Along the coast of Sarawak there were dugong or sea cows. In Malay, they were called sea women. They are extinct or nearly extinct. These animals were thought to be the source of mermaid stories among the Malay fishermen. The Tears of the Mermaid or Minyak Senyongyong are considered to be a strong love potion available from the Dukun. (medicine man)
There have been reports of the Iban having mermaids but it is thought they were brought to the people after World War II. Most of the Iban carvings are of white women with long blonde hair. A Bidayuh story has European mermaids swimming in a small pond. These are obvious stories from western traders.
In an essay translated by Frank Swettenham in 1898, he states:
” you catch the sea women when she comes up on the sand to eat the sweet grass on shore. I told you how to do it. You have to lie in wait and she waddles up on two fins that she uses like feet, helping with her tail. If she sees you, she tries to get back into the sea, but you stand between her and the water and so catch her. Then, if you want her tears, you make a palisade of sticks in the deeper water of the bay through which she came, and there you bind her in a sort of cage, at the surface of the water so she can’t move. …When she finds she is held fast there, and cannot get down into the deeper water to her young, she weeps, and as the tears stream down her face, you catch them , sweep them into a vessel (bottle) and you have the philtre. (love charm)
Swettenham continues his translation: “
Nakhoda Ma’win had a love potion of the most potent kind. It was made from the tears of the sea woman whom we call duyong. I know the creature. I have seen it. It is bigger than a man and something like a porpoise. It comes out of the sea to eat grass, and, if you lie in wait for it, you can catch and take some tears. Some people eat the flesh, it is like the flesh of the buffalo; and the tears are red, and if you mix them with rice, they make red rice. at least, people say so. Anyhow, Nakhoda Ma’win had a philtre (love potion) and he got an old woman to needle the way for him, as one always does, and she managed to mix the duyong tears into Ra’unahs rice. And when she had eaten it, she was mad in love for the Nakhoda.
The Malay fishermen, long ago, seem to have transferred their fantasy from the Sea Cows to powerful love potions.
A nakhoda is a person who is a captain of a boat that transports people and cargo around the rivers and islands.
From the Sarawak Museum Journal December 1998 Mermaids and Crocodiles in Borneo and West Africa by Kathleen O’Brien Wicker.
Swettenham, Frank A. Unaddressed Letters, London: John Lane, 1898
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