It's tempting to laugh when we read about public workers in Zimbabwe who refused to perform needed repairs to reservoir equipment until ritualists cleared the waters of deadly mermaids. When most of us think of mermaids, we think of beautiful human/fish hybrids too busy pining for a set of legs to bother with dragging mechanics and technicians to a watery grave. And even if mermaids did have evil intentions, how dangerous could they possibly be? Even Aquaman could leave the water if he felt like it, and even among Justice League members, he's less respected than Booster Gold, a superhero who could be rendered powerless simply by losing his dry cleaning.
But not everyone has the luxury of growing up with pop cultural shields against the belief that mermaids are anything but ridiculous fantasy creatures with beautiful singing voices. Before Hans Christian Andersen decided to use the mermaid symbol as a way to work through his identity issues (Andersen was born with fins for feet, you see, which is a "fact" I just added to Wikipedia), the creature was originally depicted by multiple cultures as a kind of monster. With a few exceptions, mermaids were seen as sinister seductresses who lured sailors to a watery grave. They were part of a tradition of mythical beasts that exploited the heterosexual male libido to their own wicked ends: a favorite metaphor of fantasists who were absolutely terrified by women. And that perception of mermaids persists to this day among many people all over the world.
According to Zimbabwe's water resources minister Sam Sipepa Nkomo, dam sites in Mutare and Gokwe saw work stoppages because of mermaid sightings. Some workers claim that locals have gone missing around the reservoirs, victims of mermaid kidnappers. As silly as the cause seems, the problem itself is very serious. Without functioning equipment, these communities can't serve potable water to the people who need it.
It's easy to sit back and make fun of the idea of rampaging mermaids, and it may be even easier to write a screenplay for a made-for-cable monster movie called Mermaid Massacre or Fishlady vs. Crocodactyl or Dial M for Mer-dur, which I guarantee you someone is doing right this very minute. But are killer mermaids any less believable than other, more modern myths such as razorblades in Halloween candy or Satanic cults of Dungeons & Dragons players who want to abduct your children? If we're judging by the supporting evidence, not really. But no culture is immune to superstition.
The government of Zimbabwe allowed local shamans to perform rituals around these reservoirs to banish the mermaids. One of these rituals included brewing beer, so hopefully the participants had a little fun on the job. For now, it looks like this particular scare has calmed. But it's important not to be too dismissive about these kinds of superstitious outbreaks, especially in places where the consequences can be severe. The same shortcomings in education that could lead whole teams of workers to abandon their jobs out of mermaid panic also lead others in Zimbabwe and around the world to beat, banish, or kill men, women, and children accused of witchcraft or sorcery. Here at the JREF, it's our goal as educators to fight against this kind of misinformation, whether it's silly or serious, inconvenient or deadly. Too often, there is a fine line between one and the other.
Brian Thompson is the Field Coordinator for the James Randi Educational Foundation.