the French equivalent, sirènes, or the related term sirens. This article provides a survey of these Canadian place names, including discussions of those few whose name origins are known. It also profiles two sites where the manufacture and installation of mermaid statues has resulted in mermaid-themed location naming and related tourism promotion. Discussion of the two examples leads to consideration of the promotional value of mermaid names, associations and visual branding.
{"title":"Above and Below: The distribution of mermaid, siren and sirène place names across Canada and the creation of related tourist attractions","authors":"P. Hayward","doi":"10.21463/shima.114","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21463/shima.114","url":null,"abstract":"European colonists applied terms from their language cultures to various geographical features in territories they explored, occupied and/or settled in. In Canada this resulted in a number of locations being named after mermaids, the French equivalent, sirènes, or the related term sirens. This article provides a survey of these Canadian place names, including discussions of those few whose name origins are known. It also profiles two sites where the manufacture and installation of mermaid statues has resulted in mermaid-themed location naming and related tourism promotion. Discussion of the two examples leads to consideration of the promotional value of mermaid names, associations and visual branding.","PeriodicalId":51896,"journal":{"name":"Shima-The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75501122","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Companies invest considerable resources into establishing meaningful and impactful brand identities, through which they build essential relationships with consumers. Several well-known consumer brands use mermaids as part of their brand identity. Perhaps no use of mermaids in branding is more ubiquitous than siren emblazoned on every Starbucks coffee cup. But Starbucks is not alone; other consumer brands, such as Chicken of the Sea, Virgin Voyages Cruise Line, and BonV!v Spiked Seltzer, incorporate mermaids as part of their brand architecture. Using the case method, this study will examine, brand by brand, the history, meaning, and impact of mermaids on particular brand identities and, thus, on the consumer relationships. This study considers the brand strategies of using mermaids and reflects on if and why these strategies have worked for the brands included in this study.
公司投入大量资源来建立有意义和有影响力的品牌标识，通过这些标识，他们与消费者建立了重要的关系。一些知名的消费品牌使用美人鱼作为其品牌标识的一部分。也许在品牌设计中，美人鱼的使用比星巴克咖啡杯上的警笛图案更普遍。但星巴克并不孤单;其他消费品牌，如Chicken of the Sea、Virgin Voyages Cruise Line和BonV!v尖刺苏打水，将美人鱼作为其品牌架构的一部分。使用案例方法，本研究将逐个品牌，历史，意义和美人鱼对特定品牌身份的影响，从而对消费者关系进行研究。本研究考虑了使用美人鱼的品牌策略，并反思了这些策略是否以及为什么对本研究中包括的品牌有效。
{"title":"Mermaids and Corporate Branding: Histories, meanings and impacts","authors":"Susan C. Graham","doi":"10.21463/shima.127","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21463/shima.127","url":null,"abstract":"Companies invest considerable resources into establishing meaningful and impactful brand identities, through which they build essential relationships with consumers. Several well-known consumer brands use mermaids as part of their brand identity. Perhaps no use of mermaids in branding is more ubiquitous than siren emblazoned on every Starbucks coffee cup. But Starbucks is not alone; other consumer brands, such as Chicken of the Sea, Virgin Voyages Cruise Line, and BonV!v Spiked Seltzer, incorporate mermaids as part of their brand architecture. Using the case method, this study will examine, brand by brand, the history, meaning, and impact of mermaids on particular brand identities and, thus, on the consumer relationships. This study considers the brand strategies of using mermaids and reflects on if and why these strategies have worked for the brands included in this study.","PeriodicalId":51896,"journal":{"name":"Shima-The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81153040","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Digital culture produces new dislocations, proximities and anxieties. Central here is “meme” culture, whose fluid movement morphs in transmission, drawing on older cultural symbols to create a feedback loop. One folkloric aquatic figure from the African continent and its diasporas, known as Mami Wata, exemplifies this memetic force that is carried over into the digital realm. Mami Wata is dualistic: human and water creature, beautiful and terrifying, pre-colonial and modern. She is fluid, not bound by traditionally grounded mobilities, and her origins are mysterious. Further, she thrives through time and place via rumour and her message and meaning are in constant flux. She is also a symbol of temptation, which carries with it anxiety. Mami Wata is said to haunt the banks of the mighty Congo River and its tributaries, waiting for new victims, thus serving as a cautionary tale, warning people of these potential fluvial supernatural encounters. As we will see, in the face of digitalisation and globalisation, contemporary memes and viral videos of Mami Wata give us a screen to view our own anxious projections. And yet she also reveals the possibility of encounter: an other who shows us another way. Drawing from extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) beginning in 2012, what emerges are parallels between Mami Wata and virality, and how they represent both an attitude and an ambiance in Kinshasa. What is more, we find that Mami Wata shows us a structure by which rumours, memes and in-group culture endure through time, not despite, but thanks to their mysterious origins and fluid meanings.
{"title":"Tales from the Congo River: Catching Mami Wata","authors":"L. Braun","doi":"10.21463/shima.125","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21463/shima.125","url":null,"abstract":"Digital culture produces new dislocations, proximities and anxieties. Central here is “meme” culture, whose fluid movement morphs in transmission, drawing on older cultural symbols to create a feedback loop. One folkloric aquatic figure from the African continent and its diasporas, known as Mami Wata, exemplifies this memetic force that is carried over into the digital realm. Mami Wata is dualistic: human and water creature, beautiful and terrifying, pre-colonial and modern. She is fluid, not bound by traditionally grounded mobilities, and her origins are mysterious. Further, she thrives through time and place via rumour and her message and meaning are in constant flux. She is also a symbol of temptation, which carries with it anxiety. Mami Wata is said to haunt the banks of the mighty Congo River and its tributaries, waiting for new victims, thus serving as a cautionary tale, warning people of these potential fluvial supernatural encounters. As we will see, in the face of digitalisation and globalisation, contemporary memes and viral videos of Mami Wata give us a screen to view our own anxious projections. And yet she also reveals the possibility of encounter: an other who shows us another way. Drawing from extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) beginning in 2012, what emerges are parallels between Mami Wata and virality, and how they represent both an attitude and an ambiance in Kinshasa. What is more, we find that Mami Wata shows us a structure by which rumours, memes and in-group culture endure through time, not despite, but thanks to their mysterious origins and fluid meanings.","PeriodicalId":51896,"journal":{"name":"Shima-The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures","volume":"58 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77911383","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The study brings together fourteen landscape place names with the element ‘mermaid’ from the West Indies. The locations range from a coastal cave in Bermuda, in the north, to an inland pool in Trinidad, in the south. Some of these names are linked to regional folklore; some are arguably confected names invented, for instance, to encourage tourism. The author asks what markers can help us distinguish between folklore and confected names and ends with a list of other mermaid place names in Africa, the Pacific and America that might have their origins in indigenous or colonial era folklore.
{"title":"Mermaid Toponyms in the West Indies: Traditional and non-traditional names","authors":"S. Young","doi":"10.21463/shima.135","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21463/shima.135","url":null,"abstract":"The study brings together fourteen landscape place names with the element ‘mermaid’ from the West Indies. The locations range from a coastal cave in Bermuda, in the north, to an inland pool in Trinidad, in the south. Some of these names are linked to regional folklore; some are arguably confected names invented, for instance, to encourage tourism. The author asks what markers can help us distinguish between folklore and confected names and ends with a list of other mermaid place names in Africa, the Pacific and America that might have their origins in indigenous or colonial era folklore.","PeriodicalId":51896,"journal":{"name":"Shima-The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73066136","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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