OLL LEWIS: CRYPTO CONS - The Native of Formosa

In the first few years of the 18th century London’s high society was gripped by the ‘Formosa craze.’ People would become highly interested in tales of the exotic-sounding island of Formosa (modern-day Taiwan) and eagerly gobbled up the descriptions of it from the first Formosan native to come to Europe. This reverse Marco Polo had supposedly been tricked into leaving his native land by Jesuit missionaries who brought him to the strange land of Europe and he had ended up in the Netherlands where he survived as a missionary. He still followed the religion of his homeland in worshiping the moon and sun and despite speaking perfect Latin and several other European Languages, was given to babbling to himself in Formosan. It was here that he met Scottish army chaplain William Innes who ‘converted’ the Formosan to Anglican Christianity and gave him a name, something he had never had before - George Psalmanazar - before they headed to London.

When in London Psalmanazar began to entertain people with tales of his exotic land, of most interest to London’s educated classes were the stories of Formosa’s religious practices, which included stories of annual mass child sacrifices, and he peppered these anthropological observances with details of the wildlife of Formosa. According to Psalmanazar, despite Formosa being off the coast of Eastern China, the countryside was filled with animals you would expect to see on the African savannah, like elephants, giraffes and rhinos.

As time went on Psalmanazar's stories became wilder and when word of them reached a Jesuit who had just returned from Formosa, the Jesuit decided to set the record straight and label Psalmanazar as an impostor. Psalmanazar publicly denounced his critic as a jealous peddler of lies and society sided with Psalmanazar, believing his exotic tales over the boring and sober ones of his critic. The critic had been right, though; Psalmanazar was an impostor who had been born in France and had never even travelled as far east as Rome. There had been clues to this staring people in the face from the beginning other than the wild tales and their associated out-of-place animals, not least that Psalmanazar had fair white skin and a mane of blonde hair. When questioned about his appearance and why he did not have darker skin like other people from Asia he explained this by saying that the upper-class people of Formosa spend nearly all their time indoors away from the sun while the lower-classes toil outside getting tanned.

After about four years he admitted his deception publicly, but by this time the low attention span of London’s elite had moved on to other flavours of the month and didn’t care all that much that they had been duped. Psalmanazar went on to write about the real geography, culture and ecology of Formosa and was highly critical of the way people had fallen for his hoax so easily. He lived out his days on a pension of £30; a not unsubstantial sum at the time given; to him by admirers.