tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78842485800409705482024-02-06T18:39:40.787-08:00Mermaids Are Real: Videowilliamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05285178912635949559noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884248580040970548.post-61165865148203180862020-10-23T02:53:00.005-07:002020-10-23T03:03:01.156-07:00<p style="text-align: center;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjp-g_MPAS0oZhCT9NyH6Cmsm-imy-uVZOKa9DWYsSBtwsSXOK9sOrKNBSFo_7BqWDSTDZo56IgUIEhtmjycj01j8fLB_J3rbqpJCHU2sSY0PI7MUmejVVyTQU6iTpX0mzONleTMGEfg/s807/Mermaid+top.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="538" data-original-width="807" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjp-g_MPAS0oZhCT9NyH6Cmsm-imy-uVZOKa9DWYsSBtwsSXOK9sOrKNBSFo_7BqWDSTDZo56IgUIEhtmjycj01j8fLB_J3rbqpJCHU2sSY0PI7MUmejVVyTQU6iTpX0mzONleTMGEfg/s320/Mermaid+top.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>Update</p><p>I have reworked by Mermaid videos and made uncensored versions on the following video site.<br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://odysee.com/@RealMermaid:2" style="font-size: x-large;" target="_blank">Real Mermaids</a></div><p></p>williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05285178912635949559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884248580040970548.post-15740403093123073642013-04-03T06:15:00.001-07:002015-04-29T10:50:35.977-07:00Mermaids are Real; video<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/X-jOuLS0kKw" width="420"></iframe>
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My Youtube video about my Mermaid theory has now gone over 1,047,000 hits!
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I have now updated the above video in seven parts. -<br />
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<a href="http://wabond.hubpages.com/hub/what-mermaids-really-are">http://wabond.hubpages.com/hub/what-mermaids-really-are</a><br />
<br />williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05285178912635949559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884248580040970548.post-89123216744295874192012-02-04T04:15:00.001-08:002013-12-23T05:56:48.445-08:00Origins of Mermaid Myths and Legends The text of this video also available as EPUB at , <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/william-bond-and-pamela-sufflield/the-origins-of-the-mermaid-myth/ebook/product-20103473.html">Lulu</a>.<br />
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Most people today believe that mermaids are pure mythology, because as scientists tell us, a woman with a fish tail is a biological impossibility. A human being is a totally different species of animal from a fish and so it is out of the question that a fish could mate with a woman. Yet we have so many stories of mermaids throughout the world.<br />
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Sea Cow<br />
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So to explain this, academics have formed a theory that we have mermaid myths and sightings because sailors have mistaken Sea Cows, (which are dugongs and manatees) for a woman with a fish tail! And so confident are academics of this explanation that the scientific name for sea cow is sirenia, which comes from siren, an ancient Greek name for mermaid. The problem with this theory, is that a sea cow doesn’t look anything like a mermaid. A sailor would have to be extremely drunk or very stupid, to mistake a mermaid for a sea cow.<br />
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Another big problem with this theory, is that sea cows only live in tropical waters, and most stories of mermaids come from Europe, where the waters are too cold for sea cows. So to account for this, academics have claimed that European sailors and fishermen have mistaken seals for mermaids! This is incredible, because surely experience, sailors and fishermen would be familiar with the wildlife of the sea and know a seal when they see one. They would be unlikely to jump to the conclusion that they were mermaids. Yet academics have come to this conclusion because they have no other explanation for mermaid myths and sightings.<br />
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Also, there seems to be some intellectual and class snobbery attached to this theory. They seem to assume that uneducated working class sailors and fishermen must be ignorant and stupid, to mistake a sea cow or seal for a mermaid. This is in spite of the fact that educated men like; Christopher Columbus, Henry Hudson, and John Smith, all claim to have seen mermaids. So are we to suppose they were also drunk or stupid as well?<br />
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Christopher Columbus sighting mermaids</div>
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So if mermaids are not sea cows or seals, then what are they? We can perhaps get an understanding of this by looking at mermaid sighting and see what they actually say. In popular culture a mermaid is a woman with a fish tail, but in some of the stories and drawing of mermaids in the past, many have two fish tails. So if a woman with a fish tail is strange, then one with two fish tails is really weird. Also, in many sightings of mermaids we find they don’t have fish tails at all, and example of this comes from a letter sent by, William Munro, a schoolmaster from Caithness in Northern Scotland, to the London Times newspaper in 1809. In the letter he wrote that he was walking on the shore of Sandside Bay, when his attention was arrested by the appearance of a figure resembling an unclothed human female, sitting upon a rock extending into the sea, and apparently in the action of combing its hair.<br />
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As he walked towards the mermaid she didn’t notice him because she was so absorbed in combing her hair but when he got too close, she saw him, dropped into the sea, and dived underwater. He presumed at first that what he had seen was an ordinary woman, and only changed his mind when he realised that the water she dived into, was too dangerous for ordinary bathers. So he claimed she was some strange sea creature, in spite of the fact that combing her hair is the act of an ordinary woman. Mermaids combing their hair is a popular theme in many mermaid sightings.<br />
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In another mermaid sighting. “In 1560, some fishermen near the island of Mandar off the west coast of Ceylon caught seven mermen and mermaids, an incident claimed to have been witnessed by several Jesuit fathers and M. Bosquez, physician to the viceroy of Goa. The physician made a careful examination of the "mer-people," dissected them, and pronounced that their internal and external structure resembled that of human beings.” Probably because they were ordinary human beings.<br />
So is this the explanation for mermaids that they are, simply ordinary women swimming in the sea? This is certainly true of mermaid myths from ancient Greece where mermaids are called sea nymphs or sirens and there are very few reports of them having fish tails. This might also explain why we have so many reports of mermaids with two tails. The tails may simply be the legs of an ordinary woman who is swimming. Here’s the next question? Why were these women swimming in the sea? To understand this we need to look at the story of Dutch sailor, Hendrik Hamel.<br />
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In 1653 he was a crew member of the Dutch ship, the Sperwer sailing to Asia. The Sperwer wrecked in a storm off the coast of Korea and half of the crew perished. The other half managed to cling to wreckage and was driven ashore on the Korean island of Cheju. The <i>Sperwer</i> survivors were all interned for ten months on the island before they were transported to Seoul on the Korean mainland. They were not allowed to leave Korea and most of the crew spent the rest of their lives living there. But 8 members of the crew, including Hamel, managed to escape to China. From there they made their way back to Holland, where Hamel wrote about his adventures. Scholars regard this as important, as it was the first account of Korean society by a European. And everything he says about Korean society at the time, has been supported by Korean scholars. However one thing he said that caused some controversy. He claimed he saw mermaids on the island of Cheju. It has now has been accepted by scholars, that the mermaids he saw, were simply Haenyo.<br />
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Haenyo divers are female breath-holding divers who have been foraging on the sea floor for thousands of years for marine food like shellfish, seaweed, sea urchins, sea cucumber, crabs, squid and octopus. Nowadays they wear wet-suits, but before that, they hardly wore anything.<br />
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Ama</div>
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They are not the only female breath-holding divers in the area, because in Japan the Ama divers who like the Haenyo divers have also been foraging the sea floor for thousands of years. Nowadays some Ama divers do use wet-suits, but most of them don’t, and instead wear a cotton costume. The reason for this is that the Japanese have banned all modern equipment like scuba gear because they fear they will overfish the waters with modern equipment. For this reason they stick to traditional methods.<br />
So it this the explanation for mermaids? That they are simply breath-holding divers like the Ama and Haenyo of Japan and Korea, once existed in Europe and other parts of the world. If that is true, then why don’t we read about this in our history books? This can be explained by what happened to female breath-holding divers in China and Korea.<br />
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Haenyo Divers (early 20th century)</div>
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In China and Korea female divers were called ‘dragon wives’. This is because while they were foraging the sea-floor for food, their husbands stayed at home looking after the house and children. When Confucianism was adopted by the Chinese and Korean governments, the lifestyle of women divers clashed with the Confucian doctrine of the Five Bonds of Filial piety, where wives should be at all times, be submissive to their husbands. It seems that being the breadwinners of the family, made these women too feisty for Confucian sensibilities, resulting in female breath-holding divers being banned throughout China and Korea. They only managed to survive on the remote island of Cheju. It seems they didn’t go down without a fight. <br />
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Lady Ch’ing<br />
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There is the story of Lady Ch’ing whom Chinese scholars called a female pirate. She led a force of 50,000 sea- people which successfully destroyed the Chinese Imperial Navy fleets sent to destroy them. The Chinese the Imperial government solicited assistance from British and Portuguese warships. This forced Lady Ch’ing, in 1810, to negotiate a settlement with the Chinese government.</div>
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Most references to these female breadwinners were written out of history, for instance Chinese scholars preferred to call Lady Ch’ing, Cheng I Sao, which means wife of Cheng I, to conceal the fact that female leadership among the sea people, was commonplace.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwq5uUp3Cu52THp_LaOs6ykIsehq-A1hRhzHZRBVB5O1VZYsglz0f344idVh0q5YzbBrDtT0rmnfRM6l4FFz2I6Yu102jUtkbzZbc-KtApzmqEerUJmL-MB3sn8d83BxJqXgOVRm_Iag/s1600/Chinese+mermaid.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwq5uUp3Cu52THp_LaOs6ykIsehq-A1hRhzHZRBVB5O1VZYsglz0f344idVh0q5YzbBrDtT0rmnfRM6l4FFz2I6Yu102jUtkbzZbc-KtApzmqEerUJmL-MB3sn8d83BxJqXgOVRm_Iag/s320/Chinese+mermaid.jpg" width="265" /></a></div>
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Chinese Mermaid Statue. (note the pearl she is holding)</div>
<br />
As in Europe the Chinese have mermaid myths, in which the mermaids are called pearl queens, because in the past you could only get pearls from breath-holding divers. We would have known very little about their lifestyle if they hadn’t managed to survive on Cheju, until the present day.<br />
It seems that not only did Confucianism dislike female breath-holding divers but Christianity did as well, probably for the same reasons. Christian wives had to swear to obey their husbands when they married, which caused trouble when mermaids were also the breadwinners of their families. There are stories of priests who, encountering mermaids on the seashore would curse them as devils and threaten them with eternal damnation. It also seems that mermaids were caught up in the witch hunts of the Middle Ages, but we will talk about this more, in a later video. <br />
An interesting point about mermaid stories, is that they are mostly about mermaids and not mermen. We do hear occasional stories of mermen, but they are far outnumbered by mermaid stories. So why is this? The answer may lie in the fact that most Haenyo and Ama divers are female. We will explain more of this, in the next video. (The Text of this video is available at. - <a href="http://wabond.hubpages.com/hub/Mermaids-are-Real-Part-Two">Mermaids are Real: Part Two</a> also a the video of of it. <a href="http://wabond.hubpages.com/video/Mermaids-are-Divers-Part-Two">http://wabond.hubpages.com/video/Mermaids-are-Divers-Part-Two</a><br />
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williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05285178912635949559noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884248580040970548.post-74514210570670971332012-02-04T01:17:00.000-08:002015-04-02T10:49:32.585-07:00Ama and Haenyo divers and Mermaids<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ySmbq2iXmCQ" width="560"></iframe>
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There were many mermaid stories and sightings in the past but not so many
about mermen, why is this? It might because as with the Haenyo and Ama divers
in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Korea</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Japan</st1:country-region>, female
divers far outnumber male ones. What’s the reason for this? The waters around <st1:country-region w:st="on">Korea</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Japan</st1:country-region> are cold and women’s bodies
are better suited to swim in cold water than male bodies. The common
explanation for this, is that women have a higher percentage of subcutaneous
fat than men, which insulates them from the cold water. In much the same way,
blubber also insulates dolphins, seals and whales. Some people dispute this and
point out that an overweight man would have as much body fat as an average
woman and this would insulate them to the same degree. Also men are able to
train their bodies to swim in cold water in the same way women can. Dr Jolie
Bookspan, an authority on the subject, has pointed out another reason why men
have problems in cold water and that is because of a medical condition she
calls, ‘Frostbite shorts’.<br />
Women have internal sex organs, men have external sex organs. Men produce
their sperm in the testicles. Sperm is sensitive to temperature and will die if
it gets too warm or too cold. So a man swimming in cold water will kill the
sperm in his testicles. Normally, this is not a problem because men are
producing new sperm all the time, but, if the man is a professional
breath-holding diver and is immersed in cold water every day, then he will be
continuously killing his sperm and will be unlikely to father children. Another
problem for men, is that if they spend too long in very cold water they can
suffer frostbite on their penis, which is something no man would want to
experience.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq00GM08MBi1f9pPNEcWmWHMX8DzWJBX4j8Ap0mt3Mw6GPKZfecqgEzQUW616qnVSFvRPkEHrfO8OGeBl4GCv0UnPhx_RWkYz9gWG9HQS6C49w3pU4WiXlMgQ88MFS2CSuNRohsTlfSA/s1600/Bookspan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq00GM08MBi1f9pPNEcWmWHMX8DzWJBX4j8Ap0mt3Mw6GPKZfecqgEzQUW616qnVSFvRPkEHrfO8OGeBl4GCv0UnPhx_RWkYz9gWG9HQS6C49w3pU4WiXlMgQ88MFS2CSuNRohsTlfSA/s1600/Bookspan.jpg" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Dr Bookspan working as a Ama diver</div>
<br />
Dr Bookspan spent time working as an Ama diver to study the effects of
swimming in cold water on her own body and the bodies of Ama divers. The divers
she studied were all wearing cotton costumes. She made the point that these
costumes were very uncomfortable when wet and would make the Ama divers feel
much colder when out of the water than if they wore nothing. A naked body will
soon dry through its own body heat, but wet clothing will keep the body wet,
take far longer to dry and will feel very cold in the slightest wind.<br />
In the past the Ama divers wore nothing, however after the Second World War,
with the increase in tourism, too many outsiders began to comment on their
nakedness, Ama divers were forced to do a cover-up and adopted cotton costumes.
Dr Boodspan says, -<br />
“<i>Diving clothes varied by geographic area, with some divers wearing only a
rope belt or loincloth. No fins were used to help swimming. Later when wet
suits were developed, only male divers wore them. Women were prohibited
protective suits by their cooperatives, since they were considered more cold
tolerant to begin with, and the advantage of the suit would "accelerate
over-harvesting" Later, the work became pretty much exclusive to women</i>.”<br />
She also explains that wet-suits are not as large a benefit for women as
they are for men, in cold water. This is because men have a higher skin
temperature than women and therefore more heat is radiated away from a man’s
body in cold water, than from a woman’s. So the insulating qualities of a
wetsuit are less use to women.<br />
So if this is the reason why few men are breath holding divers in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Japan</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Korea</st1:country-region>,
then was it also true for Mermaids in <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place>?
After all the water is not only cold in places like France and England where we
have Mermaid sightings, but also in Ireland, Scotland, the Orkney, Shetland and
Faroe islands, Iceland, the Scandinavian countries and Russia. All these places
have mermaid stories and sightings. So how could breath-holding divers work in
the very cold waters of places like <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iceland</st1:country-region>,
Scandinavia and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region>?
To understand this, we have to look at the experiences of modern open water
swimmers.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI7mqnmxtJUUqPsXI_-gPy4NFK77TylstHtXdXZusJidk-6oM7EUYQ6heA68KSlQjSyIn21EZjnKjpqasEm1f_AgXjIjtaqy4MfRFajmSPCNIVCN7QwhAxgPo6F3Wg0uqcCg-zIwfhOA/s1600/Lynne+Cox+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI7mqnmxtJUUqPsXI_-gPy4NFK77TylstHtXdXZusJidk-6oM7EUYQ6heA68KSlQjSyIn21EZjnKjpqasEm1f_AgXjIjtaqy4MfRFajmSPCNIVCN7QwhAxgPo6F3Wg0uqcCg-zIwfhOA/s320/Lynne+Cox+3.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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In 1987 open water swimmer Lynne Cox swam the Bering Straits from the
Alaskan <st1:placetype w:st="on">island</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Little Diomede</st1:placename> to the Soviet Union <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">island</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Big Diomede</st1:placename></st1:place>
without a wet-suit. She swam for two hours in Arctic waters. Then In 2002 she
became the first person to swim over a mile in the waters of <st1:place w:st="on">Antarctica</st1:place>
spending 25 minutes in the water, also without a wet-suit.<br />
So how was she able to accomplish these feats when a normal person would
quickly freeze to death? It seems that open water swimmer not only train
themselves to swim for long distances but also train their bodies to withstand
very cold water. This is commonplace with swimmers who have swam the <st1:place w:st="on">English Channel</st1:place>. Even in these relatively temperate
waters a normal person can freeze to death, if they haven’t conditioned their
bodies to withstand the cold. Lynne Cox was a successful Channel swimmer early
on in her career. In 1972 at the age of 15 she swam the <st1:place w:st="on">English
Channel</st1:place> and shattered the men's and women's world records with a
time of 9 hours and 57 minutes. The next year she swam the Channel a second
time and again broke the record.<br />
In 1976 Lynne Cox became, officially, the first person to swim across the <st1:place w:st="on">Strait of Magellan</st1:place>. It’s very likely that she wasn’t the
first person to do this, because in the area there were once female
breath-holding divers. The Strait of Magellan goes through the Tierra del Fuego
islands in the most southerly part of <st1:place w:st="on">South America</st1:place>.
The original inhabitants were the Ona and Yamana tribes. The Ona lived inland
but the Yamana lived on the coast and as with the Ama and Haenyo the women were
breath-holding divers. Diving in waters even colder than that of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Korea</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Japan</st1:country-region> they foraged for shellfish
and seaweed. It could be some unknown Yamana woman was who the first person to
swim across the <st1:place w:st="on">Strait of Magellan</st1:place>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeYd4olHUfbB80sn-wamHLIO9VFSyCCLShVU7wBxyoTgH8TQPAmxj1uejfxebhEuVpeK4kZQsukrgkwTN7JtDcbj9OPwq8Rpb1S43X7qNydlXJnTDx8rvWijykm9NAUrYW2D7_XZXDHw/s1600/Genicide+Yam+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeYd4olHUfbB80sn-wamHLIO9VFSyCCLShVU7wBxyoTgH8TQPAmxj1uejfxebhEuVpeK4kZQsukrgkwTN7JtDcbj9OPwq8Rpb1S43X7qNydlXJnTDx8rvWijykm9NAUrYW2D7_XZXDHw/s320/Genicide+Yam+2.jpg" height="235" width="320" /></a></div>
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Bounty hunters killing the Yamana and Ona people.</div>
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Because the land was useless for anything, these tribes were mostly left
alone until 1883 when gold was discovered there. The gold soon ran out but the
ex-miners took up sheep farming and claimed all the land as their own.
Unfortunately some of the Ona men began to kill the sheep for food and
clothing, so the sheep farmers paid bounty hunters to exterminate the tribes,
making no distinction between the Ona and Yamana. (The official version is that
they were wiped out by diseases like measles and smallpox). Later on the few
survivors of this genocide were saved by missionaries, but in spite of their
efforts, no full blooded Yamana now exist.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo-PcrtPidJ_qrDkFXt-E820DyxwHY46_MVRdY-Ika1CrCg_TvvPKLJJ5W7bDxOwGPq81p-BNREKPZGU5ow5r1g_ub8FGUzcyfrpuIpDFpBo438_RnBQNVda9w_lP2dc3Z_Oi_cSnGsA/s1600/Aboriginal+Women.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo-PcrtPidJ_qrDkFXt-E820DyxwHY46_MVRdY-Ika1CrCg_TvvPKLJJ5W7bDxOwGPq81p-BNREKPZGU5ow5r1g_ub8FGUzcyfrpuIpDFpBo438_RnBQNVda9w_lP2dc3Z_Oi_cSnGsA/s320/Aboriginal+Women.jpg" height="217" width="320" /></a></div>
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Drawing of Tasmanian Breath divers</div>
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The same thing happened to the Tasmanian when the first white settlers
arrived there at the beginning of the 19<sup>th</sup> century. They also found
that the women were breath-holding divers. Again, they were regarded as
nuisance and again bounty hunters were used to wipe them out. One of the
justifications for this genocide, was that the Yamana and Tasmanian Aborigine
were very primitive. They didn’t wear clothing despite living in a cold
climate. But this is similar to what modern open water swimmers also do. They
wear as few clothes as decently possible in cold weather, to condition their
bodies to withstand low temperatures. So the Yamana and Tasmanian Aborigine were
probably doing the same acclimatising their bodies to the cold weather so they
could swim in cold water. The Haenyo and Ama divers have likewise been accused
of being primitive because they once dived naked, another reason why they now
wear cotton costumes and wet-suits.<br />
There have been reports of breath-holding divers all over the world. In
South East Asia reports come from places like <st1:country-region w:st="on">Burma</st1:country-region>,
<st1:country-region w:st="on">Thailand</st1:country-region>, <st1:city w:st="on">Malaya</st1:city>,
<st1:country-region w:st="on">Indonesia</st1:country-region> and the <st1:country-region w:st="on">Philippines</st1:country-region> of
the Sea Gypsies or Sea People who live in boats or huts on stilts in shallow
water. The Polynesians and Melanesians of the South Pacific were also
breath-holding divers and were used as pearl divers in the 19<sup>th</sup>
century.<br />
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Giant Statue of Mermaid on Kollam Beach, India</div>
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Up until recently these were breath-holding divers in <st1:country-region w:st="on">India</st1:country-region>. In
Kerala on Kollam beach, there is a giant statue of a mermaid that is far larger
than the famous little mermaid statue in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Copenhagen</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Harbour</st1:placetype></st1:place>.<br />
There were breath-holding divers in both North and <st1:place w:st="on">South
America</st1:place>. We only know about them from large shell mounds the size
of hills, which were created by millions of shellfish being collected by breath
holding divers.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM9tkbJXUqqNhMVzFpjJ3ZL9YAUIUbtkMuVzdbSYkm4QHZEz6HjCbqxrMia6Sa6LXJtB3H7e3iS9kDucBf14unuBZA-9YfBMZpNDdXIUpyLITEeKPo1S95XdlEo6GZLsLyAGla-qjPQw/s1600/Shellmould.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM9tkbJXUqqNhMVzFpjJ3ZL9YAUIUbtkMuVzdbSYkm4QHZEz6HjCbqxrMia6Sa6LXJtB3H7e3iS9kDucBf14unuBZA-9YfBMZpNDdXIUpyLITEeKPo1S95XdlEo6GZLsLyAGla-qjPQw/s320/Shellmould.jpg" height="217" width="320" /></a></div>
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Large Shell mound before it was bulldozed in the 1920s</div>
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Shell mounds like this have been discovered in <st1:country-region w:st="on">South Africa</st1:country-region>, <st1:place w:st="on">Northern
Europe</st1:place> and on the Mediterranean coast. It seems that the shell
mounds on the <st1:place w:st="on">Mediterranean sea</st1:place> coast were
created by the famous Phoenicians who were part of the Sea People.<br />
So this is the reason why we mostly have stories of mermaid and not mermen,
because women can endure cold water much better than men. In our next video we
will explain why in so many stories of mermaids in <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place>,
they have fish tails. <br />
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williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05285178912635949559noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884248580040970548.post-73649477273732193182012-02-04T01:12:00.001-08:002014-01-24T07:12:25.426-08:00Monofins and flippers<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/a2Sa2XKqA3k" width="560"></iframe>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCIguoY-qKIpik3AwMc2NJEi2FyyYvUJtbquQq6qVNCKv9fr1TsZHK-Otp98d7NF2QzU5GSRccnZAzTneo_n0h5KHCcbEDRO0kG5XwkWk1GVdRaMKCRtDhk8mIwS8aO8ks3TG8a3MNyQ/s1600/Spash+movie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCIguoY-qKIpik3AwMc2NJEi2FyyYvUJtbquQq6qVNCKv9fr1TsZHK-Otp98d7NF2QzU5GSRccnZAzTneo_n0h5KHCcbEDRO0kG5XwkWk1GVdRaMKCRtDhk8mIwS8aO8ks3TG8a3MNyQ/s1600/Spash+movie.jpg" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
The film "Splash".</div>
<br />
In many stories mermaids seem to have magical powers: When they swim in the sea they have a fish tail, but when they come ashore they magically grow legs and walk around just like a normal woman. Back into the water they grow a fish tail again. It all sounds like a fairy story. Surprisingly, there is a logical explanation for this, in the modern monofin.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVAO8wl5o9Yqaud2Uqo8DNE6W6WwCdqNWQpFtC5PO8Q7SpYhIx8KCnf0wY2m5B0kOrqscmuNvxhh_uX4YZcF1zv7Kv6hbiMZheRNwVH-BefHulUhktjgnkkUH1igbAboKjOL6uZaNtyg/s1600/monfin+14.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVAO8wl5o9Yqaud2Uqo8DNE6W6WwCdqNWQpFtC5PO8Q7SpYhIx8KCnf0wY2m5B0kOrqscmuNvxhh_uX4YZcF1zv7Kv6hbiMZheRNwVH-BefHulUhktjgnkkUH1igbAboKjOL6uZaNtyg/s320/monfin+14.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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Monofins began to be developed in 1972, by a Ukrainian swimming club, and have been used for finswimming competitions ever since. It probably started off as a fun event where competitors attached artificial fish tails to their feet, but the power and speed produced by these monofins was so impressive, it became a regular event, and was adopted by other swimming clubs. They quickly encountered a problem, because the sheer power of the monofin created such a large bow-wave in the swimmer’s face that they couldn’t breathe. To get around this, they had to use a snorkel to breathe in air, which means the monofin is better suited to swimming underwater.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgve5X7xBzy26JWbJhvyZJdaoG16sR_x2_woA7I9FdiQoS8Piq-0OmcdImxGTC-mIEZgqSEUXpnZiAOC7yV1XcM6dwN_wcKRG8WOKeQHE9r_hfFb0ZcXAl4K-JyLFZJx2HduYapDIWeqg/s1600/monfin+swimming.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgve5X7xBzy26JWbJhvyZJdaoG16sR_x2_woA7I9FdiQoS8Piq-0OmcdImxGTC-mIEZgqSEUXpnZiAOC7yV1XcM6dwN_wcKRG8WOKeQHE9r_hfFb0ZcXAl4K-JyLFZJx2HduYapDIWeqg/s320/monfin+swimming.jpg" height="129" width="320" /></a></div>
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Swimmer showing the power of the monofin</div>
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Freedivers adopted it because they found the monofin gave them speed and power swimming underwater without their using too much effort. This is very important to freedivers because the more effort they use, the quicker they use up the air in their lungs, forcing them to come to the surface sooner than they would like.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFOIiWOw2KIef9m9rDehPelXTeO7ydtqJM8XZ-GniXFgmKn1ImU_ndGkVYoDsqzZIQr6pJ3dQF_YknkItOr2a_0yNTrK6zT8XlgbkJgo6KSUUlQWCe-LXQ6Q6usvZ3VP99r3SNTmCg-A/s1600/Humpback.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFOIiWOw2KIef9m9rDehPelXTeO7ydtqJM8XZ-GniXFgmKn1ImU_ndGkVYoDsqzZIQr6pJ3dQF_YknkItOr2a_0yNTrK6zT8XlgbkJgo6KSUUlQWCe-LXQ6Q6usvZ3VP99r3SNTmCg-A/s320/Humpback.jpg" height="178" width="320" /></a></div>
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So is this the explanation of why mermaids in the past were able to magically grow fish tails in the water and grow legs while on land? Did that they put on monofins when they went into the water and take them off again when they came back to land? Unfortunately this is not supported by observations of the Haenyo and Ama divers of Korea and Japan. Until very recently they have never used swimming aids like monofins or flippers. But a monofin could solve a big problem all working breath-holding divers have.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9_9E35hgQuobUyHsPhKGIH91WHr6W-MW8rTiomYTxIdBTj6K6i0c4BST-RKNUhbbBHorpt03SggzPuOrJarlZdmAVWlvzo8Tuh_kRxDVujY9VfuyK6SsHeVcSZT8qOX07ueBNdGd0Hw/s1600/Ama+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9_9E35hgQuobUyHsPhKGIH91WHr6W-MW8rTiomYTxIdBTj6K6i0c4BST-RKNUhbbBHorpt03SggzPuOrJarlZdmAVWlvzo8Tuh_kRxDVujY9VfuyK6SsHeVcSZT8qOX07ueBNdGd0Hw/s320/Ama+1.JPG" height="222" width="320" /></a></div>
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Ama diving for shellfish in shallow water</div>
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Breath-holding divers in deep water cannot carry anything but the lightest load from the sea floor to the surface. This is not a problem in shallow water because breath-holding divers can quickly dive down, pick up a handful of shellfish and come to the surface in less than a minute. With repetitive dives they can quickly acquire a lot of food. However because marine food is easy available in the shallows, they can become quickly overfished, so divers are forced to move further and further out to sea and greater depths. At a depth of about 10 meters a breath-holding working diver will have to stay underwater for at least 3 minutes. She can’t keep on diving continually as is the case in shallow water, as it will create medical problems, so she would need to take breaks between dives. This limits the amount of food a breath-holding diver can foraged underwater at these greater depths. <br />
The Japanese solution to this problem is for the Ama diver to tie a rope around her waist, and tuck into in a heavy iron bar. This bar serves two purposes.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7xG2cZqI6BfUd0fQ4fPQ5TPmHzgV3coCoPRwC1beKcdL3Zx0deTZKZacoJ9aKLzbTPPELphr_X102e9cp2GelsH4BxbHRgTPhCvaSmcp1EeB2xC4owjNKy2LOc989_DWSXQnPbYd4Nw/s1600/Ama+digging+tool.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7xG2cZqI6BfUd0fQ4fPQ5TPmHzgV3coCoPRwC1beKcdL3Zx0deTZKZacoJ9aKLzbTPPELphr_X102e9cp2GelsH4BxbHRgTPhCvaSmcp1EeB2xC4owjNKy2LOc989_DWSXQnPbYd4Nw/s320/Ama+digging+tool.JPG" height="211" width="320" /></a></div>
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Iron bar of Ama Diver</div>
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It is used to dig away shellfish that are glued to rocks, and acts as a weight so the diver can sink to the sea floor more quickly. On the sea floor she quickly collects as much marine food as she can find, and puts it in a string bag, then tugs on the rope. Men in the boat above pull her to the surface. This strategy means she is not limited by the weight of her catch in each dive.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY4XDspqmnA9bjx0sB4kzkSEJIhXp7CfsLtrDJ3MOM-4M6ZNiCWODlo01t2ZZM5j9cBFaMdqjaXl4V_toa2z0k4TVMFVtKy_DoA4IUZ7vslLvS73TSv2IPyCfgu0bIYlaaQzKf5O29BA/s1600/Ama+surfacing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY4XDspqmnA9bjx0sB4kzkSEJIhXp7CfsLtrDJ3MOM-4M6ZNiCWODlo01t2ZZM5j9cBFaMdqjaXl4V_toa2z0k4TVMFVtKy_DoA4IUZ7vslLvS73TSv2IPyCfgu0bIYlaaQzKf5O29BA/s320/Ama+surfacing.jpg" height="320" width="246" /></a></div>
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As far as we know, mermaids in Europe didn’t do this. There are no stories of mermaids jumping off boats with a rope around their waist and then being hauled up by men. But there are a many stories of mermaids with one or two fish tails which might have been monofins or flippers. There are also off course stories of mermaids without any fish tails but as in shallow waters monofins and flippers wouldn’t be an advantage, mermaids would only use them in deeper water. <br />
The big advantage of a monfin in deep water, is that the mermaid can use it’s power to drive herself quickly to the bottom of the sea, without using weights to make her sink faster. When she has collected what marine food she can find, she can then use the monofin to drive herself to the surface. The same would be true for flippers and it is of interesting that modern Ama divers have started to use flippers in recent times.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGI9okpU_wKh_P9PcMqJ231F0kDphMvU70WI2EIZNir0gAvcr-BMbFMY6iMi3YLc8UTgHJJLNVdP6VRQZDMjelp_4IW17cuXHzG9aJXAbn7uZCGT9sxu76yfnzHOuHqFR25ghtC0w1FA/s1600/Monfin+nude.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGI9okpU_wKh_P9PcMqJ231F0kDphMvU70WI2EIZNir0gAvcr-BMbFMY6iMi3YLc8UTgHJJLNVdP6VRQZDMjelp_4IW17cuXHzG9aJXAbn7uZCGT9sxu76yfnzHOuHqFR25ghtC0w1FA/s1600/Monfin+nude.jpg" /></a></div>
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The official history of swimming aids is that the first person to propose flippers or swimming fins was Leonardo Da Vinci, followed by Giovanni Alphonso Borelli in the 17<sup>th</sup> century. But the man credited with making and using them was the inventor and politician Benjamin Franklin. As a young man he made flippers out of two thin pieces of wood, in the shape of artist palettes. They never caught on, and it wasn’t until the 1930s when inventors started to make flippers out of rubber, that they were widely used. Later on the monofin was invented by the Ukrainians. <br />
So could mermaids have used swimming aids like monofins and flippers in the past? It’s possible since we know that the Polynesians once had flippers which they made out of palm leaves. <span style="font-size: 12pt;">In the 20th century various inventors began
making flippers or swim fins out of vulcanized rubber. One of these inventors
was the American Owen Churchill.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The
idea came to him while on a trip to Tahiti in the mid-1930’s, where he observed
a group of natives on the beach weaving small mats from palm fronds and dipping
them into a tub of hot tar. When the tar had cooled and hardened, they would
tie these mats to their feet, then enter the ocean to swim and dive
underwater.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">How long the Polynesians
have been doing this, is unknown.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">It
could have been for hundreds or even thousands of years.</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd6rUV6IezBTTVZ7uhF_Fz4XZCGBZMp1N0MkE8xP0F5l_os0OMaZ_F7OEKXEQEMJOavRGllRrlIJ6MrTzEPAWN5SlJUX8DkZzHNzR4auegKedtSYXifX6fCYXmfk-benwXoShKhSIe6g/s1600/surfing+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd6rUV6IezBTTVZ7uhF_Fz4XZCGBZMp1N0MkE8xP0F5l_os0OMaZ_F7OEKXEQEMJOavRGllRrlIJ6MrTzEPAWN5SlJUX8DkZzHNzR4auegKedtSYXifX6fCYXmfk-benwXoShKhSIe6g/s400/surfing+2.jpg" height="263" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Polynesian surfers, (19th century drawing)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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People in the past must have realised that one of the reasons why fish and dolphins are so fast in the water, is because of their tails. So someone could have tried to make an artificial fish tail. Perhaps at first, like Benjamin Franklin’s flippers, they were not very effective, but over time they would evolve and the design would improve. The first monofins built were very crude, some made of two titanium rods connected by a sail cloth, but they quickly evolved to the monofins we have today. Perhaps some of the monofins in the past might have been made of thin branches, cloth or leather. Wood would be even better.</div>
Modern monofins are made of fibreglass and carbon fibre. These are very stiff materials but the monofins are made to bend by making the fibreglass or carbon fibre very thin. The same is true of wood. It is also a stiff material but can be made very bendy if it’s thin enough. Some people might object that wood would be too weak to make a monofin, but in the past people would have used split wood which is stronger than the sawn wood we use today.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVzlv1uJcaM1IZTS4irpQd76Z-kx8YZ1iGCrhv5ebc-5s69c2bYWkeG53SmPgCUDaDUx81p9MAWTjXq7f40xRdUIK6T5kGGscOV00bYCNHIkPn53hyztlM89WX7fsNxuXzTl3lGpfG3Q/s1600/Drawing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVzlv1uJcaM1IZTS4irpQd76Z-kx8YZ1iGCrhv5ebc-5s69c2bYWkeG53SmPgCUDaDUx81p9MAWTjXq7f40xRdUIK6T5kGGscOV00bYCNHIkPn53hyztlM89WX7fsNxuXzTl3lGpfG3Q/s320/Drawing.jpg" height="175" width="320" /></a></div>
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To prevent splitting, the wooden mono fin can be made in a Vee shape as shown in the drawing.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwLCULMgJBWK-vnEbkKFfIlIk2x1s85DOhMjmvyYDAJq0KPlcfrwP2xza6IzxNtaA18EfGZPkrECODQA08iarlXh2Lsfkj6H1HbhtncVhOUjOOGX5LJW3j72bhYqsc8DcLuWJT-sKjCQ/s1600/Drawing+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwLCULMgJBWK-vnEbkKFfIlIk2x1s85DOhMjmvyYDAJq0KPlcfrwP2xza6IzxNtaA18EfGZPkrECODQA08iarlXh2Lsfkj6H1HbhtncVhOUjOOGX5LJW3j72bhYqsc8DcLuWJT-sKjCQ/s320/Drawing+2.jpg" height="175" width="320" /></a></div>
Some modern monofins resemble an aeroplane wing. This is a very simple design, and means a monofin could be made from a plank of wood. Unfortunately there are no stories, of mermaids with planks of wood attached to their feet!<br />
It’s conceivable that sailors and fishermen seeing mermaids with monofins and flippers on their feet would report them as women with a fish tail or two fish tails. They might be perfectly aware that these tails are artificial, but they wouldn't have words like monofin, flippers or swimfins, to describe them and people, who never saw them, would take them at their word and think they are women with <u>actual</u> fish tails.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv1nMIKRccrQvJFIP83LklWklLLw4PivYoGAnp_wsGuWEgc5nJyxYivojW835RpGP0x-JXrf3YnQMEe5C2ialTPybCqcLUivdckYSjfmF0uPut82n5MpPd8UfxRpznrcRLIHimZDdtQg/s1600/Mermaid+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv1nMIKRccrQvJFIP83LklWklLLw4PivYoGAnp_wsGuWEgc5nJyxYivojW835RpGP0x-JXrf3YnQMEe5C2ialTPybCqcLUivdckYSjfmF0uPut82n5MpPd8UfxRpznrcRLIHimZDdtQg/s320/Mermaid+3.jpg" height="320" width="234" /></a></div>
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When artists are told to draw them, they would draw, paint or sculpt them as women with a fish tail, or two fish tails, as well.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg83ZR2a4N564ZTJommXsLNzBtw9Es_A4L4ZYsDLbMJ41yzzTBHlZUepY7e5kzmH624s8kQYZkAQCEwTU_Lypk-l8Ub2o5OxxNHI2PTqWLPLsoXDV1GEPeklcUqqJzSOUAOdE8hZrt3Ew/s1600/Three+sirens.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg83ZR2a4N564ZTJommXsLNzBtw9Es_A4L4ZYsDLbMJ41yzzTBHlZUepY7e5kzmH624s8kQYZkAQCEwTU_Lypk-l8Ub2o5OxxNHI2PTqWLPLsoXDV1GEPeklcUqqJzSOUAOdE8hZrt3Ew/s320/Three+sirens.jpg" height="186" width="320" /></a></div>
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There are other stories from the past where mermaids are decribed as having a serpent’s tail or a very long fish tail. This can also be explained by flippers and monofins. The original rubber flippers of the 1930s were short and stubby but now they have evolved to be very long and flexible. It seems that freedivers prefer these very long flippers.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2W3CCIG0IOhPUXK9Aa39StwwsNR48SsC0CQH3Ek5LtNNPw2BbNP9W2WVDXkprDDkPljENBd5eZR42mQyFSQxERcYC4gN7WJtZrhgT0cc7iG0u0iT5TyWz5RMy5iwSa_q7nL5F4jhtrg/s1600/flippers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2W3CCIG0IOhPUXK9Aa39StwwsNR48SsC0CQH3Ek5LtNNPw2BbNP9W2WVDXkprDDkPljENBd5eZR42mQyFSQxERcYC4gN7WJtZrhgT0cc7iG0u0iT5TyWz5RMy5iwSa_q7nL5F4jhtrg/s320/flippers.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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The same could have been true in the past. Over time, people may have realized that long flexible flippers were more efficient that short ones. As previously mentioned wood can be made very flexible if it’s thin enough and the degree of flexibility can be controlled by the thinness of the wood. Long, wooden flippers could have been constructed.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeuhyphenhypheng5RQpz8vJhThkSmKlCazyNZUqdLVBFDsX41_WDMLeGvxSohBZU1Itil9aazRdOfnbNEhJeX8rNowEBIKbnhI4lplOdlgQv94JD2YElgYwu7oK0BbucD-h_6A0c2mrhxj_DC45-Q/s1600/Serpent+tail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeuhyphenhypheng5RQpz8vJhThkSmKlCazyNZUqdLVBFDsX41_WDMLeGvxSohBZU1Itil9aazRdOfnbNEhJeX8rNowEBIKbnhI4lplOdlgQv94JD2YElgYwu7oK0BbucD-h_6A0c2mrhxj_DC45-Q/s320/Serpent+tail.jpg" height="138" width="320" /></a></div>
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Any sailor seeing these very long flippers would describe them as looking <u>like</u> a serpent’s tail or tails, and land people would again interpreted this as being an <u>actual</u> serpent’s tail. Monofins could have also been made to be long and thin, because if this design is efficient for flippers it might also be true for them. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH6qWdkU-C4yI53_3rSg9VDwWRzj5Kltgd3yIb_of05Q0ksrEcilesBMv7tpr3sUhtvqK5fj51L5CvxA6wM1qhiDhSwWfj4ElDLV7ui3pkydKHJWGlX9pRz3Z_2hh5UdJd50i5tAoZ8g/s1600/Drawing+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH6qWdkU-C4yI53_3rSg9VDwWRzj5Kltgd3yIb_of05Q0ksrEcilesBMv7tpr3sUhtvqK5fj51L5CvxA6wM1qhiDhSwWfj4ElDLV7ui3pkydKHJWGlX9pRz3Z_2hh5UdJd50i5tAoZ8g/s320/Drawing+3.jpg" height="201" width="320" /></a></div>
Another possibility is that people in the past may have realise that a monofin could have more power and leverage if put on the end of a flexible pole, making the tail look a lot longer and giving it the whip action you see when dolphins flick their tails. This is shown in the next drawing.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-j5PSTnAlFL7BuQ9u_pcR-bqZZgCZ-ORFQBSImbTo20jTPjoqbgR6i1yTPRRfcKukbiyyi3Ikqa497ca4PoBIrcacPggQKkrCt8GbrTo5v9Qp1OhE78-SNT3Ih6o3rMZTQLfMvO3ElA/s1600/pole+2A.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-j5PSTnAlFL7BuQ9u_pcR-bqZZgCZ-ORFQBSImbTo20jTPjoqbgR6i1yTPRRfcKukbiyyi3Ikqa497ca4PoBIrcacPggQKkrCt8GbrTo5v9Qp1OhE78-SNT3Ih6o3rMZTQLfMvO3ElA/s320/pole+2A.jpg" height="194" width="320" /></a></div>
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Selkie</div>
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In Northern Scotland, the Orkney Islands and the Shetland islands there are myths about the Seal people or Selkie, who are, seals when they are in the water and human being when they come on land. In other myths they say that mermaids put on animal skins when they go in the water. Maybe it’s not a magical story after all. It could just mermaids who are wearing seal skins, perhaps like the modern wet-suits, we see on modern Haenyo divers.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlY9Fgoj9v74nt0cijgNDK_0KRhunxxXbjS6J1reIp0jLcUzvoGLdTmwDVuZPc-FqVo6PyQ_JtBBKPZWyDvUiCk-sXkz_0hL9jXnja2IhQrjKwItA7ixMphphyphenhyphenxZTP5rcWx2wK-6mKFQ/s1600/Grete+Howard.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlY9Fgoj9v74nt0cijgNDK_0KRhunxxXbjS6J1reIp0jLcUzvoGLdTmwDVuZPc-FqVo6PyQ_JtBBKPZWyDvUiCk-sXkz_0hL9jXnja2IhQrjKwItA7ixMphphyphenhyphenxZTP5rcWx2wK-6mKFQ/s320/Grete+Howard.JPG" height="221" width="320" /></a></div>
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Haenyo divers</div>
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Another possibility reflects a modern-day practice, where women encase their legs in a bag, tie it at the waist and have a monofin at the bottom of the bag. This make them look like a classical mermaid. Mermaids in the past, may have done the same with seal skins.<br />
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Two dead seals </div>
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They could cut off the head of a seal, remove all the fresh and bone without damaging the skin and use the seal skin as a primitive wet-suit. It is doubtful if the seal’s feet could be used as a monofin, but perhaps a wooden one could be attached to them. People seeing this costume would easily believe they are seeing a woman who is half woman and half seal. <br />
An added benefit from the seal costume, is that it would protect the feet from frostbite, It would also allow mermen to dive in cold waters. We previously mention the problem men have swimming in cold water, but a sort of wet-suit seal skin over the sex-organs, would afford some protection from the elements.<br />
The next video will be about the siren call and why we have so many stories of sailors that find the singing of mermaids so irresistible, that they will sail towards them and crash their ship onto rocks.<br />
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williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05285178912635949559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884248580040970548.post-46355802445644235292012-02-04T01:11:00.001-08:002015-02-24T06:12:06.364-08:00Sirens<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/uPCwo2HCxEw" width="560"></iframe>
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There are many mermaid stories about the siren call. Sailors have heard mermaids singing and been so hypnotised by it, that they have sailed to where the sirens where singing and crashed their ships onto rocks. This particular story is very old. The Ancient Greeks recount how Ulysses, to get past an island of sirens had to block his crew’s ears with wax, so they could resist the siren call. He tied himself to the mast; in order to safely row past the island. Why Ulysses didn’t block his own ears with wax, as well, is never made clear.<br />
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Ulysses</div>
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Accounts of Sirens don’t all come from the ancient Greeks. Sailors in Europe until the 19<sup>th</sup> century have warned about the dangers of the siren call, some going as far as claiming that if you see a mermaid, then it’s certain your ship will be destroyed. In spite of these exaggerated stories, there are logical reasons why sailors needed to be warned about the siren call.<br />
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Ama Divers</div>
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All breath-holding divers like the Ama and Haenyo divers of Japan and Korea and modern freedivers have to practice regularly to be able to hold their breath for more than three minutes underwater. Opera singers also have similar breathing exercises both to develop powerful lungs and to hold a very long note. By developing strong lungs and excellent breath control, breath-holding divers will unwittingly also develop powerful voices though their breathing exercises. If a group of mermaids lying on rocks are having a sing-song, their powerful voices will carry far out to sea, to be heard by passing sailors in ships.<br />
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opera singer</div>
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Is that the secret of the siren call? Mermaids had such wonderful operatic voices that sailors were drawn to sail close to shore through the beauty of their voices? Well no, because it would depend if the sirens were able to sing in tune and not in all mermaid stories do mermaids have irresistible voices. In one account, knights setting out on a ship for the Second Crusade of 1147, passed a group of sirens in the Bay of Biscay. The Crusaders claimed the sirens made dreadful noises like wailing, laughing and jeering like insolent men. This upset the knights, but did nothing, as they feared the magical powers of these women.<br />
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It’s doubtful if these sailors came close to shore because of the mermaid’s wonderful singing, but they might have done so for another reason. In most stories mermaid are naked, whereas for land women, there was a strict dress code that women’s bodies should be covered at all times. Young men would have few chances to see nude women. As a result, young men in boats and ships sailing along the coast, and hearing mermaid’s powerful singing, would know that near the shore there would be naked women lying on rocks or beach. Naturally would want to sail close to the shore to have a look, a dangerous thing to do in those days.<br />
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In the past, sailors didn’t have detailed charts as they have today, so sailing close inshore meant there was always the danger of hitting a rock, just below the water, or a sandbar. There is also the danger of tidal currents that in light winds can take hold of a sailing ship. If these currents whip around a rocky headland, they will probably smash the ship into the rocks. Also, ships of the past were not very good in sailing upwind, especially if it was a square rigger. So if a sailing ship comes too close to the shore and wind was to change and blow towards the coast, they would find it very difficult to sail upwind away from the shore. There was a big danger of being blown onto rocks or onto a beach.<br />
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Island of Sark</div>
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Because of this, older sailors would try to warn younger sailors against wanting to go inshore to stare at naked mermaids. An example of this can be found in the Channel Islands folklore about the sirens who once lived on the island of Sark, a very rocky island. Guernsey fishermen claimed they were old women, yet if their singing still drew sailors in to sail too near to its dangerous coast. Then a fierce storm would suddenly arise, driving the vessel onto the rocks. To drive home the point, of how dangerous these sirens are, the fishermen also claimed they would carry the sailors to the bottom of the sea and devour them.<br />
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The older fishermen where saying everything they could to discourage young fishermen wanting, to stare at the mermaids, but in the process were giving them a very bad reputation, to the point of accusing them of cannibalism.<br />
Perhaps mermaids could have helped the situation by not singing and covering their bodies. It seems that this did happen in the Orkney and Shetland islands where it was reported that mermaids wore petticoats. Also as mentioned in our last video they probably did make some sort of wet-suit out of sealskin, though we have no reports of mermaids doing this, in any other part of Europe.<br />
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Ama diver with cotton clothing</div>
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Wearing clothing while swimming, is not a good idea. Amas do this in modern times because of tourism, despite the fact that wet clothing is uncomfortable and keeps the body cold while out of the water. The Amas think it a price worth paying, to avoid unwanted attention from outsiders, so why didn’t mermaids in Europe think the same way? The problem might have been the monofin, mentioned in the last video. Before the invention of rubber and plastic clothing, wearing clothes in water created drag and slowed down the speed a woman could swim. This is not a big problem for Ama divers as they tie a rope around their waist and dive to the sea floor, with the help of the weight of an iron bar tucked in their waist. When they have gathered what food they can, men in boats above haul them to the surface with the rope. So swimming speed is not going to be a big issue for Ama divers, but it will be if a diver uses a monofin. This is because the mermaid uses the power of the monofin to drive herself to the sea floor and then drive up to the surface again. Any drag will slow down her speed. She will need to use more effort and deplete the precious oxygen in her lungs, leaving less time to forage on the sea floor with each dive.<br />
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Nude singer: Madona</div>
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The same is also true of singing. The sensible thing would be to avoid this. But doing breathing exercises can be boring and mermaids may have found that doing these while singing is more enjoyable. It may even have become a tradition, and the mermaids became reluctant to give it up.<br />
Maybe mermaids didn’t have to change their ways. Perhaps the scare stories to scare young sailors and fishermen away from the coast were effective. The sailors stopped coming close inshore and left the mermaids alone. Maybe the mermaids didn’t mind. Because of these scare stories they were left alone. So all we now know are these dramatic scare stories of evil sirens.<br />
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The problem with this, was that mermaid stories were used by wreckers to divert attention away from themselves. For many coastal villages having a ship wrecked nearby was a boon. A lot of the cargo would be washed ashore which the villagers could claim for themselves. So some men deliberately wreaked ships, by setting up false lights. A ship sailing in stormy night when it knows it is close to land, will look for the lights of a harbour to find a safe anchorage. The wreckers rigged lights in such a way, that anyone seeing them out at sea, would be fooled into thinking there was a harbour and sail in, only to be wrecked on rocks or on a beach. The wreckers then blamed the mermaids, which many people would believe, because of the siren stories.<br />
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The scare stories were also used by the Church to discredit mermaids. Many of them were wiped out in Witch hunts, perhaps only surviving in remote places like Northern Scotland, the Orkneys and Shetland islands, places which were called, “the land of the mermaids”. Many mermaids might have seen the sense of not drawing attention to themselves by singing too loudly and lying on rocks in the nude. They put on petticoats in the water or even wear wet-suits made of seal skin.<br />
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Not all mermaids did this, we mentioned in part one, a sighing by a schoolmaster in northern Scotland in 1809, of a mermaid in the nude. There were also many mermaid sighting as late as the 1890s in Newark Bay in Deerness, Orkney. These mermaids were seen by hundreds of tourists, so it seems that the beginning of modern tourism, probably ended mermaid sightings in Britain.<br />
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The Haenyo divers of Cheju also suffered their own witch hunt. In World War Two the island was occupied by the Japanese, who treated the Cheju people so badly that they rose up in protested. But the Japanese brutally suppressed the islanders, and the Haenyo divers suffered, as they played a major role in the protest. Worse was to follow.<br />
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Mass graves after the Cheju massacre</div>
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After the Second World War, the Cheju people objected to the way they were being ruled by the Korean government. The Korean government condemned them as communist sympathisers, and their brutal suppression of the Cheju people was far worse than what was done by the Japanese. Many of the Haenyo divers had to flee the island and moved to Japan. It was after this that the Haenyo divers began to wear wet-suits to avoid drawing attention to themselves.<br />
In the next video we will discuss why we think that mermaids and witches were probably the same people.<br />
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williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05285178912635949559noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884248580040970548.post-35191307056964839342012-02-04T01:10:00.000-08:002015-02-24T06:15:56.651-08:00Witches<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Y43Dy07taP8" width="560"></iframe>
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In the previous video we mentioned that witches and mermaids might be the same people. There are many reasons for thinking this. Witches and mermaids are both feminine for example. Yes, we do hear of mermen but most stories about mer-people are about female creatures. The same is true of witches. In modern witchcraft or Wicca male witches now exist, but this wasn’t true in the past. Then, all witches were women. It also seems that. like witches, mermaids could weave magic spells.<br />
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Doom Bar, Padstow Bay, Corwall</div>
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An example of this comes from the Doom Bar, in Padstow Bay, Cornwall, where many ships have been wrecked.<br />
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Local legend claims that Doom Bar was created by a mermaid’s curse after someone shot at her while she was swimming in the harbour. It seems that in the past people believed in mermaid magic as much as they did that of witches.<br />
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Dancing Nymphs</div>
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Nudity is another thing that links them both. In most stories, mermaids are naked, while witches were roundly condemned by priests in the past for dancing naked in the woods. This is also what the nymphs of Ancient Greece were noted for, mythical female creatures associated with both witches and mermaids.<br />
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Ducking Stool</div>
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During the witch hunts of the middle ages there was the cruel practise of the ducking stool, which was seen as a foolproof way to establish whether a suspect was a witch. The woman was tied to the stool and immersed in water. If the suspect drowned she wasn’t a witch but if she survived the ordeal she must be one. The only way this cruel logic can make any sense is if the accused Witch is also a breath-holding diver.<br />
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Ama divers</div>
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An ordinary woman tied to the end of a ducking stool and forced underwater for about two or three minutes, is very likely to panic and drown. But if she is a breath-holding diver, she is more than capable of calmly holding her breath. It would be a foolproof method of finding out if the woman was a mermaid.<br />
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In other times, the stool was dispensed with. The victim's right thumb was bound to her left toe and she was thrown into the water with a rope around her waist. If she floated she was a witch but if she drowned she was deemed innocent. A normal person would find it impossible to swim or keep afloat tied up this way and would probably drown, but a breath-holding diver, even limited in this way, is far more likely to survive. It was often reported that some of the women tied to ducking stools died of the cold after being repetitively dunked in cold water.<br />
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Again this is something breath-holding divers are more likely to survive, being used to diving in cold water. As far as the Witch hunters were concerned, all breath- holding divers or mermaids were Witches. The fact that the Witch finders didn’t mind if they killed innocent women in the process of finding out who the witches were, suggests that they were not only trying to identify individual witches but their families as well. A woman who died during this ordeal probably saved her extended family from further persecution but a woman who survived would put her whole family under suspicion. A final point is that these ordeals suggest that witches or mermaids lived among the common people. Witch finders arriving in villages didn’t know who was who and resorted to torture to discover the truth.<br />
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Ducking stool</div>
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It seems that the mermaids or witches might have invented
surfing in <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place>. The first recorded instance of a board surfer
was the witch of Newbury who went surfing on a river back in the 17th century
but was killed by troops. The scholar
Barbara G. Walker, in her book "The Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and
Secrets," says</div>
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<i>The so-called Witch of
Newbury was murdered by a group of soldiers because she knew how to go
"surfing" on the river.
Soldiers of the Earl of Essex saw her doing it, and were "as much
astonished as they could be " seeing that "to and fro she fleeted on
the board standing firm bolt upright…turning and winding it which way she
pleased, making it pastime to her, as little thinking who perceived her tricks,
or that she did imagine that they were the last she ever should
show." Most of the soldiers were
too afraid to touch her, but a few brave souls ambushed the board-rider as she
came to shore, slashed her head, beat her, and shot her, leaving her
"detested carcass to the worms."<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHL0zm7PLL5uLqnWhOdI56-IIkV15pwkxuON4RGn8BF1cxLcQSgT1jQXs9aVXZSv2alYXK0i_sG8SoWa6su0qilduNMG2ESoDLEFuJXAqrOmzRQA5vq_IcbXqOFAn40kh-Cg5JVBlEUw/s1600/Witchcraft+p.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHL0zm7PLL5uLqnWhOdI56-IIkV15pwkxuON4RGn8BF1cxLcQSgT1jQXs9aVXZSv2alYXK0i_sG8SoWa6su0qilduNMG2ESoDLEFuJXAqrOmzRQA5vq_IcbXqOFAn40kh-Cg5JVBlEUw/s320/Witchcraft+p.jpg" height="320" width="234" /></a></div>
<br />
This story only makes
sense if we accept that witches were mermaids and breath-holding divers. If this witch was a breath-holding diver she
would be at home swimming in the river and perhaps even surfing on it. </div>
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But how do you surf in a river? If there is a large low-
lying rock in any fast-flowing river and the river flows over the rock and not
around it, then the flowing water will create what is called a "standing wave". It's then possible for a person on a board to
surf this wave. Surfers today utilise
standing waves in fast flowing rivers.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjChbTyzqkxmhPkFm0ryyhTFruTqOj3q_4GZunJjGs_UTECsbQrHI41gg8qFMu-d9hILWYDkM8whDBePiDr9xTfBx60-5XtNZ8YXNWbDBgRoPlf8mJc5-BU1Z0mmdYlYHIgKj9ATl9_yg/s1600/surfer+Nude.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjChbTyzqkxmhPkFm0ryyhTFruTqOj3q_4GZunJjGs_UTECsbQrHI41gg8qFMu-d9hILWYDkM8whDBePiDr9xTfBx60-5XtNZ8YXNWbDBgRoPlf8mJc5-BU1Z0mmdYlYHIgKj9ATl9_yg/s320/surfer+Nude.jpg" height="320" width="314" /></a></div>
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This evidence suggests that women were surfing long before
the 20th century, but if they were then accused of witchcraft for doing this
and murdered, like the Witch of Newbury, no doubt they would be discouraged.
Knowledge of this, like the true history of mermaids, was written out of
history, so now, all the evidence we
have of this practice is the strange story of the Witch of Newbury. There are no records of mermaids surfing on
the coast, but as female breath-holding divers were also written out of
history, this might well have happened.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNjFjZq9r_OarWXv7_924X74Wov0tIf-iTD5gXDLPW7dmF2i3g-7ojZGblGuNeVewR_0T0lkjry_wGoo8t3cTU_zerbzZKwtXBZn0qsmaz0b2BaG3STVQfGzjhpsEfxp8XT8RGMmurRw/s1600/surfing+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNjFjZq9r_OarWXv7_924X74Wov0tIf-iTD5gXDLPW7dmF2i3g-7ojZGblGuNeVewR_0T0lkjry_wGoo8t3cTU_zerbzZKwtXBZn0qsmaz0b2BaG3STVQfGzjhpsEfxp8XT8RGMmurRw/s320/surfing+1.jpg" height="249" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">It seems that the Polynesians were surfing on wooden
boards for thousands of years, before the Europeans came to the Pacific. The Christian missionaries banned the
practice, but then it was taken up by white people, who started the modern
sport of surfing.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
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One of the perks of being a witch-finder was
that you could confiscate and keep the property of your victims. So Witch-finders had a strong incentive to
target anyone who was reasonably wealthy and not bother too much with anyone
who was poor. Female breath-holding divers made a good living harvesting
valuable marine food from the sea-floor.
We know this from the experiences of the Ama and Haenyo divers of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Japan</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Korea</st1:country-region>. Although, breath-holding divers were banned
throughout the whole of <st1:country-region w:st="on">China</st1:country-region>,
as well as the Korean mainland, they survived on the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">island</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Cheju</st1:placename></st1:place>. The Haenyo divers there were wealthy enough
to bribe corrupt officials, on the island, to leave them alone. Because <st1:place w:st="on">Cheju</st1:place> was a remote island, it was mostly disgraced
officials who were sent to it and so they would be easy to bribe.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRkLJvbbQE90XaiRUAaTjkl6RyppAWW-Rbb5T28F-ElEHyNWblZOOTEMeLhG-AKCNsoQaTdKlxe9wAdm38DKp9NzyeBP4UdWSfBJ9uklsuLYYmWPou5aJi-WNhYWSSPPfz-Inj4aIKYg/s1600/Ama+seafloor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRkLJvbbQE90XaiRUAaTjkl6RyppAWW-Rbb5T28F-ElEHyNWblZOOTEMeLhG-AKCNsoQaTdKlxe9wAdm38DKp9NzyeBP4UdWSfBJ9uklsuLYYmWPou5aJi-WNhYWSSPPfz-Inj4aIKYg/s1600/Ama+seafloor.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Ama diving continued until recently because it was one
of the highest paid jobs women could do in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Japan</st1:country-region></st1:place>. However, in recent times Japanese women
became better educated. Women can now earn far more, without the hardship of
being a breath-holding diver, so in recent years fewer young women are taking
up the profession. Likewise, the
mermaids of <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place> were probably also well
rewarded for their work. In the past, many
witches or mermaids were skilled herbalists and may have been paid as much as
doctors are today. Witch hunters would
have a strong incentive to accuse these women of witchcraft, and take
possession of their property. They also
accused many men of witchcraft because men are generally more wealthy than
women. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPlpx0JRWRopqxVoJ0zCcr9Ut0mrFY_hEUHJPYnfEokxIGbXtN7H7tIelxmqYo5AiDqYvZmiAjqIbz0f30P4yZs_ADkofiIVLwv2q-whaA9hgr_q0ZuMtljm-CNCE__tO3MBHfe8YkdQ/s1600/Witch+burning.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPlpx0JRWRopqxVoJ0zCcr9Ut0mrFY_hEUHJPYnfEokxIGbXtN7H7tIelxmqYo5AiDqYvZmiAjqIbz0f30P4yZs_ADkofiIVLwv2q-whaA9hgr_q0ZuMtljm-CNCE__tO3MBHfe8YkdQ/s1600/Witch+burning.jpg" height="320" width="225" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
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So why was the Christian Church so vehemently opposed to witches and mermaids? As we've previously mentioned, mermaids were breadwinners and assertive women. Christian priests didn't like this. We can see this in the way the ducking stool was used not only to find witches but to punish women who were ‘scolds’, women who spoke their minds and disagreed with their husbands. These women were not obeying the oath they took when they married, of honouring and obeying their husbands. Another reason why mermaids were disliked, came from the conflict between farmers and mermaids. Today we tend to think of mermaids living in the sea, but if we go back to the old stories of mermaids, we find them also living in lakes, rivers and swamps.<br />
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<br />
Gathering food in water and wetlands is a very ancient way of life, far older than farming, and goes back millions of years to our earliest ancestors. Unfortunately the picture drawn by scientists about our ancestors, is very heavily biased towards men. They talk about hunter/gatherer societies, where men are the hunters and women the gatherers, but as science is dominated by men they are generally only interested in the hunters, and women are hardly mentioned.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnRke3g3PR0mju73Wkf6Sy_dL4Kk1T7pL-hkKyrA5WTzvvW33mGt6aXTm-PfBamMPooaDpJWgjcbtgJWoPYpt7lPPpMrlDMiVRQms42TK5GJtLXq7IObcy2ouQHt_5lRw4mJCYUwZUSw/s1600/Hunter+Gather.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnRke3g3PR0mju73Wkf6Sy_dL4Kk1T7pL-hkKyrA5WTzvvW33mGt6aXTm-PfBamMPooaDpJWgjcbtgJWoPYpt7lPPpMrlDMiVRQms42TK5GJtLXq7IObcy2ouQHt_5lRw4mJCYUwZUSw/s320/Hunter+Gather.jpg" height="252" width="320" /></a></div>
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But field studies on hunter/gatherer societies that survived until the 20<sup>th</sup> century, show us that the vast majority of food was gathered by women. Hunting with spears or a bow and arrow has always been a very unreliable way of obtaining food, because most animals can easily outrun human hunters.<br />
In contrast, food was always available for gathering in swamps, rivers, lakes and the seashore, like the seeds of wild rice and club rush, floating plants like cresses, water chestnuts and water lilies. Along the coast there is sea parsnip, sea fennel, sea rocket and sea kale, to list but a few.<br />
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It's been estimated that the ancient gatherers were aware of over a 150 different kinds of plants that they could collect all year around. On the seashore they also found edible seaweed, shellfish and crustaceans.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrgpQSMXIFYSoBTPADXSzW3SiXxiea2bMZ-6xRrrHkdjtxQYu0J1pWVUG88v9C5_f6JbH9Z68TSfStdCW8NaQ4RG5FMfLOD1dHQYdvT2r_9qp_W0YXIyAGGoLCUiVa2Fnd20boxFr5ew/s1600/Catal+Huyuk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrgpQSMXIFYSoBTPADXSzW3SiXxiea2bMZ-6xRrrHkdjtxQYu0J1pWVUG88v9C5_f6JbH9Z68TSfStdCW8NaQ4RG5FMfLOD1dHQYdvT2r_9qp_W0YXIyAGGoLCUiVa2Fnd20boxFr5ew/s320/Catal+Huyuk.jpg" height="200" width="320" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Catal Huyuk in Turkey, oldest city ever discovered</div>
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About 10 thousand years ago farming was invented, which allowed larger numbers of people to be fed, thereby creating a population explosion. But not all people wanted to be farmers. Many people preferred the old way of life, of gathering food for free. For a long time this wasn't a problem since farming land was very different from the areas where people gathered food. This changed dramatically when farmers decided to drain swamps by constructing dykes and sea walls to turn swamps or salt marshes into farmland. Conflict was created between the farming people and the gatherers, a conflict that the farming people would always win, because of their greater numbers.<br />
Whenever farmers decided to drain a swamp or salt marsh, there would be people living on it who would object, creating conflict between the two communities. When the farmers built their dykes and started to drain the land, the chances are that the gathering people would come in the night and breach the dykes to re-flood the land. The farmers, angry at having to guard their dykes, might simply decide to wipe out the swamp people as a solution to the problem. <br />
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History, as we all know, is written by the winners of any conflict, in this case the farmers. Today, we only know history from the farmers’ point of view. Having gone as far as wiping out the people who fed themselves by gathering, they then set about justifying the genocide by condemning their victims as evil people who deserved to be murdered. Stories about their wicked deeds were invented and circulated.<br />
It seems that in the gathering communities it was women who were the leaders, in much the same way as men were the leaders in farming communities. The focus of all the vitriolic attacks by the farmers would be centred on the female leaders, who were condemned as evil witches. The witches would not only be seen as evil, but also practitioners of black magic. Where did these ideas come from?<br />
When people switched to farming, their diet became more restricted, even though more food was available, because the bulk of their diet consisted of cereal crops. Much of their food was lacking in vital nutrients, which led to deficiency diseases. The farming communities discovered that the gatherers, with their vast knowledge of plants and herbs, knew of plants that could overcome these dietary deficiencies. So the farmers began using the witches of the gathering communities as doctors. We find much the same in mermaid stories, where mermaids are also described as herbalists. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwPrlNtRfBR3XBdR66Tl7y-JWcil9QolCsAmoPgcxjtyK-GGow3pxkB1ml7MpNztJ1PF9YcIGqYi74Vxfx0w8KctMTBvK7NIxLWzY_MTzLHsk_QnaFXEuarehpU140b_n2h2FBhQO_cg/s1600/Witch+herbal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwPrlNtRfBR3XBdR66Tl7y-JWcil9QolCsAmoPgcxjtyK-GGow3pxkB1ml7MpNztJ1PF9YcIGqYi74Vxfx0w8KctMTBvK7NIxLWzY_MTzLHsk_QnaFXEuarehpU140b_n2h2FBhQO_cg/s1600/Witch+herbal.jpg" height="320" width="254" /></a></div>
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As we see today, people can quickly become dependent on doctors. If we look at Africa, Witch doctors not only dispense herbal medicine but psychological medicine as well, through their magic rituals. But they can also abuse this power by threatening their patients with magic curses. If there was conflict between the farming and gathering communities, when the farmers wanted to drain the swamps, the witches could use the farmers belief in and fear of magic to try and put a stop to this. As a result, if the local lord wanted to drain a swamp and found that the people were too frightened of the witches to do this, he would turn to the priests to reassure the people and condemn the witches. Since the Church itself also owned large areas of land, it might also want to drain swamps and turn the land over to farming. It had an investment in denying the power of the witches. They had to be eradicated.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWmwUJ8-XJKexGa4XU3P_Hg90bONtRuEdlsUg7LIm8IqUma4jL7ANJUYeu3knsQ4iwXguQz8IHgkjkj4Lj21xDkYxOnxjKv2Tuk1eLXjEB2gwZcdydQhDwUzzFHJni46EMb3gmHgYiJg/s1600/Lake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWmwUJ8-XJKexGa4XU3P_Hg90bONtRuEdlsUg7LIm8IqUma4jL7ANJUYeu3knsQ4iwXguQz8IHgkjkj4Lj21xDkYxOnxjKv2Tuk1eLXjEB2gwZcdydQhDwUzzFHJni46EMb3gmHgYiJg/s320/Lake.jpg" height="200" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br />
The propaganda war between the Christian priests and the witches for power over the people became very ugly, resulting in widespread witch hunts and the genocide of the gathering people. It's more than likely that the mermaids and witches living in swamps or salt marshes were the ones who were killed in the Witch-hunts, but some of the mermaids living on the coast may have escaped this persecution as there was no-one wanting to use the land along the beach. As a result, there were still stories and sightings of mermaids as late as the 18<sup>th</sup> and 19<sup>th</sup> centuries, long after the witch hunts had finished.<br />
The mermaid’s way of life is very, very ancient, going back millions of years, as we will explain in the next video about the Aquatic Ape Theory.<br />
<br />
Farmers and Hunter/Gatherers lived side by side.<br />
<a href="http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-10/jgum-hai101013.php">http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-10/jgum-hai101013.php</a><br />
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williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05285178912635949559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884248580040970548.post-84264861331443608622012-02-04T01:09:00.000-08:002015-02-24T06:13:48.480-08:00Aquatic Ape Theory<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Wo3hPtjU5kE" width="560"></iframe>
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<br />
The mythical mermaid is clearly an aquatic animal and so is a human being if we are to believe the Aquatic Ape Theory.<br />
We are told by scientists that we evolved from apes and that we share about 98% of our genes with the Chimpanzee and Bonobo, but the problem is that we don't look like any other Ape. For a start, we are naked apes. <br />
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Book by Desmond Morris</div>
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All other apes are covered in fur. Also, most apes have arms that are far longer than their legs. The only exceptions to this are Bonobos who have arms and legs of about equal length and humans, who have legs far longer than their arms. Humans walk on two legs and also have brains about three times the size of any other ape. <br />
So why is this? Scientists have tried to explain these differences through the Savannah theory which suggests that man evolved from the apes by coming down from the trees and living on the African plains. In a forest, most primates protect themselves from predators by climbing the nearest tree but they wouldn’t be able to do this on an open plain. So Palaeontologists have theorized that living in the very challenging environment of the Savannah, with predators like lions and hyenas around, man was forced to adapt by walking upright, losing his hair and evolving a larger brain. The problem with this theory is that another primate, the Baboon, also lives on the Savannah but it hasn’t evolved like this at all. A forest Baboon is no different from a Savannah Baboon. In recent years the Savannah theory has largely been disproved but there is another one waiting in the wings, the Aquatic Ape Theory.<br />
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Back in the early 20<sup>th</sup> century some marine biologists noticed that there was a great similarity between the blubber of dolphins, seals and whales, and the subcutaneous fat of human beings. They also pointed out that humans, like many other marine mammals, have no hair. So they theorized that in their evolutionary past, humans must have lived in a marine environment. Palaeontologists totally rejected this, and as they were supposed to be the experts on human evolution, their opinions held sway in the scientific community. For this reason the general public were completely unaware of the Aquatic Ape Theory, until 1960, when a marine biologist let it slip in a public meeting.<br />
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Sir Alistair Hardy</div>
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Sir Alistair Hardy was invited to talk to a sub-aqua club. To make his talk more interesting to his audience he decided to tell them about the aquatic ape theory. What he didn’t know was that one of the club members was a newspaper reporter. He wrote down what Hardy had said and sent it to the British Sunday papers. It was reported all over the world. Unfortunately some of the papers got it completely wrong and claimed that Hardy believed humans evolved from dolphins, but at least the theory was out in the world, where it came to the attention of a feminist called Elaine Morgan.<br />
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In 1971 she published a book called, “The Descent of Woman”, which criticizes the Savannah theory because the male scientists who devised it hardly mention women at all. She also asked the question; how did our female ape ancestors survive on the Savannah when burdened by children? A human infant is one of the most helpless newborns in the animal kingdom. Most land animals can walk or even run within an hour of being born, but a human baby can't even crawl and is totally dependent on its mother to carry it.<br />
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Human baby is the most helpless young of all animals</div>
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For this to have happened it means that human babies must have evolved in very safe conditions. The dangerous open Savannah was certainly not such a place. Elaine Morgan suggested the alternative Aquatic Ape Theory as being a better explanation of how apes evolved into humans. <br />
Her ideas were rejected by the scientific community but received support from ordinary people who, like her, didn’t believe the Savannah theory. As a result she found herself embroiled in a 40 year war with the scientific establishment to have the Aquatic Ape Theory accepted and it's a war she seems to have won. The Savannah theory has largely been discredited by fossil evidence which demonstrates that our ancestors did not evolve on the African plains. In spite of this, most scientists still don't accept the Aquatic Ape theory, but perhaps that's because it has an image problem. The Savannah theory is a very dramatic story of how an ape with courage and ingenuity survived on the open plains to become a Killer ape and a top predator.<br />
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Bonobo wading in water</div>
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In contrast the Aquatic Ape theory describes apes foraging on beaches for food, much less exciting than the Savannah theory of man the mighty hunter.<br />
So how does the aquatic ape theory work? It agrees with the Savannah theory that our ape ancestors came down from the trees, but instead of living on the plains they inhabited the seashore and river estuaries. Here they found easy to obtain food like shellfish, seaweed and crustaceans on the beach, or even fish trapped in tidal pools when the tide went out. Breaking open shellfish and crustaceans with rocks or sticks might have been one of our first uses of tools. The beach was also a safe place from predators; there is no cover on an open beach for large cats to hide behind and stalk their prey. If approached by a predator, the apes could run into the water, and because apes can stand upright, they could wade further, into deeper water, than any predator on four legs. It's true that some predators can swim, but swimming after prey is not the normal behaviour of African land predators.<br />
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Showing how much longer human legs are, compared to an ape</div>
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The apes found themselves a new evolutionary niche, where they could easily obtain food in a reasonably safe environment. Because of this, there would be population growth and with an increasing population, the food lying on the beach would not be enough. As a result, they were forced to wade in the shallows to find more food. Others moved away from the calm waters of the river estuaries to search for food in the rough waters of ocean beaches. Here they would have to contend with large breaking waves when foraging, something that would teach them to swim better. As the population continued to grow, these apes tried to gather food even further out to sea, ducking their heads below the water. Over time, they learned breath control so they could dive to greater depths. Conscious breath control was also an important factor in humans learning how to speak.<br />
With these apes wading for most of the time, foraging in the water, they would become used to standing upright and in the end stay this way while on land. They would find this an advantage, since they could carry their catch to their families in their hands and mothers could carry babies in their arms. <br />
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<span style="text-align: start;">Subcutaneous fat around the bodies of humans</span></div>
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Primate fur is virtually useless in keeping an ape warm when it's soaking wet and so it would no longer be of any use. It began to disappear. Evolution also gave an advantage to fatter apes whose fat kept them warm in the water. Eventually the apes lost most of their fur and gained subcutaneous fat, which allowed them to thrive in their new environment.<br />
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Brain of a blue whale compared with a human brain. </div>
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Marine Biologists have pointed out that the largest brains on the planet are in marine animals, like dolphins and whales. The killer whale or orca has a brain five times the size of a human. Why is it that marine mammals have far larger brains than land animals? It seems this has to do with fat and trace elements. Sixty percent of the brain is fat. The food needed to create large brains contains omega-3 fatty acids and iodine. Without this vital brain food it is impossible for the body to grow a large brain. The marine environment has an abundance of these vital nutrients but they are in short supply on land. Iodine is a trace element that is vital for brain development, but there are many parts of the world where it’s not present in the soil. However, it is abundant in seawater, so the food richest in iodine is seafood. This could explain why humans have developed far larger brains than any other ape. Their diet was ideal for such growth.<br />
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Ama divers</div>
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The lifestyle of the Ama and Heanyo divers, the Sea People of South East Asia as well as the Mermaids of Europe and other parts of the world may reflect that of our earliest ancestors, going back not thousands but millions of years to the time when we were still apes.. Our recent history has been written from the point of view of land people and the sea people have been edited out of that history. One such history concerns the Ladies of the Lake in Arthurian stories. We will discuss them in our next video.<br />
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David Attenbourough On Aquatic Ape Theory<br />
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<a href="http://newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.co.uk/2009/02/david-attenborough-on-aquatic-ape.html">http://newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.co.uk/2009/02/david-attenborough-on-aquatic-ape.html</a><br />
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Was Man More Aquatic in the Past? Fifty Years After Alister Hardy - Waterside Hypotheses of Human Evolution <a href="http://www.benthamscience.com/ebooks/9781608052448/index.htm">http://www.benthamscience.com/ebooks/9781608052448/index.htm</a><br />
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The Aquatic Ape theory is also mentioned in the Animal Planet Mermaid fictional documentary.<br />
<a href="http://animal.discovery.com/tv-shows/mermaids/videos/mermaids.htm">http://animal.discovery.com/tv-shows/mermaids/videos/mermaids.htm</a><br />
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My opinion of these Animal Planet documentaries you can read at.-<br />
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<a href="http://wabond.hubpages.com/hub/theanimalplanetmermaidhoax">http://wabond.hubpages.com/hub/theanimalplanetmermaidhoax</a><br />
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williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05285178912635949559noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884248580040970548.post-63020770023866856522012-02-04T01:07:00.001-08:002015-02-24T06:12:40.195-08:00Arthurian<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ePLUsSqsRk0" width="560"></iframe>
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In previous videos we have mentioned that the Ama and Heanyo breath holding divers are mermaids, as are many of the witches of medieval times. A similar case can also be made for the Ladies of the lake in Arthurian stories.<br />
There are a few aspects of the Arthurian stories that are very strange. Most of them begin with the story of the sword in the stone, in which only Arthur is capable of taking the sword from the stone, thus proving he is the rightful King.<br />
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Even today the common practice is that Kingship is passed down from father to son. If the king didn’t have a son, then the throne was given to his closest male relative. Why didn’t it happen in this case? The answer might lie in the fact that the earliest Arthurian stories are very old. probably older than Christianity. What this story might be concealing is that there was a time when kingship was not passed down from father to son. <br />
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Way back in our pagan past, the strict form of marriage we know in Christian times simply didn't exist, where the wife was expected to have sexual relations only with her husband. Without this strict code, a man who became a king couldn’t pass his throne on to one of his sons because he didn't know for sure who his sons were. In a culture without clearly defined marriage laws, a woman was free to have sex with any man she liked, and even she couldn’t be sure who exactly was the father of her children. It meant that power and wealth could only be passed down the female line, since the lineage of the male line was so uncertain. For this reason, it was a queen who inherited the throne. A man could only become a king if he was her lover or husband.<br />
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Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot</div>
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It was Queen Guinevere who inherited the throne we think of as Arthur's and this is what the story of the sword in the stone is concealing. <br />
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The story is also a symbolic tale of sexual innuendo. If we see Queen Guinevere as the stone and Arthur as the sword, this tells us what the story was really about. It suggests that Queen Guinevere was ruling alone, but was put under pressure to have a male consort ruling beside her. She rejected all the likely candidates that were put forward and because of this, may have gained a reputation for having a stony heart. When she met Arthur, she changed her mind and they became lovers. This subtle interpretation is confirmed in the story. Not only does Arthur withdraw the sword from the stone but he also puts it back in again and takes it out several times to demonstrate he can do this easily. He has made love to Guinevere many times, is recognized as her lover and can therefore become King.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXE1erkAQE5MDgHCGQu9-MbTmOROsiGHMR7BUjzNtvQrypj7l8CinrcK3yDCm3VECZR3NZB9Jbkv0eHn71rBM_1hfLRZ0kCU59wjotuDvoHZve450Q6DT0YHOD6LdeRfAUpKpb9LV82w/s1600/Lancelot+2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXE1erkAQE5MDgHCGQu9-MbTmOROsiGHMR7BUjzNtvQrypj7l8CinrcK3yDCm3VECZR3NZB9Jbkv0eHn71rBM_1hfLRZ0kCU59wjotuDvoHZve450Q6DT0YHOD6LdeRfAUpKpb9LV82w/s320/Lancelot+2.jpg" height="320" width="264" /></a></div>
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Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot</div>
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This free and easy attitude to relationships between men and women is also shown later when Sir Lancelot becomes Queen Guinevere’s lover. Arthur seems incapable of doing anything about this, demonstrating that such behaviour in those days was perfectly acceptable. This is in complete contrast to later times when Queen Ann Boleyn, the wife of Henry VIII was executed after being accused of adultery. Even today, a man who has sex with the wife of a King or heir to the throne in England is technically guilty of High Treason. We also find in the Arthurian stories that many of the well-known characters like King Arthur, Sir Lancelot, Merlin and Sir Perceval were all fatherless children, brought up by their mothers. This suggests that the stories originated from a time before our customs of marriage and fatherhood when families were headed by a woman who might have no idea who had fathered her children.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRlaSrn5lBVOSt57E93Q5QcVm45MjSZQ_h5dxMke9Rge1kVkTdbXcPwL61h023KAQfd7YH8UdIFNbd2zhtld4awKqtTn_VU0rIjWkDC4MmHhFu6F7dpxeiiAp49U-E90HhdhNwWqlDxw/s1600/Lady+Lake+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRlaSrn5lBVOSt57E93Q5QcVm45MjSZQ_h5dxMke9Rge1kVkTdbXcPwL61h023KAQfd7YH8UdIFNbd2zhtld4awKqtTn_VU0rIjWkDC4MmHhFu6F7dpxeiiAp49U-E90HhdhNwWqlDxw/s320/Lady+Lake+4.jpg" height="320" width="197" /></a></div>
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We also see symbolism in the stories of the Ladies of the Lake. Arthur is given his magical sword Excalibur by the ladies of the lake. A mysterious hand appears from a lake and hands him the sword. If we take the magical element out of the story, it gives us a clue as to what sort of person was holding Excalibur in its hand. The only type of person who could stay underwater for any length of time holding a sword above the water, would be a breath holding diver. It suggests that the ladies of the lake were mermaids. Excalibur is also supposed to be a magical sword, giving its user invincibility in battle. Again if we take away the magical aspect of the story, the salient fact might be that Excalibur was made from iron. An iron sword could be made longer and stronger than a bronze sword, so at a time when most warriors were using bronze weapons, an iron one would give the owner a distinct advantage. So what were the ladies of the lake doing with an iron sword?<br />
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The first iron weapons would have been made for particular individuals, so they would be rare. <span style="font-size: 12pt;">Only very rich people could afford to have them
made, which tells us that the Ladies of the </span><st1:place style="font-size: 12pt;" w:st="on">Lake</st1:place><span style="font-size: 12pt;">
were</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">wealthy women, and leaders of their
communities. It also suggests that this story originated at the beginning of
the Iron Age.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">There is evidence that
people living in swamps were skilled metal workers.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">This information comes from the Fenlands of
Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and </span><st1:city style="font-size: 12pt;" w:st="on">Norfolk</st1:city><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> in </span><st1:country-region style="font-size: 12pt;" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">England</st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-size: 12pt;">, which
was once the home of the Iceni people. Under the leadership of Queen Boudicca
in 60 AD, they led a major uprising against the occupying Roman Forces.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Archaeologists have discovered very
sophisticated metalwork in the Fenland dated to about the time of Iceni
people.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">This suggests that if the swamp
people were skilled in metalwork they could have made a sword like
Excalibur.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Another possibility is that Excalibur was a
steel sword. When iron weapons were first being made, blacksmiths experimented
with the iron, beating it and adding the right amount of carbon to the iron to
make it stronger. These practices turned
iron into steel. Expertise would come
about through trial and error and at first the metal workers would have no idea
why one sword was stronger than another.
They lacked the scientific knowledge we have today. Since no-one knew why this sword was so much
stronger than other metal swords it would be seen as a magical sword and be
very highly prized. </span>Since no-one knew why this sword was so much stronger than other iron swords it would be seen as a magical sword and be very highly prized.<br />
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All of this suggests that the ladies of the lake held high power and status in the society of the time since they owned such a valuable sword. The ladies of the lake are also called Queens in some stories, which suggests they were the rulers of their communities. The expensive present of Excalibur may have been a gift from one ruler to another. <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Morgan le Fay</div>
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One of the ladies of the Lake, Morgan le Fay, was often described as the half sister of Arthur, suggesting they had the same mother but as was the custom of the times, different fathers. It 's possible that Arthur was brought up in the Mermaid communities. The same can also be said of Sir Lancelot who is called “Sir Lancelot of the lake” in some stories, giving us a big clue to his origins. Does this mean that the relationship between Arthur and Guinevere might have been one arranged by the royal families of the time, much like the ones we see later in history, where marriage is used to unite different royal families? <br />
This brings up a controversial aspect of the Arthurian stories when we are told that Arthur and Morgan le Fay become lovers and produce a son, Mordred. Most cultures for the last two thousand years have had a taboo against incest, but before that, it was commonplace in royal families. Prior to the invention of Christian marriage, in which the wife has to remain faithful to her husband, the only way a king’s son could become a king himself, was to marry his sister, who was the one that power devolved to. This was once the practise in the ancient Egyptian royal family. The male Pharaoh had to marry his sister, and in one case his mother, to become Pharaoh. <br />
In the Arthurian stories, it is Morgan le Fay who seduces Arthur, but it could well have been the other way around, with Arthur wanting to be co-ruler of the land she ruled over. In some stories it is Mordred who brings about the downfall of Arthur. He leaves the kingdom for a while and in his absence Mordred takes his throne and attempts to marry Guinevere. This tells us again, that power lay with Guinevere and marrying her was the only way he could legitimise his Kingship.<br />
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Mordred kills King Arthur</div>
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When Arthur returned they fought three battles over the throne and in the third battle Arthur was mortally wounded. He was placed in a barge and his body was carried away by Morgan le Fay. Excalibur was thrown back into the lake.<br />
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A mysterious hand came out of the lake to catch it and return it to the Ladies of the lake who had given it to Arthur. Sir Lancelot subsequently killed Mordred for daring to claim Guinevere as his Queen.<br />
In the later, medieval stories of Arthur, Morgan le Fay is depicted as a wicked woman, even though in the very early stories she is a healer. In the ancient Breton language, Morgens are sea-women, water spirits or mermaids. Fay also means fairy, so she seems to be being called a sea-fairy. She was also sometimes described as “The Great Queen”. In Scotland, the treacherous whirlpool in the Inner Hebrides, commonly known as the Corryveckan, was once known as “Morrigan’s Cauldron”. Some healing wells are also sacred to her in Britain and known as Morgan’s wells. In the ancient Celtic stories, Morgens were clearly held in high regard, and were probably the spiritual leaders of the community.<br />
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This would tie in with what we said in an earlier video of the connection between mermaids and witches. Mermaids were gatherers, finding their food in swamps, rivers, lakes and on the seashore, something people have been doing for millions of years. When people discovered farming not all people became farmers. They preferred the old way of life and perhaps for a very good reason.<br />
After people switched to farming, their diet became very restricted, even though more food was available, because the bulk of their diet consisted of cereal crops. Much of their food was lacking in vital nutrients, which led to deficiency diseases. The farming communities discovered that the gatherers, with their vast knowledge of plants and herbs, knew of plants that could overcome these dietary deficiencies. So the farmers began using the witches of the gathering communities as doctors. We find much the same in mermaid stories, where mermaids are also described as herbalists. This could also be why the Ladies of the lake were known as healers.<br />
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As long as the farming communities and the mermaids got on well together, there would be no problem in showing Morgan le Fay and the other ladies of the lake in a good light in the Arthurian stories. But when the farmers wanted to drain the wetlands where mermaids foraged for food, the two communities came into conflict. It was a dispute that the mermaids couldn't win as the farmers greatly outnumbered the mermaids. The mermaids resorted to frightening the farming people through their fear of magic. Unfortunately, this backfired when the Christian church used this fear to turn the people against witches and mermaids.<br />
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Witch hunts began and the people living in the wetlands, were simply wiped out. The Arthurian stories were used in the propaganda war against the witches and mermaids. Morgan le Fey and the Ladies of the lake, once mysterious and powerful women with benevolent healing skills became wicked, scheming monsters.<br />
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williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05285178912635949559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884248580040970548.post-62901406304571797822012-02-04T01:05:00.001-08:002015-03-29T13:40:39.144-07:00links<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.796875px;"><br /></span></div>
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The first article I wrote about mermaids.<br />
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<a href="http://www.womanthouartgod.com/mermaids.php">http://www.womanthouartgod.com/mermaids.php</a><br />
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My latest article.<br />
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<a href="http://www.bubblews.com/news/956509-origins-of-mermaid-myths-and-legends">http://www.bubblews.com/news/956509-origins-of-mermaid-myths-and-legends</a><br />
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Links to all my mermaid videos on Youtube<br />
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<a href="http://wabond.hubpages.com/hub/what-mermaids-really-are">http://wabond.hubpages.com/hub/what-mermaids-really-are</a><br />
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Traditional mermaid</div>
williamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05285178912635949559noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884248580040970548.post-75710104008581623812012-02-04T01:04:00.001-08:002015-07-10T10:06:25.887-07:00My other Videos<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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