Jenny Haniver – The Original Mermaid

Zurich, Switzerland. Around 1550 is where the story of Jenny Haniver begins. Starting a story about mermaids in a landlocked country might seem counterintuitive but give me a moment. It’ll all make sense soon.

Conrad Gessner, a Swiss naturalist is shopping when he stumbles across what looks like a dead mermaid hanging in a curiosity shop window. Interest aroused, he enters the shop to investigate. Gessner would go on to write about Jenny Haniver in his Historia Animalium. If you would like to leaf through a digital copy of the book, click here. Although people had talked of mermaid-like creatures for centuries, this would be the first ever mention of a Jenny Haniver that we know of.

Jenny Haniver – A Sailors Dream

During the 16th century, the globe was starting to shrink as trading routes expanded. We start to see a more connected world where stories of myth and legend are freely exchanged by word of mouth. Sailors, naturally, sort to seek a way to make money from these stories.

You may have noticed before that I said “a Jenny Haniver” and thought I had terrible grammar. I do, but not in this particular case. You see, a Jenny Haniver is the name given to the type of mermaid remains written about by Conrad Gessner. Unfortunately for the shop who bought her, Gessner was not fooled.

He saw that what was being passed off as a mermaid was nothing more than a dried out ray. With their features (eyes and mouth) on the underneath of their body, drying them out gave them a strange look. Couple this with a few strategic cuts and you have a passable (at the time) fake. Gessner himself remarked that ordinary people were very impressed by the creature.

This is why I call it a sailors dream. Easy money to be made from impressionable people. As you can see from the picture above, it does look alien. Not quite the sirens luring ships into the rocks, but definitely bizarre. Some believed them to be minature dragons or other sea monsters. Conrad Gessner, in his book Historia Animalium specifically included a warning to others, stating what they were. He even helpfully included a sketch.

But where did they come from originally and why Jenny Haniver? Gessner may be the first to write about these creatures but it is thought they were first made in Antwerp, Belgium. There they were called jeune d’Anvers (young people of Antwerp) and sold as devils or monsters. British sailors took them and corrupted the original name into the similar sounding Jenny Hanivers.

The Feejee Marmaid

Undoubtedly, the Jenny Haniver fakes inspired the Feejee Mermaid. This grotesque being consisted of the head of a young monkey attached to the body of a fish.

It was alleged to have been caught off the coast of Fiji in the South Pacific. The story goes that Captain Samuel Edes, an American, bought the creature for $6000 in 1822. $6000! Ths equates to around $150,000 in todays money. Edes had to sell his ship to fund the purchase.

Edes first exhibited it in Cape Town. In September 1822 he arrived in London with the creature. So far, everywhere he had been, the creature had been met with curiosity and intrigue. Setting it up under a glass display, patrons paid a shilling each to see the creature. It was a roaring success.

Buoyed by his success and a seemingly unshakable belief that the Feejee mermaid was real, Edes invited a couple of high profile naturalists to examine it.

Almost immediately they pronounced it to be a fake. Undeterred, Edes sought out other naturalists who would verify it for him. Which they duly did. But Edes got greedy. He claimed that Sir Everard Home, a very prominent British surgeon had verified the mermaid as real. Sir Everard was livid. He promptly had several publications print a denouncement of Samuel Edes and his mermaid. It was the end for Edes. He toured the country with the mermaid, but crowds were low. The reputation of his fake preceded him.

Defeated and penniless, when Captain Samuel Edes died he left his son only one possession in his will. The Feejee mermaid.

PT Barnum and the Feejee Mermaid

20 years pass since the death of Samuel Edes. Moses Kimball, politician, showman and the owner of the Boston Museum, hears about the almost forgotten creature and tracks down Edes son. He purchases the mermaid and brings it to New York to show his close friend and fellow showman, PT Barnum.

Upon seeing the creature Barnum enters into an agreement to profit from the “curiosity supposed to be a mermaid“. Kimball agreed to lease the Feejee mermaid to Barnum for the sum of $12.50 a week. This is when Barnum names the creature the Feejee mermaid and begins to give it its backstory.

For a number of years Barnum exhibits the Feejee mermaid across the United States and then in London during 1859. On his return, the mermaid is given back to Kimball, who displays it at the Boston Museum.

In 1865 the Museum burns down. It is unclear but very probable that the Feejee mermaid was lost to the flames.

The Harvard Peabody Museum has a version donated to them by Kimball’s heirs in 1897 (video below). There has been much speculation on whether or not it is the original but there is no documentation with it. The Peabody mermaid is also in remarkable condition for being well over 100 years old, which probably means it is a reproduction of the original.

Legacy of Jenny Hanivers

It is amazing to think that a bored, creative sailor could spark a myth and industry spanning hundreds of years just by drying and cutting a ray. But that is where we are. Barnum may have been there to stoke the fires at the height of the craze but there is still a trade in Jenny Hanivers to this very day.

It is however, difficult to date them because of how they have been varnished. Newer versions have become very very rare, due in nature to the species of ray being under threat due to overfishing. Couple this with their very slow growth rate and you can see why new Jenny Hanivers aren’t (and shouldn’t) be coming on to the market.

But as Gessner remarked all the way back in the 1550’s, people continue to be impressed by these “mermaids” and still from time to time, one does the rounds and manages to fool people. If only for a little while. I’d certainly love to own a vintage one, just for the talking points around it.