Aquatic Mysteries

Nonfiction – by Rachael Chie

I don’t remember when I first heard about them, but since then, I have been mesmerized by their fascinating, almost enchanting mystery. They exist in old folklore with different cultural variations in Africa, Europe, and Asia but have one thing in common: they can be deadly if provoked. With no proof of their existence or extinction, like any other mermaid fanatic, I’m forced to daydream of one day having an encounter with one in much less hostile conditions. Maybe in an interview or two, to document its existence and stamp it out of mythology. 

But if the face-to-face encounters of my countrymen and women in Zimbabwe are anything to go by,   mermaids really wouldn’t want to be exposed to mankind’s curious minds and eyes as it would pose a threat to their very existence. And so, they will continue to make their presence felt and elude us forever, remaining undiscovered by man, a subject of fact or fiction.

Like any other child in my Zimbabwe, I grew up hearing stories about them where, upon being a victim of a mermaid abduction,  you would be taken to their “realm’’. There, one would be served rice and worms on one plate and rice and fish on another. It was advised to choose the rice and worms over the other plate. Above water, in the human world, your relatives were not supposed to cry upon hearing of your “aquatic demise’’.If they did, they would jeopardize your life and would soon find your dead body risen to the surface.  The best thing to do was call a traditional healer to perform a ritual; and plead with the mermaids to bring back the person alive.

In other cases, a mermaid would abduct you, train you in the use of medicinal herbs, and infuse its mermaid spirit within you before releasing you wherever it pleased—allowing you to become a medium between humans and mermaids. From then on, whenever humans came to you with a problem, you were to consult the mermaid spirit, or it would visit you in dreams, telling you which herbs you needed, where to find them, and how to use them.

Mermaids have been long associated with humans, too, in the fact that traditional healers would practice with the aid of a marine spirit which would have chosen them as a medium or vessel, and when they passed on, they would choose another successor from within his or her ancestry (bloodline) who was pure of heart. If the ''chosen'' one refused to follow the protocols and do the rituals involved when being initiated into being a traditional healer, they would, at an opportune time, be killed by drowning if they came across any water body. This would be done as punishment for declining the ‘’calling’’. Apparently, they don’t take no for an answer.

Their origin is fascinating, especially considering it took place in a time when chiefs ruled and barbaric laws existed. According to oral tradition, mermaids were humans who had been rejected as babies. Back then, the law required parents to abandon their babies in the water if their top teeth came out before their bottom ones, where marine spirits could claim them as their own. 

 Children born from incestuous relationships or with any sort of deformity were also discarded this way. This cruel act is said to be why so many mermaids have so much anger and hostility towards humans, often hurting or killing them if they ever encounter one. 

Some cultures believe mermaids can cause natural disasters. For instance, a recent cyclone in Mozambique and Zimbabwe, Cyclone Idai, has been blamed by some for mermaids. One wonders if the sinking of the Titanic is one of the mermaids' displays of wrath and power.

But stories of mermaid encounters are not only coming from the past or being passed on from one person to another—all strangers, all easy to dismiss. In fact, I’ve heard incredible stories of mermaid encounters experienced first-hand by people in my hometown of Mutare. Near Chikanga, our local primary school,  there’s a stream that serves as a shortcut for locals traversing that area. This is where two people encountered mermaids, one was teacher Rose Muguza, and the other was Brian Chindidzo. While using the shortcut near a shrine, Rose saw a whirlwind coming in her direction. Bewildered, she stood aloof for a moment and then jumped to the other side of the stream, but it was not long before the whirlwind engulfed her, and she fell into the water. According to her retelling of the events, she saw a mermaid with hair down to her bottom half and roving eyes as well as a merman with shoulder-length hair. After the scary incident, Rose managed to make it home dizzy, with an injured arm and leg and blood oozing from her mouth, having damaged some teeth during the ordeal. 

Brian Chindidzo experienced something similar on his way home from work. He claims a huge snake fell off from a small tree into the river but suddenly disappeared. Although the water was crystal clear, he could not tell how the snake disappeared. He assumed that he had just encountered a mermaid or merman magically disappearing into the stream. In another related story, a man wanted to use the same pathway as he went to an all-night prayer but returned soaked in mud, saying unseen objects had dragged him down into the water, but he had somehow managed to escape. Again, surely, mermaids were to blame. 

The stories get eerier each time, with these aquatic creatures becoming  a force to be reckoned with and feared by many. According to local media reports, workers in the small town of Gokwe were “harassed’’ by mermaids while installing water pumps. Traditional healers were called to brew beer to rid two of Zimbabwe’s dams of mermaids that were scaring off workers; they “appeased’’ the mischievous water spirits and work continued smoothly.

All these stories sound like something you would read in a fiction novel but are very real to the people who have come into contact with them. To some, mermaids are nothing more than beloved cartoon characters, but to many, mermaids are living amongst us and are willing to fight back if they feel threatened.  What I deduced from other people's experiences is that mermaids would much rather be left alone, untouched and uncorrupted by mankind, having learned from our ancestors that, even though there may be great kindness within us, there’s also unspeakable cruelty. Mermaids can be great friends or foes. They, too, are capable of aiding humanity as well as punishing it.  In the end, one thing is for sure: the deep waters are no man’s land.