WEBVTT - The Winter People, Part 1 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:14.319 Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.360 --> 0:00:17.200 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:20.520 And we are entering into winter, are we. Yeah, well 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:23.240 today it feels more like winter. I would say in Atlanta, 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:27.040 we enter into winter sometime around mid March, and then 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:31.000 we exit it sometime around mid March, and then it's 0:00:31.040 --> 0:00:35.760 summer again until December when fall begins. Yeah, that's the 0:00:35.800 --> 0:00:38.520 way it was this last year. It's it basically stayed fall, 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:41.520 then it became spring just enough for my fig tree 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:44.480 to begin to to emerge, and then it was winter 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:46.680 again for like three days. This is enough to kill it. 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:50.800 This is really disrupting, I think, because you want to 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:53.880 be able to have seasonal traditions, and you want them 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:57.120 to be able to to be re enacted with some 0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:00.840 kind of reliability. Every year I see an old traditions 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:02.840 or something that I think gives a lot of anchoring 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:05.920 meaning to our lives. When you're a little kid and 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:09.800 you have that recognition that like, oh, Christmas is coming 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:12.200 or something like that. Whatever your traditions, maybe if you 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:15.120 don't celebrate Christmas, you probably have something like that sometime 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:18.000 in the year that sort of like marks a seasonal 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:21.000 transition and and that another part of a season is 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:24.400 based around. So like here in America, for kids who 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:28.000 celebrate Christmas, winter is not just a cold time. It's 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:32.720 Christmas time. Yeah, yeah, it's it's almost impossible to escape 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:38.920 the trappings of essentially Northern European winter survival traditions. They've 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:41.840 been you know, they've been neutered and altered and and 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:45.959 and changed into a different uh form altogether, but the 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:49.880 shape is still there, Like the deep mythic importance of 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:53.560 Santa Claus and and Ulogus and all the all these 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:57.320 various trappings like their their their mythic purpose is still 0:01:57.360 --> 0:01:59.960 present if you if you just look hard enough. Yeah, 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:02.360 but you can also see that there's something kind of 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:06.480 wrong with the way we practice Christmas here in Atlanta, Georgia, 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:10.640 because when I see all of the traditional aesthetic stuff 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:13.240 that's associated with Christmas, it's all got snow on it. 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:16.120 There's just snow on everything. Santa's walk around in the snow, 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:18.280 He's got snow on him. He kind of looks like 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:20.840 he's sort of made of snow. There is snow on 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:23.280 all the Christmas trees you see in all the pictures 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:27.040 and children playing in the snow, and it never snows 0:02:27.040 --> 0:02:29.959 on Christmas down here. It's usually in the seventies. I 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:31.720 think we gotta we got a white Christmas at some 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:33.360 point in the last few years. But yeah, for the 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:35.919 most part, you're right. The only way you're going to 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:38.640 have snow on Christmas is if you import it or 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:40.840 you you have your tree flocked. But yeah, to come 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:42.480 back to the point I was making earlier, I think 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:46.600 one reason this variable weather and the unreliability of it 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:50.000 actually feeling like wintertime at Christmas is so troubling is 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:53.760 that we really want to have dependable seasonal cycles that 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:57.959 correspond to our ceremonies, because our ceremonies make the seasons 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:01.919 mean something, and it almost feels encoded into our bodies 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:05.160 that the seasons should mean something. It shouldn't just be 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:08.079 a time where the weather is a little different outside. 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:13.280 It feels like seasons should mark something important in our existence. Yeah, 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:15.320 though it is hard. It is hard to backtrack because 0:03:15.320 --> 0:03:18.400 you can't just suddenly say I'm sorry, kids, but a 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:21.200 Christian saint is going to climb out of the hearth 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:26.880 tonight and starts. You know, if he's actually supposed to 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:29.000 be based on St. Nicholas, you should you should do 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:30.840 yourself a favor and go look up some of the 0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:34.600 legends about the actual St. Nicholas. He's fantastic. There's a 0:03:34.600 --> 0:03:37.480 great story where St. Nicholas goes into an inn where 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:40.920 there's an evil innkeeper who has uh. I guess he 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:43.200 just didn't like children. So he took some boys and 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:44.960 he killed them, and he chopped them up, and he 0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:48.480 pickled them in a big pot. And then St. Nicholas 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:52.040 resurrects the chopped up, pickled children. Oh man, that's wonderful. 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:54.800 That's the best resurrection story ever heard. But it does 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:58.320 drive home the inherent darkness of Christmas when we talk 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:02.640 about the like the commercialization and the modernization of holiday 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:05.920 traditions were generally squeezing the darkness out of it. And 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:08.280 that's why I feel like so many people have taken 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:13.320 to say Crampus and other traditional yet dark elements of 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:18.040 holiday and pagan tradition because they represent the darkness that 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:20.240 we're trying to get away from. And it ultimately is 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:22.720 a dark time. It is about surviving the winter is 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:28.160 it is about the cold moving in about life, draining 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:31.320 from all of our vegetation, and we have to somehow 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:35.520 stay warm and stay fed and live to see the spring. Yeah, 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:38.120 and it feels very possible that this could be something 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:40.440 that's like, I don't know, almost kind of a young 0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:42.920 Gian archetype kind of thing, a thing that's coded deep 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:46.880 into the unconscious, that's some kind of received memory from biohistory, 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:49.800 because you look at how a lot of other animals 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:53.679 deal with the winter, deal with the cold months, and 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:57.760 it is they go. They undergo profound changes beyond just 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:00.599 the changes in how humans practice their culture when it 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:02.839 gets cold. Oh yeah, I mean one of the most 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:07.039 iconic examples is, of course, the bear. And I was 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:11.719 recently listening to Roaming Imagination What the stories we tell 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:15.240 about bears say about us? On CBC Radio's Ideas with 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:18.960 Paul Kennedy, one of my favorite podcast slash radio programs. 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:20.880 Folks out there, you didn't get to hear it, but 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:24.320 before we started, Robert was trying to do with Paul Kennedy. Yeah, 0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:26.400 I sadly I can't. I can. I can nail a 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:29.440 few impersonations, but I just can't quite capture Paul Kennedy's 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:32.120 lovely voice. You sound kind of like Optimist Prime when 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:36.080 it Yeah, he's like a Canadian Optimist Prime, I would guess. 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:38.840 But in this episode they point out the mythic power 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:43.560 of bears in many ancient Northern traditions, traditions that gave 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:46.480 the bear place of honor as a boundary walker between 0:05:46.520 --> 0:05:50.359 the human and the divine, because when the cruel winter 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:54.440 rolls in, threatening our survival and even our very sanity, 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:58.159 the bear ventures into the earth, only to emerge again 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:02.080 in the spring. So it's it's it's like a resurrection really. 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:05.479 Uh So this is why you see shamans have in 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:08.239 ancient societies taking on the guys of the holy bear. 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:14.200 Norwegian traditions, for example, uh entailed grave shrouds of bear hide, 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:18.960 appropriating the magical power of this animal that seeks and 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:22.560 returns from the winter grave. In Finland you have pre 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:27.479 Christian traditions that hold that bears can reincarnate, and the 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:31.040 indigenous reincarnate as other bears or reincarnate as other types 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:34.240 of creatures as bears. Yeah, so there's like that, there 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:36.520 is this h this cycle of the bear. So like 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:39.159 the bear is following a different set of rules for 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:42.760 life and death. And then there's the indigenous I knew 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:45.359 people of Japan that holds the bear is a god 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:49.760 but in an in an interesting twist, a god made 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:53.240 flesh for their consumption and use. Uh so, so these 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:56.360 are bear eating people's Well yeah, yeah, they they eat 0:06:56.400 --> 0:06:59.479 the bear, they use the bears hide, and they make 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:02.880 products out of the bear. But there's this idea that 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:06.400 the god that becomes the bear has become the bear 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:09.760 so that they can use its flesh, oh like like 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:12.280 a sacrificial like this is my bare body, take and 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:15.440 eat exactly. Yeah. And then afterwards they hold a ceremony 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:18.520 to return the bear god's spirit to the spirit realm. 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:21.400 And of course, even today, bear hibernation, which which is 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:25.200 not a true hibernation, remains of interest to scientists, even 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:28.000 in the consideration of future space travel. Now you say 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:30.480 it's not a true hibernation, what would actually be the 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:33.440 difference between this pseudo hibernation we see in bears and 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:36.920 a true hibernation. Well, what bears do is certainly incredible 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:38.840 and and we'll get to the details of that in 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:42.000 a second, but but true hibernation is even crazier. The 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:45.560 Arctic ground squirrel, for instance, drops its body temperature below freezing, 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:49.640 which is cold enough that neurons in the brain's cortex 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:53.240 are physically incapable of firing, so basically it can put 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:57.600 its brain on pause. Yeah, basically. Uh. In Jason Biddle's 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:02.360 Slate article The Great do Bear hibernate Debate, he points 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:07.400 to a wonderful two experiment with torpid marmots, and it 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:10.080 found that you could place these hibernating creatures in a 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:14.520 glass container full of noxious gas and they were unharmed 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:17.040 so long as their body temperature didn't rise enough for 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:21.120 them to emerge from hibernation, so they could sort of freeze. 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:23.720 And it's almost like they just cut themselves off from 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:27.280 outside influence and some unless something like squishes them. Yeah, yeah, 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:29.240 as long as nothing comes in and messes with them 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:31.920 during the hibernation, right, I guess you're always going to 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:34.120 be vulnerable to getting squished. Yeah, that's I mean, that's 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:36.560 that's the risk of being a marmot. Uh No. But 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:40.040 in the case of hibernating bears, I mean this. They 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:42.160 fascinate us for a number of reasons, and a lot 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:44.120 of it comes down to the fact that you have 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:48.360 this rugged apex omnivore. So it's it's a be steal 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:50.440 reflection of us in many respects. I mean, you can 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:53.160 even walk on two legs when it needs to. Yeah, 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:55.320 I was just thinking about that, all the ways that 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:58.960 the bare mirrors the human. It can walk on two legs, 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:01.880 it does eat both you know. It's it's a total 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:05.720 opportunist in terms of diet, can eat both plants and animals, 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:08.360 and when it decides to eat animals, it is a 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:12.920 formidable predator, just like humans. Um. It almost it seems 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:15.400 like it's like the other thing like us out there. 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:18.480 If you don't have great apes to compare yourself to, Like, 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:21.160 if you're not in a place where there are chimpanzees 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:24.079 or orangutangs or guerrillas, what's the closest thing to a 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:26.600 human seems like it might be a bear. Yeah. And 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:31.000 I was running class across various folkloric beliefs and myths 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:34.040 and involved people turning to bears, bears turning into people. 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:37.640 The idea that bears are people who have wandered too 0:09:37.640 --> 0:09:41.200 far into the wilderness and they've been transformed by the 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:43.880 magic of the wilderness. So it feels almost like Grendel. 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:46.800 It's like the earth rim roamer becomes a bear. Yeah, 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:49.760 And indeed, and this is an earth rim roamer in 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:52.520 many of these traditions. It is it is ranging between 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:56.000 life and death because it can it can essentially leap 0:09:56.080 --> 0:09:58.720 frog over the coldest and cruelest months of the year. 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:04.040 They quote unquote hibernate. They cut their metabolic rate in half. 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:07.480 So tell me about the pseudo hibernation. Okay, Well, according 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:10.320 to Edgar Folk of the University of Iowa, a late 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:13.920 fall bears heart beats forty to fifty times a minute 0:10:14.000 --> 0:10:17.920 during sleep, but during deep hibernation it slows to as 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:21.960 few as eight beats a minute. So they during this 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:24.760 time they don't eat. Their body is stored up enough 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:27.760 to provide them up to four thousand calories a day 0:10:27.880 --> 0:10:31.599 during the winter, and the bear's body even takes uriah 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:36.240 in urine and builds new nitrogen from the protein. They 0:10:36.240 --> 0:10:39.120 don't defecate, they don't drink, and yet when they waken 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:43.440 the spring, there they're they're hydrated. They have a balance 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:47.040 of of water in their bodies, and they also avoid 0:10:47.120 --> 0:10:50.600 muscle cramping in degenerative bone loss during this time, despite 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:53.520 being just crammed up in a tiny space the whole time. 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:57.480 I feel like humans often use the metaphor of hibernation, 0:10:57.640 --> 0:10:59.679 like we think, Okay, it's winter time, I'm going to 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:01.960 spend a lot of time indoors with my loved ones. 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:04.400 We're gonna cuttle up. I'm gonna be under a blanket 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:08.079 most of the time. But we don't really have anything 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:11.440 like this to to compare this experience to. This is 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:14.600 just a different type of existence where you can go 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:20.120 into this sub metabolic state where you really do It's 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:22.520 not like you die and come back. I mean metaphorically, 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:24.160 it's kind of like that, but it is as if 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:27.840 you become a different kind of organism for for a 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:30.800 significant part of the year. It's like you it's almost 0:11:30.800 --> 0:11:33.520 like an animal sort of becomes a plant for this 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:37.080 amount of time. Yeah, becomes this sort of fleshy rock 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:39.760 in the earth. And then and and you can see 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:43.560 why it capture the imaginations of people. Um though, it 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:47.640 is interesting to try and imagine ancient people following the 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:50.880 bear and finding out where the bear goes and what 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:53.440 that discovery was like, like how they came to this 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:58.440 realization that the that this formidable creature is climbing into 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:01.439 the earth and just not emerging for months on end. 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:03.920 You can easily see, especially given what we've already said 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:06.320 about it being in some cases kind of similar to 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:09.560 a human, why this would take on a magical aspect 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:13.280 to people. Yeah, So in this episode, we're gonna look 0:12:13.480 --> 0:12:16.880 at what we humans become during the winter. So obviously 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:19.920 we don't experience anything like the bear or true hibernators, 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:23.120 but the winter does have an effect on our bodies, 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:26.240 on our minds, on our personality, and our culture. And 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:29.360 through culture, I think we have sometimes found ways to 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:32.360 mirror the bear. Now, obviously there are plenty of examples 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:36.840 we could turn to for winter survival culture, but one 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:40.920 of the most amazing is that of the qua qua 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:43.520 Kyuuk people. Yeah. So the qua qua Quuk is the 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:46.640 name of a group of First Nations tribes that speak 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:50.360 the Qua Kuala language and that this is uh basically, 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:54.560 their home is the Pacific northwest around Vancouver Island and stuff. Yeah, 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:58.640 and in these various tribes have different names for themselves, 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:01.280 but this is just the this is the catch off 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:05.480 for their their their cultural system. Yeah, the language group. Yeah, 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:08.880 and interestingly enough, the Field Museum in Chicago. They have 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:12.000 an excellent section on the art and culture of various 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:14.880 Native American tribes, including this one. And Joe, you and 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:18.360 I both visited this during a two thousand seventeen visit. Yeah, 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:22.000 that is a fantastic collection and these artworks and uh 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:25.480 ceremonial artifacts are just beautiful if you ever get a 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:28.240 chance to see it. But also if you get a chance, 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:31.320 you should check out the u Missta Cultural Center of 0:13:31.360 --> 0:13:34.440 British Columbia, which is run by the Umistic Cultural Society. 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:38.440 And and that's a qua Qua kubuk uh run center 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:42.480 dedicated to preserving the cultural heritage and the h and 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:45.680 the traditional artifacts of the Quakua Keuuck people. Yeah, and 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:49.280 I'll include a link to that organization on the landing 0:13:49.280 --> 0:13:51.280 page for this episode. It's stuff to Blew your Mind 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:54.439 dot com. So, for the quaku Ku people, summer is 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:58.840 a time of travel, gathering of foods, preservation of foods 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:02.560 for the winter because when winter comes, which runs November 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:05.800 through March, it is a harsh time, but it's also 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:09.600 a sacred time. And during this time the people are 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:14.760 visited by supernatural spirits. Everyone takes different names and are 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:18.480 defined more by their membership in these different dance societies, 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:22.000 each based on a different supernatural entity, and so these 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:26.160 societies they even take presidents over clan affiliation. It basically 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:29.800 divides their world up into two phases. You have the summer, 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:33.320 which is uh box us, and then there's winter, which 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:38.120 is uh sets qua which which has been translated as secrets. 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:42.320 This is a really fascinating aspect of this culture because 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:45.480 it takes something that, as we were saying earlier, in 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:49.480 some ways as kind of subtly or implicitly present in 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:52.440 in many other cultures, like the way we sort of 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:54.840 change according to the seasons, but it makes it more 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:58.600 explicit and and sort of commits the people within the 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:01.960 culture to say, us, we are different beings when the 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:05.080 cold months arrive. Yeah, Because it's one thing to think, well, 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:08.760 you know, Joe is a slightly different person during the winter. 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:11.560 But if you were to actually change your name, if 0:15:11.600 --> 0:15:15.480 you were to distinguish between summer Joe and winter Joe 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:19.160 and like sign things as winter Joe and you know 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:21.000 that would be that would be a different case altogether 0:15:21.040 --> 0:15:24.840 and have different intra society association. So, in other words, 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:28.520 for the qua qua Uk people, all cultural energy shifts 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:32.520 from harvesting food to a four month ritual cycle aimed 0:15:32.560 --> 0:15:37.760 at taming cosmos threatening supernatural forces, while the rule of 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:42.560 summer is a hierarchy based on mythical founding ancestors. Uh 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:45.760 said say, qua is all about the dance groups. And 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:47.880 I have a wonderful quote here I want to read 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:49.640 that I think underlines a lot of this. This is 0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:52.520 from a paper titled it is a strict law that 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:57.320 bids us dance Uh. Cosmologies, colonialism, death, and ritual authority 0:15:57.560 --> 0:16:03.440 in the Quawa pot Latch eight nine two by Joseph Moscow, 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:07.480 published in Comparative Studies in Society and History. In total, 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:11.520 the seasons present a ritual cycle which deconstructs and reinvents 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:14.680 the social order. The barren winter months, in which the 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:18.200 collective spiritual energy of all the tribes must be focused 0:16:18.440 --> 0:16:22.320 on regenerating the natural world, are turned into a fecundity 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:25.440 of the summer months, when the animal world, placated by 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:29.640 continuing ritual, offers itself up for human consumption. Thus, the 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:34.520 Quuucks saw themselves as participants in a universal ecology requiring 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:38.720 continuous maintenance. Its root metaphor was that of hunter and hunted, 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:41.240 to live means to kill. Now to give you an 0:16:41.280 --> 0:16:43.880 example of some of the the dance groups, the the 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:48.440 affiliations that one UH is associated with during the winter. UH. 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:53.000 There is the Hamasta or Cannibal Society, and they're defined 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:55.480 by the myth of four brothers who ventured into the 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:58.760 home of the cannibal spirit at the quote north end 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:01.080 of the world, which I can't help but think of 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:05.399 Santa h. Wait, we're touched on that, but UH here 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:08.480 the cannibal spirit lived with a man eating raven called 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:11.840 Crooked Beak of Heaven and a giant bird who cracked 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:15.480 open human skulls with its beak and ate the brains. Uh. 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:18.720 The brothers end up defeating all of these creatures and 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:21.960 they gained special powers. So to join the society, you 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:24.560 had to undergo an ordeal in which the cannibal spirit 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:27.359 kidnaps you, takes you into the woods, and when you 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:30.720 return to the tribe, you're possessed like a wild man. 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:33.840 You're dressed only in scraps of hemlock, you're dancing about 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:36.560 in a squatting position, and the others have to entice 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:40.240 you to venture close to the fire with either a 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:43.880 corpse or a corpse like figure. Yeah, so you lune, 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:46.359 you're lunging at people, you're biding at people, you're even 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:49.440 actually biting pre selected people. So this is like a 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:53.560 choreographed thing. Yeah, well, I wonder to what extent it's 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:55.800 it's like choreographed, maybe with a bit of improv, you know, 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:58.920 it's it's theater. It's essentially well, just call it theater. 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:02.800 Is is probably not giving it enough depth because it 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:05.480 is a most potent form of theater. It's not necessarily 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:08.880 a performance for an audience, but it's an enactment, yes, 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:11.960 an enactment for the people and for the cosmos. It is. 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:15.320 It is a magical ceremony. Finally, an attendant leads you 0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:18.840 around the fire by a neck ring, pacifying you with music. 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:21.360 Four times around the fire, and then you climb through 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:24.679 a hole in a ceremonial screen and you reappear in 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:28.600 the mask of the man eating raven. Then you reappear maskless, 0:18:28.680 --> 0:18:31.000 and then as the crooked beak of Heaven, and finally 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:34.240 you return for a fifth dance, fully tamed, and dance 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:38.200 in an upright position. So we see this like this transformation, 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:41.159 this taming of the wild um and and and it 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:44.560 also touches on this idea of the cannibal spirit. Would 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:49.160 you see president in a number of different Native people's 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:53.560 folk beliefs, probably most famous and typified in the Windy go. 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:56.159 In addition to this, you have the Grizzly Bear society 0:18:56.200 --> 0:18:59.920 that keeps ordered during the ceremony, sometimes eaven even punishing 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:03.600 transgressions with death. And during some of the dances you 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:06.920 see them wearing full bear skins and behaving as bears. 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:10.560 You have full fool dancers who run around causing chaos. 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:13.600 And then you have the wild Women of the Woods. 0:19:13.960 --> 0:19:17.119 Oh yeah, because this one. She appears as a person 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:20.159 clad in bear skins and a horrid mask, and she 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:24.399 carries a basket which she uses to to crate away 0:19:24.480 --> 0:19:27.119 children who have wandered into the woods so that she 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:30.399 can eat them. I detect some parallels to cramp Us. Yeah, 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:33.119 I mean both of these are the the wild child 0:19:33.160 --> 0:19:37.560 eating creature that that serves as a warning to naughty children, 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:41.440 uh during during the winter. So on one hand, I 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:44.879 my reaction to this is strong in that I not 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:49.080 only find this very like esthetically pleasing and beautiful, but 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:53.320 also I I detect a kind of deep genius in it, 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:56.280 if that makes any sense. There's something profound that the 0:19:56.320 --> 0:20:00.560 practitioners of these ceremonies have tapped into about our nature 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:03.080 as human beings that a lot of us have not 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:06.719 quite figured out how to properly animate. Yeah. Yeah, I 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:10.280 love how revealing this example feels. Even for denizens of 0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:14.119 the modern world. You know, we're so technologically aided in 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:17.320 our battle against winter. We we have heated homes, we 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:20.480 have we have you know, all the electricity we can 0:20:20.600 --> 0:20:23.439 use we have, we have fresh water we have, we 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:27.679 can even have fresh vegetables delivered right to our door. Uh. 0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:31.760 And yet this still strikes a court of truth for us. Yeah. Absolutely, 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:34.600 because no matter how many space heaters you surround yourself with, 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:38.040 and no matter how much you have access to unholy 0:20:38.200 --> 0:20:42.080 summer foods out of season in the winter. And folks, 0:20:42.160 --> 0:20:44.320 I should just say, don't buy tomatoes in the winter. 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:47.199 Just don't do it. Don't encourage that. But what if 0:20:47.240 --> 0:20:50.400 you need spaghetti? Spaghetti is such a use canned tomatoes. 0:20:50.480 --> 0:20:52.359 They were canned in the summer. That's okay, that's right. 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:54.600 I mean, that's the spirit of surviving the winter is 0:20:55.080 --> 0:20:57.800 use the canned goods, use the survival foods. Eat the 0:20:57.840 --> 0:21:00.040 pickles as long as they're not made from children. And 0:21:00.160 --> 0:21:03.160 obviously wait where was I going with that? Well, no, anyway, 0:21:03.320 --> 0:21:06.040 so um no, you know, no matter, just like you say, 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:09.520 no matter how much we can use technology to ward 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:11.880 off some of the worst effects of seasonal changes, whether 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:14.240 it's actually winter or hot summer months, or if you 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:16.600 live in tropical areas, whether it's the rainy season, you 0:21:16.680 --> 0:21:19.880 might be able to technologically put yourself into a state 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:24.359 of stability, you know, indoors with all of this electrical equipment. 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:28.840 But we sort of can't write seasonal changes out of 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:33.639 our DNA, things like the winter, the rainy season, you know, 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:36.800 whatever these seasonal changes are that are relevant wherever you live. 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:39.720 There are a deep part of us that is not 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:43.680 going to dissipate just because we've got climate control. That's right. 0:21:44.000 --> 0:21:45.560 On that note, We're gonna take a quick break, and 0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:47.960 when we come back, we will begin to explore the 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:53.280 winter changes to the human body. All right, we're back, 0:21:53.280 --> 0:21:56.000 all right. So we've talked about rituals that reimagine the 0:21:56.040 --> 0:21:58.680 person is sort of a different type of being living 0:21:58.720 --> 0:22:02.960 in a different type of cosmic significance regime with within 0:22:03.119 --> 0:22:06.119 the seasonal changes, like within the winter versus the summer. 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:12.080 But there are many ways in which our bodies are very, 0:22:12.200 --> 0:22:16.480 uh you might say, very finely and delicately sensitive too, 0:22:16.640 --> 0:22:20.960 seasonal changes. Right, yeah, And this is in this area 0:22:21.000 --> 0:22:23.159 of the discussion. We're going to get into some areas 0:22:23.200 --> 0:22:26.840 here where there's no question that the winter has an 0:22:26.840 --> 0:22:29.640 effect on the body. So, for starters were creatures who 0:22:29.640 --> 0:22:31.640