Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
Speaker 2: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 2: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
Speaker 2: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Traditions are more than
Speaker 2: just things we do because we've always done them. For example,
Speaker 2: Native American traditions are rich with lessons on how to
Speaker 2: respect and connect with the natural world. In doing so,
Speaker 2: many Native people gain an understanding of how their own
Speaker 2: lives intertwine with the world around them. As an example,
Speaker 2: members of the Ajibwe tribe of North America passed down
Speaker 2: a legend related to one of the biggest parts of
Speaker 2: everyday life life sleep. Most people don't think asleep is
Speaker 2: something strongly connected to the natural world around us, but
Speaker 2: this legend urges us to look at things differently, and
Speaker 2: it even gives rise to a mystical item that you
Speaker 2: might have in your home today. The legend goes something
Speaker 2: like this, There once was a woman named Asi Bikashi
Speaker 2: who watched over every creature on earth while they slept.
Speaker 2: She was known to protect infants and children especially, but
Speaker 2: she wasn't protecting them from wild animals, ghosts, or even monsters.
Speaker 2: She was protecting them from bad dreams. Native peoples believed
Speaker 2: that dreams were a force of energy that surrounded a
Speaker 2: person while they slept. That energy then caused the person
Speaker 2: to see visions in their unconscious state, and so Asi
Speaker 2: Bagashi wove delicate silken nets over children's cribs. These nets
Speaker 2: trap negative energy so that it couldn't give the children
Speaker 2: scary visions. She used her hands to make sure the
Speaker 2: nets were strong enough to catch bad energy, but also
Speaker 2: soft and soothing enough to sleep under. Because of the
Speaker 2: net's elegant, weblike design, Asi Bagashi earned the nickname the
Speaker 2: Spider Woman. After a long RESTful night, it was Asi
Speaker 2: Bagashi's job to put the sun back into the sky,
Speaker 2: another way that she controlled the good energy over the people.
Speaker 1: That she cared for. This was Asi Bagashi's job for
Speaker 1: a long time, but at a certain point, the Ajibwe
Speaker 1: people began to migrate further and further throughout the land,
Speaker 1: and this made it harder for her to spread sunlight
Speaker 1: to all of her people. She couldn't do it on
Speaker 1: her own, so she asked tribal mothers and grandmothers to help.
Speaker 1: Asi Bagashi knew that mothers and grandmothers were strong yet
Speaker 1: gentle enough to protect children and babies just like she did,
Speaker 1: but they didn't possess the same power of web making.
Speaker 1: So Asi Bagashi got creative. She came up with a
Speaker 1: way for the people to make webs like hers that
Speaker 1: they could take with them anywhere now. At first, she
Speaker 1: told the mothers and grandmothers to find a thin piece
Speaker 1: of willow and bend it into a circle, and then
Speaker 1: she showed them how to use the sinew, likely from
Speaker 1: a buffalo, to weave a web within that circle. To
Speaker 1: make the webb extra special for children, some women decorated
Speaker 1: theirs with feathers, beads, and charms. Willow and sinyw weren't
Speaker 1: strong enough to last forever, though the willow would dry out,
Speaker 1: and that when that happened, the strands of sinu would collapse.
Speaker 1: But that was the point. Asi Bagashi knew that youth
Speaker 1: was temporary, so these webs were designed to fall apart
Speaker 1: as children grew up and became strong enough to confront
Speaker 1: their own bad dreams themselves but even grown ups needed
Speaker 1: to help dealing with scary things from time to time,
Speaker 1: so many a Jibwa people began to weave webs entirely
Speaker 1: from fiber so that they would last longer. These kind
Speaker 1: of webs are still used today. You've probably seen them
Speaker 1: and may have even had one of your own. Today,
Speaker 1: they're called dreamcatchers. Whether or not you believe that different
Speaker 1: forms of energy exist, dream catchers can still provide comfort.
Speaker 1: They're a symbol of love and protection that mothers provide
Speaker 1: for their children, and they're a reminder of Indigenous people's
Speaker 1: sense of community and their knowledge of natural resources, a
Speaker 1: lesson to be sure that all of us could take
Speaker 1: comfort in. Fans will do anything for the artist they love,
Speaker 1: sneaking into concerts, buying bootleg merchandise, anything to get closer
Speaker 1: to their favorite artist. For some music lovers, however, that's
Speaker 1: not far enough. They don't want to just listen to
Speaker 1: an artist music or buy their T shirts. They want
Speaker 1: to get to know the artists themselves. After all. Fan
Speaker 1: is short for fanatic, and a real fanatic wouldn't let
Speaker 1: anything come between them and their idol. The year was
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty six and twenty one year old Thomas Fatz
Speaker 1: Waller was on top of the world. His jazz career
Speaker 1: was taking off. He'd been asked to headline the College In,
Speaker 1: one of Chicago's most famous jazz clubs, and word was
Speaker 1: getting around about the talented pianist with the rapid fire jokes.
Speaker 1: Every night, more and more well healed Chicagoans were packing
Speaker 1: in to see them. What Fats didn't know was that
Speaker 1: one particular jazz enthusiast had become intrigued by his talents.
Speaker 1: Instead of going out to see Fats at the College In,
Speaker 1: this man was going to bring Fats to him, whether
Speaker 1: Fats liked it or not. One night, after a particularly
Speaker 1: rock as set, Fats was leaving the stage door for
Speaker 1: the College In when he felt something hard and cold
Speaker 1: poking into his abdomen. He realized, with mounting horror that
Speaker 1: he was surrounded by four suited men, and one of
Speaker 1: them was pressing a revolver right into his stomach. The
Speaker 1: four men forced Fats into a waiting limousine and told
Speaker 1: the driver to head for East Cicero, a suburb of Chicago. Now,
Speaker 1: as you might imagine, Fats didn't know what to think.
Speaker 1: He had heard of the fearsome Chicago bob who ran
Speaker 1: with guns, liquor, and any other smuggled goods that could
Speaker 1: get their hands on in the prohibition city. Yet he
Speaker 1: couldn't think of what that had to do with him.
Speaker 1: He was a jazz pianist, not a gun slingers. As
Speaker 1: the limousine drove deeper into the night, Fats worried that
Speaker 1: this would be the last ride he would ever take. Finally,
Speaker 1: the car pulled up to a nondescript venue in Cicero,
Speaker 1: and Fats was forced out once more at gunpoint and
Speaker 1: ushered through the door. Inside, he was surprised to find
Speaker 1: a party in full swing. The four black suited men
Speaker 1: shoved him towards the piano and told him to play,
Speaker 1: so Fats Waller played as if his life depended on it.
Speaker 1: After the first few songs, he finally dared to look
Speaker 1: at the crowd, who were dancing, singing, and cheering with enthusiasm,
Speaker 1: And when he did, he was surprised to see a
Speaker 1: familiar face at the back of the room, one that
Speaker 1: he had seen plastered on wanted posters and newspapers. There
Speaker 1: clapping and cheering. The loudest of all was Chicago mob
Speaker 1: boss al Capone. It turned out that Fats wasn't in
Speaker 1: danger at all. Al Capone was famously a huge fan
Speaker 1: of jazz, often booking the biggest acts of the day
Speaker 1: to play in his underground Speakeasies Louis Armstrong, Count Bassie,
Speaker 1: and Billie Holliday all performed in al Capone's clubs. Al
Speaker 1: had heard about Fat's residency at the college in and
Speaker 1: so as a surprise for his birthday, four of his
Speaker 1: henchmen had decided to bring him a private performance by
Speaker 1: Fats Waller as a present. Too bad, they forgot to
Speaker 1: ask Fats about it first. Understanding that his life was
Speaker 1: no longer at risk, Fats was able to relax and
Speaker 1: enjoy the party. The gangsters plied him with mountains of
Speaker 1: food and glass after glass of expensive vintage champagne. Although
Speaker 1: he tried to leave several times, Capone and his boys
Speaker 1: kept convincing him to stay, offering him a tip of
Speaker 1: one hundred dollars per song. He reportedly stayed for three days,
Speaker 1: taking breaks from playing only to nap on the piano bench. Finally,
Speaker 1: the gangsters set Fats Waller free, allowing him to take
Speaker 1: the limousine back to the College in they deposited him
Speaker 1: back where they found him exhausted, drunk on champagne and
Speaker 1: several thousand dollars richer. Fats went on after his kidnapping
Speaker 1: by Capone to have a storied career and a huge
Speaker 1: impact on jazz piano. He wrote several Broadway musicals and
Speaker 1: hundreds of songs, including the jazz standards Honeysuckle Rose, and
Speaker 1: Ain't Misbehaving. Things could have gone very differently for Fats Waller. Thankfully,
Speaker 1: when al Capone ordered him to blow them away, he
Speaker 1: was just talking about the music. I hope you've enjoyed
Speaker 1: today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for
Speaker 1: free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show
Speaker 1: by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created
Speaker 1: by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the Worldoflore dot com.
Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious.