HONOLULU – Newly found ev­i­dence sug­gests strong­ly that Pres­i­dent Ba­rack O­ba­ma is not a “nat­u­ral born cit­i­zen” of the U­ni­ted States as re­quired by the Con­sti­tu­tion.

But he was not born in Indonesia, as many critics and scandal-mongers have in­sis­t­ed; and his fath­er was nei­th­er a goat her­d­er nor a stu­dent.

A scroll found on a sunken freighter re­cov­er­ed just last week off the coast of Ni­hau, the west­ern­most Ha­wai­ian is­land, states that his fath­er was, in­deed, Ba­rack O­ba­ma Sr., a Ken­yan – and that the el­der O­ba­ma was a mer­ch­ant ma­rine at the time of the youn­g­er O­ba­ma’s birth in 19­61.

And that Ann Dunham was not the Pres­i­dent’s nat­u­r­al moth­er, but his fos­ter moth­er.

    The scroll, on waxy paper similar to that used to wrap fish in out­door mar­k­ets, was found a­long with a ros­ter of the ship’s crew in the cap­tain’s quar­ters.  In bare­ly leg­i­ble hand­writing in green grease pen­cil (sim­i­lar to cray­on), it ap­pears to be the au­to­bi­og­ra­phy of a mer­maid, Shan­tu Sha­la­la.  And she tells of her brief ro­mance with the el­der O­ba­ma, and her birth of a son to him, on board the ship, leagues and miles be­fore it reach­ed Ha­wa­ii, well be­yond the ter­ri­to­r­i­al lim­it of the U­ni­ted States.

The story was confirmed by Gus Ta­cion, a sur­vi­ving crew mem­ber, now 67 years old and liv­ing in a re­tired sail­ors’ home in Hon­o­lu­lu.  His pres­ence on the ship was con­firm­ed by the crew ros­ter, and fin­g­er­prints.  The se­ni­or O­ba­ma’s name al­so ap­pears on the ros­ter.

“We all had a little thing going with Shan­tu,” Tacion said in an in­ter­view.  “But she liked Bar­ry the best – we all call­ed him Bar­ry – and I think she in­ten­tion­al­ly a­ban­don­ed birth con­trol when she slept with him.”

He said the ship – the Nefari Nofu, Jap­a­nese-owned but sail­ing under the flag of Li­be­ria – was haul­ing cof­fee and or­an­ges from Mad­a­gas­car to In­do­ne­sia.  So, what was it do­ing so far off course, re­por­ters ask­ed?  And “car­ry­ing coals to New­cas­tle,” as it were?

“The ship’s owners were really stupid, and knew nothing of geography,” said Ta­cion, a na­tive of Greece.  “They were in­de­pen­dent­ly weal­thy, and their ship­ping line was just a tax write­off.  Our cap­tain con­vinced them that there was a mar­ket for Af­ri­can pro­duce in East A­sia, and that we could make bet­ter time and a­void pi­rates by go­ing a­round the Horn, and through the Pan­a­ma Can­al and a­cross the Pa­cif­ic, than by cros­s­ing the In­di­an O­cean.  They did­n’t know the cap­tain got a kick­back in Mad­a­gas­car and had a mis­tress in Hon­o­lu­lu.”

It was in Honolulu that the younger O­ba­ma’s birth was reg­is­ter­ed, and where the A­me­r­ican Ann Dun­ham, a cas­u­al friend of the se­ni­or O­ba­ma, claim­ed the boy, ap­pa­r­ent­ly out of a com­bi­na­tion of sym­pa­thy and ma­ter­nal lon­g­ing.  She was a stu­dent at the U­ni­ver­si­ty of Ha­wa­ii; and they wed (back­da­ted mar­ri­age li­cen­ses were a form of chiv­al­ry in those days) and man­aged to en­roll the se­ni­or O­ba­ma there brief­ly to cover their sto­ry, ac­cor­d­ing to mu­tu­al friends who ask­ed not to be i­den­ti­fied.  They said that Ann Dun­ham and Ba­rack O­ba­ma Sr. met at a Pearl Har­bor sa­loon fre­quen­t­ed by sail­ors on shore leave.

Tacion said that neither the senior nor the ju­ni­or O­ba­ma was on board when the ship sank.  He said that the fath­er had taken the son a­shore, and that he as­sumed that they re­main­ed in Ha­wa­ii when the ship sail­ed on.

Tacion said the mermaid gave the baby up to the fath­er because the boy was born with­out gills and would not like­ly sur­vive with her at sea.