Types of mermaids
A mermaid is the aquatic creature with an upper body and a head of the female human with a tail of the fish. Mermaids that appeared in the folklores of lots of cultures worldwide, including Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America. Mermaids are sometimes link with the perilous events like shipwrecks, drownings and storms. In other folklore traditions, they can be beneficent or benevolent, falling in love or liking humans or bestowing boons.
The mermaid male equivalent is the merman, a familiar form in folklore and in the heraldry. Although customs about and the reported sightings of the mermen are being the less common than the mermaids, they’re in folklore usually assumed to be present with the female counterparts. These female and males collectively are at times referred to the merfolk. The Western notion of the mermaids as seductive, beautiful singers will have been influenced through the sirens of the Greek mythology, which had originally half-birdlike, however, came to be seen as half-fishlike within the Christian time.
Mermaid Day
It is observed on March 29 yearly. It is for the fabled creature lovers that appeared in literature, pop culture, mythology, music, and films for the longer time. It is the time to let the imagination run wild that will indulge one’s fascination through these aquatic creatures. The ocean’s depths had been filled with endless mysteries — it is just the big unknown.
MERMAID DAY HISTORY
The initial existence of mermaids within the human culture can be trace back to 1000B.C. at Assyria, now we know as Syria. Appearing in their mythology, Atargatis, a fertility goddess became a mermaid right after tossing herself in a lake to escape her shame and grief of slaying her lover. This mythology explored how the beautiful Atargatis couldn’t totally transform herself into becoming a fish; instead, she retained the beauty and the feminine shape above her waist, but the legs were totally transformed to a fishtail. This Greek Mythology then expanded on the tale from Assyrian Myth that includes the stories of the sea nymphs that is also called as Nereids, and the mermen, also called as Tritons. The initial Assyrian mermaid description was manifested in Greek Sirens but had been rewritten to have wings like that of a bird instead of having the tail like that of a fish. But, the Romans traced the origin of mermaids in the Assyrian mythology through keeping the initial description: fairy-like, gorgeous women with tails of fish. This became the norm interpretation of mermaids until now.
Despite being commonly accepted as the outcome of fiction from the long line of various mythologies, some historians recorded the sightings in the ocean of the actual mermaids. One of them was Christopher Columbus that allegedly saw three mermaids. But, he claimed that they were not as adorable as illustrated in mythic stories. The other accounts of findings include the English pirate Mr. Edward Teach also called as Blackbeard. While in the present times, the mermaid concept has fully penetrated the pop culture from around the world. Starting from the fairytale of Hans Christian Andersen, “The Little Mermaid” up to its usual depictions in television and films, mermaids are indeed the outcome of human curiosity with the fascination of the great unknown.
Types of mermaids
1. Arctic Mermaid – They are sometimes known as the Ice mermaids that live in the cold waters and had been built for endurance and polar temperatures. The mermaids live in the arctic regions. The ice mermaids preferred the colder water temperatures. They’re found near the pole, usually in salt water. The mermaids live throughout Antarctic and Arctic Oceans. The Antarctic Ocean had been considered as the fourth in the smallest ocean, but it is the coldest of all oceans. Some of the Arctic mermaids migrated here during the freezing or winter months to use some time in humid or temperate waters.
2. Aycayia – This is the mermaid where the name denotes “she with the lovely voice” and among the nations of Neo-Taino of the Caribbean like Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Cuba. Aycayia was identified as the sexually generous and seductive one, being the personification of beauty and the sin that gave men the pleasure but then robbed them of their free will. Aycayia would sometimes be “visited” by men seduced of her beauty. The Aycayia was the beautiful woman with very alluring voice that dwelled before the coming of conquistadors. Aycayia loved to sing during daytime and at night parties.
3. European mermaids – In the European folklore, the mermaids and the male counterparts, he mermen are typically depicted as prophetic, magical beings with the long lives, sometimes portrayed as sirens, and had been usually associated with the sea, water, and fertility, with stories of them marrying the humans and coming as both dangerous and benevolent figures.
4. Mami Wata – These are also called as Mammy Water or are the same with the water spirit, mermaid, or goddess in folklore of in parts of Eastern, Southern and Western Africa. Mami Wata later joined the native pantheons of the spirits and the deities in some parts of Africa. Historically, the Mami Wata is visualize as the exotic female entity coming from Europe and elsewhere, usually the white woman that had the particular interest in the objects foreign to the West Africans that the adherents place of her shrines. During the mid of 19th century, the iconography of Mami Wata’s becomes particularly influenced through the snake charmer image of Nala Damajanti scattering from Europe. The snake charmer print then overtook Mami Wata’s previous mermaid iconography in fame in some African parts.
5. Merrow – This is the merman or mermaid in the Irish folklore. The word is anglicized from Irish word murúch. These merrows supposedly required a magical cap in order to pass through between dry land and deep water. The term appeared in the two tales set within Ireland published during the 19th century: The “Lady of Gollerus”, wherein the green-haired merrow married the local Kerry man that deprived her of a “magical red cap” (a cohuleen druith); and “Soul Cages” wherein the green-bodied grotesque of male merrow entertained the fisherman in a home beneath the sea.
6. Ningyo – The name suggests a creature with mutual fish and human-like features, illustrated in the arious pieces of the Japanese literature. Although normally translated as a “mermaid”, the word is precisely not a gender-specific and lots had included the “mermen”. Its literal translation of “human-fish” had been applied. The first records of this ningyo attested in the written Japanese resources are freshwater beings supposedly captured during the 7th century or Asuka period, later documented in Nihon Shoki.
7. Nixen – In the Germanic folklore, the “Nixen” that is also spelled as Nixie, or Nix and Näcken is the female water spirit, usually depicted as the mermaid-like being, with the reputation for being mutually beautiful and possibly dangerous. They are humanoid and usually shapeshifting water spirits within the Germanic folklore and mythology. Under a diversity of names, they’re common to stories of all the Germanic peoples, although they’re perhaps best identified from Scandinavian folklore. Their related English knucker had been usually depicted as a dragon or a worm, although more current versions depicted the spirits in some other forms. Their bynames, sex, and different transformations vary geographically. Their German Nix and the Scandinavian counterparts had been male. A German Nixe was the female river mermaid.
8. Rusalka – In the Slavic folklore, this Rusalka is the female entity, frequently connected with the water and usually malicious toward mankind. It has counterparts with some parts of Europe, like the Germanic Nixie and the French Melusine. Folklorists have proposed the diversity of origins for this entity, including those they can initially stem from the Slavic paganism, wherein they can be seen as the benevolent spirits. The Rusalki appeared in the diversity of media in the present popular culture, particularly within the Slavic language-speaking states, where they often resemble the thought of the mermaid.
In the northern Russia, this rusalka was also identified by different names like vodyanitsa or “she from water” or “water maiden”, kupalka or “bather”, shutovka or “joker” and loskotukha or “tickler”.
9. Selkies – This is a mythological creature that may shapeshift between human forms and seal by taking off or putting on the seal skin. They present prominently in oral traditions and the mythology of different cultures, especially the Norse and Celtic origin. The word “selkie” derives from Scot word for “seal”. The Selkies are at times referred to the selkie folk, meaning “seal folk”. The Selkies are mainly linked with Northern Isles from Scotland, where they’re said to dwell as seals in sea but shed the skin to become humans on land.
10. Siren – In the Greek mythology, the sirens are female humanlike creature with alluring voices; usually they appear in the scene in Odyssey wherein the Odysseus saves the crew’s lives. The Roman poets placed them on the small islands known as the Sirenum scopuli. The Sirens continued to become used as the symbol of unsafe temptation embodied by the women regularly all throughout the Christian art of medieval era. “Siren” may be used also as the slang word for the woman considered mutually as dangerous and very attractive. Sirena Chilota is the aquatic being that belong to the Chilote mythology. She can originate from the combination of Sumpall from the Mapuche mythology and a mermaid from the European mythology. Sirena Chilota had blonde, long hair with golden scales. The human half is the resemblance of a youthful, beautiful teenager.
Base on the Chilote legend, especially from the fishermen, Siren is the Millalobo youngest daughter. Millalobo is the king of the sea in the Chilote mythology and in the human Huenchula. The king, Millalobo gave the Siren the task to care and shepherd the fish. She helps her siblings (Pincoy and Pincoya) take the bodies of the drowned sailors to Caleuche. These drowned sailors are being revived and will be given their new lives as the crew members on Caleuche. This Sirena Chilota dwells near the isle of Laitec in Chiloé Archipelago. During moonlit evening, the sailor will be lucky to watch her sitting over the rocks and then combing her golden, long hair with the golden comb. The sailors must be careful though, as she normally sings attractive love songs. This Sirena Chilota will also help the sailors she likes through shepherding fishes to their boats.
