Was a Dutch town founded by Inuits in the 9th century? For a long time, the local legend of Zierikzee, in Zeeland, was that Zierik, the founder, emerged from the sea in 849 CE. In 1696, one history — Mattheus Smallegange’s Nieuwe Cronijk van Zeeland — described the Zierikzee legend at length, in order to discredit it. It didn’t work: in the 18th century, a Greenland kayak hung in the Zierikzee town hall. Alas it was not the primordial kayak; it was probably acquired by the crew of a Dutch whale ship. It’s now in the local history museum.
Other such sea-emergences pepper Dutch history if you know where to look for them. English history, too: in Suffolk, in 1187, « a fish in all parts like a man, was taken and kept 6 months in the Castle there, whence he escaped again to the sea, » according to 17th-century history. In Holland in 1430, « after a violent tempest, … some girls of the town of Edam … going in a boat to milk their cows, observed a mermaid in shallow water » — this according to a 19th-century compendium of medieval curiosities. « They took it into their boat and brought it into Edam, dressed it in female attire, and taught it to spin. » Another source dates that tale to 1493, with the « sea-woman » living in Holland for « many years (some say fifteen) » and dying a Christian: « for the reverence which she bare unto the signe of the crosse whereupon she had been accustomed, she was buried in the churchyarde. »
Incredulity and credulity can be virtues or vices. Credulity can also be a strategy. The late historian Jack D. Forbes (Powhatan-Renape, Delaware-Lenape) saw in the Zierikzee kayak a real folk tradition, behind which lay a history of Atlantic crossings, from west to east, centuries before Columbus. In The American Discovery of Europe (2007), Forbes would go further, calmly suggesting « that the widespread reports of the existence of ‘mer-men’ and ‘mer-women’ in northwestern Europe be considered as possible evidence of early Inuit or other American arrivals. » It’s an appealing thought.
A logo might start as a designer’s whim. Only then does one look for meanings to fill it with. On Europas: mythic, artistic, fictional, political, psychological, satirical, and finally unfinished.
Ramallah, downtown, fifth floor. The phone rings and the caller’s number appears on the screen. It’s an unknown number. And yet a call that comes at this hour must be answered.
رام الله، وسط البلد، الطابق الخامس. يرن الهاتف ويظهر رقم المتّصل على الشاشة. إنه ليس لأحد معارفنا، فالرقم غير معروف. مع ذلك، يتطلّبُ اتصال هاتفي في ساعة مبكِّرةٍ كهذه الردَّ عليه.
The remarkable diary of third-century martyr Perpetua — a young mother sentenced to death — shows a soft, milky mother-body resisting a military-industrial empire.