Mighty Odysseus--Homeric hero, victorious conqueror, cunning adventurer--beat the Cyclops, overcame the temptations of female goddesses and survived the wrath of Poseidon. Yet even mighty Odysseus had to tie himself to the mast of his ship in order to resist the alluring songs of the Sirens, a band of lyrical mermaids who sought to destroy him.

Odysseus's fascination with mermaids is understandable. After all, the commercial successes of "Splash" and "The Little Mermaid" show that we, as a society, have a certain fascination for beautiful women with scaly fins for legs. And while Daryl Hannah is a relatively new phenomenon, our infatuation with mermaids is not.

Over 200 years ago, Japanese fishermen identified this Western weakness for mermaids. An oft-repeated folk tale told of a fisherman who caught a mermaid in his net. She spoke to him, but lived for only an hour. The story made for more than just good listening; industrious Japanese merchants began sewing the heads and torsos of monkeys to the tails and fins of fish, and selling their "mermaids" to gullible Westerners.

One such American sailor, Captain Samuel Barrett Edes, started a "mermaid" on a fantastic voyage that would take it from Japan to London to the hands of P.T. Barnum to, some would argue, Harvard's own Peabody Museum.

Captain Samuel Barrett Edes met his "mermaid" in Java or Batavia. Thoroughly convinced that it was a veritable mermaid, Captain Edes stole $6,000 of his ship's money, purchased the creature and left for London, where he planned to exhibit his acquisition for pecuniary returns. His ploy failed and he returned to Boston to die, with no possessions save his mermaid, which he believed in until the end. His son sold the creature to Moses Kimball, who exhibited it to P.T. Barnum in 1842.

MARKETING FOR THE MASSES: P.T. BARNUM

P.T. Barnum is known to many as the founder of the Barnum & Bailey circus, or perhaps as the man behind tiny General Tom Thumb and Jumbo the Elephant (whose charred remains and untarnished tail can still be found at Tufts). Barnum was indeed a legend in his time with his constant attractions, frauds and hoaxes. He has become a central figure in any study of American popular culture, and is as much an American cultural icon as the Statue of Liberty or Marcia Brady.

American museums in the 1840s were not like their sophisticated counterparts in Paris or London. They did not exhibit fine works of art and science. Instead they featured stuffed birds and animals, mammoth bones and skeletons, along with the portraits of famous Americans. Europeans who visited were appalled by the poor taste of the American public, much as they are now reacting to the phenomenon of Court TV. The American public, however, reveled in its entertainment. As Professor Neil Harris explains in his biography of Barnum, American society was extremely puritanical and viewed the theater with antipathy. It infected their pure existence with its lewd storylines and ostentatious glamour. The American Museum was therefore a safe, moral alternative for this puritanical folk.

P.T. Barnum became the proprietor of Scudder's American Museum in 1841, and began to reorganize, advertise and acquire new exhibits. Barnum, above all, was a master of manipulating public interest. His ingenuity in false advertising and scheming ploys hoarded people into his museums. For example, Barnum took great care to select the worst musicians to play "Free Music for the Millions," from the balcony of his American Museum. The horrendous music drove people to seek refuge in the museum for a mere 25 cents each. In his autobiography Barnum says, "I meant to make people talk about my Museum; to exclaim over its wonders; to have men and women all over the country say; 'There is not another place in the United States where so much can be seen for twenty-five cents as in Barnum's American Museum.'" It was the best advertising that Barnum could have hoped for, and it was not false, since his Museum did indeed house a plethora of oddities. Barnum's fame was not unfounded, but it benefited greatly from his marketing genius.

BARNUM MEETS HIS MERMAID

Kimball's mermaid proved to be another huge success for Barnum. In the 1840s, Barnum apparently stumbled upon the mermaid. In reality, Barnum worked for weeks to prepare his New York audience for the arrival of the creature.

Early in 1842, Moses Kimball presented Barnum with "what purported to be a mermaid." Barnum, not quite certain himself what the creature truly was, gave it to a naturalist friend for confirmation of its mermaid status. In his autobiography, Barnum describes his friend's incredulous reaction: "He could not conceive how it could have been manufactured, for he never saw a monkey with such peculiar teeth, arms, hand & c., and he never saw a fish with such peculiar fins." However, the naturalist told Barnum it must be manufactured, not because he could prove it, but because he didn't "believe in mermaids." Barnum's response: "That's no reason at all, and therefore I'll believe in the mermaid, and hire it." So there! And he did...hire it. Barnum never owned the creature, and when it became controversial, Moses Kimball was left to take care of it.

After this pre-emptory investigation, Barnum proceeded to prepare his audience. Letters from various parts of the country suddenly began to arrive at New York newspapers, describing daily life in Montgomery, Charleston and Washington. Coincidentally, these letters all mentioned the anticipated arrival of a certain Dr. Griffin, from the Lyceum of Natural History in London, bringing with him a remarkable curiosity. Also coincidentally, the letters were all sent by close personal friends of P.T. Barnum.

Soon thereafter, Levi Lyman, alias Dr. Griffin, checked into a hotel in Philadelphia on Barnum's payroll. After a few days he invited his landlord to inspect the mermaid. The landlord, greatly excited, urged the British doctor to let a few of his friends, including several reporters, have a look at it. And, as Barnum smugly notes in his autobiography, everyone was convinced that it was a genuine article, "nor is this to be wondered at, since, if it was a work of art, the monkey and fish were so nicely conjoined that no human eye could detect the point where the junction was formed." He goes on to describe the minute fish scales visible underneath the monkey hair; the hands, teeth and fingers, distinctly different from a monkey's; and the fins placed differently from a fish's. "The animal was an ugly, dried up, black-looking and diminutive specimen, about three feet long," but Barnum loved it nonetheless.

The gentle Dr. Griffin was at last persuaded to bring his specimen to New York, but he refused to let it be shown at any museum. In the meantime, Barnum had three woodcuts made up, all picturing mermaids as the public imagined them; not unlike beautiful Ariel in "The Little Mermaid." He offered three New York newspapers these woodcuts, explaining that Dr. Griffin was not going to allow the mermaid to be exhibited. The papers, each believing it had an exclusive copy of the woodcut, proudly printed it in their Sunday editions. Barnum also made up 10,000 little pamphlets with the same woodcuts, and sold them for a penny a piece.