Excerpts from Wikipedia.org
George Psalmanazar (1679? - May 3, 1763) claimed to be the first Formosan (Taiwanese) to visit Europe. For some years he convinced many in Britain, but was later revealed to be an impostor.
Life
George Psalmanazar was born in southern France to Catholic parents sometime between 1679 and 1684. His birth name is unknown. He was educated in a Jesuit school, but discontinued his education after becoming bored with his studies. In order to gain safe and affordable travel in France, he decided to pretend to be an Irish pilgrim on his way to Rome. After forging a passport and stealing a pilgrim's cloak, he set off, but soon found that there were too many people who actually knew something about Ireland. Then he switched to being first a Japanese convert and then a heathen to sound even more exciting. He walked hungry around Europe as a beggar and sometimes even a soldier.
The Roman Catholic missionary activities in Japan began in 1549, exclusively performed by Portuguese-sponsored Jesuits and Spanish-sponsored mendicant orders, such as the Franciscans and Dominicans. Francisco Xavier (a Catholic Saint), Cosme de Torres (a Jesuit priest), and Father John Fernandez were the first, who arrived to Kagoshima with hopes to bring Christianity and Catholicism to Japan.
He appeared in northern Europe, around the year 1700. He looked European but claimed he came from the faraway island of Formosa, followed a foreign calendar and worshipped the Sun and the Moon.
In 1702 the man arrived in the Netherlands and met Scottish priest William Innes, who was a chaplain of a Scottish army unit. Afterwards he claimed he had converted the heathen into Christianity and christened him as George Psalmanazar (in reference to biblical Assyrian king Shalmaneser). In 1703 they left for London via Rotterdam to meet the bishop.
Shalmaneser V was king of Assyria from 727 to 722 BC. On the death of his father, Tiglath-Pileser, he succeeded to the throne of Assyria. The Bible attributes to him and his father the deportation of the "Ten Lost Tribes" of Israel. He is described as the conqueror of Samaria and as sending its inhabitants into exile.
In London, the foreigner gathered even more fame by his strange habits. He ate raw meat with lots of spices and slept upright in a chair. He claimed he had been abducted from Formosa by Jesuits and taken to France, where he had refused to become Roman Catholic.
In 1704, Psalmanazar published a book An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa, an Island subject to the Emperor of Japan which revealed a number of strange habits. Formosa was a prosperous country of wealth with a capital city called Xternetsa. Men walked naked except for a gold or silver plate to cover their privates. Their main food was a serpent that they hunted with branches. Formosans were polygamous and husbands had a right to eat their wives for infidelity. They executed murderers by hanging them upside down and shooting them full of arrows. Annually they sacrificed the hearts of 18,000 young boys to gods and priests ate the bodies. They also used horses and camels for mass transportation. The book also described the Formosan alphabet.
An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa, an Island subject to the Emperor of Japan by George Psalmanazar (e-book)
The book was rather successful. It went through two English editions, and French and German editions followed.
He lectured on Formosan culture and language and pretended to translate religious literature into Formosan. The Bishop of London supported him. He spoke before the Royal Society, where he was challenged by Edmund Halley. Here is an example of one of his religious translation from 1703, the Lord's Prayer:
Amy Pornio dan chin Ornio vicy, Gnayjorhe sai Lory, Eyfodere sai Bagalin, jorhe sai domion apo chin Ornio, kay chin Badi eyen, Amy khatsada nadakchion toye ant nadayi, kay Radonaye ant amy Sochin, apo ant radonern amy Sochiakhin, bagne ant kau chin malaboski, ali abinaye ant tuen Broskacy, kens sai vie Bagalin, kay Fary, kay Barhaniaan chinania sendabey. Amien.
Psalmanazar did not go unchallenged, but he managed to deflect most of the criticism. He explained that his pale skin was due to fact that he was of upper class and did not have to work in the sun. In fact, he claimed to have lived underground. Jesuits who had actually worked as missionaries in Formosa were not believed due to their rather unwholesome reputation in the anti-Catholic atmosphere.
Edmond Halley was an English astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician, meteorologist, and physicist. One problem that attracted his attention was the proof of Kepler's laws of planetary motion. In August 1684 he went to Cambridge to discuss this with Sir Isaac Newton, only to find that Newton had solved the problem, but published nothing. Halley convinced him to write the Principia Mathematica Philosophiae Naturalis (1687), which was published at Halley's expense.
Innes eventually went to Portugal as chaplain-general to the English forces. Psalmanazar got mixed with bad business ventures. Eventually either the pressure became too strong or he grew tired of the deception. In 1706 he confessed, first to friends and then in public.
Psalmanazar spent the rest of life as a writer and editor of books. He counted Dr. Samuel Johnson as his friend. For a time he worked as a clerk in an army regiment until some clergymen gave him money to study theology. He learnt Hebrew, co-authored A General History of Printing (1732), and contributed a number of articles to the Universal History. He even contributed to the book Geography of the World and wrote about the real conditions in Formosa, pointedly criticising the hoax he had earlier perpetrated. He also apparently became increasingly religious.
Samuel Johnson often referred to simply as Dr Johnson, is one of England's best known literary figures: an essayist, biographer, lexicographer and a critic of English Literature. He was also a great wit and prose stylist, well known for his aphorisms. Dr Johnson is the most quoted English writer after Shakespeare. Between 1745 and 1755, Johnson wrote perhaps his best-known work, A Dictionary of the English Language. The rise in literacy and the declining cost of printing demanded clearer standards in spelling, meaning and grammar.
He also wrote a book titled Memoirs of ****, Commonly Known by the Name of George Psalmanazar; a Reputed Native of Formosa. It was published posthumously. These memoirs omit his real birth name, which is still unknown.
