Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday.
Speaker 1: Time to go into the vault for a classic episode
Speaker 1: of the show. This is called The Dog with the
Speaker 1: Burning Brand. This was originally published on August thirty one.
Speaker 1: And Uh, I mean, what else is there to say
Speaker 1: about a dog with a burning brand? I think you
Speaker 1: just have to hear it, right, Yeah, it's our best
Speaker 1: episode about dogs and paintings that look like they're smoking dope.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and
Speaker 1: today we got an art question to start off with. Uh,
Speaker 1: have you out there? Have you ever been wandering through
Speaker 1: a museum and looking at old paintings, especially maybe paintings
Speaker 1: from the medieval Europe or from the Renaissance period, and
Speaker 1: you happen to come across a dog holding in its
Speaker 1: mouth maybe what looks like a big, old rolled up
Speaker 1: newspaper that's on fire, or, as as many people on
Speaker 1: the Internet have characterized it, smoking a joint or smoking
Speaker 1: a hand rolled cigarette. You know, I have to admit
Speaker 1: that I had I had never noticed this before, and
Speaker 1: I'm I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination,
Speaker 1: but I feel like I've I've walked through a number
Speaker 1: of really good art museums. I I've enjoyed in the
Speaker 1: past diving into sort of detail oriented topics that involve paintings,
Speaker 1: and yet I have never witnessed the joint smoking dog
Speaker 1: or the firebrand bearing dog before until it was brought
Speaker 1: to my attention by an an art net dot com
Speaker 1: blog post or article that we were talking about. Right, So,
Speaker 1: I don't know how you came across the but you
Speaker 1: were the one who sent it to me. And this
Speaker 1: was a blog post by an American art critic named
Speaker 1: Ben Davis. Uh. That's very funny, and it is addressing
Speaker 1: the question of why are there so many medieval and
Speaker 1: Renaissance paintings that depict a do what looks like a
Speaker 1: dog smoking a joint. That is the way the author
Speaker 1: phrases it. And it's it's quite amusing because it includes
Speaker 1: images examples of this and when you start looking at them, yeah,
Speaker 1: it looks like these dogs that they're doing something they're
Speaker 1: either they're holding some sort of a joint like object
Speaker 1: or at the very least, they have fire. They have
Speaker 1: fire in a way that seems totally out of keeping
Speaker 1: with what dogs actually want and do in reality. So
Speaker 1: a few examples. There is one painting from the sixteen
Speaker 1: sixties by an artist named Jande Pereha that features a
Speaker 1: very cute dog laid out on the ground with stubby
Speaker 1: little four legs tucked up under his pawnchy chest, and
Speaker 1: there is a bouquet of white flowers tossed to the
Speaker 1: round in front of him, and then between his jaws,
Speaker 1: he is clutching a foot long white cylinder that is
Speaker 1: on fire on the end opposite of his mouth. And yes,
Speaker 1: it does look like some kind of giant cigarette or
Speaker 1: something of that kind, but it could also be maybe
Speaker 1: a candle. I don't know. It's just a white thing
Speaker 1: that's on fire. Yeah, And the dog has a very
Speaker 1: relaxed vibe doing this, and it's just kind of a chalky,
Speaker 1: relaxed dog. It doesn't look like like I'm going to
Speaker 1: burn your city down or anything like that. He's just
Speaker 1: hanging out. This is a smooth chalk. All these that
Speaker 1: I'm mentioning are featured in that that article by Ben Davis,
Speaker 1: by the way. But so there's another painting from the
Speaker 1: sixteen eighties by Claudio Coello, and it is a portrait
Speaker 1: of a certain religious figure, but excluding the central figure
Speaker 1: for a second. In the bottom left of the frame,
Speaker 1: there's a black and white dog with a kind of
Speaker 1: skunk coloration pattern, and he is biting what looks like
Speaker 1: a fence post that's on fire, and you can see
Speaker 1: his little under fang's in the lower canins holding fast
Speaker 1: to that burning steak. Yeah, now this one looks a
Speaker 1: little more fierce, a little more mischievous even uh. There
Speaker 1: he's also next to a spherical object. I forget what
Speaker 1: you call these um in religious iconography of Catholicism, but
Speaker 1: it reminds me of a globe, and so I get
Speaker 1: kind of this feeling of the dog threatening to torch
Speaker 1: the earth. Well, and that also seems to be a theme,
Speaker 1: because here's yet another one that was in Davis's post.
Speaker 1: So this is by jose guild Castro from eighteen seventeens.
Speaker 1: This is a later painting, but once again there is
Speaker 1: a person at the center of this painting, but in
Speaker 1: the lower right corner, there is a bizarre scene. There's
Speaker 1: this big old blue sphere like a big azure beach ball,
Speaker 1: and then on top of the ball there is a dog.
Speaker 1: Except this dog looks ferocious. He is showing all his
Speaker 1: sharp little teeth and he's digging into the ball with
Speaker 1: his claws, and once again he's holding a burning stick
Speaker 1: in his mouth, except this time he's holding the stick
Speaker 1: so that the business end, the end that's on fire,
Speaker 1: is stabbing into the blue ball like he's trying to
Speaker 1: burn a hole in it. So what's up here? Well,
Speaker 1: Davis explains, actually, uh, this is religious iconography. These are
Speaker 1: animals that mean something. Uh. So I mentioned that in
Speaker 1: most of these artworks the central subject is a person
Speaker 1: rather than a dog. And then there's a dog with
Speaker 1: a with a burning stick or a cigarette or whatever
Speaker 1: down in the corner. The person in the middle of
Speaker 1: the painting is almost always one of two people. It
Speaker 1: is either St. Jayne Santa Juana of of Aza or
Speaker 1: her son St. Dominic Santo Domingo, who was a very
Speaker 1: important figure in the history of the Catholic Church lived
Speaker 1: from the twelfth to the thirteenth century, and he was
Speaker 1: a Catholic priest who founded the Dominican Order in twelve sixteen.
Speaker 1: Uh to read from Davis quote, thereby setting the world
Speaker 1: on fire metaphorically in terms of spreading the faith. As
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, two Dominican preachers were sometimes called
Speaker 1: Domini Khans or the dogs of the lords. It's a
Speaker 1: very good medieval pun for you. But so according to
Speaker 1: legend St. Dominic's mother St. Jane, was granted a premonition
Speaker 1: in the form of a vision from God. And in
Speaker 1: her vision she saw that she was pregnant, but with
Speaker 1: a dog, and the dog carried a flaming torch in
Speaker 1: its mouth. And then when she, in the vision, gave
Speaker 1: birth to the dog, it was running around. It darted
Speaker 1: all over the place with the torch and set fire
Speaker 1: to everything. And this was interpreted to me and that
Speaker 1: her son would metaphorically set the world on fire, meaning
Speaker 1: he would preach a message that would reach the ends
Speaker 1: of the earth. And so by establishing the Dominican Order,
Speaker 1: I think you know, they were largely well. They had
Speaker 1: a number of concerns, but one of them was like
Speaker 1: preaching against heresies of the Middle Ages. So if you're
Speaker 1: a heretic, you need to watch out for the dog
Speaker 1: with the flaming brand because it is coming to set
Speaker 1: the world on fire. Now, I have to say, in
Speaker 1: some of these images I totally get this vibe, you know,
Speaker 1: particularly that one that where he's not he's not actually
Speaker 1: making contact with the globe like object, but he seems
Speaker 1: to be threatening to do so. I can see it.
Speaker 1: This is a vision dog. This is a dog that
Speaker 1: is bringing prophecy from divine realms. But that first guy
Speaker 1: that that that that chunky one we were talking about,
Speaker 1: he I don't know. He He doesn't look like he's
Speaker 1: wandered out of any vision. He looks like the painter
Speaker 1: had a much beloved dog in his life and decided, well,
Speaker 1: if I'm going to put in this dog of prophecy,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put my dog Schnkers in there. And uh,
Speaker 1: and that's who I want to paint. You know, this
Speaker 1: is something I often wonder looking at old paintings and
Speaker 1: sculptures of religious figures. So if there's a a painting
Speaker 1: of of John the Baptist where he looks really hunky,
Speaker 1: is it because this person, you know, the painter was
Speaker 1: filled with religious fervor for this scene involving John the
Speaker 1: Baptist and really wanted to depict that or is it
Speaker 1: because he like had a friend or a model or
Speaker 1: something that he really wanted to paint And he's like,
Speaker 1: who can I I'll say this guy is John the Baptist. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And ultimately I think in some cases that is the reality.
Speaker 1: You have painters who want to paint, say the human
Speaker 1: form and it are you know, obsessed with the with
Speaker 1: anatomy and the and how to properly relate that in
Speaker 1: the painting. But how are you going to do that
Speaker 1: and get paid? You know? Uh, well this could be
Speaker 1: this could be the dog version, right, yeah. So this
Speaker 1: is like you're saying, this is his dog that he
Speaker 1: loves and he was just wants to paint the dog.
Speaker 1: He's like, how can I? Oh, I know this is
Speaker 1: the dog of the vision of St. Jayne. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: and he's looking right at you. It's a beautiful painting.
Speaker 1: It's a very lifelike rendering of this dog. Yeah. Wanda
Speaker 1: parade ha two thumbs up. I love your chunk. Now,
Speaker 1: all this talk of of holy dogs and uh, you
Speaker 1: know Catholic tradition, you know this, this is all well
Speaker 1: and good, but uh, one one question that it certainly arises,
Speaker 1: is do we find anything like this anywhere else in
Speaker 1: the world, Because on one hand, like I said, this
Speaker 1: is not something dogs do, This is not something around yeah,
Speaker 1: carry fire around it. In fact, I was looking around
Speaker 1: to find any account of this happening, certainly any like
Speaker 1: videos of like, oh, here's our dog, he likes to
Speaker 1: carry a flaming brand around the house, and I found
Speaker 1: virtually nothing. The closest I came was a video that
Speaker 1: allegedly is of a dog swooping in to grab a
Speaker 1: lit firework before it can blast off. Yeah, exactly the
Speaker 1: same Here I was. I was thinking, is this a
Speaker 1: natural phenomenon or their observed conditions where a dog will
Speaker 1: commonly pick up a flaming stick? And I was looking
Speaker 1: all over the place and found nothing really except I
Speaker 1: found a couple of instances of people talking about dogs
Speaker 1: that had specifically been trained to carry a flaming torch
Speaker 1: or something, but it was just in the context of
Speaker 1: dogs being trained to do all kinds of tricks like
Speaker 1: jump through a flaming hoop or anything like that. So
Speaker 1: I think carrying a flaming torch is something you could
Speaker 1: train a dog to do in the s that you
Speaker 1: can train a dog to do just about anything, So
Speaker 1: it would stand a reason. It would seem possible that
Speaker 1: maybe this is just a one off. You know, it's
Speaker 1: certainly if we believe this, uh, this story, that this
Speaker 1: is a dog of vision and prophecy, you know, just
Speaker 1: sort of random dream imagery that comes together, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: or some sort of a vision, some sort of hallucination
Speaker 1: whatever the you know, the the real world. Uh. Situation
Speaker 1: might be that maybe this is just something that occurs
Speaker 1: once in human traditions and we're not likely to expect
Speaker 1: to see it pop up anywhere else. And yet I
Speaker 1: found one. I found another dog with a with a
Speaker 1: flaming stick. Uh, And I'm not I'm still not sure
Speaker 1: exactly what to make of it. How much of it
Speaker 1: we can sort of chalk up to, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: cultural convergent evolution or if if if, ultimately we can
Speaker 1: get down to certain realities about dogs and humans, humanities,
Speaker 1: relationship with the dog. Um. You know, I think maybe
Speaker 1: it's a little bit of both of those. So you
Speaker 1: might so wondering where is this Where do we have
Speaker 1: to go to find this other dog with the flaming brand? Well,
Speaker 1: we have to travel once more to pre Columbian um Mesoamerica.
Speaker 1: We have to travel to the Aztec world and and
Speaker 1: also the Mayan world, and look to the fire carrying
Speaker 1: dog in these cultures as well. Okay, I'm ready to go.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's start with Aztecs and I'll come
Speaker 1: back to some of the Mayan examples. But uh, just
Speaker 1: to refresh the Aztec world. This flourished in the central
Speaker 1: Mexico from around thirteen hundred to fifteen twenty one. They
Speaker 1: rose out of obscurity among various indigenous peoples of the
Speaker 1: region and became a dominant power. Now, civilizations are, of
Speaker 1: course a human affair, but of course they always entail
Speaker 1: other species, including domesticated plants and animals. So we've discussed
Speaker 1: the importance of maize to the Aztecs as well as
Speaker 1: other crops, but they also had some domesticated animals. The
Speaker 1: Their domestic animals included turkeys, which I believe we discussed
Speaker 1: Aztecs and their turkeys in the past. Also bees. I
Speaker 1: think there are some cases for ducks and geese and
Speaker 1: maybe quail, but I see that in some sources but
Speaker 1: on others, So I'm I'm not entirely certain that that
Speaker 1: is a definite or or maybe even a universal reality
Speaker 1: of of of Aztecs. Maybe there were certain regions where
Speaker 1: they may have had some domestic ducks and geese, but
Speaker 1: for the most part, when you talk about the domesticated
Speaker 1: animals of the Aztecs, you're talking about the turkey, you're
Speaker 1: talking about bees, and you're talking about the dog, the old, reliable,
Speaker 1: the dogs always there, Yes, yeah, and and and I
Speaker 1: really think it's important to keep in mind through all
Speaker 1: this that I think that's that seems to be a
Speaker 1: universal thing. I think that ultimately the way that like
Speaker 1: the medieval Europeans viewed the dog is largely in keeping
Speaker 1: with the way Aztecs and Miyan's viewed the dog as well.
Speaker 1: They're gonna be some differences, uh as well discuss, but
Speaker 1: I think ultimately there's a lot about the dog being
Speaker 1: man's best friend in all of this. You know, the
Speaker 1: dog is the creature that sticks by you. And and
Speaker 1: maybe ultimately, like that is where we get this idea
Speaker 1: of the dog carrying the flame, because who else is
Speaker 1: going to carry the flame for humanity? Is it going
Speaker 1: to be the cat? Now, So I was reading about
Speaker 1: all of this in the Use and Significance of Animals
Speaker 1: in Aztec Rituals by Maria Konvalineri from twenty from two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine, and she points out a few important
Speaker 1: things here. First of all, she points out that the
Speaker 1: Aztecs were relatively poor in domesticated animals compared to various
Speaker 1: other cultures we might look to. Common people would only
Speaker 1: eat meat on special occasions. They had no draft animals.
Speaker 1: The turkey was ultimately their greatest domestic meat source, and
Speaker 1: their eggs also provided protein. But they also had dogs,
Speaker 1: and not merely one variety of dogs or just dogs
Speaker 1: in the generic sense. They had several varieties of dog,
Speaker 1: and one of these was apparently used almost to exclusively
Speaker 1: for food. And this was true if the Mayans as well,
Speaker 1: as Alan Jay Christensen points out in pople Vou The
Speaker 1: Sacred Book of the Maya, Volume one, the Mayans also
Speaker 1: depended on the dog, the turkey, and the honey bee.
Speaker 1: And these dogs were quote small, fat, nearly hairless. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they didn't bark. But that But here's the important
Speaker 1: thing to drive home is that they weren't just it
Speaker 1: wasn't just a food species. They were both food and
Speaker 1: pet this was a creature that would that was a companion,
Speaker 1: that was a pet, but then also under certain circumstances,
Speaker 1: again not every day, but but but when necessary, it
Speaker 1: was also a food species. Now some of the details
Speaker 1: of the Aztec dog they were apparently I'm reading three
Speaker 1: different rough varieties. There's the medium sized furred dog. The
Speaker 1: it's quintly and this was also a hunting dog. So
Speaker 1: that's an important thing to keep in mind too, like
Speaker 1: the dog also has this purpose and cultures around the
Speaker 1: world where it's helping us acquire food. Then there is
Speaker 1: the medium sized hairless dog, and this is the showlitz
Speaker 1: quently and this is um this this would have been
Speaker 1: a dog that would have been used as one of
Speaker 1: these these pets slash food dogs. And then there's also
Speaker 1: a short legged fur dog and this is the clou
Speaker 1: cheche and I'm reading that this one might have also
Speaker 1: been a meat dog at times as well. Now, according
Speaker 1: to UH Confelinary, it seems that the hairless variety was
Speaker 1: primarily the food dog, at least in some regions, but
Speaker 1: again only for special occasions. UH And there are Aztec
Speaker 1: depictions of their wrinkled hairless faces and these are worth
Speaker 1: looking up like it's it's undeniable, Like this is not
Speaker 1: a um um, you know, a loupine or type of
Speaker 1: a dog face. This is not the face of a coyote.
Speaker 1: Coyotes were of course also around in the wild. No,
Speaker 1: this is the face of the domestic dog. And I
Speaker 1: do think we need to be careful, of course, not
Speaker 1: to equate the consumption of dog meat with cruelty to
Speaker 1: animals in this context, at least no more than we
Speaker 1: might equate any traditional historic meat consumption to cruelty. Because
Speaker 1: as confelinary stresses, these dogs were also pets. Uh certainly
Speaker 1: with the furred varieties, but even the hairless ones, they
Speaker 1: would have been well treated, and they fulfilled the role
Speaker 1: of both pet and food. And there was a religious
Speaker 1: reason to treat dogs well, be they you know, hunting
Speaker 1: dog or a dog that would be used for for
Speaker 1: for food. At some point, dogs were seen as psychopomps
Speaker 1: by the Aztecs, which is to say, it was the
Speaker 1: role of the dog to shepherd the human soul across
Speaker 1: the ninefold stream to reach the center of the underworld.
Speaker 1: The afterlife of Midland. Interesting. Yeah, and in some accounts
Speaker 1: you have to be very particular about the color of
Speaker 1: the dog. I found this interesting. Uh. The idea was
Speaker 1: that white dogs have just bathed, and therefore they're not
Speaker 1: going to enter the waters. They're not gonna get you
Speaker 1: across the ninefold Stream to the center of the afterlif um.
Speaker 1: Black dogs, on the other hand, they will cross, but
Speaker 1: they can only carry their own souls. What you need
Speaker 1: is like a yellow dog. That it's the dog that's
Speaker 1: gonna get you across the ninefold stream. Uh, that's gonna
Speaker 1: carry its own soul, but also yours. Interesting now, Confolinari
Speaker 1: shares a great quote from twentieth century pre Columbian art
Speaker 1: expert Elizabeth P. Benson on all of this. It kind
Speaker 1: of sums up and extrapolates on why the dog. Why
Speaker 1: is the dog the psychopomp uh? Benson wrote, Dogs are
Speaker 1: appropriate escorts for the dead. They walk with their noses
Speaker 1: to the ground. They dig in the earth, barry bones
Speaker 1: and hunt in burrows. They eat carrion and make themselves
Speaker 1: smell of it. They have night vision. They howl at night.
Speaker 1: They know what is there in the darkness relating to
Speaker 1: the earth, the dead, things to sounds and smells that
Speaker 1: are imperceptible to humans. Dogs have esoteric knowledge and special
Speaker 1: connections with the underworld. Oh that's a wonderful observation about
Speaker 1: the the inferred supernatural power of a dog, just because
Speaker 1: of the different kind of sense realms a dog can occupy.
Speaker 1: That the dog detects something in the darkness before you do.
Speaker 1: They hear it before you do. They might be able
Speaker 1: to see or smell things that you can't see, or
Speaker 1: smell or certainly smell things you can't smell. So you
Speaker 1: would you would agree with this as a dog owner,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, pretty much. Any dog owner, I think, would
Speaker 1: have the experience of the dog knows something around the
Speaker 1: house is going on before you do. They know that
Speaker 1: somebody is approaching the front door before you do, or
Speaker 1: you take maybe you go out back in the darkness
Speaker 1: and in the nighttime, and the dog knows something is
Speaker 1: there that you don't detect in any way, and maybe
Speaker 1: it's a possum on top of the fence or something
Speaker 1: um but but yeah, yeah, the the dog is aware
Speaker 1: of things before you're aware of them, and sometimes things
Speaker 1: that you never become aware of. Maybe it um it
Speaker 1: it's attention perks up and it barks at something in
Speaker 1: the darkness that comes and goes, and then it's gone
Speaker 1: and you never see what it is that could given
Speaker 1: the right mindset, leads someone to believe that the dog
Speaker 1: is maybe interacting with spirits or interacting with with with
Speaker 1: something beyond the human sense realm. Yeah. Yeah, And of course,
Speaker 1: even if you're not going to the spiritual uh extreme
Speaker 1: of that interpretation, undoubtedly the dog is a protector. The
Speaker 1: dog is raising an alarm. Even if it can't bark,
Speaker 1: it'll raise some sort of an alarm that's something is
Speaker 1: perhaps there that shouldn't be. Uh. It's gonna play a
Speaker 1: role in protecting, uh, the domicile, perhaps also helping to
Speaker 1: protect the crops to some degree. Yeah, So that's important
Speaker 1: to keep in mind here as well. But there's another
Speaker 1: thing mentioned in Benson's quote that is also interesting about
Speaker 1: the association with with say death and carrion. I mean,
Speaker 1: so as as beautiful and sweet and pure as as
Speaker 1: dogs are, at least in my mind, they're also they're
Speaker 1: interested in disgusting dead things that humans that will make
Speaker 1: the human senses revolt and that will make you want
Speaker 1: to stay away. But the dog wants to approach. So
Speaker 1: it makes sense. This is this is a world they
Speaker 1: understand we may be repelled by and therefore, who's going
Speaker 1: to guide you through the realms of death? You're good,
Speaker 1: old dog. Now. One of the issues here is that
Speaker 1: the dog, if this dog is gonna guide you through
Speaker 1: the afterlife, it also needs to cross over with you
Speaker 1: as well. It needs to be buried with you. And
Speaker 1: thus dogs were also used in ritual sacrifice by the Aztecs.
Speaker 1: But where does fire come into all this, you're probably wondering.
Speaker 1: So far this dog has not been running around with fire. Well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna We're gonna get to that here. Um, those
Speaker 1: certainly the idea of the dog guiding you through a
Speaker 1: dark underworld that that already leans itself to interpretations of
Speaker 1: a dog carrying some sort of fire, a dog lighting
Speaker 1: the way and being your guide through the darkness. So
Speaker 1: the next fact worth mentioning in all this current concerns
Speaker 1: the Aztec god Scholatte, described guy by Confallinari as skeletal,
Speaker 1: dog faced or dog bodied. Now, Sholatl is the twin
Speaker 1: of quetzal Codal, also described as the god of monsters
Speaker 1: and the patron deity of twins, both human twins and
Speaker 1: also just sort of general twinning in nature anytime something
Speaker 1: seems to have a dual existence or nature, and the
Speaker 1: connection here does seem to be to the domestic dog too.
Speaker 1: When we're talking about this this god being dog faced
Speaker 1: or dog bodied, it's not the coyotes face. It's a
Speaker 1: you know, which was a wild scavenger and is also
Speaker 1: sometimes associated with the god of the smoking mirror uh
Speaker 1: ts catl Polca. Depictions of Scholatto, including one discovered during
Speaker 1: the construction of the Mexico City subway system, includes details
Speaker 1: clearly associated with the hairless, wrinkle faced domestic dog. So
Speaker 1: to be clear, food pet dog reflected in the divine
Speaker 1: image here, not a wild dog or even a hunting dog.
Speaker 1: This is uh this is the the hairless, wrinkly dog
Speaker 1: that is the face or even the body of the divine.
Speaker 1: So you've got a picture here of this, this carving
Speaker 1: of the dog face. Yeah, and it is unmistakably doggy
Speaker 1: because you see the wrinkles in the skin, and you
Speaker 1: see the kind of relatively stubby snout compared to what
Speaker 1: you'd see with like a wolf for a coyote. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: absolutely so. So there doesn't seem to be any mystery
Speaker 1: here concerning this god's connection to the domestic dog. So
Speaker 1: to the Aztecs, dogs were important. They were valued for
Speaker 1: their companionship, their loyalty, their food value, their protective nature
Speaker 1: to both the family and the crops. They were important
Speaker 1: enough to be the likeness of a major deity, a
Speaker 1: god of twins and monsters, but also a god of
Speaker 1: lightning and fire. So this raises the question, right, why
Speaker 1: is the dog also associated with fire and Aztec traditions. Well,
Speaker 1: here we come at last yet to the idea of
Speaker 1: the Aztec dog as firebringer. Herman Buyer explored this in
Speaker 1: the Symbolic Meaning of the Dog in Ancient Mexico, published
Speaker 1: in the in the American Anthropologists back in nine eight.
Speaker 1: Now referring back to the different dog varieties again, there's
Speaker 1: that medium sized furred dog, or it's quintly, but it's
Speaker 1: quintly also just means dog more generally. And then the
Speaker 1: dog also played a role in the Aztec zodiac. So
Speaker 1: the day of this dog it occurs at the end
Speaker 1: and is therefore associated with the god miclant Culti, lord
Speaker 1: of the Realm of the dead, who rules over Micklin
Speaker 1: with his bride. And we see this in my traditions
Speaker 1: as well as Buyer points out where the symbol for
Speaker 1: dog is mainly a thorax and a skeleton. A thorax
Speaker 1: yeahora like an insect thorax. Yeah. I was looking at
Speaker 1: examples of it, and UM, I don't know. The comparison
Speaker 1: is maybe a little lost on me because I'm just
Speaker 1: not used to looking at these characters. But I mean,
Speaker 1: I take I take the researchers word for it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess mammals would have a thorax too, so it
Speaker 1: would be like the dog's chest sort of. Now to
Speaker 1: come back to Chilato here, Uh, Buyer writes that Schilato's
Speaker 1: job is also to carry the sun through the underworld
Speaker 1: and is associated with a particular constellation in the night
Speaker 1: sky that was known as the fire Sticks, and so
Speaker 1: the association here, Buyer rights, is that the fire drill
Speaker 1: method of fire production is is linked to the dog
Speaker 1: and to this deity. The constellation here is possibly the
Speaker 1: Belt of Orion. Um. I've seen some some back and
Speaker 1: forth on that, but I think the Belt of Orion
Speaker 1: is the popular UH interpretation of discussions of this particular constellation.
Speaker 1: And he's also associated with the Polades star cluster and
Speaker 1: the fire drill method of fire production. This would be
Speaker 1: a friction based method for forgetting a fire going right
Speaker 1: for it would involve a setup for rapidly rotating one
Speaker 1: piece of wood on another to generate heat through friction
Speaker 1: that would help spark some kindling. Yeah, we we discussed
Speaker 1: this a bit in our Fire Technology series of invention episodes.
Speaker 1: This would have been a very early way to produce fire.
Speaker 1: And you also see Prometheus type characters and other religions
Speaker 1: and traditions that that are closely associated with the fire drill.
Speaker 1: I've seen the Chinese version of this as being referred
Speaker 1: to in translation as the fire driller. So it makes
Speaker 1: sense that the primordial connection with fire production would be
Speaker 1: tied in with this technology. Now there's also there also
Speaker 1: does seem to be a connection as well between Scholatl
Speaker 1: and Venus appearing in Then in the Night Sky as
Speaker 1: a morning star. Again, we're getting into this idea that
Speaker 1: that this deity and or the dog carry the fire
Speaker 1: through the underworld, carry the sun through the underworld. And
Speaker 1: so this gets into the idea of like where does
Speaker 1: Venus go? Where does the sun go when it is
Speaker 1: not in the sky. Well, it is of course traveling
Speaker 1: beneath the earth, it is traveling through the underworld. So um,
Speaker 1: in all of this, I have to stress that I'm
Speaker 1: I'm not giving full justice to the complexity and richness
Speaker 1: of Aztec astrology here. Whole books have been written about
Speaker 1: Aztec astrology, uh and and it. But it seems that
Speaker 1: that there are complex astrological associations between dogs and death
Speaker 1: and fire, and that these worked in unison with less
Speaker 1: abstract aspects of the dog's nature and role in society.
Speaker 1: And it's just overall value to humanity. Now in in
Speaker 1: my in traditions, as reflected in the Mind codices, the
Speaker 1: dog is also the firebringer. I was reading about this
Speaker 1: in The Dragon and the Dog, Two Symbols of Time
Speaker 1: in Non All Religion by Frank J. Newman. Newman writes, quote,
Speaker 1: the dog is often depicted in the Maya codices carrying
Speaker 1: a torch, perhaps a reference to the Maya tradition that
Speaker 1: the dog brought fire to mankind, and the head of
Speaker 1: a dog is sometimes part of the compound glyph which
Speaker 1: represents the fire drill. Okay, so, if I'm understanding everything
Speaker 1: I've been looking at here, it sounds as if we
Speaker 1: have a few things going on sort of feeding into
Speaker 1: each other. First of all, astrological associations between dogs and
Speaker 1: fire uh. Secondly mythological connotations of the dog or dog
Speaker 1: headed deities as firebringers. And then connections some mythological and
Speaker 1: some astrological connecting dogs to the dead and to the
Speaker 1: realm of the dead. And on top of that, though,
Speaker 1: I think perhaps some manner of bleed over between control
Speaker 1: of fire as a major factor in human civilization and
Speaker 1: the importance of the domestic dog, which again, in this context,
Speaker 1: would have served pretty much all of the values placed
Speaker 1: on the domestic dog in the modern context you know, companion, guardian, etcetera,
Speaker 1: with the added context of being the their only domestic
Speaker 1: cated mammalian protein source. You know, again, they did not
Speaker 1: have the domesticated cow, with the domesticated pig, all of
Speaker 1: these these other creatures to to help provide the nutrition
Speaker 1: they needed. The dog was the only domestic mammal that
Speaker 1: could fulfill that that need. I've also read that at
Speaker 1: least in some Mesoamerican traditions and accounts, the dog is
Speaker 1: credited with discovering corn, which would would also be a
Speaker 1: huge achievement on par with fire in some regards. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: so again we see these multiple connections here that that
Speaker 1: speak to the dog's role in civilization, like the fact
Speaker 1: that humans have mastery over things that enable them to
Speaker 1: to build civilizations and to keep going year after year. Uh,
Speaker 1: and to pass on something to to their children. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's the fire, it's the crops that are key, but
Speaker 1: also the dog. Yeah, this is a fascinating triangle that
Speaker 1: sort of says something about about the human species, of
Speaker 1: the triangle of humans, dogs and fire and uh. And
Speaker 1: so I wanted to transition from here to look at
Speaker 1: a little bit of the scientific evidence and and current
Speaker 1: leading hypotheses about the history of the relationship between humans
Speaker 1: and these two elements of nature and of technology, in fact,
Speaker 1: of fire and of dogs. Um. So, one of the
Speaker 1: things I wanted to start off with here is remembering
Speaker 1: an interesting fact from some of our past episodes. We
Speaker 1: did a couple of episodes about um about the history
Speaker 1: of fire on planet Earth, and and the observation is
Speaker 1: this Earth is sometimes thought of as the water planet,
Speaker 1: which is a good descriptor there's a lot of liquid
Speaker 1: water on our surface. But I think it's also quite
Speaker 1: reasonable to think of Earth as the fire planet. Earth
Speaker 1: is really the only place in the Solar System that
Speaker 1: allows for fire, certainly in significant amounts, because in order
Speaker 1: to burn, fire needs heat, fuel, and oxygen, and there
Speaker 1: are plenty of places in the Solar System where you
Speaker 1: can find lots of heat, but fuel and free oxygen
Speaker 1: are much more scarce. The Earth is absolutely packed with
Speaker 1: these two things. It is packed with fuel in the
Speaker 1: form of concentrated carbon molecules produced by the biosphere, and
Speaker 1: it is packed with free oxygen in the atmosphere, which
Speaker 1: is also produced by the biosphere. So so the conditions
Speaker 1: giving rise to the the potential for free burning fires
Speaker 1: actually are very much a product of Earth's biology, the
Speaker 1: presence of life on Earth. Beyond that, another interesting thing
Speaker 1: that makes Earth the fire planet is that, like humans
Speaker 1: don't have to be there to start fires, Earth's weather
Speaker 1: systems naturally provide the flint that continually strikes natural fires
Speaker 1: in the form of lightning. So Earth is a place
Speaker 1: where where fire is not only possible, but fire occurs.
Speaker 1: Right now, to come back to what we were talking
Speaker 1: about earlier, Yes, Earth has fire, Earth has dogs, but
Speaker 1: you really don't see a lot of crossover between the
Speaker 1: two um. In addition to what I mentioned earlier, mean
Speaker 1: the most I really came across was the idea that, yes,
Speaker 1: dogs will warm themselves by fires, be at a camp
Speaker 1: fire or even some other form of fire. There are
Speaker 1: situations where dogs have been observed to take advantage of
Speaker 1: that heat, but other than that, there they don't seem
Speaker 1: to really interact with fire much, which makes sense most
Speaker 1: you know, most species, even those that have a life
Speaker 1: cycle that depends on periodic burns. It doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: their anatomy is has has evolved to actually deal with
Speaker 1: the reality of fire. Right now, there are some examples
Speaker 1: we've discussed before on the show of animals appearing to,
Speaker 1: at least according to some reports, make direct use of fire.
Speaker 1: For example, the fire hawks of of Australia, which have
Speaker 1: been alleged to uh say, use burning sticks to start
Speaker 1: fires to drive out prey animals that they can then
Speaker 1: swoop down an attack. UM. I could not find any
Speaker 1: evidence of any species of Canada, or any carnivore mammal
Speaker 1: for that matter, doing anything like this, So so this
Speaker 1: does not appear to be some thing that happens at nature.
Speaker 1: In nature, at least on a regular basis, but this
Speaker 1: did get me thinking about the history of human domestication
Speaker 1: of fire and of human domestication of dogs, both of
Speaker 1: which are fascinating and contentious subjects deep in our past.
Speaker 1: Um So a few facts. First of all, while there's
Speaker 1: a lot we don't know about both of these subjects,
Speaker 1: I do think it's very clear that our human ancestors
Speaker 1: domesticated fire long before they domesticated dogs. So for a
Speaker 1: few facts about the general timeline of fire development among
Speaker 1: ancient humans and human ancestors, I was looking at a
Speaker 1: paper published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society b
Speaker 1: Biological Sciences from twenty sixteen by a professor of archaeology
Speaker 1: at the University of Liverpool named John Gault, and it's
Speaker 1: called the discovery of fire by humans a long and
Speaker 1: convoluted process. So in summarizing the existing evidence, Galllet writes
Speaker 1: that finding evidence of fire use by really ancient humans
Speaker 1: and human ancestors is sometimes difficult, right because fire is
Speaker 1: not like it's not like a stone artifact, though it
Speaker 1: does leave physical traces that you can uncover. And he
Speaker 1: writes that by about one point five million years ago,
Speaker 1: there are a number of sites occupied by our hominan
Speaker 1: ancestors that show signs of burned material consistent with deliberate
Speaker 1: fire use. Now, one point five million years ago is
Speaker 1: a long time ago, but but this far back the
Speaker 1: evidence is somewhat inconsistent, and it's worth noting that the
Speaker 1: presence of fire at a human or or hominin campsite
Speaker 1: is not necessarily evidence of the ability to strike fire
Speaker 1: from nothing, say, by using a fire drill or flint
Speaker 1: and tinder box or anything like that. Human humans and
Speaker 1: human ancestors probably captured and preserved fires from nature long
Speaker 1: before we had reliable fire striking methods. But Gallant writes
Speaker 1: that by the time of the Middle Place a scene,
Speaker 1: so that would be between about three quarters of a
Speaker 1: million years ago and about a hundred and twenty five
Speaker 1: thousand years ago. Quote recognizable hearths demonstrate a social and
Speaker 1: economic focus on many sites, so the Middle plis too.
Speaker 1: Scene seems to be pretty widely accepted as a time
Speaker 1: by which fire use became widespread and common among humans. Now,
Speaker 1: as wonderful as dogs are, fire is probably more pivotal
Speaker 1: to human history and evolution. It's it's necessary for the
Speaker 1: development of almost all post Stone Age technology so all
Speaker 1: technologies based on metal involved the use of fire and
Speaker 1: their creation. Basically, all technologies after the Neolithic period would
Speaker 1: need fire in order to be made. And this reminds
Speaker 1: me of the quote that outside of a dog, a
Speaker 1: book is man's best friend, but inside of a dog
Speaker 1: it's too dark to read. You need the fire. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Mark's brother said, yeah, you need the fire. But even
Speaker 1: past the role of fire in creating a lot of
Speaker 1: lady or stages of human technology, it's even been hypothesized
Speaker 1: that fire has played major roles in in changes to
Speaker 1: human biology. And this is not something that's known for sure,
Speaker 1: but there are a number of theories that involve the
Speaker 1: intersection of fire and changes to humans are our ourselves
Speaker 1: our own biology. So one major example is the cooking hypothesis,
Speaker 1: which I think we've alluded to on the show before.
Speaker 1: Maybe someday we should devote a full episode to that
Speaker 1: talk about some of the evidence for and against. But
Speaker 1: this is a hypothesis put forward by a British anthropologist
Speaker 1: and primatologist named Richard Wrangham, which argues that there is
Speaker 1: a link between the invention of cooking, which necessitates fire,
Speaker 1: and the shape of modern human bodies, guts, and brains,
Speaker 1: and in Rangam's own words from a paper dealing with
Speaker 1: some of the more recent evidence for and against this hypothesis, quote,
Speaker 1: the cooking hypothesis posits that control of fire leads to
Speaker 1: such a large increase in energy acquisition, and that means
Speaker 1: through eating and reduces the physical challenges of eating food
Speaker 1: so greatly that the evolution of an obligation to incorporate
Speaker 1: cooked food into the diet should be recognizable by evidence
Speaker 1: of novel digestive adaptations and increased energy use. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: have to remember that with cooking, we're talking about to
Speaker 1: a very large degree, the externalization of human digestion. Things
Speaker 1: that that previously, if we were going to digest it,
Speaker 1: it was all going to have to happen inside of us.
Speaker 1: Now we could, we could take steps towards the acquisition
Speaker 1: of those nutrients, sometimes nutrients that would not be available
Speaker 1: to us if we did not cook them. We're able
Speaker 1: to do that outside the human body, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: as sort of central to what Rangum is saying here
Speaker 1: is that subsisting entirely on a raw food diet versus
Speaker 1: subsisting on a cooked food diet, that is such a
Speaker 1: huge difference that you would expect basically different kinds of animals.
Speaker 1: That is a gigantic adaptation that would change change. It
Speaker 1: would change the way your mouth needs to work. You
Speaker 1: would need to devote way less energy to having a
Speaker 1: strong jaw for chewing and crushing. It would change the
Speaker 1: way your gut needs to work. And of course the
Speaker 1: body could maybe spin that energy on other things. And
Speaker 1: like I said, maybe we should come back and do
Speaker 1: a whole episode on that someday, because yeah, I was
Speaker 1: looking at some of the arguments for and against this,
Speaker 1: and it seems like an interesting debate. But so not
Speaker 1: to say that the cooking hypothesis is necessarily correct, but
Speaker 1: I do think it's inarguable that fire is a major
Speaker 1: part of the development of all human culture and shapes
Speaker 1: our lives tremendously. So some use of fire by human
Speaker 1: ancestors probably goes back more than a million years uh,
Speaker 1: the use of fire was common among human ancestors at
Speaker 1: least a few hundred thousand years ago by most estimates.
Speaker 1: The domestication of dogs seems to be roughly in order
Speaker 1: of magnitude more recent. So if common use of fire
Speaker 1: goes back at least a few hundred thousand years. Domestication
Speaker 1: of dog seems to go back in the past few
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of years than now on the scientific
Speaker 1: evidence for the history of the domestication of dogs. There's
Speaker 1: also a lot of disagreement here. But there was one
Speaker 1: recent development I've actually been wanting to talk about on
Speaker 1: the show for a bit, and this gives us a
Speaker 1: good chance to do it today. So there was a
Speaker 1: paper that was published just earlier this year by Angela
Speaker 1: our period all published in p n a S called
Speaker 1: Dog Domestication and the Dual Dispersal of People and Dogs
Speaker 1: into the Americas. And this was a paper that was
Speaker 1: trying to settle some some ongoing debates and outstanding questions
Speaker 1: about the history of dog domestication and how that relates
Speaker 1: to the history of human migration over the continents. And
Speaker 1: so this study tried to use DNA evidence from both
Speaker 1: dogs and humans to try to trace the history of
Speaker 1: the relationship between the two and uh according to the
Speaker 1: authors here, they're findings suggests quote that dogs were domesticated
Speaker 1: in Siberia by about twenty three thousand years ago, possibly
Speaker 1: while both people and wolves were isolated during the harsh
Speaker 1: climate of the Last Glacial maximum. Dogs then accompanied the
Speaker 1: first people into the Americas and traveled with them as
Speaker 1: humans rapidly dispersed into the continent beginning about fifteen thousand
Speaker 1: years ago. So I was reading a really good write
Speaker 1: up of this new paper by David Grimm in Science
Speaker 1: that fills in some more context on this and give
Speaker 1: some texture to it. So um, according to the model
Speaker 1: put forward by the study, Grim rights that the people
Speaker 1: who domesticated dogs probably lived in the area of northeastern
Speaker 1: Siberia during the later part of the last Glacial period
Speaker 1: the Last Ice Age, and these would have been human
Speaker 1: hunter is using stone tipped weapons who probably subsisted on
Speaker 1: megafauna like bison and wooly ma'am myths and the wolf
Speaker 1: like ancestors of modern dogs may have actually been helping
Speaker 1: these humans in their hunting. And then from here, from
Speaker 1: this ancestral population in northeastern Siberia, the descendants of these
Speaker 1: proto dogs went both east and west with their human companions,
Speaker 1: so east into the Americas and then west into Eurasia.
Speaker 1: So the team behind the study, they relied on physical
Speaker 1: evidence in the form of mitochondrial DNA from a human
Speaker 1: and dog remains. Mitochondrial DNA is more readily preserved over
Speaker 1: time and say fossil remains and animal remains than DNA
Speaker 1: from the nucleus of cells. And they concluded that all
Speaker 1: lineages of dogs that accompanied the first human settlers into
Speaker 1: North America shared a common ancestor that was indicated by
Speaker 1: a genetic marker called A to B. And the researchers
Speaker 1: believe these dogs who have descended from this common ancestor
Speaker 1: population that were these domestic did or semi domesticated dogs
Speaker 1: born in the company of humans in North Siberia about
Speaker 1: twenty three thousand years ago. Now imagining the sort of
Speaker 1: setting of this ancestral population of of wolves turning into
Speaker 1: dogs and the humans that we're creating them. Uh, the
Speaker 1: setting here is is something like twenty three to thirty
Speaker 1: one thousand years ago in this area of northeastern Siberia
Speaker 1: that Grim rights was apparently relatively temperate compared to the
Speaker 1: areas all around it, and it was that way for
Speaker 1: thousands of years. So you have to imagine a place
Speaker 1: that during a an ice age is surrounded on the
Speaker 1: east and the west by regions that are probably too
Speaker 1: cold and barren to sustain the lifestyle of of these
Speaker 1: human hunter gatherers, and so basically they would have been
Speaker 1: isolated in these hunting grounds in northeastern Siberia that it
Speaker 1: was kind of an oasis in which they could live.
Speaker 1: And there were also populations of wolves occupying this relative
Speaker 1: oasis in in the last glacial period along with these
Speaker 1: human hunters. Now we'll come back to that oasis concept
Speaker 1: in a minute, but first I wanted to mention that
Speaker 1: we're not sure how exactly the domestication of dogs happened.
Speaker 1: You know, you want to be careful not to put
Speaker 1: too much confidence in people trying to tell a plausible
Speaker 1: story that could explain things, because we don't know for sure.
Speaker 1: But there's a common hypothesis on the domestication process leading
Speaker 1: from the wolf to the domestic dog that seems pretty plausible,
Speaker 1: and it goes like this. So you have humans who
Speaker 1: are hunting and gathering food and maybe making these large
Speaker 1: mega fauna kills. You know, they're killing a wooly mammoth,
Speaker 1: row a bison or something and roasting meat over the
Speaker 1: fire at camp sites, and wild wolves are obviously drawn
Speaker 1: to the smell of the food that humans have harvested,
Speaker 1: and then from here, it's possible that a selection process
Speaker 1: kicks in and it would go something like this. Wolves
Speaker 1: that are too skittish around humans, they just don't you know,
Speaker 1: they keep their distance. They don't want anything to do
Speaker 1: with humans. Humans are too scary, uh, they stay back. Obviously,
Speaker 1: any wolves that were too aggressive or violent about approaching
Speaker 1: humans would react with with violence, and probably those wolves
Speaker 1: would be killed. But wolves that happen to have behavioral
Speaker 1: predispositions causing them to approach humans but not approach aggressively,
Speaker 1: would probably get to share in some of the scraps
Speaker 1: at the human campsite. They would somehow get by their
Speaker 1: proximity to human encampments, get to maybe I don't know,
Speaker 1: scavenge the remains or maybe non the bones that the
Speaker 1: humans tossed away, or maybe even humans would deliberately share
Speaker 1: with them, you know, who knows. And sort of imagine
Speaker 1: how that there could be a crossover between the two,
Speaker 1: like from toleration to perhaps active feeding over time. You know,
Speaker 1: it is clear that these dogs are not a threat,
Speaker 1: and hey, maybe they're actually amusing. Maybe they're interesting to
Speaker 1: look at, uh, And and everything can build up from there. Sure,
Speaker 1: and so again, if this hypothesis is in any way correct.
Speaker 1: These brave but docile scavengers, the dogs, the wolves who
Speaker 1: would approach but wouldn't be aggressive. They would benefit from
Speaker 1: the extra food rewards they would get from proximity to
Speaker 1: these human campsites, and from that extra food they would
Speaker 1: have a survival advantage, and over generations there would be
Speaker 1: these populations of of wolf like creatures or proto dogs,
Speaker 1: these canids who would essentially have bred themselves to become
Speaker 1: friendly companions to humans. At some point, the humans would
Speaker 1: probably have found out that these proto dogs were useful
Speaker 1: for hunting and maybe even for friendship and so forth.
Speaker 1: So again, uh, you know, we don't know that this
Speaker 1: is how it happened, but this is a commonly entertained,
Speaker 1: plausible history of what could have happened here. And it's
Speaker 1: interesting that if there's anything to this hypothesis, the process
Speaker 1: that led to the creation of dogs was in part
Speaker 1: their ancestors willingness to walk toward the fire. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the dog that tolerates the heat, the light, the dog
Speaker 1: that that steps into the glow of the fire. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That article by David Graham and Science actually quotes one
Speaker 1: of the collaborators on the study and archaeologist named David Meltzer,
Speaker 1: who I believe is on faculty at Southern Methodist University
Speaker 1: uh And, and his quote is great. He says, these
Speaker 1: people were probably sleeping on the ground in furs, roasting
Speaker 1: fresh kills on the fire. If you're a hungry carnivore
Speaker 1: and you smell a mammoth barbecue, you're going to check
Speaker 1: it out. And so, yeah, I like the idea that,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe in the same way that cooking changed humans,
Speaker 1: something cooking could have possibly played a role in the
Speaker 1: attraction of these wolf like ancestors of modern dogs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I find it interesting to think about this and
Speaker 1: then think about, you know, the end result with with
Speaker 1: mine and as tech situation civilization. To imagine these Eurasian
Speaker 1: people's moving across the world uh over into North America
Speaker 1: and then downward towards Meso American and South America. If
Speaker 1: what did they bring with them? You know, obviously they
Speaker 1: brought their cultures and their traditions and their knowledge, but
Speaker 1: they but they brought with them the fire, and they
Speaker 1: brought with them the dog. You know, a lot of
Speaker 1: the other things they may have brought with them. In
Speaker 1: the short term would have given way to new crops,
Speaker 1: the new plants they might discover, new animals they might discover,
Speaker 1: but the fire and the dog were certainly constants. Now,
Speaker 1: one last thing I wanted to come back to with
Speaker 1: this study from earlier this year. There's one possible catch
Speaker 1: in this, this hypothetical process by which the earliest ancestors
Speaker 1: of dogs were created. It might be kind of problematic
Speaker 1: to imagine that nomadic humans who are moving all over
Speaker 1: the place to to follow, say, their prey animals, you know,
Speaker 1: they're the nomadic human hunters, could have created these dogs
Speaker 1: because they would be moving and so encountering probably new
Speaker 1: population of wolves wherever they went, so that there might
Speaker 1: not be enough repeated exposure to the same populations of
Speaker 1: wolves to create the dogs. But one of the things
Speaker 1: put forward in this study is that it would have
Speaker 1: had this sort of oasis place in in northeastern Siberia
Speaker 1: that was surrounded on all sides by more harsh environments.
Speaker 1: So you would have the humans staying in a relatively
Speaker 1: stable location and wolf populations staying in the same uh
Speaker 1: place with them, So you'd have them just interacting in
Speaker 1: close quarters for thousands of years at a time, and
Speaker 1: this could have given the opportunity to actually kick off
Speaker 1: and sustain this breeding process turning wolves into dogs. Huh. Interesting.
Speaker 1: You know, all of this reminds me of another little
Speaker 1: piece that came up, because in in a weird way,
Speaker 1: it has a little bit of the of the Catholic traditions,
Speaker 1: certainly has some of the Mayan traditions, but also some
Speaker 1: of these ideas we've been discussing dealing with the hypothesis
Speaker 1: of of of dog domestication. I was reading in E. J.
Speaker 1: Silawowski's The Inside Flopedia of the Bible and Its Reception,
Speaker 1: Volume six, and and I just want to read this
Speaker 1: little quote from it here. Morris Siegel, to demonstrate the
Speaker 1: fusion of Spanish, Catholic, and Mayan Indian traits in the
Speaker 1: religions of Indians and modern Western Guatemala, recounts a cultured
Speaker 1: creation story he recorded there in nineteen forty one in
Speaker 1: which the child God, which the author says that equals
Speaker 1: Jesus in this scenario, son of our virgin mother, gathered
Speaker 1: together the meat bones from his uncle's feast, planted them,
Speaker 1: and built a corral around the place. In three days,
Speaker 1: all the animals in the world had grown from the
Speaker 1: buried bones, and the uncle's jealous opened the corral and
Speaker 1: released the animals. Yet the dog was one of the
Speaker 1: few that remained, whether willingly or simply out of a
Speaker 1: failure to escape to live with human beings. WHOA, I
Speaker 1: like that because it again, it kind of gets into
Speaker 1: an idea about the dog, like the does the dog
Speaker 1: stick with us because it is clever or because it
Speaker 1: is dumb? Because the dog is and I think it's
Speaker 1: ultimately neither of those. But you know that the idea
Speaker 1: that like, why is the dog the animal that seems
Speaker 1: closest to us, that is, that is man's best friend.
Speaker 1: But then also this account involves slaughter at a camp site,
Speaker 1: you know, it involves the bones of the dead, So
Speaker 1: we get that connection to this idea of the dog
Speaker 1: as the a is having an innate connection to the
Speaker 1: realms beyond death, but also this connection to human cooking. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: I also like the way that this I don't know
Speaker 1: this something about this vision of the dog makes it
Speaker 1: both the most and least mysterious of creatures. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like the most familiar but also has one of
Speaker 1: the most intriguing histories that we, you know, is somewhat
Speaker 1: obscure to us. Yeah. Yeah, the idea that like the
Speaker 1: dog has just the dog is there. The dog has
Speaker 1: remained there. Uh. Even if you don't want the dog anymore,
Speaker 1: the dog will will stay, uh, which is kind of
Speaker 1: reflected in this story. To the jealous uncles are like,
Speaker 1: get these animals, Get these animals out of here hanging
Speaker 1: out around our bones. The dog didn't go. The dog
Speaker 1: is here to stay. But I have to say, I
Speaker 1: do really like this idea of the dog is the
Speaker 1: firebringer and the dog and dog is the dog carrying
Speaker 1: the fire for humanity, lighting the way for us into
Speaker 1: the dark, because this does seem to just it's kind
Speaker 1: of lines up with a lot of the the attributes
Speaker 1: that we we recognize in our relationships with our pets,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, particularly with the dog. You know,
Speaker 1: this this is our buddy, This is he's a guide.
Speaker 1: He is a guardian and and perhaps has esoteric knowledge
Speaker 1: of the great beyond. All dogs are wizards. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: And so the next time you're you're making eye contact
Speaker 1: with your dog, just remember this animal knows the way
Speaker 1: to Micklin. Now, obviously we'd love to hear from everyone
Speaker 1: out there, especially dog owners. I'm sure you have some
Speaker 1: thoughts on all of this. I do want to drive
Speaker 1: home the Please do not try and give your dog
Speaker 1: anything on fire because of anything you heard in this episode.
Speaker 1: We're certain your dog doesn't want any part of the fire,
Speaker 1: and only disaster can occur if you try to recreate
Speaker 1: these artistic and mythic images um using an actual knine. Yes, children,
Speaker 1: do not try to recreate an active dog py romancy
Speaker 1: you heard about on this podcast. However, I will just
Speaker 1: throw this out there. If you want to get a
Speaker 1: dog toy that looks like a torch or a flaming brand,
Speaker 1: they do exist, you can, but you can find them.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at a couple of varieties of these right now.
Speaker 1: So if you are inspired by this podcast and you
Speaker 1: want pictures of your dog holding a flaming brand, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, bringing some sort of vision to humanity. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: just go spend nine to seventeen dollars and get yourself
Speaker 1: a a chew toy torch. Are these are these two
Speaker 1: toys merch created by the Dominicans? Um, I know the
Speaker 1: Vatican gift shop. Let's see. I see one that is
Speaker 1: labeled as Frisco Mythical Mates of Viking Torch plus Squeaking
Speaker 1: Dog toy. Uh. It sounds lovely and it's available for
Speaker 1: like Okay, I don't know why it's a Viking thing.
Speaker 1: Like Vikings didn't come up in this podcast at all.
Speaker 1: It needs to be connected to the Mayans or to
Speaker 1: ut To Catholics, needs to be a Frisco Mythical Mates
Speaker 1: Catholic Torch plus Squeaking Dog toy or something. All right,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go and close this one out. But yeah,
Speaker 1: certainly right in let us know. Tell us about your
Speaker 1: dog and if you have a dog that has one
Speaker 1: of these, uh, these two toys, yes, I would like
Speaker 1: to see a picture of the two together. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: if you want to listen to other episodes of Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind, just check out the Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind podcast feed. You can find that wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. We have core episodes publishing Tuesdays
Speaker 1: and Thursdays. We have listener mail on Monday, we have
Speaker 1: an artifact on Wednesday, and we have a Weird House
Speaker 1: Cineam on Friday. That's our time to just talk about
Speaker 1: a weird movie and set the science most we aside
Speaker 1: for the time date hell and then we have a
Speaker 1: rerun on the weekends. Huge thanks as always to our
Speaker 1: excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us with feedback on this
Speaker 1: episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,
Speaker 1: or just to say hello, you can email us at
Speaker 1: contact that Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind is production of I heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my heart radio, this is the
Speaker 1: i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.