What is with the moronic theory that manatees were mistaken for mermaids? Haven't seen a woman in years being at see doesn't make you forget what a fricking human being looks like, especially if you have other sailors around. I haven't seen or touched a woman in a decade yet I can still tell a manatee isn't a fricking mermaid.
Mermaids at aden https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egcz52DbryI&t=4s
If "dude they must have been manatees or dolphins" is midwit, "dude they must really be creatures with a human upper body and a fish lower body out there" is going full moron.
>LOL, a half duck, half mole that has poisonous claws and lays eggs? That's just made up nonsense! What a moron!
What's really moronic is that manatees and other sirenia weren't anywhere near the areas where mermaids are common in mythology.
>Greeks: "yo dude, there are these crazy half fish ladies in the water."
>modern historians: "You mean manatees, right?"
>Greeks: "no, I don't know what those are"
>Modern historians: "Dolphins then?"
>Greeks: "no, we know what those are."
>Modern histoirans: "Oarfish then?"
>Greek: "no! half. fish. ladies!"
It really speaks to how it is just assumed that anyone who wasn't born at least 100 years ago was just a fricking idiot who couldn't tell the difference between a normal animal and what they were describing.
Sometimes things are just fictional.
>Sometimes things are just fictional.
We used to think Giant Squids were just fictional too. If stories of Krakens turned out to be real it stands to reason stuff like mermaids can be real too. They're supposed to be half human, they're smart. Pollution or the fact they know if captured they'll be raped just probably means they're smart enough to hide from us.
They weren't another species
They were moronic larping pagans
Asia has their own mermaid myths, it wasn't just some euro larp
I think "giant squids" can be forgiven, because "what if thing but bigger" sounds like bullshit.
Old stories of krakens didn’t look like giant squids, it likely wasn’t related and the mythical monster became a giant cephalopod later.
It was giant octopus/squids. There are cases of squids trying to drag down kayaks. They probally used to be bolder when boats didn't' all have motors
Yea I hate these arguments about ancient peoples a lot. It feels like you could only make them if you thought people of the past we’re literal aliens or extremely moronic which is just disrespectful. And idk how any normal human takes these arguments seriously after less then 10 seconds of thought. Like really think man would YOU mistake a big blubbery animal for a human? Reminds me of the proposed explanation for Blemmyes being Bonobo monkeys. Like damn think for a second would you mistake a monkey for picrel!? So silly.
Blemmyes weren't even in Subsaharan Africa. They were described as being either in Nubia or in the Pontic Steppe.
>Dude it was just a crocodile they thought was a dragon
The problem isn't that they actually thought they saw something like that but because most of these mythical creatures are actually just christian scholars finding ancient greek texts, translated from greek to pidgin christian latin.
Not only did people have less references to build a image from but the difference in regional culture and regional dialect can make cross translation hard even for people of the same language
It comes from West Africa, in a lot of cultures manatees share the same name as the god(ess) of water
idk, I think people might have confused her with a manatee
>There are no Dragons, they were just bad drawings of crocodiles
>There are no Unicorns, they were just bad drawings of antelopes or goats
>There are no Aliens, they were just owls
What would you do if you?
Dark nights and whatever the frick swill they are drunk off their asses on.
I genuinely have said this since I was a kid.
If you read the actual accounts, there is no ambiguity about what they saw. It wasn't a 'shape in the water', it was an actual woman that looked human. Don't care how horny you are, the theory makes no sense.
you have obviously never met my mother in law
Manatees tend to live in murky water, if you spot one from afar you won't really be able to tell what it looks like and it's conceivable to mistake it for a human-like figure.
But also the myth of the mermaid existed way before the Age of Discovery, and as far as I can tell it's just a made up creature, so it's not that the first explorers saw manatees and "invented" the mermaid, but it's more so that they already had a preconceived notion of what mermaids were, while having never seen a manatee up close (because it was unknown to Europeans), and then after spotting a shadowy figure in murky water with arms and a fish tail assume that must have been a mermaid.
Makes sense. My explanation for the old myths is that mermaids are just an euphemism for b***hes. Sailor leave his wife on his country and go to distant lands but never return because he was enchanted by mermaids. In other words, dude got another woman and is living there now… or just died, that happens too.
This, imagine you see a weird animal, and call it "that Pikachu-looking thing". People get the point that whatever new species it is, it's going to look weird, probably has light fur, and it looks kinda cute. Same with mermaids back in the day, big fish tail? Swimming by the sea in an unknown place?
Haha, never thought of it that way, good one.
At the start of the 16th century, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, one of the first mestizos raised between Spanish culture and native American royalty, documented these stories. It's hard to tell if he was 100% accurate by modern historian's standards, so take them as an old man retelling his childhood experiences.
Being able to understand locals, and their language, he was a really interesting guy who helped put lots of culture stuff in context. I can't remember which book it was, maybe Historia General del Peru, but he does mention the mermaids.
Very early records had these claims, but some years later, people were aware of dolphins and the like. Manatees were hunted for meat, and you'd probably be laughed at if claimed them to be real mermaids.
I remember the story went that, yeah, there were these creatures with a huge fish tail, but they were DEFINITELY not the pretty faced stuff of legends. Mannish face, beady eyes, it was a big stretch to call these uggos mermaids. It was kinda waved off as, oh well, mermaids were not that pretty after all.
I don't know if the books have been translated or published anywhere in English, but Biblioteca Cervantes might have a digital copy. Class dismissed, have a good day anons!
There's something about midwit thinking where they are just incapable of believing people sometimes simply make stuff up. See all the bullshit about griffons being based on protoceratops fossils, centaurs being distorted accounts of the first horse-riders, trolls being race-memories of neanderthals, dragons being crocodiles, etc.
Dogmen just being hairy indian people
>christopher with a dogs head is not supported by the orthodox church
Fricking contrarians
Basically, complete fricking morons exist, therefore occams razor tells us that it is far more likely that any fantastic tale is in fact the result of a fricking moron making a fricking moron mistake because that's what fricking morons do.
Ocrams razor tells us mermaids exist because that makes way more sense than anyone mistaking a manatee for a woman
People believe gray aliens exist, yet modern signs point to it likely being drunk dumbfricks seeing baby barn owls.
Manatees are cute
Okay time for serious question, if you were stranded on an island, which animal would you want to be there with you? And yes, I am talking about making love. For me, It's Dolphin or a Lioness.
how the frick would you have a dolphin on an island?
You'd get in the water, isn't that obvious? Or can't dolphis come close to the shore or something?
After you rape it, why would the dolphin even come back to the island?
The more realistic question is do you really think you could escape back to the island after the dolphin dragged you to their rape cave
I'm sure I can beat a dolphin in combat. I have hands and can walk on land.
>rape it
Doplphins want to have sex with humans more than humans. It is consensual.
They are rapers. Dolphins will consent. Humans wont
Young female human.
>female human.
It's over. She will kill you ans say she did it in srlf-defense as you tried to
>dude what the frick
It was british sailors who started that since the average British woman is comparable in looks and size
please don't insult manatees by comparing them to british women
based
Nop, is colombus tripulation
>I haven't seen or touched a woman in a decade
I feel like this is the most interesting part of your post
where do you think you are? This applies to all of us.
I see women every day and I record them
I once heard on an old tv show called MANswers that it's because female manatees and human women have similar plumbing, not looks. You can only shiver your timbers for so long I suppose.
But if you're willing to go that far, why not just bring a dog?
dude what the frick
It's a legit question. Someone who will plow a manatee with all the difficulties involved will hump a cookie in the comfort of their own cabin. The myth doesn't make sense.
have a nice day immediately
It reminds me of that dolphin keeper who used to mate the female dolphin and upload pictures of her aroused vegana
Professionals have standards
>OH CANADA
Dogs are predators, it'd be like fricking a man. Women are prey.
How would they even know that?
come on, man
I think they came on the manatee actually