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Speaker 1: Welcome to stot to Blow Your Mind, the production of

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Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 1: And today I wanted to start off by talking about

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Speaker 1: a weird legend about the Roman poet Virgil and an

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Speaker 1: insect funeral. Uh, Robert, you ready for some Virgil talk?

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Speaker 1: Let's do it, okay. So. So, Virgil was a poet

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Speaker 1: who lived in the first century BC, during the Augustine

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Speaker 1: periods of early Imperial Rome. And uh, you might know

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Speaker 1: him best from his most famous work, the epic poem

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Speaker 1: The Aeneid, which is about sort of the founding lineage

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Speaker 1: of Rome and the adventures of the Trojan hero Aeneas, who,

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Speaker 1: after the Trojan War, travels from Troy and eventually becomes

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Speaker 1: the ancestor of the Roman people. Virgil is often considered

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Speaker 1: one of the greatest Latin poets, and he was wildly

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Speaker 1: popular during his own lifetime. Uh. You know, he he

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Speaker 1: received commendations from from kings and the wealthy, and and

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Speaker 1: you know, everybody thought like, wow, this this guy has

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Speaker 1: just got the juice. And I had Virgil on my

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Speaker 1: mind a lot last year because Rachel and I were

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Speaker 1: rereading Dante's Divine Comedy, and if you'll recall, of course,

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Speaker 1: Virgil is Dante the Pilgrim's guide through Hell and Purgatory

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Speaker 1: in the Divine Comedy. So the spirit of Virgil he's

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Speaker 1: been living out the centuries in Limbo because though he

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Speaker 1: was a very virtuous man, he's one of the virtuous Pagans.

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Speaker 1: He was never baptized as a Christian, so he can't

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Speaker 1: go to heaven. He's got to hang out in this

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Speaker 1: sort of anti chamber of hell where everybody sits around

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Speaker 1: sighing because nothing interesting is ever happening to them. I

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Speaker 1: have to admit that I tend to when anybody mentions Virgil,

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Speaker 1: that's the first place my mind goes is Dante's Inferno,

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Speaker 1: which is it's probably not fair. It's like if you

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Speaker 1: were too mentioned the name of Socrates and there was

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Speaker 1: someone were to go, oh, yeah, yeah, he's in Bill

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Speaker 1: and Ted's excellent Adventure. That's exactly That's exactly where I

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Speaker 1: knew you were going with that. Vill and Ted. Yeah, um, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that that is pretty good because well though it's slightly

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Speaker 1: different because it's not a it's he's not at all

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Speaker 1: parodied in the Divine Comedy. In fact, I would say

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Speaker 1: it's exactly the opposite. In the Divine Comedy, he is

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Speaker 1: he's revered, Yes, he's he's reimagined as this like superhuman wizard.

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Speaker 1: For for Dante, he uh, Virgil is the embodiment of

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Speaker 1: wisdom and reason. So for the intended readers of the

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Speaker 1: Divine Comedy, we're supposed to understand that Virgil is like

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Speaker 1: a ten out of ten platinum level cool beast. He

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Speaker 1: is just like this ultimate wizard of knowledge and about

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Speaker 1: half of the state you do remember how like like

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Speaker 1: basically every other time Dante talks in the first two

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Speaker 1: books of the Divine Comedy, it's just to say, like, Virgil,

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Speaker 1: you are so right, I would never doubt your wisdom.

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Speaker 1: Tell me more, you know. And and it kind of

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Speaker 1: stinks in because I remember when we got to the

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Speaker 1: end of the Purgatory. Oh, and Virgil does not get

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Speaker 1: to move on to to Heaven with Dante. He has

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Speaker 1: to stay behind and Beatrice takes him on from there.

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Speaker 1: We're really mad that Virgil didn't get to go to heaven. Yeah, yeah, no,

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Speaker 1: I mean so much, so much time is devoted to

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Speaker 1: him and it also so much is stripped away at

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Speaker 1: that point. You know, it's like it's it's hard to

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Speaker 1: follow Dante and into Paradiso just because you know that

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Speaker 1: there there aren't gonna be any demons uh playing trumpets

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Speaker 1: with their bombs or anything. There's not going to be

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Speaker 1: uh you know, and monsters so much, and Virgil is

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Speaker 1: not going to be there. So it's it's you know,

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Speaker 1: it's part three in a series is always tough. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I agree, you know, the trilogy is a hard sell

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Speaker 1: to to complete with dignity. Uh. And but I think

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Speaker 1: for modern readers that sense of injustice about Virgil that

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Speaker 1: is interpreted, uh, you know by the characters in the

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Speaker 1: Inferno as you know, perfect divine justice. It's the one

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Speaker 1: person version of the dynamic that plays out throughout the

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Speaker 1: whole thing. Whereas they're going through hell, it just seems like, wow,

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Speaker 1: this is really unfair. But anyway, long before Virgil was

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Speaker 1: guiding Dante up the Mountain of Purgatory and his postmortem

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Speaker 1: shade form, people were telling lots of legends about his life,

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Speaker 1: and one of those legends is that once at his

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Speaker 1: home in Rome, Virgil built a tomb and held an

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Speaker 1: extravagant funeral for a dead fly, like a fly, as

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Speaker 1: in the insect with six legs and wings. Uh. This

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Speaker 1: story is very probably untrue, and we'll get to why

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Speaker 1: that is in a bit, but first I wanted to

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Speaker 1: explore some of the details, and for this I was

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Speaker 1: reading an article by George Pendall in Cabinet Magazine in

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Speaker 1: two thousand seven called Virgil's Fly, and he describes the

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Speaker 1: legend in the following way quote. Held in the grounds

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Speaker 1: of Virgil's home on Rome's Esqualine Hill, the funeral attracted

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Speaker 1: the great and good of the city. Dirges were sung

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Speaker 1: and tributes read. Virgil's patron, Mycenas, delivered a lengthy and

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Speaker 1: moving eulogy to the departed insect, and Virgil was himself

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Speaker 1: said to have uttered a few of his exquisite verses

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Speaker 1: over the tiny carcass. A tomb had been erected and

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Speaker 1: the lifeless body of the fly was placed within it,

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Speaker 1: to the whales and moans of the professional mourners. So

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Speaker 1: lavish were the commemorations that the cost was estimated at

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Speaker 1: over eight hundred thousand sisters. Is So that's the gist.

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Speaker 1: According to this story, Virgil and his close friends spend

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Speaker 1: huge amounts of money and effort to celebrate the life

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Speaker 1: and memory of an insect, concluding with the insects burial

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Speaker 1: in a marble tomb. Why on earth would this be? Well?

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Speaker 1: The legend itself also contains an answer to this, so

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Speaker 1: to read from Pendle again quote but the reason for

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Speaker 1: the funeral was not due to extravagance, eccentricity, or even emotion.

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Speaker 1: Having defeated Julius Caesar's assassins at the Battle of Philippi,

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Speaker 1: the Second Triumvirate was at that very moment engaged in

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Speaker 1: confiscating the estates of the rich and dividing them among

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Speaker 1: the war veterans returning from the battlefield. Only one exception

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Speaker 1: was given. If the estate held a burial plot, it

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Speaker 1: was not to be touched by burying his housefly. Virgil

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Speaker 1: saved his house. So here it has transformed into a

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Speaker 1: classic one of our favorite genres, loophole fiction. Remember when

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Speaker 1: we did the Anthology of Horror segment in October on

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Speaker 1: deals with the Devil, and about how many of these stories,

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Speaker 1: I think, especially later, deal with the Devil's stories less

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Speaker 1: so in the earlier ones. They're about somebody saving the

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Speaker 1: day by figuring out a loophole that they can exploit

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Speaker 1: to get out of their end of a pact with Satan,

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Speaker 1: and I wonder again, what's so appealing about this kind

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Speaker 1: of plot resolution. It seems like maybe this would be

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Speaker 1: the kind of thing that's especially interesting to two people

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Speaker 1: who live in a more litigious kind of culture. Could

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Speaker 1: be I can also imagine that if you're if you're,

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Speaker 1: if you've ever taken advantage of a loophole, it probably

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Speaker 1: helps out if you demonize the legal authority to some degree,

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Speaker 1: if you make them into a devil, because in all

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Speaker 1: these stories, it's the loophole that saves your soul, whereas um,

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Speaker 1: I think there are plenty of cases in in real

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Speaker 1: in real life where the loophole might have the opposite effect.

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Speaker 1: You know, the loophole is the is the refuge of

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Speaker 1: of less savory individuals at times, right cheaters and scammers

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Speaker 1: with crafty lawyers to help help them get out of

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Speaker 1: trouble by exploiting some kind of you know, loophole in

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Speaker 1: the wording of something is it isn't that always like

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Speaker 1: that's always a really frustrating thing when somebody uh evades

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Speaker 1: the obvious spirit of justice by exploiting the exact wording

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Speaker 1: of something you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah, absolutely,

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Speaker 1: um yeah, So I can't have a wonder if there's

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Speaker 1: there's some connection there. You know, you make your stories

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Speaker 1: about cheating the devil with your loopholes, and then you

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Speaker 1: know you feel better about the sort of implied devil

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Speaker 1: that you're cheating through your own loophole usage. Well, it's

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Speaker 1: actually funny, there is uh. In this Pendle article, he

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Speaker 1: also talks about a medieval legend about Virgil. And we'll

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Speaker 1: get into more of these legends about Virgil's life as

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Speaker 1: we go on, But one of these medieval legends about

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Speaker 1: Virgil is that Virgil freeze a demon from There's like

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Speaker 1: a devil trapped in a bottle, and Virgil lets it

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Speaker 1: out so that it will empower him to do something great.

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Speaker 1: I think maybe he uses its powers to to get

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Speaker 1: a long road paved or something like that. But anyway,

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Speaker 1: once he has has used this demon power, now I

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Speaker 1: think the demon is supposed to get his into the bargain,

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Speaker 1: is going to do something really bad. But first Virgil's like, wow,

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Speaker 1: you know you're so powerful. Could you show me again

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Speaker 1: how you fit your frame into that bottle, so the

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Speaker 1: devil does, and then he corks it back up so

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Speaker 1: he gets to have his magic and keep the genie

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Speaker 1: in the bottle as well. Oh that's great. I don't

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Speaker 1: know how to climb into an oven, and I've never

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Speaker 1: sat on a shovel. That's some jack frost, Jack frost,

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Speaker 1: that's from some ivanushka right there. So in that spirit

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Speaker 1: that there's obviously this interesting process by which after Virgil's death,

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Speaker 1: remember he lived in the first century b c. In

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Speaker 1: the centuries after his death, his poetry was greatly admired

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Speaker 1: and revered, But not just his poetry, he himself was

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Speaker 1: greatly admired and revered and took on the aspects of

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Speaker 1: a saint in many ways, even though he had been

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Speaker 1: a pagan. Uh. There's an interesting note in in his

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Speaker 1: Cabinet article where Pendle shares this fact that kind of

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Speaker 1: helps make more sense of the almost absurd reverence shown

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Speaker 1: for Virgil in the Divine Comedy In these in centuries

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Speaker 1: after his death, many Romans and and later Italians in

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Speaker 1: the Middle Ages thought of Virgil as possessing a literally

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Speaker 1: supernatural or near supernatural genius. That there was something magical

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Speaker 1: about his poetry the same way people would feel there

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Speaker 1: is magic in the holy text of their religion. And

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Speaker 1: one one clear illustration of this is that in the

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Speaker 1: second century CE, under the Antonines, Uh, there had arisen

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Speaker 1: this form of divination. And we've done episodes on divination

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Speaker 1: in the past. You know, there are various ways of

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Speaker 1: trying to sort of get turned some sort of noise

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Speaker 1: or random input into an interpreted type of information about

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Speaker 1: hidden knowledge. You know, what's going to happen the future,

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Speaker 1: or some other thing you want to know but can't uh.

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Speaker 1: And and so the Virgil's poetry was itself used for divination,

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Speaker 1: and so people would randomly select passages from the in

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Speaker 1: need and then read those passages as some kind of

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Speaker 1: prediction about their future or statement about some other kind

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Speaker 1: of hidden knowledge. Uh Pendle writes. Quote. It is said

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Speaker 1: that these sortes Virgiliana or Virgilian lots were consulted by

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Speaker 1: both the emperor's Hadrian and Severus, and with each consultation,

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Speaker 1: virgil memory began to take on an increasingly mystical air.

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Speaker 1: But anyway to get back to the story about Virgil

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Speaker 1: and the fly, So again, this story is almost certainly

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Speaker 1: not true. There are elements of it that fit within

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Speaker 1: known history. Apparently Virgil did actually have a house on

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Speaker 1: the esqual Line Hill the Second Triumph for it was

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Speaker 1: actually engaged in seizing a states so they could be

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Speaker 1: given to returning veterans from military campaigns. But that's just

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Speaker 1: the accurate stuff about the setting. The main reason the

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Speaker 1: story is probably untrue is simply that there is no

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Speaker 1: contemporary evidence or record of it. Uh. Nobody anywhere near

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Speaker 1: Virgil's lifetime mentions anything about it. It only shows up

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Speaker 1: in much much later sources. Rather, it seems to be

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Speaker 1: one of those legends that accumulates on a you know,

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Speaker 1: sort of gloamse onto a revered historical figure due to

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Speaker 1: a chain of associative thinking. So what's the chain? Well,

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Speaker 1: that brings us to a an absurd and absurdly interesting

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Speaker 1: Latin poem called the q Lex, which means uh, I

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Speaker 1: think you can interpret it as like the gnat or

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Speaker 1: the fly. Q Lex is also a genus name for

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Speaker 1: certain types of mosquitoes, so I think it means like

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Speaker 1: a flying insect. And so this is a poem that

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Speaker 1: was published sometime after Virgil's death, and it was attributed

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Speaker 1: to him as part of his juvenile yad. It was

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Speaker 1: widely said, Okay, so this is something that Virgil actually wrote,

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Speaker 1: but he wrote it when it was young, and that's

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Speaker 1: that's why it's maybe not as good as his other poetry.

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Speaker 1: Modern scholars, I think, mostly really doubt that Virgil actually

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Speaker 1: wrote this. It would technically be a poem in the

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Speaker 1: pastoral genre. So that's poetry about the supposedly blissful, uncomplicated

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Speaker 1: life of people in the countryside. It's usually about shepherds

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Speaker 1: or herdsman, often a lot of references to flowers and

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Speaker 1: naps and clouds and cool waters, the idols of pan

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Speaker 1: And it made me think about, how, you know, so

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Speaker 1: for hundreds of years the pastoral poem from the Classical period,

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Speaker 1: even into into the Renaissance was and well, actually i'd

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Speaker 1: say even into the Romantic poetry era. There there is

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Speaker 1: this tendency to fall back on this classic genre of

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Speaker 1: stuff about the fields and the simple life of shepherds

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Speaker 1: and all that, uh and and how great it is.

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Speaker 1: And I wonder if this is sort of realized in

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Speaker 1: modern culture, in our desire for like uh, simple, aesthetically

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Speaker 1: gentle content like the Great British bake offf Is that

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Speaker 1: the pastoral poetry of the modern era? Yeah, yeah, perhaps,

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Speaker 1: you know, um just sort of like soothing and non offensive. Perhaps, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, just just you know, it's not even really escapism.

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Speaker 1: It's just I mean, I guess to a certain extent

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Speaker 1: it is escapism. But yeah, perhaps I can see that connection.

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Speaker 1: I don't know it connected in my brain. But so

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Speaker 1: there's a plot in this poem, the Colex. It is

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Speaker 1: widely regarded as absolutely ridiculous, but here is how it goes.

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Speaker 1: A chep bird goes out in the morning to take

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Speaker 1: his flocks to pasture, and there's some standard pastoral poetry

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Speaker 1: musing on how the simple life of a shepherd living

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Speaker 1: in the fields is so much better than the fraud

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Speaker 1: life of a rich man, because it's better to throw

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Speaker 1: your body down in the tender grass and lay your

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Speaker 1: head among the flower buds than to be consumed with

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Speaker 1: the grief and the greed that curdles the hearts of

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Speaker 1: the rich and powerful. So the shepherd is living this nice,

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Speaker 1: idyllic life. He takes his flock to a fountain in

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Speaker 1: the woods, and there he falls asleep, lying in the shade.

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Speaker 1: But while he's asleep, a giant, horrible snake slithers up.

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Speaker 1: It's coming to the fountain where it likes to lie

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Speaker 1: in the mud, and it decides it's going to bite

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Speaker 1: the shepherd in his sleep and kill him. But just

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Speaker 1: before the snake attacks, a gnat buzzes down and stings

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Speaker 1: the shepherd on the eye, and this wakes him up,

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Speaker 1: and the shepherd crushes the gnat, but it also wakes

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Speaker 1: him up just in time to see the snake and

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Speaker 1: to save himself. So he beats the snake to death

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Speaker 1: with a piece of wood, which I would say, in

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Speaker 1: reality is almost never necessary. Even if a snake is dangerous,

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Speaker 1: you can run away from it, right, But this is

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Speaker 1: a storybook snake, and you know how they do. They

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Speaker 1: do things like wrap around you and tie you to

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Speaker 1: a tree or swallow you hole. So um, you know,

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Speaker 1: within the context of the story, maybe it's justified, right,

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Speaker 1: So yeah, he gets this. This piece of wood beats

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Speaker 1: the snake into a bloody pulp. And then later the

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Speaker 1: shepherd goes to sleep again and the ghost of the

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Speaker 1: nat appears. It comes to him in a dream, and

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Speaker 1: the gnat choose him out for not being grateful. He's

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Speaker 1: like why do you crush me? I saved your life?

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Speaker 1: And the shepherd wakes up, and he feels remorse for

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Speaker 1: what he's done, and he builds a tomb in honor

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Speaker 1: of the gnat, and then decorates the tomb with flowers

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Speaker 1: and fruit. And so, to read briefly from the tomb

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Speaker 1: section of the poem, it says for him at length,

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Speaker 1: did heedful care the toil begun completing, gathered up the

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Speaker 1: piled material, and with a plenteous mound of earth, a

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Speaker 1: tomb arose in circle shaped around it, placing stone of

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Speaker 1: marble smooth, he plants it, mindful of his constant care,

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Speaker 1: and growing here throughout the brilliant ring a cantus is

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Speaker 1: and bashful roses too, and every kind of violet. And

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Speaker 1: then there are a bunch of lines about flowers. I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna skip towards the end of that flower section. Um

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Speaker 1: the admiranthe is here, And grapes which large do cluster

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Speaker 1: ever flowering Piccrus to Narcissus isn't absent there in whom

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Speaker 1: his beauty's radiance from cupids fire for limbs his own

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Speaker 1: begot a hot desire. And all the flowers that blooming seasons. No,

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Speaker 1: with these the mound is planted, or then on the

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Speaker 1: front is placed the inscription, which asserts the letters, saying

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Speaker 1: it with silent speech, Oh, tiny gnat, the keeper of

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Speaker 1: the flocks, doth pay to the deserving such a thing

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Speaker 1: the duty of a ceremonial tomb, in payment for the

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Speaker 1: gift of life to him. All right, well, well there

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Speaker 1: you have it, a poem about honoring the the gnat

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Speaker 1: that saved him from the snake when he was sleeping

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Speaker 1: on the job. This is something I'm actually confused about.

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Speaker 1: Our shepherds supposed to just sleep while they're watching their flocks,

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Speaker 1: or they're not supposed to be watching I don't know,

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Speaker 1: but you do see it is part of that pastoral

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Speaker 1: sort of image, you know, like we've all encountered some

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Speaker 1: version of that before, which I'm guessing most of that

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Speaker 1: is just, yeah, it's pining for a this um, this

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Speaker 1: presumed idyllic lifestyle in the country where it's like, oh,

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Speaker 1: you're just looking after sheep. It's just like a nap

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Speaker 1: all day, that's all. Just all it is, glossing over

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Speaker 1: all the other stuff that comes being a shepherd. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But anyway, once again it seems that modern scholars do

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Speaker 1: not accept that Virgil actually wrote this poem. Virgil did

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Speaker 1: write pastoral poetry, for example, in his ecologues. There's this

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Speaker 1: great part of in the I think the tenth eclogue

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Speaker 1: where he concludes with a wonderful passage decided bedtime, where

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Speaker 1: he writes, come let us rise. The shade is wont

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Speaker 1: to be baneful to singers. Baneful is the shade cast

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Speaker 1: by the juniper crops. Sickened too in the shade, now homeward,

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Speaker 1: having fed your fill, eve star is rising. Go my,

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Speaker 1: she goats go. Okay. I guess that's that's pretty good.

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Speaker 1: But but yeah, if you're just going off of this passage,

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Speaker 1: I don't know if you'd you'd really buy Dante's hype

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Speaker 1: for Virgil. Um, well, I mean, she goes part is nice,

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Speaker 1: that is the good part, and it is in translation.

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Speaker 1: I think, you know, there's all kinds of stuff. I mean,

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Speaker 1: for every type of poetry and translation, there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of stuff that's lost. But anyway, so the coolex, there's

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Speaker 1: a good chance it was written by someone else and

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Speaker 1: then published under Virgil's name, and it may well have

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Speaker 1: had some kind of other meaning. Like a veiled meaning

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Speaker 1: as a political allegory, though I didn't follow the threads

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Speaker 1: on that. But despite the doubt about the authorship, the

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Speaker 1: poem seems to have given rise to all kinds of

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Speaker 1: bizarre fly legends associated with Virgil. Um so to read

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Speaker 1: a segment from Pendel that I thought this was amazing quote.

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Speaker 1: One of the most popular Neapolitan myths held that Virgil

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Speaker 1: had created a bronze fly the size of a frog

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Speaker 1: and placed it on one of the gates of Naples.

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Speaker 1: The talisman remained there for eight years, during which time

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Speaker 1: no flies could enter the city. In a similar vein,

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Speaker 1: armies attacking Naples were said to have been harassed by

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Speaker 1: swarms of flies sent after them by the poet. The

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Speaker 1: fly would become Virgil's magical familiar over the ensuing years,

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Speaker 1: never far from any tale of his exploits, and that

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Speaker 1: was not all. Possibly due to this control of pestilence,

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Speaker 1: Virgil was said to have created baths that cured all illnesses,

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Speaker 1: and a butcher's block on which meat stayed fresh for

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Speaker 1: six weeks. No longer renowned as the master of grammar

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Speaker 1: and fil aosophy, Virgil's achievements were put down to his

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Speaker 1: mathematical knowledge. In only a few centuries, Virgil had gone

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Speaker 1: from being the preeminent poet of the Roman Empire to

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Speaker 1: a Neapolitan enchanter with the pensiont for magical insects. And

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Speaker 1: there's all kinds of fabulous stuff about medieval legends about

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Speaker 1: Virgil becoming more of a necromancer type figure, that he's

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Speaker 1: got all these strange magical powers like that, you know

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Speaker 1: that he commands the insects of the air and cast

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Speaker 1: them down upon his enemies or can save you from them.

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Speaker 1: And uh, and I love that that that this was Like,

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Speaker 1: I don't know if there was anything in his actual

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Speaker 1: life to associate him with flies. It's only this poem

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Speaker 1: that he probably didn't even actually right and isn't actually

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Speaker 1: very good, that was attributed to him later that gave

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Speaker 1: rise to all these strange stories. Wow, that's something. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't I don't recall it, you know, picking up

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Speaker 1: on the the idea of the wizard Virgil. But but

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Speaker 1: now I'm fascinated by it. Well. I think one thing

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Speaker 1: is by the Middle Ages he had these broadly understood

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Speaker 1: wizard associations. But I think Dante was sort of moving

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Speaker 1: back against that and and saying like, no, let's fit

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Speaker 1: him more into the Christian cosmology and say that he's

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Speaker 1: more this beacon of reason and wisdom in the pagan world.

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Speaker 1: But we do see this wizardization taking more hold with

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Speaker 1: other figures, like Roger Bacon comes to mind. And we've

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Speaker 1: talked about this on the show before. Oh yeah, I

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Speaker 1: remember in one of our previous episodes we sort of

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Speaker 1: concluded that maybe one of the greatest contributions of Roger

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Speaker 1: Bacon as a as a you know, man of great

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Speaker 1: learning in the Middle Ages and the thirteenth century was

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Speaker 1: that he was very open to sources of knowledge from

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Speaker 1: all over the world. So a lot of what he

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Speaker 1: did was say, like apply things that he learned from

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Speaker 1: texts from the medieval Muslim world, like the texts of

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Speaker 1: mbanel Haytham and other things, or like, uh, studying objects

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Speaker 1: brought to him from from countries afar. So he was

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Speaker 1: sort of a good collector of knowledge from many places.

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Speaker 1: But somehow gets this, I don't know, gets this label

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Speaker 1: affixed to him like he's some kind of wonder worker,

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Speaker 1: which he wasn't really in life, right, I mean, he

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Speaker 1: was it seems like he was a very impressive individual.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, he's begome. He instantly becomes elevated to like

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Speaker 1: arch alchemist status in some of these tellings, you know,

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Speaker 1: he takes on all the guys of some sort of

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Speaker 1: a mad scientist in a in a like a serial adventure.

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Speaker 1: The main reason I think I was originally inspired to

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Speaker 1: look into this topic and do this episode about insects

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Speaker 1: and funerals was when I read an interesting article on

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Speaker 1: Atlas Obscura that was also by George Pendel. The same

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Speaker 1: writer is that Cabinet magazine article about Virgil and the fly,

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Speaker 1: And this article is on the broader topic of insects

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Speaker 1: and funerary rights. Yeah, this was a good, good article

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Speaker 1: by by Pendell the fly master here. Um, he touches

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Speaker 1: on numerous associations between insects and death. Particularly the author

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Speaker 1: points out quote necklaces of stone carved flies to ward

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Speaker 1: off maggots worn by the ancient Egyptian dead. Uh. The

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Speaker 1: idea of being here that the maggots were seen as

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Speaker 1: a threat to one's car or bo you know, the

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00:23:18,359 --> 00:23:20,720
Speaker 1: like the vital one of the vital essences and in

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Speaker 1: the body, in the individual. And um, I found this

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Speaker 1: interesting so The first thing I did was I looked

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Speaker 1: up to see if if Jeane Kritzky had written on this.

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Speaker 1: Jeane Kritzky, of course, is a former guest on the show.

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Speaker 1: He wrote a book called The Tears of Ray about, uh,

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Speaker 1: the ancient Egyptian use of bees and honey and how

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Speaker 1: they treated bees and honey both um in terms of

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Speaker 1: just creating products as well as uh, you know, magical uses, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: I was thinking about that episode and about Jeane Kritzky

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Speaker 1: when I was recording a recent episode of The Artifact

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Speaker 1: I did, which was about ancient Egyptian head cones. Uh.

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Speaker 1: These If you haven't listened to that artifact yet, I

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00:24:00,440 --> 00:24:01,639
Speaker 1: thought it was a lot of fun, so maybe you

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00:24:01,640 --> 00:24:03,679
Speaker 1: should check it out. But the short version is, there

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Speaker 1: are these white cones depicted on top of people's heads

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Speaker 1: in a lot of ancient Egyptian art, but nobody had

424
00:24:09,240 --> 00:24:12,240
Speaker 1: ever found any physical evidence that they existed in reality.

425
00:24:12,280 --> 00:24:14,760
Speaker 1: So there's been this debate about what were these cones?

426
00:24:14,800 --> 00:24:16,840
Speaker 1: Did they ever actually exist in the world, or are

427
00:24:16,880 --> 00:24:21,159
Speaker 1: they some kind of artistic convention and uh the uh

428
00:24:21,320 --> 00:24:24,600
Speaker 1: and and in recent years there has been an excavation

429
00:24:24,640 --> 00:24:27,600
Speaker 1: that uncovered physical examples of these headcones for the first

430
00:24:27,600 --> 00:24:30,720
Speaker 1: time at a couple of graves in Amarna in Egypt.

431
00:24:30,840 --> 00:24:33,359
Speaker 1: But unlike some of the theories in which these cones

432
00:24:33,400 --> 00:24:37,200
Speaker 1: were made of, like perfumed animal fat, these cones were

433
00:24:37,240 --> 00:24:40,720
Speaker 1: made out of biological wax, which I knew immediately when

434
00:24:40,720 --> 00:24:42,359
Speaker 1: I read that, Oh, that's got to be bees wax

435
00:24:42,440 --> 00:24:45,080
Speaker 1: because of the role of bees wax in ancient Egyptian culture,

436
00:24:45,320 --> 00:24:47,840
Speaker 1: and sure enough that that seems like what they almost

437
00:24:47,880 --> 00:24:52,199
Speaker 1: definitely were made of. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, well, we've covered already,

438
00:24:52,200 --> 00:24:55,199
Speaker 1: We've covered a few different Egyptian topics in the artifacts,

439
00:24:55,200 --> 00:24:57,560
Speaker 1: so uh so, definitely check this out. I'm sure we'll

440
00:24:57,560 --> 00:24:59,920
Speaker 1: do more. But but in this case, yeah, I turned

441
00:24:59,920 --> 00:25:02,719
Speaker 1: to to Jeane Kritzky's work, and particularly I looked at

442
00:25:02,760 --> 00:25:04,720
Speaker 1: a book that he wrote with an author by the

443
00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:09,040
Speaker 1: name of Ron Cherry titled Insect Mythology, And so they

444
00:25:09,080 --> 00:25:11,439
Speaker 1: get into this event. They point out that in ancient

445
00:25:11,480 --> 00:25:13,600
Speaker 1: Egypt the fly, first of all, it was also a

446
00:25:13,600 --> 00:25:17,480
Speaker 1: symbol of valor, because what does a pesky fly do. Well,

447
00:25:17,560 --> 00:25:20,800
Speaker 1: it'll it'll move in, it'll bite you, try to bite you.

448
00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:23,159
Speaker 1: You you drive it away by swatting your hand around.

449
00:25:23,280 --> 00:25:26,240
Speaker 1: But then what does it do? It comes back, It's persistent,

450
00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:29,560
Speaker 1: and therefore it is a symbol of valor. Wow, I've

451
00:25:29,680 --> 00:25:31,760
Speaker 1: never thought of that before. But yeah, when the fly

452
00:25:31,880 --> 00:25:34,040
Speaker 1: comes in to sting at you, it's like a human

453
00:25:34,080 --> 00:25:37,320
Speaker 1: going up against a dragon or a giant. Yeah, and

454
00:25:37,400 --> 00:25:39,920
Speaker 1: so we have this this one example in particular, where

455
00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:44,280
Speaker 1: a queen Ahotep gave her sons, three of her sons

456
00:25:44,480 --> 00:25:50,040
Speaker 1: golden flies to honor their fights against an adversary. So

457
00:25:50,119 --> 00:25:52,280
Speaker 1: I thought that was interesting, and you can actually look

458
00:25:52,320 --> 00:25:55,360
Speaker 1: up examples of this because I believe, uh the ideas.

459
00:25:55,440 --> 00:25:57,959
Speaker 1: These three flies were then buried with her and then

460
00:25:57,960 --> 00:26:00,720
Speaker 1: we're part of the the treasures that want to unearthed

461
00:26:00,800 --> 00:26:04,960
Speaker 1: with her body. And yeah, they're these beautiful golden fly ornaments,

462
00:26:05,560 --> 00:26:09,560
Speaker 1: but they stand for valor. Now, as for the funeral necklace, yes,

463
00:26:09,720 --> 00:26:12,880
Speaker 1: this seems accurate as well. So in the Egyptian climate,

464
00:26:13,280 --> 00:26:16,360
Speaker 1: um flies would take to the dead rather quickly, and

465
00:26:16,520 --> 00:26:20,760
Speaker 1: freshly hatched flies would be seen leaving the body before

466
00:26:20,840 --> 00:26:25,760
Speaker 1: embalming could be completely finished. Um these flies were seen

467
00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:29,320
Speaker 1: as again the individual's car or ba leaving the body.

468
00:26:29,720 --> 00:26:34,240
Speaker 1: So the fly necklaces were away to essentially put flies

469
00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:37,879
Speaker 1: back on the body to return this leaked car to

470
00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:42,320
Speaker 1: the deceased. Oh wow, yeah, yeah, so and and this

471
00:26:42,400 --> 00:26:45,480
Speaker 1: is really interesting as well. The car or ba is

472
00:26:45,520 --> 00:26:48,800
Speaker 1: sometimes represented as a bird with a human head, but

473
00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:51,159
Speaker 1: you also see versions of it that consist of a

474
00:26:51,240 --> 00:26:55,160
Speaker 1: fly with a human head. So the the authors here

475
00:26:55,280 --> 00:26:58,120
Speaker 1: Um Chrisky and and Cherry, but they point out that, uh,

476
00:26:58,160 --> 00:27:00,000
Speaker 1: you know, there is there is, at least at the time,

477
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:01,760
Speaker 1: and this was written which I want to say it

478
00:27:01,800 --> 00:27:06,160
Speaker 1: was a couple of decades ago, um at the time,

479
00:27:06,240 --> 00:27:08,840
Speaker 1: and I imagine still to this day, there's this surviving

480
00:27:08,880 --> 00:27:13,240
Speaker 1: folk belief that certain varieties of flies with a greenish

481
00:27:13,359 --> 00:27:16,840
Speaker 1: or bluish metallic body were not to be killed as

482
00:27:16,880 --> 00:27:20,199
Speaker 1: these contained or were likely to contain the spirit of

483
00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:22,960
Speaker 1: someone who had died. So and then they said, this

484
00:27:23,080 --> 00:27:25,520
Speaker 1: would just be one of many modern beliefs that are

485
00:27:25,520 --> 00:27:28,879
Speaker 1: seemingly tied to the traditions and beliefs from the age

486
00:27:29,080 --> 00:27:32,199
Speaker 1: of the Pharaohs. But the idea of a fly with

487
00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:35,280
Speaker 1: the human head certainly also makes me think of some

488
00:27:35,280 --> 00:27:39,600
Speaker 1: some twentieth century cinematic literature. Yeah. Yeah, it brings to

489
00:27:39,640 --> 00:27:43,719
Speaker 1: mind the movie The Fly, which ends with that that scene,

490
00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:46,919
Speaker 1: well where you help me seeing with the fly with

491
00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:49,840
Speaker 1: the human head, which we we had to stand corrected on.

492
00:27:49,960 --> 00:27:53,080
Speaker 1: That is not Vincent Price, whose heads on that fly?

493
00:27:53,640 --> 00:27:57,360
Speaker 1: Different actor he plays like his brother or something. Yeah,

494
00:27:57,440 --> 00:28:01,119
Speaker 1: but yeah, so it brings to mind a modern monster movie.

495
00:28:01,280 --> 00:28:04,520
Speaker 1: But it's also interesting because on a physical level this

496
00:28:04,640 --> 00:28:08,040
Speaker 1: is correct. There is something of the departed body anyway

497
00:28:08,640 --> 00:28:11,439
Speaker 1: in the substance of the emergent fly. There is a

498
00:28:11,440 --> 00:28:15,280
Speaker 1: connection to be made. Yeah, the chemical energy from yes, exactly.

499
00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:17,800
Speaker 1: So again the idea is is not so much to

500
00:28:17,880 --> 00:28:21,359
Speaker 1: keep flies away, but it's like to return what is

501
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:25,480
Speaker 1: leaked out to the body through symbolic flies. Now, as

502
00:28:25,520 --> 00:28:28,400
Speaker 1: for flies in general, Chrisky and Cherry point out that

503
00:28:28,520 --> 00:28:31,760
Speaker 1: the flies are often associated with death just throughout global

504
00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:34,560
Speaker 1: myth cycles, and they roll through a number of examples

505
00:28:34,560 --> 00:28:36,600
Speaker 1: in their book, you know, like the Greek damon of

506
00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:41,400
Speaker 1: decomposition uh urinomos uh and this was depicted often as

507
00:28:41,440 --> 00:28:44,280
Speaker 1: either a vulture or a fly, you know, a consumer

508
00:28:44,280 --> 00:28:47,640
Speaker 1: of carry on. Other fly demons can be found as well,

509
00:28:47,680 --> 00:28:49,920
Speaker 1: such as of course be Elzebub, at least in his

510
00:28:50,120 --> 00:28:53,920
Speaker 1: demonic interpretations later he was originally a Syrian god. You

511
00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:58,640
Speaker 1: have the the Yazads and Nassau of Zoroastrianism and Nassau

512
00:28:59,360 --> 00:29:02,040
Speaker 1: they describe best quote the demon us of dead matter,

513
00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:05,520
Speaker 1: and flies were also a symbol of torment for early

514
00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:09,160
Speaker 1: European Christians. The god Loki was said to have taken

515
00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:11,360
Speaker 1: on the form of a fly in order to pass

516
00:29:11,400 --> 00:29:15,040
Speaker 1: through a keyhole. And this transformation the transformation of one

517
00:29:15,080 --> 00:29:17,320
Speaker 1: in one's body into that of a fly. This has

518
00:29:17,320 --> 00:29:21,960
Speaker 1: also been associated with which is they write in Hungarian traditions. However,

519
00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:25,480
Speaker 1: in all this they point out to outstanding exceptions to

520
00:29:25,600 --> 00:29:29,680
Speaker 1: the negative roles of mythological flies. And they're pretty interesting

521
00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:32,280
Speaker 1: because these kind of take me back to what you

522
00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:35,560
Speaker 1: shared from that poem that has been attributed to Virgil.

523
00:29:36,120 --> 00:29:40,520
Speaker 1: Uh So, the first example is big Biter. Big Biter

524
00:29:40,680 --> 00:29:43,600
Speaker 1: is an overlord of fish in what I believe is

525
00:29:44,320 --> 00:29:47,320
Speaker 1: currently known as the Innu tribe of this is a

526
00:29:47,360 --> 00:29:52,760
Speaker 1: Canadian Um First Nations people. And this uh this spirit

527
00:29:52,800 --> 00:29:55,200
Speaker 1: would have taken the form of a fly, and the

528
00:29:55,360 --> 00:29:58,720
Speaker 1: chrisky and uh and cherry right that he quote hovered

529
00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:01,240
Speaker 1: over the fisherman in order to see how his subjects

530
00:30:01,280 --> 00:30:05,000
Speaker 1: were being treated. Occasionally, an overlord would bite the fisherman

531
00:30:05,240 --> 00:30:08,280
Speaker 1: to remind him that the fish were in his custody

532
00:30:08,480 --> 00:30:12,760
Speaker 1: and to warn against wastefulness. So so I I like

533
00:30:12,880 --> 00:30:14,680
Speaker 1: that the idea of I also it just kind of

534
00:30:14,680 --> 00:30:18,520
Speaker 1: feels like it's kind of illustrates the the you know,

535
00:30:18,560 --> 00:30:23,760
Speaker 1: the universal experience of fishing. You know, you're perhaps gonna

536
00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:26,840
Speaker 1: you know, gaze off into space. You're you're gonna be

537
00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:30,479
Speaker 1: bit by insects, uh and then maybe have to confront

538
00:30:30,520 --> 00:30:34,040
Speaker 1: the possibility of wastefulness. Um. But anyway, another one is

539
00:30:34,120 --> 00:30:36,680
Speaker 1: big fly, and this one is in the Navajo religion,

540
00:30:37,120 --> 00:30:40,080
Speaker 1: and it is a mentor or helper that mediates between

541
00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:43,160
Speaker 1: humans and the gods. And so it'll it'll frequently show

542
00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:46,040
Speaker 1: up in stories and uh and appear to a hero

543
00:30:46,320 --> 00:30:49,080
Speaker 1: and tell them how to proceed. And so that's the

544
00:30:49,120 --> 00:30:51,720
Speaker 1: example that reminds me specifically of what we see in

545
00:30:51,800 --> 00:30:54,680
Speaker 1: that poem attributed to Virgil. Yes, not just as a

546
00:30:54,760 --> 00:30:57,720
Speaker 1: helper who who intervenes to save his life, but one

547
00:30:57,720 --> 00:31:02,600
Speaker 1: who later appears to teach him a lesson. Yeah. Now,

548
00:31:03,040 --> 00:31:04,840
Speaker 1: one thing, of course, that they drive home in this

549
00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:07,040
Speaker 1: book is that it's worth remembering that other insects had

550
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:10,360
Speaker 1: entirely different roles in ancient Egyptian traditions. The scare a beetle,

551
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:14,440
Speaker 1: for instance, symbolizes perpetual life and renewal. Uh Kepri is

552
00:31:14,480 --> 00:31:18,000
Speaker 1: in fact the dawn manifestation of of raw or ray,

553
00:31:18,160 --> 00:31:21,480
Speaker 1: the sun god and uh derived and this is derived

554
00:31:21,520 --> 00:31:25,440
Speaker 1: from kept her, which meant to become or to be transformed.

555
00:31:25,880 --> 00:31:28,440
Speaker 1: And so the reason for this is twofold. According to

556
00:31:28,560 --> 00:31:32,760
Speaker 1: Geraldine Pinch in the book Egyptian Mythology, First dung beetles

557
00:31:32,840 --> 00:31:35,760
Speaker 1: rolling spheres of dung were compared to the movement of

558
00:31:35,800 --> 00:31:38,560
Speaker 1: the sun across the sky. Uh. You know, something that

559
00:31:38,560 --> 00:31:42,479
Speaker 1: would be carried by the gods in the sky barge uh.

560
00:31:42,560 --> 00:31:46,040
Speaker 1: And secondly, the sight of young beetles emerging from buried

561
00:31:46,120 --> 00:31:50,440
Speaker 1: dung balls. This raised ideas of self generation, and so

562
00:31:50,480 --> 00:31:55,120
Speaker 1: these acts of transformation could have applied, would have applied

563
00:31:55,320 --> 00:31:57,720
Speaker 1: rather to more than just birth and death, but also

564
00:31:57,760 --> 00:32:00,520
Speaker 1: to the various rights of passage in one's so not

565
00:32:00,600 --> 00:32:03,000
Speaker 1: just being born, not just dying, but also you know,

566
00:32:03,240 --> 00:32:06,880
Speaker 1: growing up, changing who you are, this sort of perpetual

567
00:32:06,960 --> 00:32:10,440
Speaker 1: act of emerging and becoming. Oh. I like this because uh,

568
00:32:11,120 --> 00:32:15,000
Speaker 1: I think it's something I've seen from Egyptologists in recent years,

569
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:20,480
Speaker 1: who I think sometimes emphasized that older schools of Egyptology

570
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:26,120
Speaker 1: would would sometimes over emphasize the the prevalence of thinking

571
00:32:26,160 --> 00:32:29,560
Speaker 1: about death and the afterlife in ancient Egyptian culture, and

572
00:32:29,600 --> 00:32:32,880
Speaker 1: that this might just be a result of the bias

573
00:32:32,960 --> 00:32:36,000
Speaker 1: in what types of artifacts are preserved for us to

574
00:32:36,040 --> 00:32:38,680
Speaker 1: look at to get a sense of their culture and

575
00:32:38,760 --> 00:32:41,240
Speaker 1: so so. Yeah, I like the idea of like seeing

576
00:32:41,240 --> 00:32:43,440
Speaker 1: how it has a lot to do with birth and

577
00:32:43,480 --> 00:32:46,080
Speaker 1: life itself as well. Yeah, yeah, this is This is

578
00:32:46,080 --> 00:32:48,000
Speaker 1: a thing that I actually just touched on in one

579
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:50,800
Speaker 1: of the Artifact episodes having to deal with the kiro toe.

580
00:32:51,160 --> 00:32:52,719
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if this has come out yet by

581
00:32:52,760 --> 00:32:55,280
Speaker 1: the time this episode publishes, but at any rate, it

582
00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:59,360
Speaker 1: has to do with an element um an artifact that

583
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:02,240
Speaker 1: could certainly be interpreted as something that is just about

584
00:33:02,240 --> 00:33:06,000
Speaker 1: the dead, but upon closer examination, is far more about

585
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:09,479
Speaker 1: the living and the experience of living people. Yeah. Um, so,

586
00:33:09,760 --> 00:33:11,480
Speaker 1: I think that's an important thing to keep in mind.

587
00:33:11,520 --> 00:33:13,640
Speaker 1: Even though it is fascinating to know all these things

588
00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:17,560
Speaker 1: about ancient Egyptian funerary rituals and their beliefs about death

589
00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:19,600
Speaker 1: in the afterlife, you can easily get this mistake and

590
00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:23,200
Speaker 1: assumption that like in ancient Egypt, all anyone did was

591
00:33:23,320 --> 00:33:26,600
Speaker 1: die and be entombed and think about death, and obviously

592
00:33:26,640 --> 00:33:29,000
Speaker 1: that can't be true, right, yeah, I mean they were

593
00:33:29,120 --> 00:33:32,200
Speaker 1: human beings and they were they were subject to all

594
00:33:32,240 --> 00:33:35,400
Speaker 1: the other whims and obsessions of human life now and

595
00:33:35,440 --> 00:33:38,960
Speaker 1: in terms of their other relationships with with insects and

596
00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:43,040
Speaker 1: arachnids uh scorpions, for instance, arachnids were considered it just

597
00:33:43,200 --> 00:33:46,640
Speaker 1: enemies of humanity, but they were also associated with the

598
00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:50,640
Speaker 1: goddess circuit who who protected the body of the deceased,

599
00:33:51,440 --> 00:33:56,560
Speaker 1: as well as the canopic jars that would contain organs um.

600
00:33:56,680 --> 00:33:59,320
Speaker 1: But to come back to that Atlas Obscure article by

601
00:33:59,360 --> 00:34:03,800
Speaker 1: George Pendall Uh, they write that there's a particular civilization

602
00:34:03,880 --> 00:34:09,280
Speaker 1: of northern Peru uh the the Mochi or the Mochika. Uh.

603
00:34:09,320 --> 00:34:12,040
Speaker 1: This would have been a civilization pre Columbian, of course,

604
00:34:12,040 --> 00:34:15,880
Speaker 1: but also pre Incan that ran from around one hundred

605
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:20,720
Speaker 1: to seven fifty c. And they seemingly practiced some manner

606
00:34:20,760 --> 00:34:24,800
Speaker 1: of sky burial in which the flies that that that

607
00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:27,239
Speaker 1: lighted upon the dead and then emerged from the dead

608
00:34:27,480 --> 00:34:31,480
Speaker 1: were interpreted as an essential part of the spirit's journey um,

609
00:34:31,640 --> 00:34:34,839
Speaker 1: maybe much like carrying birds would be in some other

610
00:34:34,920 --> 00:34:37,759
Speaker 1: types of sky burial type traditions. Yeah, that that was

611
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:40,280
Speaker 1: where my mind instantly went to, like the Tibetan model

612
00:34:40,360 --> 00:34:43,080
Speaker 1: of where a body is sort of processed for carrying

613
00:34:43,160 --> 00:34:46,480
Speaker 1: birds in a you know, an elevated rocky area where

614
00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:50,200
Speaker 1: other modes of burial or not as much of an option.

615
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:52,120
Speaker 1: And this would be a way of like returning the

616
00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:55,640
Speaker 1: body to the world, to the element, uh, through scavengers,

617
00:34:55,640 --> 00:34:58,759
Speaker 1: through carrying consumers. So I decided to look into this

618
00:34:58,800 --> 00:35:01,160
Speaker 1: little bit more because this was in simply fascinating as well.

619
00:35:01,239 --> 00:35:02,960
Speaker 1: You know, I have this example that turns things on

620
00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:05,440
Speaker 1: its head a bit. Uh. There's a two thousand ten

621
00:35:05,560 --> 00:35:08,879
Speaker 1: study I was reading published in the Journal of Archaeological

622
00:35:08,920 --> 00:35:12,080
Speaker 1: Science by Hutchett and Greenberg, and a lot of this

623
00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:16,759
Speaker 1: theory depends on the post mortem interval in remains how

624
00:35:16,800 --> 00:35:20,840
Speaker 1: long the bodies of these people's were exposed prior to

625
00:35:20,920 --> 00:35:24,160
Speaker 1: burial and um and that's one of the keys there

626
00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:27,640
Speaker 1: is this is that it's not simply well I'll get

627
00:35:27,640 --> 00:35:29,280
Speaker 1: into this here, but like it's not just like okay,

628
00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:32,239
Speaker 1: then they left the bodies out. Now that this would

629
00:35:32,280 --> 00:35:36,520
Speaker 1: have been part of a more protracted, uh funeral rite.

630
00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:41,000
Speaker 1: I see. So the Mochi, they excelled in ceramics, they

631
00:35:41,080 --> 00:35:44,200
Speaker 1: practiced human sacrifice um and and to be clear, a

632
00:35:44,239 --> 00:35:47,040
Speaker 1: lot of ancient cultures did. UM. Not to sweep human

633
00:35:47,040 --> 00:35:49,200
Speaker 1: sacrifice under the rug or anything, but I think, as

634
00:35:49,239 --> 00:35:51,759
Speaker 1: we've touched on before, I think we it pays to

635
00:35:51,800 --> 00:35:54,440
Speaker 1: be fair in looking at particular cultures and regions that

636
00:35:54,480 --> 00:35:56,960
Speaker 1: are often highlighted for this sort of thing, that we

637
00:35:57,000 --> 00:35:59,400
Speaker 1: have to sort of keep them uh. Keep in mind

638
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:02,799
Speaker 1: that that plenty of other ancient cultures also did this,

639
00:36:03,000 --> 00:36:06,360
Speaker 1: did human sacrifice as well, and they were no exception,

640
00:36:07,160 --> 00:36:09,920
Speaker 1: but they apparently had a complex religious system with complex

641
00:36:09,960 --> 00:36:15,800
Speaker 1: mortuary practices, supported by evidence of delayed burials, grave reopenings,

642
00:36:15,840 --> 00:36:20,720
Speaker 1: and secondary offerings of human remains. Their ceramic illustrations reveal

643
00:36:20,760 --> 00:36:23,160
Speaker 1: a lot about the role of flies and their beliefs

644
00:36:23,440 --> 00:36:27,360
Speaker 1: with their For instance, there these motifs of flies following

645
00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:32,439
Speaker 1: prisoners to execution in anticipation of of their corpses, as

646
00:36:32,480 --> 00:36:36,880
Speaker 1: well as oval shaped motifs that may represent flies emerging

647
00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:40,839
Speaker 1: from the puparia. So you know, it's it's it's really

648
00:36:40,880 --> 00:36:43,040
Speaker 1: interesting to to think about this this would have been

649
00:36:43,400 --> 00:36:47,400
Speaker 1: a society where instead of sort of taking the Egyptian

650
00:36:47,480 --> 00:36:51,560
Speaker 1: route and saying, well, the flies are part of the

651
00:36:51,600 --> 00:36:54,080
Speaker 1: soul leaving the body, and will we have this magical

652
00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:58,680
Speaker 1: uh symbolism that will will will prevent that or reverse

653
00:36:59,040 --> 00:37:04,080
Speaker 1: the the the leakage. Uh. This is like a celebration

654
00:37:04,160 --> 00:37:06,400
Speaker 1: of it. It would seem that's the argument anyway, that

655
00:37:06,440 --> 00:37:09,680
Speaker 1: they seem to have incorporated it into their understanding of

656
00:37:09,719 --> 00:37:13,120
Speaker 1: what our bodies and and or perhaps our souls do

657
00:37:13,320 --> 00:37:16,120
Speaker 1: when we die. You know that it's that the flies

658
00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:19,640
Speaker 1: moving in and then out of our bodies is just

659
00:37:19,680 --> 00:37:22,279
Speaker 1: a part of what is supposed to happen. It's part

660
00:37:22,320 --> 00:37:26,719
Speaker 1: of the sacrament. Though. It's very interesting to see cultures

661
00:37:26,719 --> 00:37:30,319
Speaker 1: in which that that sort of biological knowledge about what

662
00:37:30,440 --> 00:37:35,000
Speaker 1: happens to a human body that's left exposed to the

663
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:39,120
Speaker 1: surface elements. Uh, it gets incorporated into religious beliefs, as

664
00:37:39,160 --> 00:37:42,160
Speaker 1: opposed to the idea that a body should be, you know,

665
00:37:42,239 --> 00:37:46,120
Speaker 1: immediately buried, hidden away to a different place where you

666
00:37:46,520 --> 00:37:50,719
Speaker 1: cannot see nature acting upon it as it decomposes. Yeah. Yeah,

667
00:37:50,760 --> 00:37:54,680
Speaker 1: I mean, especially modern culture, we're so far removed from

668
00:37:54,800 --> 00:37:58,239
Speaker 1: from physical death. You know that, um, and I think

669
00:37:58,600 --> 00:38:00,960
Speaker 1: some would argue that we're too far removed from it,

670
00:38:01,080 --> 00:38:04,160
Speaker 1: you know that it uh, it makes it more problematic

671
00:38:04,320 --> 00:38:06,960
Speaker 1: in some cases when it does occur, and it of

672
00:38:06,960 --> 00:38:10,600
Speaker 1: course will occur, and it does impact our lives. UM.

673
00:38:10,680 --> 00:38:14,319
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's it's interesting to try and envision how

674
00:38:14,960 --> 00:38:17,200
Speaker 1: how a culture like this would have handled death, because

675
00:38:17,200 --> 00:38:19,440
Speaker 1: because again it would have been according to the way

676
00:38:19,440 --> 00:38:21,320
Speaker 1: they were discussing it in this article, it would have

677
00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:23,840
Speaker 1: been a situation where like, the body dies, there's some

678
00:38:23,880 --> 00:38:26,320
Speaker 1: sort of ritual that is conducted, but the body is

679
00:38:26,440 --> 00:38:29,479
Speaker 1: left out and long enough for the flies to begin

680
00:38:29,520 --> 00:38:32,480
Speaker 1: to work upon it, and then other funeral customs come

681
00:38:32,520 --> 00:38:35,000
Speaker 1: into play, and then it is eventually buried, and then

682
00:38:35,040 --> 00:38:36,520
Speaker 1: then it may be a phase later on where the

683
00:38:36,560 --> 00:38:39,920
Speaker 1: tomb is reopened. So it's um, you know, there's a

684
00:38:39,920 --> 00:38:43,080
Speaker 1: lot more in and out compared to what we're more

685
00:38:43,120 --> 00:38:51,680
Speaker 1: accustomed to with our modern funeral rights. Yeah, absolutely, thank

686
00:38:52,360 --> 00:38:56,919
Speaker 1: thank Okay, So we've been talking about um legends of

687
00:38:56,920 --> 00:39:01,520
Speaker 1: of human funerals for insects. We've been talking about associations

688
00:39:01,560 --> 00:39:06,440
Speaker 1: between insects, especially flies and UH and human funerary rituals

689
00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:09,640
Speaker 1: and different cultures. But one other thing that I thought

690
00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:12,960
Speaker 1: would be good to talk about would be how insects

691
00:39:13,080 --> 00:39:16,840
Speaker 1: deal with their own dead, the funerals within the insect world.

692
00:39:17,640 --> 00:39:19,840
Speaker 1: And one place I was looking was that there's a

693
00:39:19,960 --> 00:39:22,800
Speaker 1: there's a good short article on that GEO from seventeen

694
00:39:22,880 --> 00:39:26,960
Speaker 1: by Ali Wilkinson that collects some really interesting examples of

695
00:39:27,400 --> 00:39:30,920
Speaker 1: scientific studies and observations about how different types of social

696
00:39:30,960 --> 00:39:34,320
Speaker 1: insects in particular treat their own dead within and around

697
00:39:34,360 --> 00:39:35,960
Speaker 1: their nest. And I think if you're looking for the

698
00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:38,600
Speaker 1: really interesting practices, I think it would be these are

699
00:39:38,680 --> 00:39:42,800
Speaker 1: especially going to be among social insects. So the article

700
00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:45,439
Speaker 1: is called queen Ants and other insects bury they're dead.

701
00:39:45,760 --> 00:39:48,440
Speaker 1: Here's why. Uh. And so just to look at a

702
00:39:48,480 --> 00:39:51,520
Speaker 1: couple of examples cited here and maybe we can we

703
00:39:51,560 --> 00:39:53,920
Speaker 1: can come back and talk more about the general theory

704
00:39:53,960 --> 00:39:57,400
Speaker 1: on on why some of these things happen. Uh. For example,

705
00:39:57,440 --> 00:40:01,440
Speaker 1: among ants, it is commonly observed that in mature ant colonies,

706
00:40:01,480 --> 00:40:04,759
Speaker 1: there's a very orderly process for removing dead ants from

707
00:40:04,800 --> 00:40:08,560
Speaker 1: the nest. Worker ants will locate dead individuals from the

708
00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:12,520
Speaker 1: colony and then systematically carry their bodies away, either to

709
00:40:12,880 --> 00:40:15,600
Speaker 1: a place away from the nest like a trash heap

710
00:40:15,680 --> 00:40:18,799
Speaker 1: that's removed from the main nest activity or to a

711
00:40:18,840 --> 00:40:23,200
Speaker 1: special chamber within the nest. And Wilkinson also points out

712
00:40:23,200 --> 00:40:26,239
Speaker 1: a cool study from the journal b MC Evolutionary Biology

713
00:40:26,280 --> 00:40:30,600
Speaker 1: from ten by Christopher Pull and Sylvia Kramer reporting that

714
00:40:30,760 --> 00:40:35,280
Speaker 1: under some conditions, in some ants, even queens will engage

715
00:40:35,280 --> 00:40:38,319
Speaker 1: in undertaker duties. We can come back to why that

716
00:40:38,480 --> 00:40:41,719
Speaker 1: is a bit more later on, but just just to

717
00:40:41,760 --> 00:40:44,760
Speaker 1: explore what happens in the example of the black garden ant.

718
00:40:45,200 --> 00:40:49,680
Speaker 1: Sometimes in a young colony where there aren't many workers yet,

719
00:40:49,960 --> 00:40:53,040
Speaker 1: if one of the early queens in the colony dies,

720
00:40:53,239 --> 00:40:57,200
Speaker 1: the surviving queen will go to the dead queen's body,

721
00:40:57,520 --> 00:40:59,960
Speaker 1: bite it up into a bunch of pieces, and then

722
00:41:00,160 --> 00:41:04,560
Speaker 1: bury those pieces herself, which kind of goes against the

723
00:41:04,600 --> 00:41:06,640
Speaker 1: idea of you know, the the queen aunt er, the

724
00:41:06,719 --> 00:41:09,400
Speaker 1: queen bee, you know, the the queen and a social

725
00:41:09,480 --> 00:41:14,000
Speaker 1: insects species just being like sitting around and and doing

726
00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:16,319
Speaker 1: nothing and letting the workers do all the work and

727
00:41:16,920 --> 00:41:21,280
Speaker 1: basically only existing to fulfill reproductive duties and never having

728
00:41:21,880 --> 00:41:25,479
Speaker 1: never having any toil to their of their own. Yeah, yeah,

729
00:41:25,480 --> 00:41:27,920
Speaker 1: that it does. Yeah, you did not think about this,

730
00:41:28,000 --> 00:41:30,680
Speaker 1: so you either so you you either go overboard and

731
00:41:30,719 --> 00:41:33,719
Speaker 1: associate all sorts of like human qualities with the with

732
00:41:33,800 --> 00:41:36,399
Speaker 1: the aunt ruler, or you do just think of them

733
00:41:36,440 --> 00:41:41,440
Speaker 1: fulfilling this one key job within the colony. So to

734
00:41:41,480 --> 00:41:44,400
Speaker 1: be clear, I think biologically that is the most important

735
00:41:44,480 --> 00:41:46,360
Speaker 1: job of theirs, and most of the work of the

736
00:41:46,360 --> 00:41:50,080
Speaker 1: colony is relegated to these non reproducing workers. Yeah, but

737
00:41:50,120 --> 00:41:52,560
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, it's just just because you're reproducing all

738
00:41:52,560 --> 00:41:54,799
Speaker 1: the time, doesn't mean you can't clean up a little bit, right, right.

739
00:41:56,560 --> 00:41:59,680
Speaker 1: So another example be colonies and bees. There appears to

740
00:41:59,719 --> 00:42:03,799
Speaker 1: be very well organized behavior system for quickly ejecting dead

741
00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:06,440
Speaker 1: bodies from the nest. Looks like they usually just get

742
00:42:06,560 --> 00:42:09,760
Speaker 1: dropped on the ground outside the nest, and in honey bees,

743
00:42:09,960 --> 00:42:13,200
Speaker 1: this disposal process tends to happen very fast. It's carried

744
00:42:13,239 --> 00:42:16,760
Speaker 1: out by a special class of middle aged worker bees

745
00:42:16,800 --> 00:42:19,680
Speaker 1: representing about one to two of the population of the nest.

746
00:42:20,239 --> 00:42:23,239
Speaker 1: And Wilkinson points to a nineteen eighty three study by P.

747
00:42:23,520 --> 00:42:27,320
Speaker 1: Kirk Visher in the journal Animal Behavior that found really

748
00:42:27,360 --> 00:42:33,640
Speaker 1: acute time sensitivity in how the bees prioritize body disposal. So,

749
00:42:33,719 --> 00:42:37,280
Speaker 1: for example, corpses that were one hour old were removed

750
00:42:37,440 --> 00:42:41,279
Speaker 1: faster than bees that had died just moments before. And

751
00:42:41,320 --> 00:42:44,080
Speaker 1: I think this probably relies on some kind of chemical signal,

752
00:42:44,160 --> 00:42:47,160
Speaker 1: you know, uh, something you can smell coming off of

753
00:42:47,200 --> 00:42:50,440
Speaker 1: the dead bee, because Visier notes also that dead bees

754
00:42:50,480 --> 00:42:53,839
Speaker 1: that were coated in paraffin, which would probably interfere with

755
00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:57,960
Speaker 1: the penetration of smells and stuff, are removed much more slowly.

756
00:42:59,360 --> 00:43:02,280
Speaker 1: And then one last thing in termites. Wilkinson also writes

757
00:43:02,560 --> 00:43:05,720
Speaker 1: about some interesting behavior in termites. Whereas bees and ants

758
00:43:05,760 --> 00:43:09,040
Speaker 1: tend to remove the dead bodies from the nest or

759
00:43:09,080 --> 00:43:12,600
Speaker 1: deposit them in a special trash chamber, termites often bury

760
00:43:12,680 --> 00:43:15,560
Speaker 1: they're dead within the nest. But I guess that gets

761
00:43:15,560 --> 00:43:18,360
Speaker 1: this to the question of why, like, why would insects

762
00:43:18,360 --> 00:43:23,279
Speaker 1: have these organized, efficient funerary practices for the disposal of

763
00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:26,080
Speaker 1: the dead within their colonies. And I think there's a

764
00:43:26,120 --> 00:43:28,840
Speaker 1: pretty clear answer to it, at least a pretty clear

765
00:43:28,880 --> 00:43:34,200
Speaker 1: primary answer, and that is a disease control. Yes, yeah, absolutely, um.

766
00:43:34,239 --> 00:43:38,160
Speaker 1: I was reading reading a very concise article about this

767
00:43:38,320 --> 00:43:41,520
Speaker 1: by uh the author's son and Zoo. This was a

768
00:43:41,640 --> 00:43:45,760
Speaker 1: Corpse Management in Social Insects from in the International Journal

769
00:43:45,760 --> 00:43:49,480
Speaker 1: of Biological Sciences and they summed it up as follows.

770
00:43:49,680 --> 00:43:52,840
Speaker 1: Undertaking behavior is an essential adaptation to social life that

771
00:43:52,920 --> 00:43:57,440
Speaker 1: is critical for colony hygiene in enclosed nests. Social insects

772
00:43:57,520 --> 00:44:01,120
Speaker 1: dispose of dead individuals in various fats to prevent further

773
00:44:01,239 --> 00:44:05,319
Speaker 1: contact between corpses and living members in a colony. And

774
00:44:05,360 --> 00:44:06,719
Speaker 1: I think that that kind of puts a nice little

775
00:44:06,719 --> 00:44:09,080
Speaker 1: type bow on it right there. That's kind of the

776
00:44:09,120 --> 00:44:12,480
Speaker 1: concise answer, um. But of course it gets a lot

777
00:44:12,480 --> 00:44:14,680
Speaker 1: more complicated than than that, and certainly when you get

778
00:44:14,680 --> 00:44:19,600
Speaker 1: into the various specific examples. Um. Again, I think it's

779
00:44:19,600 --> 00:44:23,000
Speaker 1: important to note to note all this because one of

780
00:44:23,040 --> 00:44:25,440
Speaker 1: one of the major realities of modern funeral practices is

781
00:44:25,480 --> 00:44:29,400
Speaker 1: that we often have an almost extreme separation from physical death. Again,

782
00:44:29,480 --> 00:44:33,799
Speaker 1: someone argue it's even detrimental set separate separation from physical death,

783
00:44:34,239 --> 00:44:36,400
Speaker 1: but this is in fact one of the key factors

784
00:44:36,400 --> 00:44:39,600
Speaker 1: in having funeral rights and practices to limit the amount

785
00:44:39,600 --> 00:44:42,239
Speaker 1: of contact between the living and the dead, not just

786
00:44:42,320 --> 00:44:44,799
Speaker 1: because the dead can be unsightly and troubling for the

787
00:44:44,840 --> 00:44:47,920
Speaker 1: living to behold, not only to prop up some notion

788
00:44:47,960 --> 00:44:51,280
Speaker 1: of continuation of the individual after death, but also because

789
00:44:51,360 --> 00:44:55,839
Speaker 1: the dead are unhygienic and can serve as disease vectors. Now,

790
00:44:55,960 --> 00:44:59,640
Speaker 1: with solitary animals, that's one thing, right, Avoidance is usually

791
00:44:59,680 --> 00:45:02,160
Speaker 1: the best approach if you encounter one of your own dead,

792
00:45:02,880 --> 00:45:06,920
Speaker 1: But social animals are just going to regularly encounter their

793
00:45:06,960 --> 00:45:09,920
Speaker 1: own dead. They are. There are essentially three different ways

794
00:45:09,960 --> 00:45:12,480
Speaker 1: of dealing with your own dead when you encounter them.

795
00:45:12,520 --> 00:45:17,040
Speaker 1: There's necrophagi eating the dead, there's corpse removal, and there's

796
00:45:17,080 --> 00:45:20,359
Speaker 1: burial and and necrophagy. As we've discussed in the show before,

797
00:45:20,360 --> 00:45:23,560
Speaker 1: it's pretty widespread in various organisms uh and is also

798
00:45:23,600 --> 00:45:27,040
Speaker 1: found in human traditions. It's it's one solution, though not

799
00:45:27,280 --> 00:45:31,040
Speaker 1: though it's fortunate without its own complications. But his son

800
00:45:31,120 --> 00:45:34,160
Speaker 1: Enzo will point out while sanitary issues related to corpses

801
00:45:34,200 --> 00:45:38,279
Speaker 1: are widespread, they are particularly sharp and dense populations for

802
00:45:38,320 --> 00:45:42,280
Speaker 1: social organisms, and of course that that category certainly includes

803
00:45:42,360 --> 00:45:46,160
Speaker 1: human beings, but it also includes use social insects like bees,

804
00:45:46,560 --> 00:45:50,920
Speaker 1: ants and termites, and so we see complex responses at

805
00:45:50,920 --> 00:45:54,120
Speaker 1: the individual and colony level to deal with the dead

806
00:45:54,360 --> 00:45:57,920
Speaker 1: and to engage in what humans would call undertaking. So

807
00:45:57,960 --> 00:46:02,200
Speaker 1: they point out that for certain social spiders and social afids,

808
00:46:02,360 --> 00:46:06,000
Speaker 1: corpse removal is just an indistinguishable part of clearing out

809
00:46:06,000 --> 00:46:09,799
Speaker 1: a nest site. It's quote indistinguishable from dealing with inanimate

810
00:46:09,880 --> 00:46:12,839
Speaker 1: nest waste. So so that's one way of approaching it.

811
00:46:12,840 --> 00:46:15,400
Speaker 1: It's just like if you would get like a twig

812
00:46:15,520 --> 00:46:18,120
Speaker 1: or something in your nest area and you'd you'd clean

813
00:46:18,200 --> 00:46:21,480
Speaker 1: that out eventually, the same thing happens to the dead afid. Right.

814
00:46:21,520 --> 00:46:23,279
Speaker 1: It would be kind of like if you were, um,

815
00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:26,239
Speaker 1: you know, if you you had a human house, and

816
00:46:26,480 --> 00:46:29,120
Speaker 1: you were to remove a dead body from your house

817
00:46:29,440 --> 00:46:34,560
Speaker 1: with about as much precaution and and ceremony as you

818
00:46:34,560 --> 00:46:37,000
Speaker 1: would take out the trash, where you're like, oh, well

819
00:46:37,160 --> 00:46:39,359
Speaker 1: they're dead, so I'll take them out and put them

820
00:46:39,360 --> 00:46:41,319
Speaker 1: in the trash can. That's kind of what some of

821
00:46:41,320 --> 00:46:43,759
Speaker 1: these social spiders and social athids are doing. But they

822
00:46:43,760 --> 00:46:47,239
Speaker 1: point out that ants, bees, wasps, termites, we see much

823
00:46:47,280 --> 00:46:50,319
Speaker 1: more complex modes of behavior in which the treatment of

824
00:46:50,320 --> 00:46:53,520
Speaker 1: the dead is distinct from the treatment of other waste products.

825
00:46:53,960 --> 00:46:57,080
Speaker 1: And these methods kind of they kind of pick from

826
00:46:57,120 --> 00:47:00,680
Speaker 1: the eat removed berry toolbox of possibility, and I think

827
00:47:00,719 --> 00:47:03,640
Speaker 1: we see that in some of these specific UH answers

828
00:47:03,680 --> 00:47:06,479
Speaker 1: that you already looked at, you know, the idea of say,

829
00:47:06,800 --> 00:47:09,680
Speaker 1: cutting up the body of the dead and then burying

830
00:47:09,680 --> 00:47:12,719
Speaker 1: those pieces, of just simply removing the dead and just

831
00:47:12,760 --> 00:47:15,560
Speaker 1: throwing them out of the colony, versus removing them and

832
00:47:15,600 --> 00:47:17,960
Speaker 1: burying them or in the case of the term ise,

833
00:47:18,080 --> 00:47:20,400
Speaker 1: just burying them within the nest. The one of the

834
00:47:20,440 --> 00:47:24,120
Speaker 1: really interesting questions I guess here is um, among these

835
00:47:24,160 --> 00:47:27,160
Speaker 1: youth social insects, how do they know what to do?

836
00:47:27,600 --> 00:47:29,839
Speaker 1: You know, like, how do how do they know how

837
00:47:29,920 --> 00:47:33,800
Speaker 1: to guide and control this behavior? What's the what's the

838
00:47:33,880 --> 00:47:36,520
Speaker 1: nervous system flow chart for an aunt or a bee

839
00:47:36,960 --> 00:47:40,480
Speaker 1: to participate in undertaking? Yeah, this is where it gets interesting.

840
00:47:40,560 --> 00:47:43,799
Speaker 1: You get into a lot of really deep research over

841
00:47:43,840 --> 00:47:47,040
Speaker 1: the years because um, you know what, what is the

842
00:47:47,040 --> 00:47:50,440
Speaker 1: trigger that causes them to remove the dead? And by

843
00:47:50,480 --> 00:47:53,880
Speaker 1: the way, there's a term for this for the removal

844
00:47:53,920 --> 00:47:57,520
Speaker 1: of the dead, and it is um uh necrophoresis And

845
00:47:57,600 --> 00:48:00,719
Speaker 1: this is from the Greek just basically to move the dead.

846
00:48:00,880 --> 00:48:02,840
Speaker 1: But it was coined by none other than E. O.

847
00:48:02,960 --> 00:48:08,319
Speaker 1: Wilson Um, you know, the the master ant researcher who

848
00:48:08,760 --> 00:48:10,720
Speaker 1: who you know, this is one of his research projects

849
00:48:10,719 --> 00:48:13,839
Speaker 1: for a while, was like looking at how uh individual

850
00:48:13,880 --> 00:48:17,040
Speaker 1: ants within a colony pick up on death and then

851
00:48:17,239 --> 00:48:20,400
Speaker 1: respond accordingly. So, you know, obviously this is the first step.

852
00:48:20,600 --> 00:48:23,120
Speaker 1: You have to know what's dead. Uh. Is this a

853
00:48:23,160 --> 00:48:25,600
Speaker 1: live ant or is this a dead aunt? Is it

854
00:48:25,640 --> 00:48:29,360
Speaker 1: getting better? Uh? Just a flesh wound whatever? Uh, you

855
00:48:29,360 --> 00:48:31,680
Speaker 1: know you have to be able to react accordingly. Uh.

856
00:48:31,719 --> 00:48:34,000
Speaker 1: You know it's vital to colony health. And it's based

857
00:48:34,080 --> 00:48:38,480
Speaker 1: on chemical signals. Apparently um as is much of the

858
00:48:38,480 --> 00:48:41,120
Speaker 1: activity within the ant world, and you can you can

859
00:48:41,160 --> 00:48:45,239
Speaker 1: broadly think of the behavior as entailing death recognition and

860
00:48:45,239 --> 00:48:49,440
Speaker 1: then behavioral responses and then task allocation for dealing with

861
00:48:49,480 --> 00:48:54,160
Speaker 1: the dead. So Wilson and his fellow researchers identified what

862
00:48:54,200 --> 00:48:57,680
Speaker 1: they called fatty acid death cues as being important in here,

863
00:48:57,920 --> 00:49:00,719
Speaker 1: though subsequent research seems to sugge us that those are

864
00:49:00,719 --> 00:49:03,560
Speaker 1: not the only signals involved, because sometimes the response time

865
00:49:03,640 --> 00:49:07,480
Speaker 1: seems too short, like they're the uh the ants in

866
00:49:07,560 --> 00:49:12,080
Speaker 1: question are reacting before the fatty acid death cues would generate.

867
00:49:12,800 --> 00:49:15,120
Speaker 1: Get it all gets very you know, complicated in ant

868
00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:20,799
Speaker 1: world chemical But basically they they seem to lean more

869
00:49:20,840 --> 00:49:24,760
Speaker 1: into perhaps a chemical vital sign detection by the ants.

870
00:49:24,760 --> 00:49:26,879
Speaker 1: So it's it's not just picking up maybe on one

871
00:49:26,960 --> 00:49:29,640
Speaker 1: chemical that's saying I'm dead, but it's more of like

872
00:49:29,719 --> 00:49:33,759
Speaker 1: a a chemical vital sign array that an ant is

873
00:49:33,760 --> 00:49:36,319
Speaker 1: able to pick up on and read and the the

874
00:49:36,680 --> 00:49:39,440
Speaker 1: In this uh, this particular Son and Out article, they

875
00:49:39,480 --> 00:49:44,040
Speaker 1: also write that the term uh necromone is also used.

876
00:49:44,440 --> 00:49:48,239
Speaker 1: This is like pheromone, except related to death, and this

877
00:49:48,280 --> 00:49:50,279
Speaker 1: has been used to describe sort of the sort of

878
00:49:50,280 --> 00:49:54,200
Speaker 1: the realm of death recognition chemicals. Uh. I love that

879
00:49:54,200 --> 00:49:56,200
Speaker 1: that the necromone. It sounds like something that would be

880
00:49:56,280 --> 00:50:00,239
Speaker 1: made up for a Riddic film, you know, yes, but

881
00:50:00,280 --> 00:50:03,000
Speaker 1: also fits well within the the ant world, you know

882
00:50:03,080 --> 00:50:05,680
Speaker 1: that they would again the chemical language of them. I

883
00:50:05,719 --> 00:50:08,520
Speaker 1: love this idea of these, you know, these these creatures

884
00:50:08,600 --> 00:50:10,719
Speaker 1: that we often you know, we think about them as

885
00:50:10,760 --> 00:50:12,960
Speaker 1: being very simple, and they are, you know, you know,

886
00:50:13,000 --> 00:50:16,359
Speaker 1: in a way like simple but but complex parts of

887
00:50:16,400 --> 00:50:20,479
Speaker 1: this greater whole. And there's this whole language that they're

888
00:50:20,520 --> 00:50:24,799
Speaker 1: engaged in, this chemical language that it's kind of a

889
00:50:24,800 --> 00:50:26,920
Speaker 1: stretch for us to truly imagine it, you know, they

890
00:50:27,040 --> 00:50:29,720
Speaker 1: do the imagine being able to read the chemical vital

891
00:50:29,800 --> 00:50:34,040
Speaker 1: science of other members of our society. That is really interesting.

892
00:50:34,400 --> 00:50:37,359
Speaker 1: And weirdly like it gets even deeper because there are

893
00:50:37,440 --> 00:50:41,680
Speaker 1: some of these behaviors for the use social insects removing

894
00:50:42,600 --> 00:50:46,640
Speaker 1: the dead from their nests that incorporate prioritization of the

895
00:50:46,719 --> 00:50:50,480
Speaker 1: task based on how much of a disease risk the

896
00:50:50,520 --> 00:50:55,120
Speaker 1: dead body would actually entail, So that that that raises

897
00:50:55,160 --> 00:50:58,040
Speaker 1: all these other questions, like how can they tell what

898
00:50:58,239 --> 00:51:00,520
Speaker 1: kind of disease risk this is? Like that there's a

899
00:51:00,560 --> 00:51:05,160
Speaker 1: section in that Wilkinson article that talks about study in

900
00:51:05,200 --> 00:51:10,160
Speaker 1: the journal Scientific Reports about about termites that found that

901
00:51:10,200 --> 00:51:13,399
Speaker 1: the termites would react differently to a dead body within

902
00:51:13,480 --> 00:51:16,680
Speaker 1: their nest depending on whether it was a member of

903
00:51:16,719 --> 00:51:20,920
Speaker 1: their own species or from a very closely related species.

904
00:51:21,760 --> 00:51:24,880
Speaker 1: Just to read from Wilkinson quote, regardless of whether a

905
00:51:24,920 --> 00:51:28,600
Speaker 1: corpse of the same species came from their own colony

906
00:51:28,760 --> 00:51:31,600
Speaker 1: or another colony, it was pulled back into the holding

907
00:51:31,680 --> 00:51:35,759
Speaker 1: chamber for nutrient recycling and hygienic purposes. But if the

908
00:51:35,800 --> 00:51:39,440
Speaker 1: corpse was that of a dark southeastern subterranean termite or

909
00:51:39,600 --> 00:51:44,480
Speaker 1: reticular Termy's virginicus, it was entombed by workers on site

910
00:51:44,480 --> 00:51:48,800
Speaker 1: with a large group of soldiers standing guard. Ten times

911
00:51:48,840 --> 00:51:51,759
Speaker 1: as many termites were involved with the burial of this

912
00:51:51,920 --> 00:51:57,360
Speaker 1: closely related species than the same species, but the extra time, energy,

913
00:51:57,400 --> 00:52:00,759
Speaker 1: and labor were warranted. Researchers found in the face of

914
00:52:00,840 --> 00:52:05,080
Speaker 1: external pathogens, so that so there there seems to be

915
00:52:05,120 --> 00:52:09,560
Speaker 1: some kind of like evolutionary mechanism controlling the behavior here

916
00:52:10,040 --> 00:52:13,840
Speaker 1: that recognizes certain types of dead termites within the nest

917
00:52:14,200 --> 00:52:18,120
Speaker 1: as an elevated disease risk because maybe they're bringing in

918
00:52:18,160 --> 00:52:20,440
Speaker 1: a pathogen that is new to the nest and and

919
00:52:20,480 --> 00:52:23,160
Speaker 1: could decimate it if it's not disposed of, you know,

920
00:52:23,320 --> 00:52:25,759
Speaker 1: immediately and totally, even though that might be a very

921
00:52:25,920 --> 00:52:29,680
Speaker 1: energy intensive process for the colony. Yeah, yeah, it's it's

922
00:52:29,719 --> 00:52:32,920
Speaker 1: it's amazing how these you know, each each colony is

923
00:52:32,960 --> 00:52:36,440
Speaker 1: like this entire immune system. And that that brings me

924
00:52:36,520 --> 00:52:40,240
Speaker 1: back to, uh, that other study I was talking about earlier,

925
00:52:40,239 --> 00:52:43,360
Speaker 1: the one in BMC Evolutionary Biology about the black Garden

926
00:52:43,440 --> 00:52:46,960
Speaker 1: aunt and how the queens will sometimes participate in undertaking

927
00:52:46,960 --> 00:52:50,279
Speaker 1: behaviors if the colony is young and there are not

928
00:52:50,400 --> 00:52:53,080
Speaker 1: enough workers to help out with it. And this is

929
00:52:53,120 --> 00:52:56,400
Speaker 1: a situation where there can be multiple co founding queens

930
00:52:56,400 --> 00:52:58,960
Speaker 1: and a colony. Actually, just to read from from the

931
00:52:59,000 --> 00:53:02,760
Speaker 1: abstract of the study quote. Social insects formed densely crowded

932
00:53:02,800 --> 00:53:06,200
Speaker 1: societies and environments with high pathogen loads, but have evolved

933
00:53:06,239 --> 00:53:10,719
Speaker 1: collective defenses that mitigate the impact of disease. However, colony

934
00:53:10,800 --> 00:53:15,600
Speaker 1: founding queens lack this protection and suffer high rates of mortality.

935
00:53:15,960 --> 00:53:19,359
Speaker 1: The impact of pathogens may be exacerbated in species where

936
00:53:19,440 --> 00:53:25,000
Speaker 1: queens found colonies together, as healthy individuals may contract pathogens

937
00:53:25,000 --> 00:53:30,320
Speaker 1: from infectious co founders. Therefore, we tested whether aunt queens

938
00:53:30,400 --> 00:53:35,160
Speaker 1: avoid founding colonies with pathogen exposed con specifics and how

939
00:53:35,200 --> 00:53:39,680
Speaker 1: they might limit disease transmission from infected individuals. And what

940
00:53:39,760 --> 00:53:42,319
Speaker 1: this found is when there were these co founders, these

941
00:53:42,360 --> 00:53:45,239
Speaker 1: co founding queens in a colony, if one of the

942
00:53:45,280 --> 00:53:48,879
Speaker 1: original queens died, the surviving queen again would would do

943
00:53:48,920 --> 00:53:51,719
Speaker 1: this biting process where they would sort of chomp up

944
00:53:51,760 --> 00:53:55,920
Speaker 1: the other queen into pieces and then bury and remove

945
00:53:56,000 --> 00:53:59,279
Speaker 1: the corpse. And the authors here right quote these undertaking

946
00:53:59,280 --> 00:54:03,879
Speaker 1: behaviors were formed prophylactically, i e. Targeted equally towards non

947
00:54:03,960 --> 00:54:07,480
Speaker 1: infected and infected corpses, as well as carried out before

948
00:54:07,560 --> 00:54:12,399
Speaker 1: infected corpses became infectious. Biting and burial reduced the risk

949
00:54:12,440 --> 00:54:16,000
Speaker 1: of queens contracting and dying from disease from an infectious

950
00:54:16,000 --> 00:54:19,400
Speaker 1: corpse of a dead co foundress. So they did actually

951
00:54:19,400 --> 00:54:22,600
Speaker 1: find this how to survival benefit to the queen that's

952
00:54:22,640 --> 00:54:25,360
Speaker 1: doing this work, because better to be safe than sorry

953
00:54:25,400 --> 00:54:28,319
Speaker 1: and get that corpse buried just in case it could

954
00:54:28,400 --> 00:54:31,359
Speaker 1: become infectious. Well, this has been interesting, I think by

955
00:54:31,360 --> 00:54:35,279
Speaker 1: looking at insects in their relationship to death, we've kind

956
00:54:35,280 --> 00:54:38,439
Speaker 1: of gotten to explore both ends of the spectrum, like

957
00:54:38,680 --> 00:54:42,319
Speaker 1: the stripped down version of what funeral rights are, like

958
00:54:42,360 --> 00:54:45,560
Speaker 1: what does it mean to bury that they departed and

959
00:54:45,600 --> 00:54:47,640
Speaker 1: why do we do it on a very basic level,

960
00:54:48,120 --> 00:54:51,880
Speaker 1: but then also seeing how some of these these insects

961
00:54:52,080 --> 00:54:55,959
Speaker 1: end up being brought into far more elaborate understandings of

962
00:54:55,960 --> 00:54:59,800
Speaker 1: a human death as well. Now, obviously we we could

963
00:55:00,120 --> 00:55:02,279
Speaker 1: we should come back in the future and talk more

964
00:55:02,320 --> 00:55:04,800
Speaker 1: about funeral traditions. We've talked about funeral traditions on the

965
00:55:04,840 --> 00:55:07,839
Speaker 1: show before, um, but but yeah, we could come back

966
00:55:07,880 --> 00:55:10,080
Speaker 1: and discuss sort of like the the early days, like

967
00:55:10,160 --> 00:55:13,160
Speaker 1: how what are some of the earliest examples of of

968
00:55:13,200 --> 00:55:16,759
Speaker 1: burial among humans and pre humans and what does it

969
00:55:16,800 --> 00:55:19,040
Speaker 1: mean like what and what aspects of it do we

970
00:55:19,040 --> 00:55:22,160
Speaker 1: still see in our practices today. Yeah, those types of

971
00:55:22,160 --> 00:55:25,680
Speaker 1: things are often interpreted as the earliest signs we have

972
00:55:26,040 --> 00:55:29,520
Speaker 1: of the development of religion and humans. But you know,

973
00:55:29,560 --> 00:55:34,880
Speaker 1: that's a really interesting area with a lot of questions open. Yeah.

974
00:55:34,920 --> 00:55:37,600
Speaker 1: On the ant front, obviously, we've We've done plenty of

975
00:55:37,600 --> 00:55:40,080
Speaker 1: other AUNT episodes that I'd refer folks back to, including

976
00:55:40,080 --> 00:55:43,200
Speaker 1: our our three parter on ant Warfare that we did

977
00:55:43,320 --> 00:55:46,360
Speaker 1: earlier this year. But I also want to mention a

978
00:55:46,480 --> 00:55:50,720
Speaker 1: really great YouTube channel. Uh. This is one called Ants Canada.

979
00:55:50,760 --> 00:55:52,920
Speaker 1: Are you familiar with this one, Joe, I don't think so.

980
00:55:53,680 --> 00:55:56,200
Speaker 1: I was. I was not familiar with until a friend

981
00:55:56,320 --> 00:56:00,440
Speaker 1: recommended as something to to show UM kids. And it's

982
00:56:00,480 --> 00:56:02,919
Speaker 1: I mean, it's also really interesting for adults as well.

983
00:56:02,960 --> 00:56:08,800
Speaker 1: But uh, this uh individual UM has this entire channel

984
00:56:08,880 --> 00:56:14,000
Speaker 1: devoted to their various uh ant farms and also habitats

985
00:56:14,040 --> 00:56:16,800
Speaker 1: for other creatures. But ants are the like the key focus,

986
00:56:17,440 --> 00:56:20,759
Speaker 1: and it's it's really well done. Lots of great photography

987
00:56:20,800 --> 00:56:23,359
Speaker 1: and video work. Uh. Some of the very topics we've

988
00:56:23,360 --> 00:56:27,239
Speaker 1: discussed here pop up in the show as as they chronicle,

989
00:56:27,600 --> 00:56:29,920
Speaker 1: uh the ins and outs of the various ant colonies

990
00:56:29,960 --> 00:56:31,600
Speaker 1: and how they deal with their dad, how they deal

991
00:56:31,640 --> 00:56:34,480
Speaker 1: with invaders and stuff of that nature. So, uh, my

992
00:56:34,520 --> 00:56:36,160
Speaker 1: family has really been enjoying it. So if you have

993
00:56:36,160 --> 00:56:39,239
Speaker 1: any Aunt fans out there, I highly recommend it as

994
00:56:39,239 --> 00:56:42,640
Speaker 1: good stuff. Oh I just looked this channel up. I

995
00:56:42,719 --> 00:56:45,239
Speaker 1: see one title on a popular video here seems to

996
00:56:45,239 --> 00:56:48,720
Speaker 1: take a page from EO. Wilson says fire ants versus

997
00:56:48,800 --> 00:56:53,120
Speaker 1: my hand. Yeah, yeah, I think IO Wilson would approve.

998
00:56:54,280 --> 00:56:57,279
Speaker 1: Here's another one cockroach giving birth while being devoured by

999
00:56:57,280 --> 00:56:59,080
Speaker 1: fire ants. Well, yeah, I'll have to give this a

1000
00:56:59,120 --> 00:57:02,240
Speaker 1: shot out. I think some of these popular ones maybe

1001
00:57:02,280 --> 00:57:05,279
Speaker 1: look there, they make the channel look a little grizzlier

1002
00:57:05,600 --> 00:57:09,839
Speaker 1: than it actually is. But but I'm I mean, I'm

1003
00:57:09,840 --> 00:57:11,600
Speaker 1: sure I don't know if I've watched any of these,

1004
00:57:11,680 --> 00:57:13,960
Speaker 1: uh these top ones yet. I kind of come in

1005
00:57:13,960 --> 00:57:16,080
Speaker 1: and out of the room home it's on sometimes, but

1006
00:57:16,200 --> 00:57:18,560
Speaker 1: I inevitably end up pausing to see what's going on.

1007
00:57:18,600 --> 00:57:21,880
Speaker 1: There'll be some big mystery with the colony, and uh,

1008
00:57:22,000 --> 00:57:23,920
Speaker 1: you know, they explore and they watch and they figure

1009
00:57:23,920 --> 00:57:26,360
Speaker 1: it out. Of course, whatever is the grossest and most

1010
00:57:26,360 --> 00:57:28,280
Speaker 1: gruesome content on the channel is going to be the

1011
00:57:28,280 --> 00:57:31,320
Speaker 1: most viewed well, yeah, that's that's that's what will be rewarded.

1012
00:57:31,360 --> 00:57:34,200
Speaker 1: But you know the ants don't care. They don't care

1013
00:57:34,200 --> 00:57:37,360
Speaker 1: about clicks and subscribers. All right, we're gonna go and

1014
00:57:37,400 --> 00:57:39,200
Speaker 1: close it out there. If you would like to listen

1015
00:57:39,200 --> 00:57:41,000
Speaker 1: to other episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, you

1016
00:57:41,000 --> 00:57:43,680
Speaker 1: should check out the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast channel.

1017
00:57:43,960 --> 00:57:47,120
Speaker 1: You can find that wherever you get your podcasts. UH

1018
00:57:47,200 --> 00:57:51,400
Speaker 1: core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursday's Weird House Cinema on Fridays,

1019
00:57:51,920 --> 00:57:54,560
Speaker 1: and where we've got artifact and listener mail in the

1020
00:57:54,640 --> 00:57:57,360
Speaker 1: mix as well. Uh and wherever you listen to the show.

1021
00:57:57,400 --> 00:57:59,959
Speaker 1: We just asked the you rate, review, and subscribe huge

1022
00:58:00,040 --> 00:58:03,720
Speaker 1: thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.

1023
00:58:04,080 --> 00:58:05,600
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us

1024
00:58:05,600 --> 00:58:08,560
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1025
00:58:08,560 --> 00:58:10,680
Speaker 1: a topic for the future, or just to say hi,

1026
00:58:10,800 --> 00:58:13,439
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

1027
00:58:13,480 --> 00:58:23,280
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

1028
00:58:23,320 --> 00:58:26,000
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my

1029
00:58:26,040 --> 00:58:29,120
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or

1030
00:58:29,120 --> 00:58:39,640
Speaker 1: wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.