Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
Speaker 2: is Robert.
Speaker 3: Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part
Speaker 3: two in our series on sacred daggers. In the last episode,
Speaker 3: we talked a bit about the role of daggers beyond
Speaker 3: your average D and D campaign, how they figure into history,
Speaker 3: how they often have cultural significance beyond their simple use
Speaker 3: as weapons, and then we looked at a couple of
Speaker 3: specific artifacts. Rob you talked about the rock crystal dagger
Speaker 3: of the Ivory Lady. Wonderful sequence of words. There a
Speaker 3: fascinating blade found in the grave of a woman in
Speaker 3: modern day Spain who died and was buried during the
Speaker 3: Iberian Copper Age, which would have been roughly thirty two
Speaker 3: hundred twenty two hundred BCE. This dagger was interesting for
Speaker 3: a number of reasons, not least of which because of
Speaker 3: its beautiful, semi transparent rock crystal blade is a blade
Speaker 3: you can kind of see through, and for its inclusion
Speaker 3: as part of an assemblage of grave goods, indicating that
Speaker 3: the woman buried there was probably a figure of great
Speaker 3: importance and authority. And then we also talked about the
Speaker 3: bush Barrow Dagger, a famous Bronze Age masterwork knife found
Speaker 3: in a barrow grave about a kilometer away from stone Hinge.
Speaker 3: You can kind of see stone Hinge from this barrow,
Speaker 3: And that one was notable because it also came with
Speaker 3: a particularly rich and interesting collection of other grave goods,
Speaker 3: but also because of the almost unbelievable level of craft
Speaker 3: that went into its manufacture, particularly the way the handle
Speaker 3: had been decorated with around one hundred and forty thousand
Speaker 3: microscopic gold pins, each no wider than a human hair,
Speaker 3: made at a time before magnifying glasses, leading some researchers
Speaker 3: to speculate that it really could only have been made
Speaker 3: by children child goldsmiths, since only children would probably have
Speaker 3: had eyesight sharp enough to see and place the studs.
Speaker 3: And now we're back today to talk about more rob
Speaker 3: Have you had dagger thoughts since our first episode?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I look forward to getting into the dagger
Speaker 2: that I'm going to pull out of the drawer next.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I was thinking thinking a good bit about
Speaker 2: it over the weekend. Did a little Dungeons and Dragons
Speaker 2: playing over the weekend. Definitely thought about it then, and
Speaker 2: you know, we called out in the last episode two
Speaker 2: to our listeners and said, hey, do you have knives?
Speaker 2: Do you want to show us your knives? And people
Speaker 2: have already started doing so and it hasn't gotten weird yet.
Speaker 2: So if you want to send us pictures of knives
Speaker 2: that are of great importance to you or you know,
Speaker 2: fascination points for you personally, you send us information about it.
Speaker 2: We'd love to learn more.
Speaker 3: Who sent us a picture of their knives? I was
Speaker 3: just looking at our email, didn't see any knives.
Speaker 2: Oh, somebody slipped a knife in there. I don't have
Speaker 2: my email open in the moment, so I can't pull
Speaker 2: it out. But yeah, somebody showed us some knives.
Speaker 3: Did it go to my spam folder? What happened? I'll
Speaker 3: have to figure that out.
Speaker 2: Well, don't just reach blindly into your spam folder because
Speaker 2: there may be knives in there, and I don't know
Speaker 2: if there's sheathed or Notugh.
Speaker 3: This just reminds me of a horrible story of a
Speaker 3: good friend of mine who used to work as a
Speaker 3: buyer at a used book in music store, who would, like,
Speaker 3: you know, take in and price the items people wanted
Speaker 3: to sell. So he was looking through a bag of
Speaker 3: like old books that somebody had brought in, and just
Speaker 3: like among the books in there was a food processor blade.
Speaker 2: Stuck. Isn't it used as a bookmark?
Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't know why it was in
Speaker 3: the bag, but yeah, you got to watch out, got
Speaker 3: agers of the profession.
Speaker 2: Yeah all right, Well, like we said last time, we
Speaker 2: put together a whole list of knives, knowing that we
Speaker 2: would not have time in space to cover all of them.
Speaker 2: But we each sorted around in there and tried to
Speaker 2: find a dagger or something like a dagger that we
Speaker 2: wanted to dig into and discuss. Joe, what did you
Speaker 2: pick for today?
Speaker 3: So I would like to talk today about a style
Speaker 3: of blade known as a tumi, which was made and
Speaker 3: used by the pre Columbian indigenous peoples of the Central Andes,
Speaker 3: particularly the coastal regions of modern day Peru. So this
Speaker 3: would include the Moche people, the Scan also known as
Speaker 3: the Lambayek, and the Chimu people. So this style of
Speaker 3: knife is occasionally called a dagger in the literature, especially
Speaker 3: older literature, though in more recent sources it seems people
Speaker 3: more often just say knife or tumi. But as a dagger,
Speaker 3: I think it's interesting because it challenges the boundaries of
Speaker 3: the concept, both in shape and in function. So in function,
Speaker 3: I think it challenges the idea of a dagger because
Speaker 3: this item was clearly used for much more than just
Speaker 3: offensive violence. In fact, that seems like if it was
Speaker 3: used for that, that was one of its much less
Speaker 3: common uses. Last time, we made the distinction that while
Speaker 3: a knife usually refers to an all utility blade, a
Speaker 3: dagger is usually understood to be something meant for violence.
Speaker 3: The tome was used for all sorts of things, including
Speaker 3: ritual sacrifices and as we'll get to, medicine. In shape,
Speaker 3: it also challenges our idea of a dagger because the
Speaker 3: particular to me tradition I'm talking about that the idea
Speaker 3: the word to me actually just in a way means knife.
Speaker 3: I'll get to that in a second. But the form
Speaker 3: of to me I'm talking about challenges the idea of
Speaker 3: a dagger because it is not long and pointy. In fact,
Speaker 3: it's almost the exact opposite. The blade could be called
Speaker 3: crescent shaped or semi lunar. Generally, it's a bent, semi
Speaker 3: circular or half moon shape with the bend running perpendicular
Speaker 3: to the length of the handle.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Looking at the vious images of this blade, it
Speaker 2: reminds me a little. If I were to compare it
Speaker 2: to a kitchen implement, and I do so with no
Speaker 2: intended disrespect, I would think of one of these kind
Speaker 2: of rolling blades that you use to cut I don't know,
Speaker 2: sometimes like yeah, herbs, So, I guess would be the thing.
Speaker 2: Not so much pizza, some of the PiZZ Some pizza
Speaker 2: slicers have a little bit of a curve, but this
Speaker 2: one is a sharper curve that. Yeah. If we were
Speaker 2: to compare it to a kitchen implement, it would probably
Speaker 2: be those yeah we used to slice up some herbs.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Or think the blade and the pit and the pendulum, yeah,
Speaker 3: with the handle coming down the middle and a curved
Speaker 3: blade running perpendicular to the handle. Yeah. So, as I
Speaker 3: just alluded to. The word to me is a word
Speaker 3: in the Ketchua language that just means knife, and so
Speaker 3: it can be used to refer to a broad range
Speaker 3: of sharp instruments or cutting tools made by the pre
Speaker 3: Incan peoples of the Andes and sometimes by the Incas themselves.
Speaker 3: So it is a word with a broader meaning, but
Speaker 3: also it is used to refer to these half moon blades.
Speaker 3: These half moon blades would have been called something else
Speaker 3: by the pre Incan peoples who made them, but the
Speaker 3: ketchwa word used by the Incas has been passed down
Speaker 3: and used in the archaeological context, so that's what we
Speaker 3: call them today. So I figure we should just look
Speaker 3: at a couple of specific examples. Rob I've got some
Speaker 3: pictures that you can look at in the outline here,
Speaker 3: so we can discuss them. But folks at home, I'm
Speaker 3: going to describe them in some detail and then talk
Speaker 3: about what we know about these artifacts. So the first
Speaker 3: one I want to look at is an example of
Speaker 3: a beautiful ceremonial to me made by the Chimu culture
Speaker 3: of northern coastal Peru sometime between eleven hundred and fourteen SEVENTYCE.
Speaker 3: This is a highly ornamented dagger made of gold with
Speaker 3: turquoise inlay. It's about thirty four centimeters long and thirteen
Speaker 3: centimeters wide, with a half moon curved blade at the
Speaker 3: bottom attached to a purpen deday killer shaft, and then
Speaker 3: at the top of that shaft, coming up from the
Speaker 3: half moon, a gold humanoid figure with a large broad
Speaker 3: head and face in proportion to the body, topped with
Speaker 3: a patterned gold head dress with inset turquoise discs and
Speaker 3: also turquoise discs gauging the lobes of the figure's ears.
Speaker 3: And then we see the posture of the figures. The
Speaker 3: arms are folded in on the stomach, not across each other,
Speaker 3: but just coming in toward the belly, button folded in
Speaker 3: on the stomach, feet splayed outwards.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's quite splendid looking. I mean, it is the
Speaker 2: very definition of a ceremonial implement, right, I mean you
Speaker 2: can tell that. Not to say it had no utility.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you're going to you're about to get into that,
Speaker 2: but you can tell that, especially as far as the
Speaker 2: handle is concerned, style was more. The aesthetics of the
Speaker 2: thing were far more important than like, is this a
Speaker 2: good grip? Can I hold this firmly in one hand
Speaker 2: or two hands? And so forth?
Speaker 3: Yeah, this was a symbol of power. So this piece
Speaker 3: is currently held by the Art Institute of Chicago, and
Speaker 3: so I'm going to add some details from their exhibit materials.
Speaker 3: The figure depicted on the Toomey handle that the person
Speaker 3: here rendered in gold with the turquoise is thought to
Speaker 3: be we don't know for sure, but is strongly suspected
Speaker 3: by experts to be a legendary founding father known as
Speaker 3: name Lap that is spelled in English Naymlap. I hope
Speaker 3: I'm saying that right, and I apologize if I get
Speaker 3: any other pronunciations wrong in this section. I'm doing my best.
Speaker 3: Here a figure known as name Lap who is said
Speaker 3: to have been the hero who settled or colonized the
Speaker 3: region of the Lembayak Valley on the coast of Peru
Speaker 3: and formed a powerful ruling dynasty that lasted many generations.
Speaker 3: So I was looking up stories about this figure, name Lap,
Speaker 3: and I found some more details in a UCLA Today
Speaker 3: article by Cynthia Lee about the work of an archaeologist
Speaker 3: named Christopher Donna And this article was from twenty twelve.
Speaker 3: I believe Donnan studied the relationship between the oral tradition
Speaker 3: of name Lap and the archaeological record at a couple
Speaker 3: of sites in the Lumbayaka Valley. So it is said
Speaker 3: that Name Lap arrived to the coast of Peru on
Speaker 3: a fleet of balsa wood rafts with a large entourage
Speaker 3: that included his wife and many concubines, as well as
Speaker 3: a host of warriors and lieutenants. And he brought with
Speaker 3: him a holy idol made of green stone that I
Speaker 3: think in some tellings is said to be his own
Speaker 3: image in a way, that was kept in his palace.
Speaker 3: And he seems to have been honored in ways that
Speaker 3: are symbolically associated with the sea, receiving fanfare on seashell trumpets,
Speaker 3: and I thought this was interesting. He was so powerful
Speaker 3: and revered that his servants would spread a carpet of
Speaker 3: ground up seashells on the earth wherever he walked.
Speaker 2: Ooh nice, I mean that would also just be good
Speaker 2: for grip.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So it said that when he died in his palace,
Speaker 3: his servants originally kept his death a secret for fear
Speaker 3: of dismaying the people, and when news of his death
Speaker 3: finally spread, people went out wandering the mountains to look
Speaker 3: for him. So, coming back to this specific to me,
Speaker 3: assuming that that is the figure depicted on it, name
Speaker 3: lap does seem to have often been depicted in gold
Speaker 3: with these turquoise inlays in other representations as well, and
Speaker 3: many of the indigenous peoples of Peru used turquoise to
Speaker 3: symbolize the spiritual power of water and the sky, kind
Speaker 3: of in the same way that gold might symbolize the
Speaker 3: spiritual power of the sun.
Speaker 2: Ah.
Speaker 3: The museum material here says that this ceremonial to me
Speaker 3: would be carried by rulers of the royal dynasty, and
Speaker 3: the way I understand what I'm reading about it, it
Speaker 3: sounds like it was a highly value symbolic kingly replica
Speaker 3: of the regular semi circular copper alloy or bronze knives
Speaker 3: that would have been used to carry out animal sacrifices.
Speaker 3: So I was thinking about this like a tool of
Speaker 3: religious ritual in form. But the question is would this
Speaker 3: specific one, this one held by a member of the
Speaker 3: royal dynasty, be used in practice. I couldn't find a
Speaker 3: definitive answer to that, but my best guess based on
Speaker 3: what I'm reading is probably not. It might be symbolic,
Speaker 3: so as a as a gold version of a tool
Speaker 3: used in ritual, it would kind of symbolize the king's
Speaker 3: power over the whole religious enterprise of the culture. Rough analogy,
Speaker 3: but kind of like if a Christian king had a
Speaker 3: gold communion chalice and people don't actually drink the wine
Speaker 3: out of this one at the church services, but it
Speaker 3: might symbolize the King's power and relationship to the central
Speaker 3: ritual of the church.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Or here's there's another rougher comparison. Again, no disrespect
Speaker 2: intended to anyone out there, but it's kind of like
Speaker 2: if if you go into a kitchen from the late seventies,
Speaker 2: early eighties and there is a decorative jello mold hanging
Speaker 2: on the wall that is not actually used to make.
Speaker 3: Jello, Okay, yeah, but it doesn't have to.
Speaker 2: Be clear, probably doesn't have any kind of religious sentiments
Speaker 2: tied up in it, but is purely decorative. Meanwhile, in
Speaker 2: a drawer somewhere, there is some sort of an implement
Speaker 2: that is used to make jello, an actual cello mold,
Speaker 2: a functional jello mold.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah. Another one I would think of along those
Speaker 3: lines is like a decorative tea set. Nobody ever actually
Speaker 3: drinks tea out of these, but yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and sometimes it's some cases it's not safe to
Speaker 2: drink tea out of a decorative teapots. Then they might
Speaker 2: have a little bit too much lead in them, and
Speaker 2: so forth.
Speaker 3: So in terms of how this specific Toomey dagger was
Speaker 3: put together. The museum explains as follows quote. The tomu
Speaker 3: was made with diverse metal working techniques. Solid casting was
Speaker 3: used to produce the blade, the face and body, with annealing, heating, shaping,
Speaker 3: and then cooling and repousee in which the relief design
Speaker 3: is hammered into a mold from the reverse side. Finally,
Speaker 3: the small ornaments around the top of the headdress were
Speaker 3: separately hammered or cast then soldered into place. All right,
Speaker 3: so that is the very very impressive gold ceremonial to me.
Speaker 3: But I've got another to me for us to look at,
Speaker 3: rob a new one. You can see the picture in
Speaker 3: the outline here. I will describe now. This is a
Speaker 3: later artifact from the Inca from some time between fourteen
Speaker 3: hundred and fifteen thirty five, also from Peru, made of bronze.
Speaker 3: This one is held by the met Museum in New York,
Speaker 3: and it's far less elaborate than the gold knife from
Speaker 3: the earlier Chimu culture. A sort of a simple bronze
Speaker 3: blade curved like a slice from a circle, though it's
Speaker 3: actually by volume less than half of the circle. You know,
Speaker 3: it's not a semicircle. It's I don't know, by volume,
Speaker 3: it looks like maybe a fourth of a circle, but
Speaker 3: it's the outer edge, so it's still the curve.
Speaker 2: Now, this one really does remind me of the pizza
Speaker 2: slice or the bread slicer that we have in our kitchen.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, especially because I'm sure it looks more utilitarian. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it has less of the decoration, though it's not entirely
Speaker 3: without decoration. So again, it's got a perpendicular handle to
Speaker 3: the blade, and then at the end of that handle
Speaker 3: there are four curved talons curling in like the claws
Speaker 3: of an eagle. So the met exhibit points out the
Speaker 3: diverse skills on display in the metal working industry that
Speaker 3: took place at the Incan capital of Cusco, with items
Speaker 3: being made of gold, silver, copper, and bronze, and with
Speaker 3: Toomey's being one of the most commonly represented metal tools
Speaker 3: from that industry. Many of these everyday Toomey's have loops
Speaker 3: at the top of the handle. I guess kind of
Speaker 3: like what we see here with the curved bird talons,
Speaker 3: and this is taken as an indication that they probably
Speaker 3: hung from something, so people might hang a to me
Speaker 3: maybe on the necklace or on a belt something like that.
Speaker 3: The tome is commonly associated with ritual sacrifice, for example
Speaker 3: the sacrifice of lamas during the harvest festival, and this
Speaker 3: association with blood sacrifice goes back thousands of years in
Speaker 3: Indian cultures between the toomey and the animal sacrifice. The
Speaker 3: museum explains the raptor talent motif on the handle in
Speaker 3: terms of the association with sacrifice by saying, quote, the
Speaker 3: eating habits of raptors and vultures give them a natural
Speaker 3: symbolic connection to sacrifice and the world of the dead.
Speaker 2: Okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 3: Another thing worth noting is that the half moon tumis
Speaker 3: are not only used by humans, at least in storytelling
Speaker 3: and artistic representation. They are depicted in the art of
Speaker 3: pre Incan and Deean cultures such as the Moche, the
Speaker 3: chi Mu, and the sikhan as wielded by gods, demi,
Speaker 3: gods and supernatural beings, sometimes threatening other beings with the
Speaker 3: tumei or indicating that the tumei might be used for decapitation,
Speaker 3: which also had ritual significance to multiple pre Incan cultures
Speaker 3: of the region as an act that could bring about
Speaker 3: agricultural and ecological rejuvenation. But earlier I mentioned that, apart
Speaker 3: from its role in animal sacrifices and religious purposes, the
Speaker 3: half moon shaped tume was also important in indigenous medicines,
Speaker 3: specifically indigenous surgical techniques, including trepanation.
Speaker 2: Oh, a topic we've covered on the show before.
Speaker 3: Right, so we've talked about treppenne at some length. I'm
Speaker 3: not going to do a full rehash of the whole
Speaker 3: story here, but the short version is Trepenation is a
Speaker 3: medical procedure practice not only in Indian cultures. Definitely in
Speaker 3: Indian cultures, as we're going to talk about, but it
Speaker 3: practiced in all kinds of cultures around the world all
Speaker 3: throughout history. A very common thing. It is where a
Speaker 3: surgeon cuts or bores or scrapes a hole in the
Speaker 3: skull of a living person, not with the goal of
Speaker 3: killing them, but with the goal of treating a medical
Speaker 3: complaint or supposedly enhancing them in some way. The reasoning
Speaker 3: behind the procedure varies, but trepienation has been used especially
Speaker 3: to treat head injuries that might lead to swelling inside
Speaker 3: the brain inflammation in the head. So like head injuries
Speaker 3: that involve the fracture of the skull arising from accidents
Speaker 3: or violence. This is a big thing that would cause
Speaker 3: somebody to seek trepenation and maybe they get hit in
Speaker 3: the head. There's a fracture and there's some swelling. Some
Speaker 3: bits of bone can be removed and a hole can
Speaker 3: be cut to allegedly relieve the swelling. It's also been
Speaker 3: speculated that it may have been used to treat headaches,
Speaker 3: you know, bad headaches, or other things that were thought
Speaker 3: to be the swelling of the brain. Maybe as a
Speaker 3: hypothetical treatment for a variety of mental and neurological conditions,
Speaker 3: such as epilepsy. But one of the really startling things
Speaker 3: about trepnation is in certain times and places, how often
Speaker 3: this procedure was survivable. You know, I would just assume
Speaker 3: that before modern medicine, this is just one hundred percent
Speaker 3: death rate on drilling a hole in the skull.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, because you hear you hear dire stories
Speaker 2: about about other pre modern surgical procedures, and you would
Speaker 2: just assume messing around in the skull essentially with the brain,
Speaker 2: you're going to you're going to run up against the
Speaker 2: high death rate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And to be clear, the the survival rate of
Speaker 3: a trepidation procedure is wildly different at different times and
Speaker 3: places in history, so you can tell from looking at
Speaker 3: human remains, even before written records, of how successful surgical
Speaker 3: procedures were. You can just tell from looking at remains
Speaker 3: of people who have had this procedure done. Sometimes bone
Speaker 3: has healed over after a trepidation procedure, other times it
Speaker 3: has not. But in cases where the bone has healed over,
Speaker 3: it proves that the patient survived the operation for a
Speaker 3: significant time afterwards, dead people don't heal, So of course
Speaker 3: there are lots of times where you know it might
Speaker 3: be a coin flip whether you would survive trepanation. But
Speaker 3: some estimates based on surveys of tripand remains, indicate that
Speaker 3: during the late Incan period they had gotten really good
Speaker 3: at this Somewhere around eighty percent of trepanning patients probably
Speaker 3: survived the operation.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 3: As a point of comparison, in some of the articles
Speaker 3: I was looking at, they compared that to craniotomy similar
Speaker 3: you know, like a removing part of the skull procedures
Speaker 3: in field hospitals during the US Civil War, So you know,
Speaker 3: hundreds of years later where survival rates were roughly half
Speaker 3: of that. Oh wow, so yeah, like they had really
Speaker 3: gotten quite good at this procedure in the late Incan period.
Speaker 3: So what tools were used to conduct a tripanning? It
Speaker 3: could be any number of things. You would need some
Speaker 3: kinds of scrapers and blades, These would be any number
Speaker 3: of obsidian or bronze implements. But the semi circular bronze
Speaker 3: to me was absolutely a common part of the tripanning toolkit.
Speaker 3: And this connects to an article I was reading an
Speaker 3: ARS Technica article from twenty twenty two by Keona N.
Speaker 3: Smith called ancient Peruvian was buried with tools for cranial
Speaker 3: surgery and then good subheader quote. He was also buried
Speaker 3: with the partial skulls of two former patients, taking a
Speaker 3: little keepsake. Yeah yeah, So the article describes it was
Speaker 3: at the time a recent discovery from a tomb excavated
Speaker 3: in a temple complex at Waca Las Ventanas, which is
Speaker 3: an archaeological site in Peru, and this would have been
Speaker 3: a site from the Sican culture or the Lumbayak culture.
Speaker 3: The body in the tomb appears to have been that
Speaker 3: of a secon brain surgeon, a person specializing in trepanning,
Speaker 3: and we can tell that in part because of the
Speaker 3: tools that were buried with him. These include bronze awls
Speaker 3: with wooden handles, needles, and blades, as well also non
Speaker 3: occupation grave goods indicating the burial of a relatively rich
Speaker 3: and high status person. These non occupational grave goods would
Speaker 3: be a gold mask with feathers around the eyes, big
Speaker 3: bronze breastplate, and copper bowls lined with gold. But specifically
Speaker 3: addressing the Toomey, the author of this article rights quote.
Speaker 3: Most of the knives were single edge blades, but one
Speaker 3: was clearly special. The semi circular blade called a toume,
Speaker 3: was a staple in both surgery and ritual sacrifice for
Speaker 3: the Sicon. Their predecessors, the Moche and later the Inca,
Speaker 3: ritual tomes were large and elaborate, but ancient surgeons used
Speaker 3: a smaller, more utilitarian version for trepanation. So you might
Speaker 3: have your big, gorgeous gold ceremonial to me that's got
Speaker 3: the picture of a you know, a founding culture hero
Speaker 3: on it, or you might have a smaller bronze when
Speaker 3: that you actually used to cut holes in people's skulls.
Speaker 3: The article here quotes Sicon National Museum Director Carlos Alera,
Speaker 3: who says that the museum is trying to compare the
Speaker 3: instruments found in this grave to those that would be
Speaker 3: used by a modern surgeon. One big difference that gets
Speaker 3: called out is material. Of course, you know modern surgeons
Speaker 3: are going to be using modern probably steel surgical knives.
Speaker 3: Actually I didn't even look this up. What are knives
Speaker 3: usually made out of for surgery? I assume their steel anyway,
Speaker 3: whatever that material would be. But these surgical knives are
Speaker 3: made of copper with a high arsenic content. The reason
Speaker 3: there was high arsenic content was that it helped strengthen
Speaker 3: the metal, so like a copper arsenic alloy is stronger
Speaker 3: than a copper one alone.
Speaker 2: This will be interesting because we'll get back into this
Speaker 2: and the knife we'll talk about in the second half
Speaker 2: of this episode.
Speaker 3: To read from the article again, quote two examples of
Speaker 3: the surgeon's work also joined him In his grave. Archaeologists
Speaker 3: found two frontal bones, the bone that makes up the forehead.
Speaker 3: One belonged to an adult, one belonged to a child,
Speaker 3: and neither originally belonged to the surgeon. His was still
Speaker 3: attached to the rest of his skull. Both had been
Speaker 3: carefully cut using a classic trepanation technique. So those are
Speaker 3: the two keepsakes, you know, pieces of other people's skulls
Speaker 3: taken with him. I wonder what that means. Is that
Speaker 3: just like a you know, oh this is a time
Speaker 3: I did a really good job, or well.
Speaker 2: One wonders if they might have been teaching implements. You know,
Speaker 2: if you're bringing your tools, maybe you're bringing your knowledge
Speaker 2: with you. I think of how in various medical professions,
Speaker 2: you know, you will practice using you know, some real teeth,
Speaker 2: real bones, some sort or you know, or real other
Speaker 2: actual pieces of a body in order to practice your craft,
Speaker 2: and if it's not something that decays, you may keep
Speaker 2: that potentially as a as a as a teaching implement
Speaker 2: So yeah, maybe with something like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I could see that. I mean, I don't know
Speaker 3: if it really work this way, but I wonder that
Speaker 3: sort of thing would be useful, almost like tracing paper,
Speaker 3: you know, Oh yeah, this is the kind of I mean,
Speaker 3: I guess every every injury would be different, though I
Speaker 3: know part of the skill of the surgeon involved here
Speaker 3: would be knowing where and how to cut, knowing like
Speaker 3: what the size of the cut in the skull should
Speaker 3: be where to cut to avoid excess bleeding. You know,
Speaker 3: these are all important things to know to help the
Speaker 3: patient survive the procedure. And it must have been like
Speaker 3: part of the answer of like how did these did
Speaker 3: the late INCA period end up with these relatively high
Speaker 3: survival rates for trepidation because again, think about these other
Speaker 3: times when all throughout history where like maybe half the
Speaker 3: people who did this died. The skill of the surgeon
Speaker 3: was probably a very big deal. But another factor cited
Speaker 3: in this article I was talking about is hygiene. They
Speaker 3: must have somehow been practicing a relatively strong hygiene regimen
Speaker 3: to do successful surgery without deadly infections on the regular.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was wondering the same thing like that they would, Yeah,
Speaker 2: they would have to at least lock into it, if
Speaker 2: not make significant discoveries about what they should or be
Speaker 2: doing before conducting you know, cranial operations.
Speaker 3: Another interesting question is anesthesia. What did what, if anything
Speaker 3: did they use for anesthesia? We don't really know the
Speaker 3: answer is kind of an interesting mystery, though this article
Speaker 3: points to a discovery within the surgeons to him at
Speaker 3: Wacallas Fintanas that might contribute knowledge to that, and it
Speaker 3: was that the kit that was buried with the surgeon
Speaker 3: also included a piece of tree bark, which the curator
Speaker 3: at that museum, Alera, had said, you know, we wonder
Speaker 3: if this might be a medicinal bark of some kind,
Speaker 3: because of course medicinal barks do exist. We don't know that,
Speaker 3: to be clear, but we don't We know that there
Speaker 3: are some medicinal barks like willow bark, of course is
Speaker 3: anti inflammatory, and so I guess there are questions about
Speaker 3: whether this bark might have been something like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we're talking about a part of the
Speaker 2: world that has rich biodiversity. Yeah, with any number of known,
Speaker 2: unknown or erased, you know, examples of botanical substances that
Speaker 2: can be used medicinally. You know what, what sort of
Speaker 2: material to they know about that have been completely forgotten
Speaker 2: and need to be rediscovered and so forth.
Speaker 3: Totally, So that's the to me, unlike the dagger you
Speaker 3: have in mind in many ways in shape and in function,
Speaker 3: but I think still a pretty fascinating artifact.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's a great one and definitely gets into I
Speaker 2: think we kind of tease the idea of sacrificial blades
Speaker 2: a little bit, and this one I think checks off
Speaker 2: that box at least in part. All Right, the blade
Speaker 2: that I'm going to talk about next, it is a
Speaker 2: specific blade, and out of talking about the specific blade,
Speaker 2: going to sort of pull out and talk more about
Speaker 2: this style of blade in its entirety. This is one
Speaker 2: of the blades that inspired this series that I was like, Oh,
Speaker 2: I should really cover this, But when I started looking
Speaker 2: at it, I realized it was just such a huge
Speaker 2: topic because the specific blade I'm going to reference here
Speaker 2: is a chris that is a type of traditional, highly
Speaker 2: stylized Indonesian blade. Generally it's associated with Java, but also
Speaker 2: other parts of Indonesia. And when I first started looking
Speaker 2: into it, I was like, oh, this could maybe make
Speaker 2: for a nice artifact episode, and then I was like,
Speaker 2: oh no, there's too much here. This would have to
Speaker 2: be at least a full episode. And then I quickly
Speaker 2: realized like it would have to be like multiple episodes
Speaker 2: because one is tempted to compare it to say the
Speaker 2: Samurai sword in terms of the artistry, the technique, the history,
Speaker 2: but in other ways it seems even more complicated than that,
Speaker 2: because you have a lot of diverse imagery, and it's
Speaker 2: going to depend on exactly where it was produced, when
Speaker 2: it was produced, the details of what everything symbolizes. But
Speaker 2: it is such a fascinating blade because you've probably seen
Speaker 2: examples of it out there, listener, at the very least
Speaker 2: you would recognize it. The version that is often depicted
Speaker 2: and certainly catches the eye is a very wavy blade,
Speaker 2: like a highly stylized almost snake shaped dagger, often with
Speaker 2: a highly stylized hilt and a highly stylized sheath, and
Speaker 2: just looking at it like you you know, the mind
Speaker 2: run wild, runs wild, you know, whether you know anything
Speaker 2: about the traditions involved here or you know, or you're
Speaker 2: you're just coming in completely cold. You know, it's like
Speaker 2: why is it shaped like that? And you know, why
Speaker 2: is the handle like that? And then what are all
Speaker 2: these little images that are a part of the blade,
Speaker 2: So that in many ways it feels like the ultimate
Speaker 2: transformation of a utilitarian implement of some sort of a
Speaker 2: tool or weapon into a thing that is just pure
Speaker 2: symbol and meaning. Though you to be clear, you still
Speaker 2: could absolutely top somebody with one of these. So I'm
Speaker 2: going to be talking about Chris's, but I want to
Speaker 2: and that is generally spelled kr I S and in English.
Speaker 2: I'm going to talk specifically though, about the Chris of Nod,
Speaker 2: also known as the Keras of Nod because sometimes Keras
Speaker 2: instead of Chris is used, also known as just Nod's Chris.
Speaker 3: Take me off to the land of Nod.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's start with the name. Who is this nod
Speaker 2: fellow spelled k n a U D and I'm I'm
Speaker 2: assuming I'm pronouncing that correctly. I looked around for some
Speaker 2: pronunciation guides on this. This is a Dutch name, and
Speaker 2: most of what I got back were either specific mentions
Speaker 2: of this blade or insistences that I was misspelling the name,
Speaker 2: which I'm not. In this case, Well, this was the
Speaker 2: name of a nineteenth century Dutch physician, and his name
Speaker 2: is only attached to the dagger in question because it
Speaker 2: was gifted to him by paku Alum, the fifth Duke
Speaker 2: of the Javanese Duchy of paku Aliman. The duchy still
Speaker 2: co rules in the special region of Jagi Karta in Indonesia,
Speaker 2: and the current Duke is Pacu Alum the tenth. The
Speaker 2: Dutch were, of course highly invested in the region, to
Speaker 2: say the least, first via the colonial influences of the
Speaker 2: Dutch East India Company. The British then occupied Java from
Speaker 2: eighteen eleven through eighteen sixteen, and the Duchy of Pacu
Speaker 2: Aliman was established during this period, and when the Dutch
Speaker 2: regained control of Java in eighteen sixteen, the Duchy became
Speaker 2: an independent state of the Kingdom of the Netherlands under
Speaker 2: the Dutch East Indies administration until Indonesia's independence in nineteen
Speaker 2: forty five. Okay, So obviously there is a lot of
Speaker 2: history that I just skimmed pasted really quickly. There's obviously
Speaker 2: a lot of back and forth in a lot of
Speaker 2: nuance there. But hopefully this gives you just an idea
Speaker 2: of why a re old Javanese ruler would have gifted
Speaker 2: an elaborate dagger to a dutch Man.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: Doctor Charles Nod here reportedly treated the Duke's son and
Speaker 2: helped him overcome an illness that had some associations with
Speaker 2: black magic, and in thanks for treating the sun and
Speaker 2: because nod was apparently a student of Javanese mysticism, Pacu
Speaker 2: alumn the fifth gifted him this particular Chris I included
Speaker 2: images here of both Pacu Alum the fifth and Charles Nod.
Speaker 2: I think you'll agree. Charles Nod in this image anyway,
Speaker 2: absolutely looks like a haunted portrait in a haunted mansion.
Speaker 3: I assume he's the guy on the left, yes, the
Speaker 3: tilting his head slightly forward and looking up with his
Speaker 3: eyes like he's doing an Aphex Twin album cover.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, maybe it's just a product of the scan.
Speaker 2: I think this was I cut this out of a
Speaker 2: book I was I was referencing. But yeah, he looks
Speaker 2: a little creepy here.
Speaker 3: Flake one of those pictures penny Wise in the book
Speaker 3: that comes alive exactly.
Speaker 2: So what does this blade look like? While there are
Speaker 2: a lot of images online, you can look up Chris
Speaker 2: of Nod and you can see various images for yourself.
Speaker 2: The remains of the iron blade and the blade alone,
Speaker 2: it lacks a hill to or a sheath, are still
Speaker 2: covered by a thin decorative layer of copper, and it
Speaker 2: is decorated with illustrations from the Hindu epic the Ramayana,
Speaker 2: so one sees figures and vegetation. You can see chariots
Speaker 2: in battle, characters from the Hindu epic and so forth.
Speaker 2: According to author and expert David van Duran in his
Speaker 2: book Charles Nod's Karis. Some of the identifiable elements include
Speaker 2: the monkey warrior Hahneman, the demon king, Ravna dwarfs or
Speaker 2: paquin Kawan. These are the like the clown dwarf servants
Speaker 2: of the hero in Javanese puppet theater, but they're also snakes,
Speaker 2: possibly nagas dogs. There's a demon army, there's a monkey army,
Speaker 2: and more. I know that sounds like a lot to
Speaker 2: fit on a single blade that again does not have
Speaker 2: an intact hilt anymore, a Hilton handle or anything. It's
Speaker 2: just the blade. But yes, they really do pack that
Speaker 2: much detail into this, into this, this highly stylized blade.
Speaker 3: It's busy, it's very busy, very Yes, it's like a
Speaker 3: spiritual Wearswaldo.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And we don't even necessarily have all of it.
Speaker 2: There are pieces of it that have fallen away. It
Speaker 2: is not in pristine condition by you know, any stretch.
Speaker 2: But what we do have is absolutely remarkable, gorgeous.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So we'll get more into just what a Chris is
Speaker 2: here in a bit. And again this is a topic
Speaker 2: where I'm only going to be able to really dip
Speaker 2: our toes into it. But again, the short version is
Speaker 2: that it's a highly decorative, highly stylized, highly symbolic dagger.
Speaker 2: The most famous of these have wavy blades, but they're
Speaker 2: not all wavy, some are st and the Cris of
Speaker 2: Nod is, to be clear, a rather straight blade as well.
Speaker 2: It does not have any of the signature waves that
Speaker 2: are often associated with the Chris. The Cris blade has
Speaker 2: been produced throughout the islands of Indonesia, but they're especially
Speaker 2: prominent in Java, also prominent to a degree in Bali
Speaker 2: as well. So the history of this particular Chris roughly
Speaker 2: breaks down as fall. These are some of the main
Speaker 2: the main points in its known history, so according to
Speaker 2: an inscription on the blade itself, it was forged in
Speaker 2: at least thirteen forty two CE. This would make it
Speaker 2: a product of the Majapahi Empire, a Hindu Buddhist empire
Speaker 2: that ruled Java in some surrounding territory, ultimately lasting from
Speaker 2: twelve ninety two through fifteen twenty seven, when it was
Speaker 2: conquered by the Demak Sultanate. This was just a little
Speaker 2: more than a decade fallollowing first contact in this region
Speaker 2: with Europeans. I believe it would have been the Portuguese.
Speaker 2: Then at a much later date it is gifted to
Speaker 2: Charles Nod and this would have been the late eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 2: and then it was presumed lost around nineteen oh three,
Speaker 2: but it apparently remained in the family's possession in Indonesia,
Speaker 2: was hidden during the Japanese occupation that's forty two through
Speaker 2: forty five, and then the family took the blade to
Speaker 2: the Netherlands during the Indonesian National Revolution that immediately followed,
Speaker 2: and it remains to this day time to understand in
Speaker 2: Amsterdam's kit Royal Tropical Institute. So this blade is apparently
Speaker 2: the oldest surviving Chris that has a verifiable age. So
Speaker 2: again that's not to say this is definitely the oldest,
Speaker 2: like may there are other blades that may be older,
Speaker 2: but this is the one that currently has a verifiable
Speaker 2: age according to most experts.
Speaker 3: Very helpful that its origins are actually inscribed on it.
Speaker 2: Right or it's thought that this is the origin dat.
Speaker 2: I've also read that it's possible that it's older, but
Speaker 2: given that the dates on there, or at least in
Speaker 2: some form is on there, it would mean okay, it
Speaker 2: has to be at least this old. Maybe it's older,
Speaker 2: but this it has to be this old, okay. And
Speaker 2: now I have to admit I was a bit dubious
Speaker 2: of this claim at first, again knowing nothing about this previously,
Speaker 2: you know, could the oldest surviving example of this tradition
Speaker 2: really have been given away to a foreigner as a
Speaker 2: gift and eventually sent away to a European museum. As
Speaker 2: it turns out, though, there seems to be a case
Speaker 2: for this, a strong case for this, for a few
Speaker 2: different reasons, and with a few different caveats For starters,
Speaker 2: there's the base fact that we're dealing with iron based artifacts,
Speaker 2: and some of these I should also mention to call
Speaker 2: back to an episode we did previously. Sometimes they use
Speaker 2: meteoric iron in these artifacts as well, But at any rate,
Speaker 2: we were talking iron based artifacts in a humid tropical climate.
Speaker 2: So if a blade is not properly protected, it's just
Speaker 2: going to naturally deteriorate. Also, as we see in other
Speaker 2: blade cultures, such as that of the Samurai sword, the
Speaker 2: blade itself was considered the most important and the most
Speaker 2: sacred part, and additional parts such as hill sheath so forth,
Speaker 2: these were interchangeable and so they might change multiple times
Speaker 2: during the lifetime of a particular blade, and this can
Speaker 2: apparently complicate accurate datings of a blade as well. And then,
Speaker 2: as our brief history overview might have suggested to listeners
Speaker 2: were also dealing with the region, they saw a great
Speaker 2: deal of upheaval during the colonial period. You had the
Speaker 2: Dutch East India Company, the British and the French were
Speaker 2: also involved at different points, and the ensuing conflicts also
Speaker 2: pitted various factions against each other. Artifacts were destroyed, lost,
Speaker 2: absconded with, sometimes into private collections. Also, you had blades
Speaker 2: that were just outright and neglected. And all of this,
Speaker 2: as we've seen with various cultures impacted by colonialism, led
Speaker 2: to a great deal of cultural loss, including material loss.
Speaker 2: So the fact that the Chris of Nod could survive
Speaker 2: six centuries despite all of this is generally quite remarkable, again,
Speaker 2: especially given all the pivotal moments in its timeline where
Speaker 2: it could have just been lost, it could have just
Speaker 2: remained buried, it could have been more neglected than it was.
Speaker 2: So apparently we're rather lucky to have this one at all. Now,
Speaker 2: at this point, I want to back up a little
Speaker 2: bit sort of widen and talk a little more generally
Speaker 2: about the chris as a type of blade. One of
Speaker 2: the main sources I turned to for this, in addition
Speaker 2: to the aforementioned book, is Introduction to Chris, a Traditional
Speaker 2: Weapon of Indonesia Preserved Lingering Issues of Facts by Purwatou
Speaker 2: and Nurhamada, published in twenty twenty one in the Indonesian
Speaker 2: Journal of English Educational Literature and Culture. So the name
Speaker 2: Chris or sometimes keras this is apparently this apparently stems
Speaker 2: from an older Javanese word that meant to slice, and
Speaker 2: the blade is again often identified by its highly asymmetrical design.
Speaker 2: Generally it's stylized hilt and sheath and in some cases
Speaker 2: that wavy snake like blade. Again, not every Chris is wavy,
Speaker 2: but many are. And it's one of those things like
Speaker 2: if you pull up like a Wikipedia article about it,
Speaker 2: you're gonna you're definitely gonna see images, or you just
Speaker 2: do an image search for Chris, you're going to see
Speaker 2: that wavy blade almost saw Like I guess.
Speaker 3: If you if you're looking at an image, I would
Speaker 3: say it almost suggests you're looking at it through water.
Speaker 3: The rippling back and forth of the blade the way
Speaker 3: the way it often looks. But yeah, like you said,
Speaker 3: this one does not have that appearance.
Speaker 2: The water ripple comparison, I think is really apt considering
Speaker 2: the amount of skill that went into creating these, and
Speaker 2: so there is that kind of precision that you get,
Speaker 2: that wave like precision. Even more so, like I think
Speaker 2: the snake comparison is all so really important. But yeah,
Speaker 2: way like water ripples, that's nice. And also the snake,
Speaker 2: the naga is also associated with water, so that's that's
Speaker 2: a solid comparison as well. So it's said that the
Speaker 2: blade was originally a close combat weapon that was treated
Speaker 2: with poison. The poison here was known as warrengon, also
Speaker 2: known as arsenic. Oh yeah, And the interesting bit here
Speaker 2: is that we have there seemed to be a couple
Speaker 2: of different dimensions to this. So on one hand, there
Speaker 2: was the idea, Okay, the blade is ritually treated with
Speaker 2: this arsenic, but apparently like not a situation where like, okay,
Speaker 2: you're going into battle rubs some arsenic on the blade. No,
Speaker 2: the arsenic is used in the creation of the blade,
Speaker 2: treatment of the blades tip, it's forging, and this process
Speaker 2: would bring out the contrast apparently between the dark black
Speaker 2: iron and the light colored silvery nickel layers.
Speaker 3: So my understanding that right, is saying that you could
Speaker 3: put a poison, a permanent poisonous element into the metal
Speaker 3: when it was forged, and that would still be effective
Speaker 3: as a poison for somebody getting cut by it. I
Speaker 3: don't so it just seems kind of hard to believe chemically, right.
Speaker 2: I think it's more of a supernatural idea of the
Speaker 2: poison here, because again we're getting into we're talking about
Speaker 2: an implement that is it's almost like a blessing of
Speaker 2: the blade. That's my understanding of it here. I might
Speaker 2: have to come back and see if there are sources
Speaker 2: out there that really get into the possibility of any
Speaker 2: kind of like permanently poisoned blade. But that's one of
Speaker 2: the interesting things about poison. We just discussed this on
Speaker 2: the show before in the past, talking about poisons and
Speaker 2: various East Asian belief systems, where yes, there were definitely
Speaker 2: real poisons then as there are today, but poison also
Speaker 2: takes on the connotation of curse, and not only curse,
Speaker 2: but sort of like accusations of poison, and we see
Speaker 2: this in belief systems throughout the world, like the idea
Speaker 2: that if something evil has happened, illness or or something else,
Speaker 2: it must be a poison that was used by evil doers,
Speaker 2: the poisons of witches. So the poisons and curses of
Speaker 2: magic users are kind of interchangeable, and therefore we might
Speaker 2: think of this as kind of like a holy poison
Speaker 2: in some respects a wholly magical poison.
Speaker 3: Interesting.
Speaker 2: Now, again, the Chris, like other long lived ceremonial knives,
Speaker 2: is highly symbolic. Every detail of the blade often grounded
Speaker 2: in some sort of function, such as the blood gutters,
Speaker 2: which I think we've pointed this out on the show before.
Speaker 2: Blood gutters are not actually for allowing blood to blurt
Speaker 2: out of a wound there, it's about reducing blade weight,
Speaker 2: you know, things like that, or again this specially treated
Speaker 2: blade tip. They take on various religious and philosophical meanings.
Speaker 2: For example, the shape of the blade apparently has different meanings.
Speaker 2: The wavy blade symbolizes wisdom and is linked to the
Speaker 2: iconography of the serpent Naga in motion. And furthermore, the
Speaker 2: exact number of curves in the blade is tied to
Speaker 2: precise ideas about theology and power. Ones in the relationship
Speaker 2: between kings and the gods, that sort of thing. In
Speaker 2: that paper publishing the Journal of English Educational Literature and Culture,
Speaker 2: there's like a whole chart of like, okay, two waves
Speaker 2: it means this, three waves it means that, and they're
Speaker 2: all They're all very to my eye complex ideas about
Speaker 2: again the theology of the theological properties of power. The
Speaker 2: straight Cris blade, on the other hand, is said to
Speaker 2: symbolize determination to maintain principles, and it's tied to the
Speaker 2: idea of the Naga at rest. So the Naga is
Speaker 2: not moving, it's not waving, you know, it's not slithering,
Speaker 2: but it is straight. The exact period of production is
Speaker 2: also going to dictate exactly how one might read a
Speaker 2: Chris like this, And this is again not even getting
Speaker 2: to all the various outright illustrations and inscriptions are going
Speaker 2: to be on the blade as well. One example of
Speaker 2: the differences you encounter. So if it was created within
Speaker 2: a Hindu Buddhist culture, you're going to have, you know,
Speaker 2: you probably have a lot more illustrations of gods and
Speaker 2: beings and animals. Meanwhile, Islamic cultures, as you can well imagine,
Speaker 2: under Islamic cultures, you're going to have Islamic crises that
Speaker 2: typically employ fewer of these elements.
Speaker 3: Let's representation a m. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, another tidbit I ran across is this idea, and
Speaker 2: this has been referenced in multiple works that a long
Speaker 2: form of the straight chris was also reportedly used in
Speaker 2: ritual executions or Hu Kuman saloon. And this would have
Speaker 2: been achieved allegedly by having the execution victim assume a
Speaker 2: squatting position, and then the executioner stands behind the victim
Speaker 2: and then would drive the crisp down through the clavicle
Speaker 2: to the heart. I mean, that's what I said. All
Speaker 2: most of these execution techniques, I don't know. I couldn't find.
Speaker 2: I didn't find any papers that like really dug into
Speaker 2: how effective this would be. But I guess on paper,
Speaker 2: if someone's like, hey, this guy knows what he's doing.
Speaker 2: He's going to stick it right through your neck straight
Speaker 2: to the heart and then it's done, I guess I'm
Speaker 2: okay with that. Certainly better than some of the horror
Speaker 2: stories we've discussed involving multiple strikes of the headman's axe. Right. Yes, Now,
Speaker 2: this does lead me to another issue that comes up.
Speaker 2: There are some arguments that that curvy wavy blade, the
Speaker 2: snake like blade, the snake in motion, that this would
Speaker 2: be an ideal blade because it might produce a wider
Speaker 2: wound channel when it's actually used in battle, or that
Speaker 2: you would encounter less friction and suction inside the wound,
Speaker 2: so allowing for like a deeper and faster stab, like
Speaker 2: you'd be able to stab in and then pull it
Speaker 2: back out, save time and then you can move on
Speaker 2: to your in the next battlefield stabbing that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: As far as I can tell, a lot of these
Speaker 2: arguments seem to be kind of speculative. I couldn't find
Speaker 2: an example of anyone like actually testing them out on
Speaker 2: some sort of you know, you know, cadaver or animal body.
Speaker 3: Though, stick dummy with the Chris.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But if if one does, and certainly if anybody
Speaker 2: knows of one out there, send it my way and
Speaker 2: we'll come back to the topic. So these ideas, though
Speaker 2: I'm not going to dismiss them out of hand, could
Speaker 2: be true, but most accounts really seem to focus on again,
Speaker 2: all of these stylistic and symbolic meanings of say the
Speaker 2: curvy blade, and I mean you can kind of get
Speaker 2: this too by just looking at it. It just it
Speaker 2: just you know, enraptures you to look at a curvy Chris.
Speaker 2: So it seems more likely that these that it's a
Speaker 2: you know, a major esthetic factor here rather than a
Speaker 2: performance design. Yeah, finally, this is this is a somewhat
Speaker 2: lesser cultural value. But if you listen to our Weird
Speaker 2: House Cinema episodes, you might remember a few months back
Speaker 2: we discussed the nineteen eighty eight Indonesian supernatural action movie
Speaker 2: Lady Terminator. That film does feature a holy demon slaying
Speaker 2: Chris in it, which I think, you know, again that's
Speaker 2: a that's an exploitation action film, but it does give
Speaker 2: you an idea of just how important the Chris is
Speaker 2: within these different Indonesian traditions, like it is the holy blade,
Speaker 2: it is the of course, it is the blade that
Speaker 2: you would use to eliminate some sort of supernatural evil.
Speaker 3: Do I remember right that in that movie there is
Speaker 3: a snake or an eel that turns into the Chris.
Speaker 2: You were correct, Yeah, and that would also tie into
Speaker 2: these ideas of the cur rev blade or even the
Speaker 2: straight blade again being connected to a snake or a naga.
Speaker 2: So and again, and also to water and to water creatures,
Speaker 2: the wavy movement and wave forms in the water.
Speaker 3: Well done, mythologically valid.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, so again, there is so much out there
Speaker 2: about about the Chris. You know, whole books have been
Speaker 2: written about it. And in fact, the one author, the
Speaker 2: Dutch author that I alluded to here, David von Duren,
Speaker 2: has written multiple books about the Chris. Some of them
Speaker 2: aren't as easy to get a hold of, but they're
Speaker 2: out there. I think you generally have to like order
Speaker 2: them from Amsterdam. But again, deep topic. I didn't want
Speaker 2: to just go on and on about the Chris here,
Speaker 2: but hopefully I've given you just a sample of just
Speaker 2: how rich and amazing these blades are.
Speaker 3: Very cool. This is not something I think about most blades.
Speaker 3: You know, you ever see the scene in a lot,
Speaker 3: don't know the story where the sword expert it like,
Speaker 3: picks it up and wants to feel the edge of
Speaker 3: the blade. They like put their thumb on the sharp part,
Speaker 3: And I don't know what. I don't have that impulse
Speaker 3: with knives. I mean, I like a good knife in
Speaker 3: the kitchen. I'm a fan of good knives, but I
Speaker 3: don't always want to go touching the blade to feel
Speaker 3: how sharp it is, Chris, for some reason like I
Speaker 3: want to get my hands on that. I want to
Speaker 3: put that right on the pad of my thumb and
Speaker 3: see how sharp it feels.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it is something about the how organic it looks.
Speaker 2: It looks like a living thing, And I believe that
Speaker 2: is part like there is an idea that they are
Speaker 2: kind of like living things, you know, the idea that
Speaker 2: is kind of getting back to what we discussed in
Speaker 2: the first episode what Borges said about knives and especially
Speaker 2: weapons of that have shed blood. How they kind of
Speaker 2: take on a life of their own, and they have
Speaker 2: their own their own ambitions and their own grudges, and
Speaker 2: we as mortal humans just we occasionally get to hold them,
Speaker 2: We occasionally wield them. We occasionally rub our thumb against
Speaker 2: their edge to see how sharp they are.
Speaker 3: They must seek out a meat host to carry them along.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, we're gonna close out this episode. But
Speaker 2: Joe and I were just talking about this off mic,
Speaker 2: I believe we have one more episode in this series
Speaker 2: for you. We're gonna reach into the into the blade
Speaker 2: drawer one more time and.
Speaker 3: Greet into that bag of books. If there's a Chris
Speaker 3: in there.
Speaker 2: See what see what pricks us, and we're gonna pull
Speaker 2: out at least two more. We'll see. We'll see what
Speaker 2: they're like once we actually get our hands on them
Speaker 2: and start to rubbing our thumb against the blade. So
Speaker 2: tune in on Thursday for what should probably be the
Speaker 2: final episode in this three part series. But in the meantime, again,
Speaker 2: we'd love to hear from you out there. Do you
Speaker 2: have expertise or information about either of the blades and
Speaker 2: blade types that we discussed here today, If so, write
Speaker 2: in we'd love to hear from you. Or if you
Speaker 2: just have blades that are of personal cultural importance to
Speaker 2: you and you would like to share them with us. Yeah,
Speaker 2: send us your story, send us some pictures of that night.
Speaker 2: We would love to hear from you.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact stuff to Blow your
Speaker 3: Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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