1 00:00:02,480 --> 00:00:06,760 Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. On January twenty seventh, seventeen hundred, a tsunami 2 00:00:06,920 --> 00:00:11,000 Speaker 1: struck Japan, although centuries passed before anybody made the connection 3 00:00:11,119 --> 00:00:14,480 Speaker 1: between the tsunami and the earthquake that had spawned it. 4 00:00:15,200 --> 00:00:18,480 Speaker 1: That's the subject of today's Saturday Classic on what came 5 00:00:18,520 --> 00:00:22,280 Speaker 1: to be known as the Orphan Tsunami. This episode originally 6 00:00:22,320 --> 00:00:29,200 Speaker 1: came out on October twelfth, twenty sixteen. Enjoy Welcome to 7 00:00:29,240 --> 00:00:40,400 Speaker 1: Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, 8 00:00:40,760 --> 00:00:44,159 Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracey V. Wilson and 9 00:00:44,240 --> 00:00:47,320 Speaker 1: I'm Holly Frye. Today we're talking about a story that 10 00:00:47,360 --> 00:00:50,879 Speaker 1: has three totally distinct parts. The first part we're going 11 00:00:50,920 --> 00:00:53,960 Speaker 1: to talk about is that in January of seventeen hundred, 12 00:00:54,040 --> 00:00:57,280 Speaker 1: a tsunami struck the coast of Japan. And this is 13 00:00:57,320 --> 00:01:00,360 Speaker 1: a tsunami that's really well documented in records at an 14 00:01:00,440 --> 00:01:03,080 Speaker 1: art from the time period. And by this point, the 15 00:01:03,120 --> 00:01:06,440 Speaker 1: people of Japan knew that tsunamis could follow earthquakes, and 16 00:01:06,560 --> 00:01:09,440 Speaker 1: especially when it came to domestic tsunamis, where both the 17 00:01:09,440 --> 00:01:12,959 Speaker 1: tsunami and the earthquake that caused it happened there in Japan, 18 00:01:13,440 --> 00:01:16,600 Speaker 1: people had a really clear sense that when an earthquake struck, 19 00:01:16,640 --> 00:01:20,520 Speaker 1: a tsunami could follow. But sometimes an earthquake spawns a 20 00:01:20,520 --> 00:01:24,319 Speaker 1: tsunami that makes landfall somewhere really far away. And since 21 00:01:24,400 --> 00:01:29,039 Speaker 1: instantaneous communication over thousands of miles is an incredibly recent invention, 22 00:01:30,120 --> 00:01:33,639 Speaker 1: connecting these foreign tsunamis to the earthquakes that spawned them 23 00:01:34,200 --> 00:01:38,199 Speaker 1: as really the work of later scientists. After an earthquake 24 00:01:38,360 --> 00:01:41,919 Speaker 1: in Chile in nineteen sixty spawned a tsunami that struck Japan, 25 00:01:42,200 --> 00:01:45,520 Speaker 1: a worker at a weather station figured out that tsunami 26 00:01:45,560 --> 00:01:49,360 Speaker 1: that had struck Japan in sixteen eighty seven, seventeen thirty, 27 00:01:49,400 --> 00:01:52,200 Speaker 1: and seventeen fifty one had come from Peru and Chile. 28 00:01:53,040 --> 00:01:55,840 Speaker 1: This seventeen hundred tsunami continued to be a mystery for 29 00:01:55,880 --> 00:01:59,080 Speaker 1: one of the thirty plus years, though it became known 30 00:01:59,120 --> 00:02:02,600 Speaker 1: as the Orphans unami. And that tsunami, the earthquake that 31 00:02:02,680 --> 00:02:05,440 Speaker 1: caused it, and how people finally figured out which was 32 00:02:05,480 --> 00:02:09,200 Speaker 1: which are what we are talking about today. So the 33 00:02:09,240 --> 00:02:12,200 Speaker 1: first written record of a tsunami in Japan is from 34 00:02:12,240 --> 00:02:15,960 Speaker 1: the year six eighty four. An earthquake struck the province 35 00:02:15,960 --> 00:02:20,600 Speaker 1: of Tosa, now known as Kochi. Afterwards quote the province 36 00:02:20,639 --> 00:02:23,760 Speaker 1: of Tosa reported that a great tide rose and caused 37 00:02:23,800 --> 00:02:28,079 Speaker 1: many of the ships conveying tribute to sink and be lost. 38 00:02:28,360 --> 00:02:32,399 Speaker 1: The word tsunami wasn't coined until later, though. It combines 39 00:02:32,440 --> 00:02:36,720 Speaker 1: the character tsu, which means harbor, and nami, which means wave. 40 00:02:38,080 --> 00:02:40,720 Speaker 1: Its first use in writing is from sixteen twelve to 41 00:02:40,800 --> 00:02:44,240 Speaker 1: describe one that struck on December two of sixteen eleven, 42 00:02:44,360 --> 00:02:47,640 Speaker 1: roughly four hours after an earthquake off the coast of Japan. 43 00:02:48,320 --> 00:02:52,120 Speaker 1: This tsunami was disastrous, killing thousands and thousands of people, 44 00:02:53,080 --> 00:02:56,040 Speaker 1: and from there the word tsunami made its way into 45 00:02:56,080 --> 00:02:59,760 Speaker 1: English in the late eighteen hundreds. By the nineteen fifties, 46 00:02:59,800 --> 00:03:02,640 Speaker 1: it become one of the few Japanese loanwords in the 47 00:03:02,639 --> 00:03:07,600 Speaker 1: English language's physics lexicon. This known connection between earthquakes and 48 00:03:07,639 --> 00:03:10,840 Speaker 1: tsunami was so solid in the eighteenth century in Japan 49 00:03:11,240 --> 00:03:14,120 Speaker 1: that when the seventeen hundred tsunami struck, most of the 50 00:03:14,120 --> 00:03:18,520 Speaker 1: people writing about it didn't actually call it a tsunami. Instead, 51 00:03:18,600 --> 00:03:21,240 Speaker 1: almost all of the surviving written records use words like 52 00:03:21,360 --> 00:03:26,280 Speaker 1: high tide, flood, high water, and unusual seas. The headmen 53 00:03:26,360 --> 00:03:28,880 Speaker 1: of the village of Miho did wonder in his records 54 00:03:28,880 --> 00:03:30,959 Speaker 1: whether it was a tsunami, which is something that he 55 00:03:31,120 --> 00:03:35,680 Speaker 1: spelled out phonetically rather than using the Japanese character for tsunami, 56 00:03:35,680 --> 00:03:38,040 Speaker 1: So it's probably a word that he had heard but 57 00:03:38,200 --> 00:03:42,200 Speaker 1: didn't know how to write. But he clearly seems puzzled 58 00:03:42,200 --> 00:03:45,280 Speaker 1: at whether this could have been a tsunami, since there 59 00:03:45,320 --> 00:03:49,040 Speaker 1: had not been an earthquake beforehand, and we have lots 60 00:03:49,080 --> 00:03:53,119 Speaker 1: of writing from lots of different people about this particular tsunami. 61 00:03:53,640 --> 00:03:56,920 Speaker 1: In seventeen hundred, Japan was about one hundred years into 62 00:03:56,920 --> 00:04:00,560 Speaker 1: the Tokugawa Period also called the Edo Period, and this 63 00:04:00,680 --> 00:04:03,080 Speaker 1: was the nearly two hundred and fifty year span of 64 00:04:03,160 --> 00:04:07,040 Speaker 1: relative peace and stability under the rule of the Tokugawa Shogunate. 65 00:04:07,680 --> 00:04:10,000 Speaker 1: If you want a bit more detail about the Tokugawa 66 00:04:10,120 --> 00:04:12,160 Speaker 1: and the culture of the Edo period, there is a 67 00:04:12,160 --> 00:04:15,200 Speaker 1: lot more about it in our past podcast on Hokusai. 68 00:04:16,640 --> 00:04:20,839 Speaker 1: During this period, literacy was pretty widespread among social classes, 69 00:04:20,880 --> 00:04:23,800 Speaker 1: and the culture of governmental bureaucracy meant that there were 70 00:04:23,880 --> 00:04:28,120 Speaker 1: a lot of records being kept about basically everything. Records 71 00:04:28,120 --> 00:04:31,040 Speaker 1: of the tsunami survive in the paperwork of the daimyo 72 00:04:31,240 --> 00:04:33,960 Speaker 1: or the feudal lords, as well as the merchants and 73 00:04:34,120 --> 00:04:36,960 Speaker 1: people of the peasant class who were basically leaders in 74 00:04:37,000 --> 00:04:43,080 Speaker 1: their individual villages. The tsunami reached Japan on January twenty seventh, 75 00:04:43,120 --> 00:04:46,719 Speaker 1: seventeen hundred, or in the Japanese calendar, the eighth day 76 00:04:46,839 --> 00:04:50,479 Speaker 1: of the twelfth month of Genroku twelve. The path of 77 00:04:50,520 --> 00:04:55,400 Speaker 1: the tsunami arcd from the northeast to southwest down Japan's coast, 78 00:04:55,880 --> 00:04:59,120 Speaker 1: striking Kuwagasaki in the north, first on the twenty seventh, 79 00:04:59,160 --> 00:05:02,320 Speaker 1: close to midnight, and then moving south until it reached 80 00:05:02,320 --> 00:05:06,320 Speaker 1: to Nabe the following morning. All the surviving written records 81 00:05:06,360 --> 00:05:09,120 Speaker 1: come from towns and villages on the island of Honshu, 82 00:05:09,440 --> 00:05:12,400 Speaker 1: which is Japan's largest island and was also home to 83 00:05:12,440 --> 00:05:16,640 Speaker 1: the capital city of Edo, which is today Tokyo. So 84 00:05:16,680 --> 00:05:19,440 Speaker 1: we're going to walk down the path the tsunami took 85 00:05:19,480 --> 00:05:22,160 Speaker 1: from north to south, and it started at least according 86 00:05:22,200 --> 00:05:25,560 Speaker 1: to the records, in the fishing village of Kuwagasaki, which 87 00:05:25,600 --> 00:05:29,640 Speaker 1: is on the northwest edge of Miyako Bay. The tsunami 88 00:05:29,720 --> 00:05:31,840 Speaker 1: struck in the middle of the night without any warning, 89 00:05:32,000 --> 00:05:34,440 Speaker 1: and although the people who were living there were able 90 00:05:34,440 --> 00:05:37,120 Speaker 1: to escape to higher ground and no one was injured, 91 00:05:37,640 --> 00:05:41,360 Speaker 1: the combination of floodwaters and fires destroyed about ten percent 92 00:05:41,400 --> 00:05:45,360 Speaker 1: of the town's three hundred houses. The water itself was 93 00:05:45,440 --> 00:05:49,640 Speaker 1: responsible for the destruction of thirteen homes. The records from 94 00:05:49,720 --> 00:05:54,080 Speaker 1: Kuwagasaki are the only ones to conclusively use the word 95 00:05:54,160 --> 00:05:59,240 Speaker 1: tsunami to describe this seventeen hundred flood. Officials in the 96 00:05:59,279 --> 00:06:02,800 Speaker 1: neighboring town of Miyako, which was also the administrative seat 97 00:06:02,839 --> 00:06:06,159 Speaker 1: for Kuwagasaki and other villages in the area, started a 98 00:06:06,200 --> 00:06:09,960 Speaker 1: relief effort, and in the following days, stipends of rice 99 00:06:10,000 --> 00:06:12,480 Speaker 1: were distributed to one hundred and fifty nine people who 100 00:06:12,480 --> 00:06:15,560 Speaker 1: had been affected by the tsunami, and officials in Miyako 101 00:06:15,680 --> 00:06:18,640 Speaker 1: also requested allotments of low grade woods so that they 102 00:06:18,680 --> 00:06:22,640 Speaker 1: could build temporary shelters. The tsunami waters traveled all the 103 00:06:22,680 --> 00:06:27,240 Speaker 1: way through Miyako Bay, damaging and destroying structures along the 104 00:06:27,320 --> 00:06:31,720 Speaker 1: coast and eventually reaching the village of Sugaruishi, which was 105 00:06:31,760 --> 00:06:34,720 Speaker 1: a kilometer inland and thus caused a panic among the 106 00:06:34,760 --> 00:06:37,520 Speaker 1: people who were living there Because of the shape of 107 00:06:37,560 --> 00:06:41,120 Speaker 1: the bay, which funneled the water into a relatively narrow space. 108 00:06:41,240 --> 00:06:43,920 Speaker 1: The crest of the tsunami was probably the highest here, 109 00:06:44,400 --> 00:06:49,480 Speaker 1: about five meters or sixteen feet. The records at Sugarui 110 00:06:49,480 --> 00:06:52,800 Speaker 1: Shi don't mention the word tsunami, but they do mention 111 00:06:52,880 --> 00:06:56,080 Speaker 1: the absence of an earthquake. And also due to a 112 00:06:56,120 --> 00:06:59,760 Speaker 1: clerical error, these records also misrecord the date by a 113 00:06:59,760 --> 00:07:03,080 Speaker 1: full month. Yeah, there was this and one other thing 114 00:07:03,120 --> 00:07:06,920 Speaker 1: that both were like oops, they just noted the wrong 115 00:07:07,040 --> 00:07:12,160 Speaker 1: date there. Continuing south in the port of Otsuchi, most 116 00:07:12,160 --> 00:07:14,480 Speaker 1: of the damage was to crops. There were rice paddies 117 00:07:14,480 --> 00:07:16,760 Speaker 1: and vegetable fields that were planted close to the sea 118 00:07:16,800 --> 00:07:21,160 Speaker 1: that were destroyed. Two houses and two saltkin kilns were 119 00:07:21,240 --> 00:07:26,559 Speaker 1: damaged as well. In Nakamenado, high waves prevented a boat 120 00:07:26,720 --> 00:07:29,640 Speaker 1: carrying four hundred and seventy bales of rice from entering 121 00:07:29,680 --> 00:07:32,200 Speaker 1: the mouth of the river and continuing inland to its 122 00:07:32,240 --> 00:07:35,240 Speaker 1: destination of Edo. When it couldn't reach the river, the 123 00:07:35,280 --> 00:07:38,280 Speaker 1: boat dropped anchor, and as the seas got rougher, it 124 00:07:38,360 --> 00:07:42,360 Speaker 1: jettisoned part of its cargo. But then the seas continually 125 00:07:42,400 --> 00:07:45,200 Speaker 1: got worse. The anchor line broke and the boat was 126 00:07:45,280 --> 00:07:47,880 Speaker 1: driven into the rocks, causing the loss of the rest 127 00:07:47,880 --> 00:07:50,600 Speaker 1: of its cargo, which was twenty eight metric tons of rice, 128 00:07:51,080 --> 00:07:54,360 Speaker 1: and the deaths of two of its crew. Of all 129 00:07:54,400 --> 00:07:57,880 Speaker 1: the descriptions of the tsunami that survive until today, this 130 00:07:58,040 --> 00:08:00,200 Speaker 1: incident is the one that seems to go on for 131 00:08:00,240 --> 00:08:04,040 Speaker 1: the longest. Most likely, the boat was really struck twice, 132 00:08:04,240 --> 00:08:07,080 Speaker 1: once by the incoming water, which kept it from entering 133 00:08:07,080 --> 00:08:08,840 Speaker 1: the mouth of the river, and then it was struck 134 00:08:08,840 --> 00:08:11,480 Speaker 1: a second time by the rebound of that water off 135 00:08:11,520 --> 00:08:13,400 Speaker 1: of the land and the currents from the mouth of 136 00:08:13,400 --> 00:08:16,520 Speaker 1: the river, And so that second wave is what drove 137 00:08:16,560 --> 00:08:20,000 Speaker 1: the boat onto the rocks. The headman in Miho, a 138 00:08:20,160 --> 00:08:23,200 Speaker 1: population three hundred, the same one who had wondered whether 139 00:08:23,240 --> 00:08:27,160 Speaker 1: the strange seas were a tsunami, evacuated the village's elderly 140 00:08:27,240 --> 00:08:30,320 Speaker 1: residents and its children to a shrine on high ground. 141 00:08:31,000 --> 00:08:34,160 Speaker 1: He described the unusual seas as a series of seven 142 00:08:34,240 --> 00:08:39,240 Speaker 1: unusually large waves. Because Miho was relatively sheltered, the crest 143 00:08:39,280 --> 00:08:42,760 Speaker 1: of the tsunami there was probably smaller than in Miaco Bay, 144 00:08:43,000 --> 00:08:45,920 Speaker 1: where the shape of the land funneled the waters The 145 00:08:45,960 --> 00:08:48,640 Speaker 1: city of Tanabe is on the southern end of the 146 00:08:48,679 --> 00:08:52,400 Speaker 1: recorded journey of the tsunami's path. Tanabe was much larger 147 00:08:52,440 --> 00:08:55,319 Speaker 1: and had a population of about twenty six hundred, including 148 00:08:55,400 --> 00:08:58,840 Speaker 1: the mayor for the whole district. There, the tsunami flooded 149 00:08:58,840 --> 00:09:02,559 Speaker 1: a government's storehouse, castle moat, and it flooded farmland around 150 00:09:02,600 --> 00:09:06,720 Speaker 1: the bay. This stretch of Japanese coastline covers nearly one 151 00:09:06,760 --> 00:09:09,880 Speaker 1: thousand kilometers. It's about six hundred and twenty one miles 152 00:09:10,520 --> 00:09:13,160 Speaker 1: at various points along that span. The crest of the 153 00:09:13,160 --> 00:09:16,840 Speaker 1: tsunami seems to have ranged from two to five meters 154 00:09:17,200 --> 00:09:20,040 Speaker 1: or six and a half to sixteen feet, So it 155 00:09:20,120 --> 00:09:23,520 Speaker 1: was definitely enough to cause damage and alarm, but it 156 00:09:23,559 --> 00:09:26,200 Speaker 1: was a smaller influx of water than say the flood 157 00:09:26,200 --> 00:09:30,040 Speaker 1: from a typhoon or a very powerful storm surge. Yeah. 158 00:09:30,080 --> 00:09:32,680 Speaker 1: So this, although it was damaging and there was some 159 00:09:32,800 --> 00:09:34,480 Speaker 1: loss of life, this is one of those things that 160 00:09:34,960 --> 00:09:37,600 Speaker 1: by comparison, like a really bad storm, could have had 161 00:09:37,600 --> 00:09:41,520 Speaker 1: a similar or worse effect on the island. This is 162 00:09:41,559 --> 00:09:45,320 Speaker 1: also much much smaller than, for example, the tsunami that 163 00:09:45,400 --> 00:09:48,440 Speaker 1: was spawned by the March eleventh, twenty eleven earthquake that 164 00:09:48,480 --> 00:09:51,199 Speaker 1: reached heights of up to forty meters or one hundred 165 00:09:51,200 --> 00:09:54,040 Speaker 1: and thirty one feet, and that was smaller than the 166 00:09:54,040 --> 00:09:56,920 Speaker 1: tsunami that was spawned by this same earthquake when it 167 00:09:57,000 --> 00:10:00,280 Speaker 1: struck North America's Pacific northwest, which is what we going 168 00:10:00,280 --> 00:10:02,600 Speaker 1: to talk about after a brief word from a sponsor. 169 00:10:15,440 --> 00:10:19,440 Speaker 1: Unlike in Japan, where a government that was really into 170 00:10:19,559 --> 00:10:22,640 Speaker 1: record keeping combined with a population that was highly literate 171 00:10:22,679 --> 00:10:24,480 Speaker 1: to give us lots and lots of written records of 172 00:10:24,520 --> 00:10:28,720 Speaker 1: the tsunami, in northwestern North America, histories were being kept 173 00:10:28,760 --> 00:10:32,160 Speaker 1: at this point through oral tradition. In seventeen hundred, the 174 00:10:32,240 --> 00:10:36,679 Speaker 1: Cascadia region, which encompasses what's now northern California all the 175 00:10:36,720 --> 00:10:40,679 Speaker 1: way north to Alaska, was home to four distinct cultural 176 00:10:40,840 --> 00:10:46,839 Speaker 1: language groups, the Coast Salish, the Wakashian, the Shinookan, and 177 00:10:47,400 --> 00:10:52,319 Speaker 1: the Sahaptan. These encompassed a dozen distinct languages and many 178 00:10:52,440 --> 00:10:55,480 Speaker 1: many more distinct tribes and bands, all of them with 179 00:10:55,559 --> 00:11:01,040 Speaker 1: their own traditions and customs and cultures and stories. Earthquake happened, 180 00:11:01,280 --> 00:11:04,800 Speaker 1: this part of North America had not yet experienced sustained 181 00:11:04,840 --> 00:11:08,319 Speaker 1: contact with Europeans. It would be another seventy plus years 182 00:11:08,360 --> 00:11:11,559 Speaker 1: before Bruno Jsseta would land in what's now Washington State, 183 00:11:12,080 --> 00:11:16,440 Speaker 1: or Captain James Cook would explore Vancouver Island. Europeans started 184 00:11:16,440 --> 00:11:19,800 Speaker 1: colonizing the Pacific Northwest about a century later, and it 185 00:11:19,840 --> 00:11:23,360 Speaker 1: was another fifty years before European arrivals started writing down 186 00:11:23,400 --> 00:11:27,600 Speaker 1: that region's oral traditions. But in that roughly century and 187 00:11:27,640 --> 00:11:30,840 Speaker 1: a half between first contact and the effort to document 188 00:11:30,920 --> 00:11:34,800 Speaker 1: Native American and First Nations people's oral histories in Cascadia, 189 00:11:35,200 --> 00:11:38,640 Speaker 1: as many as ninety five percent of those distinct oral 190 00:11:38,679 --> 00:11:43,960 Speaker 1: traditions were lost. Warfare, European introduced diseases, loss of traditional 191 00:11:44,040 --> 00:11:48,560 Speaker 1: territory to European colonists, and cultural assimilation all played a 192 00:11:48,640 --> 00:11:51,640 Speaker 1: role in the loss of a whole lot of Cascadia's 193 00:11:51,679 --> 00:11:56,800 Speaker 1: unwritten history. However, it's clear from the symbolism in many 194 00:11:56,800 --> 00:11:59,959 Speaker 1: of the surviving Native stories that the Native people of Cascadia, 195 00:12:00,400 --> 00:12:04,320 Speaker 1: like the people of Japan, understood the connection between earthquakes 196 00:12:04,360 --> 00:12:07,680 Speaker 1: and floods. There are lots of references to earthquakes and 197 00:12:07,720 --> 00:12:11,400 Speaker 1: floods in their oral histories, their folklore, and stories throughout 198 00:12:11,400 --> 00:12:15,760 Speaker 1: the region. Stories about thunderbird battling with whale are common 199 00:12:15,760 --> 00:12:19,400 Speaker 1: among many Pacific Northwest peoples, likely drawn from the region's 200 00:12:19,440 --> 00:12:23,520 Speaker 1: seismic activity and the connection between shaking ground and rushing water. 201 00:12:24,520 --> 00:12:27,880 Speaker 1: In some of these stories, thunderbird sinks his talons into 202 00:12:27,920 --> 00:12:31,640 Speaker 1: whale's back as they're fighting, and whale drags thunderbird down 203 00:12:31,679 --> 00:12:35,200 Speaker 1: to the bottom of the ocean, and others thunderbird flies 204 00:12:35,200 --> 00:12:38,800 Speaker 1: into the sky with whale like holding whale and then 205 00:12:38,920 --> 00:12:43,440 Speaker 1: drops whale onto the ocean, causing a massive flood. The 206 00:12:43,520 --> 00:12:46,400 Speaker 1: mythology is a little bit different further to the south. 207 00:12:46,720 --> 00:12:50,000 Speaker 1: For instance, the Uruk tribe, who historically lived along the 208 00:12:50,000 --> 00:12:53,640 Speaker 1: southern part of Cascadia and along Klamath River and are 209 00:12:53,640 --> 00:12:57,400 Speaker 1: a federally recognized tribe in California today, has a story 210 00:12:57,440 --> 00:13:01,240 Speaker 1: about thunder and earthquake. I went to earthquake because the 211 00:13:01,280 --> 00:13:03,760 Speaker 1: people didn't have enough to eat, thinking that if the 212 00:13:03,760 --> 00:13:08,080 Speaker 1: planes became ocean, people could fish there. So earthquake ran 213 00:13:08,120 --> 00:13:10,920 Speaker 1: along the land, causing the land to sink and fill 214 00:13:11,000 --> 00:13:16,679 Speaker 1: with an ocean full of salmon, whales, and seals. In 215 00:13:16,679 --> 00:13:20,320 Speaker 1: addition to stories like these, themes of shaking and flooding 216 00:13:20,360 --> 00:13:23,120 Speaker 1: and an inner play between The two are also present 217 00:13:23,160 --> 00:13:27,280 Speaker 1: in masks, art, dance, and ceremonies among many of Cascadia's 218 00:13:27,320 --> 00:13:31,920 Speaker 1: native peoples. But apart from the more general tradition of folklore, 219 00:13:32,000 --> 00:13:34,520 Speaker 1: myths and legends, which of course are open to lots 220 00:13:34,520 --> 00:13:38,520 Speaker 1: of other interpretations as well, there are also specific stories 221 00:13:38,559 --> 00:13:42,120 Speaker 1: about specific earthquakes and tsunami that have been passed down 222 00:13:42,120 --> 00:13:47,960 Speaker 1: through generations. Modern researchers studying the connections between native oral 223 00:13:48,080 --> 00:13:51,800 Speaker 1: history and the region's seismic history have traced nine different 224 00:13:51,840 --> 00:13:55,840 Speaker 1: stories told to Europeans by native peoples between eighteen sixty 225 00:13:55,880 --> 00:13:59,600 Speaker 1: and nineteen sixty four that are detailed enough to determine 226 00:13:59,640 --> 00:14:03,360 Speaker 1: they probably stem from the seventeen hundred earthquake and tsunami. 227 00:14:04,040 --> 00:14:07,679 Speaker 1: They're stories that combined both flooding and shaking, and describe 228 00:14:07,679 --> 00:14:11,200 Speaker 1: family connections or other details that put the story into 229 00:14:11,240 --> 00:14:14,640 Speaker 1: that right time period. Three of them are the stories 230 00:14:14,679 --> 00:14:19,520 Speaker 1: of specific ancestors, grandparents or great grandparents who either saw 231 00:14:19,560 --> 00:14:23,480 Speaker 1: a survivor of the seventeen hundred earthquake or survived it themselves. 232 00:14:24,520 --> 00:14:27,080 Speaker 1: One of the most frequently cited was written down in 233 00:14:27,120 --> 00:14:30,560 Speaker 1: eighteen sixty four. A man known as Billy Blatch told 234 00:14:30,640 --> 00:14:33,680 Speaker 1: James Swan the story of a tsunami, which Swan recorded 235 00:14:33,680 --> 00:14:36,680 Speaker 1: in his diary on Tuesday, January twelfth of that year. 236 00:14:37,240 --> 00:14:40,440 Speaker 1: Swin wrote that Billy Blatch told him about water that 237 00:14:40,560 --> 00:14:44,080 Speaker 1: flowed and then receded and then rose again quote without 238 00:14:44,160 --> 00:14:47,360 Speaker 1: any swell or waves, and submerged the whole of the cape, 239 00:14:47,360 --> 00:14:50,760 Speaker 1: and in fact the whole country except the mountains. Billy 240 00:14:50,800 --> 00:14:53,320 Speaker 1: Blatch's story goes on to talk about people who drifted 241 00:14:53,320 --> 00:14:55,880 Speaker 1: away in their canoes, as well as canoes that came 242 00:14:55,920 --> 00:14:58,520 Speaker 1: down in the trees and were destroyed, and lives that 243 00:14:58,560 --> 00:15:02,640 Speaker 1: were lost. In nineteen twenty nine, a woman named Agnes Mattz, 244 00:15:02,680 --> 00:15:05,040 Speaker 1: who was a member of the Teloa tribe also known 245 00:15:05,040 --> 00:15:09,360 Speaker 1: as the Tiloa de nine nation, told cultural anthropologist Cora A. 246 00:15:09,520 --> 00:15:12,320 Speaker 1: Du Bois a story about a tidal wave in Oregon. 247 00:15:12,920 --> 00:15:15,840 Speaker 1: Quote there were no white people on earth when it happened, 248 00:15:15,960 --> 00:15:18,560 Speaker 1: she said, and went on to describe a story about 249 00:15:18,600 --> 00:15:22,040 Speaker 1: a grandmother warning her two grandchildren who she had raised, 250 00:15:22,480 --> 00:15:24,520 Speaker 1: to run to the top of a mountain as fast 251 00:15:24,520 --> 00:15:27,480 Speaker 1: as they could, and when they looked back, they saw 252 00:15:27,480 --> 00:15:32,440 Speaker 1: the water consume everything. With so little surviving oral history, 253 00:15:32,480 --> 00:15:35,400 Speaker 1: we can't reconstruct a point by point recounting of the 254 00:15:35,440 --> 00:15:38,520 Speaker 1: earthquake and tsunami in Cascadia the way we did in Japan. 255 00:15:39,200 --> 00:15:42,720 Speaker 1: But given how populated the coastal region from British Columbia 256 00:15:42,720 --> 00:15:46,120 Speaker 1: to northern California was and how many native peoples made 257 00:15:46,160 --> 00:15:49,200 Speaker 1: extensive use of the rivers and waterways to move inland 258 00:15:49,240 --> 00:15:51,960 Speaker 1: from the coast, the only logical conclusion is that it 259 00:15:52,000 --> 00:15:55,600 Speaker 1: was catastrophic. Even for those who felt the earthquake and 260 00:15:55,640 --> 00:15:58,520 Speaker 1: survived by moving to higher ground, the tsunami would have 261 00:15:58,560 --> 00:16:02,240 Speaker 1: destroyed homes. Can you fishing nets, stored food and everything 262 00:16:02,280 --> 00:16:05,680 Speaker 1: else that was necessary for survival. And we're going to 263 00:16:05,760 --> 00:16:08,800 Speaker 1: talk about how these two events on opposite sides of 264 00:16:08,840 --> 00:16:12,040 Speaker 1: the Pacific were finally connected. But first we're gonna pause 265 00:16:12,080 --> 00:16:24,840 Speaker 1: and have a loll sponsor break. Here is what we 266 00:16:24,920 --> 00:16:28,720 Speaker 1: know today. At nine pm local time on January twenty sixth, 267 00:16:28,720 --> 00:16:33,240 Speaker 1: seventeen hundred, the Cascadia subduction zone ruptured along its six 268 00:16:33,360 --> 00:16:37,000 Speaker 1: hundred and eighty mile or one thousand, ninety four kilometer length. 269 00:16:37,560 --> 00:16:40,479 Speaker 1: This fault system is off the coast of North America 270 00:16:40,560 --> 00:16:43,800 Speaker 1: and from northern California today all the way north into 271 00:16:43,840 --> 00:16:48,120 Speaker 1: British Columbia. Today, people living on the coast both felt 272 00:16:48,120 --> 00:16:51,600 Speaker 1: the quake and experienced the tsunami that followed. It only 273 00:16:51,600 --> 00:16:54,680 Speaker 1: would have taken about twenty minutes for the water displaced 274 00:16:54,720 --> 00:16:58,720 Speaker 1: toward the North American coast to actually reach it. Researchers 275 00:16:58,880 --> 00:17:02,600 Speaker 1: estimate that that struck was up to fifty feet or 276 00:17:02,640 --> 00:17:08,440 Speaker 1: fifteen meters high. Then about ten hours later, water displaced 277 00:17:08,440 --> 00:17:11,960 Speaker 1: in the opposite direction reached Japan, reaching heights of about 278 00:17:11,960 --> 00:17:16,720 Speaker 1: sixteen feet or five meters. This wave of water traveled 279 00:17:16,760 --> 00:17:20,040 Speaker 1: from northeast to southwest down the Japanese coast for the 280 00:17:20,119 --> 00:17:23,400 Speaker 1: next eight to ten hours. It took a really long 281 00:17:23,480 --> 00:17:26,680 Speaker 1: time for anyone to connect these two events together, even 282 00:17:26,720 --> 00:17:29,080 Speaker 1: after the efforts we talked about at the very beginning 283 00:17:29,119 --> 00:17:31,720 Speaker 1: of the show. And one big reason is that for 284 00:17:31,840 --> 00:17:35,040 Speaker 1: much of the twentieth century, geologists thought the faults in 285 00:17:35,080 --> 00:17:38,320 Speaker 1: this part of the world weren't really capable of producing 286 00:17:38,359 --> 00:17:41,320 Speaker 1: a very powerful earthquake. They would max out at around 287 00:17:41,400 --> 00:17:44,959 Speaker 1: magnitude seven, and that wouldn't necessarily be powerful enough to 288 00:17:45,000 --> 00:17:49,320 Speaker 1: spawn the tsunami that ultimately reached Japan. Yeah. Seven is 289 00:17:49,359 --> 00:17:54,240 Speaker 1: still pretty big earthquake, yeah, but not the size needed 290 00:17:54,240 --> 00:17:58,880 Speaker 1: to spawn this level of destruction. But throughout the nineteen eighties, 291 00:17:59,080 --> 00:18:03,119 Speaker 1: researchers basic trying to settle disputes about whether Cascadia was 292 00:18:03,280 --> 00:18:07,119 Speaker 1: capable of producing great earthquakes, started to find more and 293 00:18:07,240 --> 00:18:11,280 Speaker 1: more evidence that incredibly large earthquakes really had struck the 294 00:18:11,320 --> 00:18:15,280 Speaker 1: region in the past. Most of this research studied the 295 00:18:15,359 --> 00:18:17,720 Speaker 1: lay of the land in the Pacific Northwest and the 296 00:18:17,800 --> 00:18:22,080 Speaker 1: remains of forests. In an earthquake of this size and type, 297 00:18:22,359 --> 00:18:25,240 Speaker 1: land can suddenly drop, and when land on the coast 298 00:18:25,320 --> 00:18:28,240 Speaker 1: or otherwise near water drops, the water rushes in to 299 00:18:28,320 --> 00:18:32,040 Speaker 1: fill that void. So when a coastal forest suddenly drops, 300 00:18:32,359 --> 00:18:34,920 Speaker 1: the water that rushes in kills the trees and creates 301 00:18:34,960 --> 00:18:38,720 Speaker 1: a ghost forest. As researchers started looking for evidence of 302 00:18:38,760 --> 00:18:42,440 Speaker 1: whether Cascadia could spawn great earthquakes, they started finding these 303 00:18:42,440 --> 00:18:45,360 Speaker 1: sorts of ghost forests. And it wasn't as though these 304 00:18:45,359 --> 00:18:48,879 Speaker 1: ghost forests were a total surprise. Researchers had already found 305 00:18:48,880 --> 00:18:52,520 Speaker 1: plenty of submerged logs and stumps, along with the hearths 306 00:18:53,400 --> 00:18:57,119 Speaker 1: and other archaeological evidence of destroyed homes of native peoples. 307 00:18:57,200 --> 00:18:59,879 Speaker 1: But for a long time, the conventional wisdom was the 308 00:19:00,200 --> 00:19:03,640 Speaker 1: trees had been killed through a slow rise in sea levels, 309 00:19:04,160 --> 00:19:06,720 Speaker 1: not an earthquake in a sudden drop of the land, 310 00:19:07,840 --> 00:19:10,520 Speaker 1: but other bits of evidence started to point toward the 311 00:19:10,560 --> 00:19:13,960 Speaker 1: earthquake theory. There were layers of silt that could only 312 00:19:14,040 --> 00:19:17,720 Speaker 1: have come in along its tsunami, and entire marshes were 313 00:19:17,720 --> 00:19:20,679 Speaker 1: buried and preserved under layers of silt and sand that 314 00:19:20,720 --> 00:19:23,680 Speaker 1: could only have arrived there suddenly not part of a 315 00:19:23,720 --> 00:19:27,760 Speaker 1: gradual process. In nineteen ninety six, after more than a 316 00:19:27,840 --> 00:19:32,000 Speaker 1: decade of piecing together all this evidence, Japanese researchers first 317 00:19:32,000 --> 00:19:34,720 Speaker 1: connected the tsunami that struck the island of Honshu in 318 00:19:34,760 --> 00:19:37,480 Speaker 1: seventeen hundred with the earthquake that happened on the same 319 00:19:37,600 --> 00:19:41,800 Speaker 1: day in the Pacific Northwest. By that point, radiocarbon dating 320 00:19:41,880 --> 00:19:44,920 Speaker 1: had already pinpointed the date of the creation of these 321 00:19:44,920 --> 00:19:48,840 Speaker 1: ghost forests in Cascadia as sometime between sixteen ninety five 322 00:19:48,920 --> 00:19:52,560 Speaker 1: and seventeen twenty. In nineteen ninety seven, the date was 323 00:19:52,680 --> 00:19:56,480 Speaker 1: further refined that having happened sometime between August sixteen ninety 324 00:19:56,560 --> 00:19:59,439 Speaker 1: nine and May seventeen hundred, so between the end of 325 00:19:59,480 --> 00:20:01,920 Speaker 1: one grow both phase and the beginning of the next. 326 00:20:01,960 --> 00:20:04,800 Speaker 1: For these trees, what they did was they compared the 327 00:20:04,840 --> 00:20:09,720 Speaker 1: ghost trees' roots which they excavated for this purpose, to 328 00:20:09,880 --> 00:20:14,320 Speaker 1: the rings of neighboring trees that had survived since before 329 00:20:14,480 --> 00:20:18,879 Speaker 1: seventeen hundred. And you can read so much about the 330 00:20:18,920 --> 00:20:22,639 Speaker 1: science behind this earthquake and tsunami in the Orphan Tsunami 331 00:20:22,720 --> 00:20:26,320 Speaker 1: of seventeen hundred Japanese clues to a parent earthquake in 332 00:20:26,359 --> 00:20:30,200 Speaker 1: North America which was prepared by the US Geological Survey 333 00:20:30,359 --> 00:20:33,159 Speaker 1: in conjunction with the Geological Survey of Japan. And we 334 00:20:33,200 --> 00:20:35,760 Speaker 1: will have a link to that in the show notes. Yeah, 335 00:20:35,760 --> 00:20:37,760 Speaker 1: it's one of those books you can buy it and 336 00:20:37,800 --> 00:20:40,560 Speaker 1: find it in libraries, but it's also a public domain 337 00:20:40,640 --> 00:20:43,760 Speaker 1: piece because it was created by government sources that you 338 00:20:43,760 --> 00:20:47,440 Speaker 1: can read on the internet for free. Aside from solving 339 00:20:47,480 --> 00:20:50,679 Speaker 1: this mystery of what caused the Orphan tsunami, this research 340 00:20:50,720 --> 00:20:55,159 Speaker 1: is incredibly important to actual life today in the Pacific Northwest. 341 00:20:55,640 --> 00:20:59,919 Speaker 1: The idea that a magnitude nine earthquake is possible or 342 00:21:00,040 --> 00:21:05,080 Speaker 1: maybe even inevitable, has a huge impact into the conversation 343 00:21:05,320 --> 00:21:10,360 Speaker 1: around how resilient buildings and bridges and other structures need 344 00:21:10,440 --> 00:21:14,320 Speaker 1: to be to withstand the level of seismic activity. That's 345 00:21:14,359 --> 00:21:19,280 Speaker 1: possible in the region. Not to be alarming that a 346 00:21:19,320 --> 00:21:22,840 Speaker 1: lot of things built there were built before anyone figured 347 00:21:22,840 --> 00:21:27,359 Speaker 1: this out, that is for sure. Two of my siblings 348 00:21:27,359 --> 00:21:29,199 Speaker 1: live in the Pacific Northwest. I lived there when I 349 00:21:29,240 --> 00:21:31,600 Speaker 1: was a kid, and I know that they have I 350 00:21:31,640 --> 00:21:34,119 Speaker 1: don't know if they realize it's related to this specific 351 00:21:34,160 --> 00:21:38,440 Speaker 1: geological survey and research that was done, but they have 352 00:21:38,480 --> 00:21:41,880 Speaker 1: become suddenly aware of, like, oh, we've gotten some notices 353 00:21:41,960 --> 00:21:46,439 Speaker 1: about maybe looking at fortifications of our homes. Yeah, it was. 354 00:21:46,800 --> 00:21:48,760 Speaker 1: I can't if it was last year or the year before. 355 00:21:48,800 --> 00:21:51,600 Speaker 1: It was within the last couple of years. There was 356 00:21:51,640 --> 00:21:53,919 Speaker 1: a whole wave of articles about this whole thing, and 357 00:21:53,960 --> 00:21:57,360 Speaker 1: I'm not sure exactly what's spawned those articles because at 358 00:21:57,359 --> 00:22:00,200 Speaker 1: that point, I mean, this book about the seven teen 359 00:22:00,280 --> 00:22:03,320 Speaker 1: hundred earthquake and tsunami had been out for a while, 360 00:22:04,560 --> 00:22:06,480 Speaker 1: and it was one of those things that I read 361 00:22:06,880 --> 00:22:08,960 Speaker 1: and I thought about my brother and sister in law 362 00:22:09,280 --> 00:22:12,760 Speaker 1: at that point, I mean, they live they live in Seattle, 363 00:22:12,800 --> 00:22:16,040 Speaker 1: and at that point they were living in a condo 364 00:22:16,119 --> 00:22:20,399 Speaker 1: that was sort of under a highway bridge. And my 365 00:22:20,520 --> 00:22:22,280 Speaker 1: sister in law had said to me when I came 366 00:22:22,320 --> 00:22:24,440 Speaker 1: to visit them. She was like, when the big one happens, 367 00:22:24,920 --> 00:22:28,200 Speaker 1: that's going to fall on us. And so I remember 368 00:22:28,240 --> 00:22:29,920 Speaker 1: reading all these articles and being like, you guys got 369 00:22:29,960 --> 00:22:34,080 Speaker 1: to go now, you need to go now. So yeah, 370 00:22:34,160 --> 00:22:38,320 Speaker 1: that's it's it's now building standards are taking into account 371 00:22:38,400 --> 00:22:42,560 Speaker 1: the idea that, yes, the magnitude seven is not the 372 00:22:42,640 --> 00:22:51,720 Speaker 1: upper limit. Here magnitude nine plus is. Thanks so much 373 00:22:51,760 --> 00:22:54,800 Speaker 1: for joining us on this Saturday. 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