Mermaid
Eighteenth-century Moluccas

Allegedly captured in the Moluccas in the seventeenth century was the so-called "Amboina mermaid" (after the then Dutch Province of Ambon), which its leading researcher has referred to as Samuel Fallours's "Sirenne", after the man who came into possession of it and made an original painting of it in full color.

The painting was reproduced by Louis Renard on the "Fish" of the region, first published in 1719,

It was supposedly caught by Boeren in Ambon Province (Buru, in present-day Maluku Province), presumably around the years 1706–1712, or perhaps the year 1712 precisely. During this period, Fallours served briefly as soldier for the VOC (Dutch East India Company) starting June 1706, but turned associate curate (Krankbezoeker) for the Dutch Reformed Church (September 1706 to June 1712).

Fallour's mermaid with additional details were described by François Valentijn in a 1726 book.

The mermaid was 59 Dutch inches (duimen) long, or 5 feet in Rhineland measures. She reportedly survived 4 days 7 hours in a water tank, and died after refusing food it was given, having uttered no intelligible sound, or issuing sounds like screechings of a mouse (French: souris). Something like a straw cape (Japanese mino) appears wrapped around her waist in the painting according to one commentator, but Fallours revealed in his notes that he lifted the front and back fins and " it was shaped like a woman".

The mermaid was suspected to be a dugong in reality, even by contemporary scholars such as Georg Rumphius, although Valentijn was unable to believe they were the one and the same. Leading researcher Theodore W. Pietsch concurs with the dugong identification, but an ichthyologist has opined that "I could more easily accept a small oar-fish, or another eel-like fish, rather than a dugong as a partial basis for the drawing", noting that Renard's book carries an illustration of a plausibly realistic dugong as well.
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