When you look at this manatee, you see what it is not.

Floating high in the rafters of the Orma J. Smith Museum of Natural History, there resides the skeletal makings of a manatee swimming languidly in the air. The manatee frame is somewhat unassuming, somewhat inconspicuous, somewhat forgettable. However, it is through the manatee, not just these bones but through their flesh and skin as well, that we as humans are able to see something more. Since the first written records of its existence, the manatee has taken on the roles of numerous entities, each distinctly non-manatee in its own right. Through its history, a manatee has transcended the bounds of just a manatee and come to elicit within humanity other creatures, humans, and gods. A prime example of this animalistic transcendence can be seen through the common enough phrase used to name the manatee: the sea cow. Coupled with this comparison are the multitude of other animals, like doves, pigs, and horses, that manatees were likened to by early European explorers. The manatees also evoked a strange sense of humanity within Europeans as well. The infamous Christopher Columbus recorded that he witnessed “three mermaids” in the water in his unwitting journey to the new world. However, these myths resembled something more towards “the appearance of a man.” These sirens are generally thought to be manatees and through them Columbus saw humans. And while there a numerous other instances of humanity within manatees- inside Thai folklore, descriptions of sex, human emotions- the god-like essence seen through them is perhaps slightly more fascinating. The African goddess Mami Wata, the benevolent but ferocious water deity generally depicted as an upper female half with a scaly tail below, has been tied to the gentle manatee. As the history of the manatee is more thoroughly explored, both factual and mythical, it is clear that the banal, endearing manatee posses much more than the ability to only munch about seagrass meadows. Perhaps this trend is more indicative of the imaginative power of humans rather than the manatee. The manatee is content to be only itself. The human insists on expansion.

By Micah Woodard

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