Fiji Mermaid Research Paper

American ship captain Samuel Barret Eades first heard of the specimen from a Dutch West Indies trader, who claimed it was a genuine mummified mermaid that had been caught by Japanese fisherman. So intrigued by this bizarre discovery, Captain Eades sold his ship in order to purchase the specimen for the exorbitant price of six thousand dollars. Then he bought passage on a ship to London, and brought his new acquisition with him. He had high hopes of making a fortune exhibiting the mermaid. Eades created ads for his exhibit, which garnered some interest from the public, unfortunately they also gained the interest of naturalists, who immediately revealed the mermaid as a fake. He continued to run his exhibit from 1823 to 1825 out of a Piccadilly coffee house, and for a time he attracted up to three hundred visitors a day. However when ticket sales abruptly …show more content…
The story was completely fabricated, as no such doctor or museum had ever existed. Nevertheless they published three more similar stories in other American news journals in preparation for the fake Dr. Griffin’s arrival in New York. They also passed out fliers with woodcut illustrations of beautiful mermaids to advertise the Fiji Mermaid’s unveiling. (See figures three and four) When the Fiji mermaid was finally revealed, along with a scholarly talk by “Dr. Griffin”, the exhibit was an immediate success. So many people came to see the bizarre artifact that Barnum’s Museum ticket sales amounted to almost a thousand dollars per week. (Cook, p.82) Although the actual specimen, small and gruesome, looked nothing like the creatures advertised, the mystery of the beast kept people fascinated. Barnum himself described it as an "ugly, dried up, black-looking, and diminutive specimen" (Loxton, p.3) It is unclear whether Barnum believed the Fiji Mermaid was real, but 30 years after the he first showed it he did admit that “Dr.Griffin” was a hoax designed to bring in more