Editing Manatee (section)

===Culture===
[[File:Milwaukee Public Museum November 2022 101 (Manatee at Blue Springs, Florida).jpg|thumb|left|The ''Manatee at Blue Springs, Florida'' diorama at the [[Milwaukee Public Museum]]]]

The manatee has been linked to folklore on [[mermaid]]s.<ref name="auto"/> In [[West Africa]]n folklore, they were considered sacred and thought to have been once human. Killing one was [[taboo]] and required penance.<ref name = "Cooper92">{{cite book |last=Cooper |first=JC |title=Symbolic and Mythological Animals |page=157 |year=1992 |publisher= Aquarian Press |location=London |isbn=1-85538-118-4}}</ref> In the cosmogony of the [[Serer people]] of Senegal, Gambia, and Mauritania, the cayman and the manatee holds great significance in [[Serer creation myth|Serer mytholody]]. The cayman is believed to hold the secrets of the past whilst the manatee holds the secrets of the future.<ref>Senghor, Léopold Sédar, "Chants d'ombre" [in] "Selected poems of LEOPOLD SEDAR SENGHOR", CUP Archive, pp. 103, 125</ref>

In the novel ''[[Moby-Dick]]'', [[Herman Melville]] distinguishes manatees ("Lamatins", cf. ''[[wikt:lamantin|lama{{strong|n}}tins]]'') from small whales; stating, "I am aware that down to the present time, the fish styled Lamatins and [[Dugong]]s (Pig-fish and Sow-fish of the [[Coffin (whaling family)|Coffins of Nantucket)]] are included by many naturalists among the whales. But as these pig-fish are a noisy, contemptible set, mostly lurking in the mouths of rivers, and feeding on wet hay, and especially as they do not spout, I deny their credentials as whales; and have presented them with their passports to quit the Kingdom of [[Cetology]]."<ref>{{cite book|last=Melville|first=Herman|title=Moby-Dick; or, The Whale|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/mobydickorwhale01melv|publisher=Richard Bentley|chapter=Footnote, Chapter 32 - Cetology|year=1851}}</ref>

A manatee called Wardell appears in the [[Animal Crossing: New Horizons]] video game. He is part of a paid [[downloadable content | downloadable content expansion]], managing and selling furniture to the player.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Fahey |first1=Mike |title=Animal Crossing Fans Are Deeply In Love With Wardell The Manatee |url=https://kotaku.com/animal-crossing-fans-are-deeply-in-love-with-wardell-th-1847886641 |website=Kotaku |date=18 October 2021 |publisher=G/O Media |access-date=14 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211027021018/https://kotaku.com/animal-crossing-fans-are-deeply-in-love-with-wardell-th-1847886641 |archive-date=27 October 2021}}</ref>

In [[Rudyard Kipling]]'s ''The White Seal'' (one of the stories in ''[[The Jungle Book]]''), Sea Cow, about whom the story says that he has only six cervical vertebrae, is a manatee.