❖ MERMAID on the STARBOARD BOW ❖

Mrs. P. A. Brant admiring the
mermaid art painted on the bow
of a beached reefnet boat, perhaps 
ashore for the winter season.
The boats belonging to this reefnet gear
had been anchored to fish for salmon
off Point Roberts, Whatcom County, WA.
Photo dated 26 October 1952.
The Lummi, Saanich, and Cowichan peoples 
made nets of willow bark to fish here for hundreds of
years until pushed aside by non-native fishermen
working for Alaska Packers Association in 1895.
Click image to enlarge.
from the collection of
the Saltwater People Historical Society©
For E.H.

MERMAID

"A fabled creature, half-woman and half fish, which appears in the folklore of all lands, and which is firmly believed in by sailors at least until the 19th C. The mermaid legend has been ascribed by some to observations by early explorers of the manatee, a small cetacean found in Caribbean waters, which has the curious habit of rearing itself on end partway out of the water. The probability is, however, that the legend is as old as that of the siren, a mythological creature, half woman and half bird, who was believed to haunt certain rocky isles in the Mediterranean and, by her sweet singing, lure mariners to destruction on the rocks." 

Source; Johanna Carver Colcord. Sea Language Comes Ashore. Cornell Maritime Press, New York. 1945.