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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 2: And I am Joe McCormick. And hey, it's Saturday, so

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Speaker 2: we're heading into the vault for an older episode of

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Speaker 2: the show. This one originally published on December fourteenth, twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty three, and it's about the Nutcracker. Yes, the object,

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Speaker 2: the tool, the invention, the Nutcracker.

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Speaker 1: Yes, that's right. And this, of course is the precursor

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Speaker 1: to an episode that will be rerunning later this month

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Speaker 1: on the Rat King. The pair of holiday episodes they

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Speaker 1: came out last year.

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Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert.

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Speaker 2: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. And ooh, I can

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Speaker 2: almost smell hot cocoa and peppermint because the Christmas spirit

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Speaker 2: is a live. Today we're doing our holiday episode and

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Speaker 2: we're going to be talking about the Nutcracker, as promised

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Speaker 2: in the last episode.

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Speaker 1: That's right. On Tuesday, we discussed the rat King and

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Speaker 1: of course how that relates to the Mouse King, the

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Speaker 1: enemy of the Nutcracker, from the original source material for

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Speaker 1: Tchaikowsky's eighteen ninety two ballet, we talked about this it's

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Speaker 1: the work of German dark romantic author Eta Hoffman and

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Speaker 1: eighteen sixteen short story titled The Nutcracker in the Mouse King.

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Speaker 1: So we talked a good bit about monstrous, multi headed rats,

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Speaker 1: and the original short story does feature some just horrific

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Speaker 1: visions of this dreaded entity. But today it's time to

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Speaker 1: talk about the protagonist of this story. Yes, it's the Nutcracker. Rob.

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Speaker 2: When you were a kid, did your family have like

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Speaker 2: a classic style Christmas decoration nutcracker with the lever and

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Speaker 2: the jaw.

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Speaker 1: I think we always had one around, or there was

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Speaker 1: at least a Christmas ornament that had a nutcracker on it,

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Speaker 1: but I don't remember. We certainly did not have a

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Speaker 1: function nutcracker, at least as far as I can recall.

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Speaker 2: I remember enjoying the creepy inhuman mechanics of like how

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Speaker 2: far the jaw would open, and the very the squareness

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Speaker 2: of it, you know. I like the fact that it

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Speaker 2: had corners and it was almost like the pharyngeal jaw

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Speaker 2: of like the xenomor for something.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know, And it's something that you can

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Speaker 1: toy around with and yeah, and even if it's decorative

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Speaker 1: and you're a kid, if you're left alone with it,

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Speaker 1: you're gonna end up trying to crack some nuts in

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Speaker 1: that weird jaw of the nutcracker. Now, I feel like

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Speaker 1: most of you know exactly what sort of nutcrackers I'm

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Speaker 1: talking about here. You know, he's an old timey soldier

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Speaker 1: or king standing up, made out of woods, a tall hat,

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Speaker 1: big teeth, and a movable jaw that works via a lever.

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Speaker 1: So the lever is positioned on the nutcracker's back. You

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Speaker 1: pull up on the lever and this opens the jaw.

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Speaker 1: Insert a nut, push down on the lever, or pull

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Speaker 1: down on the lever, Squeeze down on the lever, however

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Speaker 1: you apply it, and the force is going to cause

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Speaker 1: the jaws and a nutcracker to close, cracking the nut.

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Speaker 1: That is, of course, if you're using a functional wooden nutcracker.

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Speaker 1: Many of the ones you encountered today are purely decorative.

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Speaker 1: They were never meant to actually crack a nut. Some

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Speaker 1: of them even have like little capes on, clearly making

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Speaker 1: the lever inaccessible if there even is a lever back there.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I recall thinking this about the nutcrackers of my youth.

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Speaker 2: It was like this. It does feel flimsy. I don't

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Speaker 2: know if it would stand up to a nut.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Many times we don't even need to crack the nuts,

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Speaker 1: right we're getting we're receiving our nuts already in some

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Speaker 1: sort of a snack mix. They've already been cracked.

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Speaker 3: Uh.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes cracking is not entirely necessary. You get a nice

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Speaker 1: bag of pistachios, they are only going to be those

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Speaker 1: problem pistachios that you're gonna have to crack later. The

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Speaker 1: rest you can open by getting your your you know,

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Speaker 1: your salty fingers in there and then eventually like having

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Speaker 1: to to slip your fingernail into the into the crevice

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Speaker 1: and pry them open that way.

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Speaker 2: But if you apply force in just the wrong way,

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Speaker 2: it'll kind of like nick your nail and pull it back. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: for creepy feeling, I don't like.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's satisfying. You know. It's one of those

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Speaker 1: things that is it's like deeply embedded in our genes,

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Speaker 1: you know, the idea that oh, here's a nut, I've

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Speaker 1: got to crack it, and then I've got this sweet reward,

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Speaker 1: and now I'm going to keep doing it again and again.

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Speaker 2: It does feel so biologically deep that it's like one

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Speaker 2: of our primary metaphors for just solving a problem, cracking

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Speaker 2: a nut.

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Speaker 1: That's right, got to crack that nut. It is a

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Speaker 1: problem to be solved, but there is a reward and

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Speaker 1: there's got to be a way into it, you know,

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Speaker 1: at least. This is often like you can't just give

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Speaker 1: up on that pistatio that can't be opened, or that

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Speaker 1: that nut that seemingly can't be cracked, because you know

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Speaker 1: there's something good in there now. Quick anthropology note, there

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Speaker 1: is a primate species this is Parenthepus boise eye, which

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Speaker 1: upon discovery in nineteen fifty nine was dubbed nut cracker

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Speaker 1: Man due to the skulls, large back teeth, and jaws.

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Speaker 1: I included an image of reconstruction of this particular skull

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Speaker 1: for you here, Joe.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, this looks like the opposite of my childhood nutcracker.

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Speaker 2: I think that the owner of the skull could have

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Speaker 2: dominated some nuts.

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Speaker 1: This would make for an interesting monstrous adaptation of the

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Speaker 1: nutcracker and the mouse King. Have your multi headed mouse

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Speaker 1: king and all fierce and disturbing, but then also have

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Speaker 1: your nutcracker be nutcracker man. Now we'll dive into deeper

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Speaker 1: history concerning just nutcracking here in a minute, you know,

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Speaker 1: and we'll get into other traditional ways of cracking nut,

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Speaker 1: some anthropomorphic in nature as well, like our nutcracker soldier.

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Speaker 1: But first let's get to know the wooden German nutcracker

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Speaker 1: a little bit better. So in looking around for various sources,

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Speaker 1: there does seem to be one individual in particular who

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Speaker 1: stands out, and it's the nutcracker Lady, and that's Arlene Wagner,

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Speaker 1: who is an author, has written books about nutcrackers, and

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Speaker 1: is also the co founder of the really fun Looking

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Speaker 1: Nutcracker Museum in Levenworth, Washington. And she points out that

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Speaker 1: standing wooden nutcrackers like these, like the traditional holiday nutcracker

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Speaker 1: as we know them, these were known in nineteenth century

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Speaker 1: German as nousnachers, listed as such in the Dictionary of

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Speaker 1: the Brothers Grim. Many of these were made in the

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Speaker 1: Erzgebirge region and would have been the ones to inspire

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Speaker 1: Hoffman in his writing of the Nutcracker and the Mouse King.

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Speaker 1: And they were not all powered by lever, as it

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Speaker 1: turns out, some of these were powered by screw I

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Speaker 1: included an image of a screw based nutcracking nutcracker for

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Speaker 1: you here, Joe.

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Speaker 2: But they've all got whether it's screw or lever, they've

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Speaker 2: all got the mustache. Now, the mustache is essential, as

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Speaker 2: is the tall hat. But the screw guy, he has

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Speaker 2: just kind of like a wide circular mouth sort of

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Speaker 2: a mouth, and in there you see the screw. Like

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Speaker 2: basically you would just drive the screw home into the

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Speaker 2: top of the nut and the gradual wars would bust it.

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Speaker 2: With the screw guy, I kind of missed the mouth

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Speaker 2: of saur On style teeth that we have in the

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Speaker 2: ones with the levers.

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Speaker 1: It does seem like a design misstep because part of

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Speaker 1: the whole fun that, like the whole reason you would

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Speaker 1: imagine that someone created a humanoid nutcracker is because it

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Speaker 1: moves like a jaw and you're putting something into this

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Speaker 1: little guy's mouth and making him smash it. This guy

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Speaker 1: with a screw that comes down from the roof of

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Speaker 1: his mouth like down through his pallet to break open

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Speaker 1: the nut like this just it doesn't it doesn't feel

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Speaker 1: as natural. It feels like someone improved upon the design

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Speaker 1: and destroyed the spirit in the process, but again these

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Speaker 1: are also classic nutcrackers fair enough. Now, apparently there was

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Speaker 1: a bit more variety in the design until around eighteen

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Speaker 1: seventy two, when one Wilhelm of Fuckner produced the first

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Speaker 1: commercial nutcrackers based on like one singular design. And this

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Speaker 1: was not like a factory situation, it's just using a lathe.

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Speaker 1: But this, like apparent kickstarted sort of the canonization of

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Speaker 1: what a nutcracker is and what it should look like.

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Speaker 1: And his family still produces these. According to Carol Rosenblatt,

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Speaker 1: who wrote an article on Atlas Obscura just earlier this

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Speaker 1: month about the history of the nutcracker. Now, Wagner writes

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Speaker 1: the decorative wooden European nutcrackers in general, like not necessarily soldiers,

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Speaker 1: date back to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in England

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Speaker 1: and France, and these traditions continued on during the eighteenth

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Speaker 1: and nineteenth centuries. So you saw a great deal of

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Speaker 1: ornate wooden nutcracker craftsmanship eventually in the alpine regions of

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Speaker 1: Germany and Italy. Because again, there's nothing about a nutcracker

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Speaker 1: that demands that it be shaped like a soldier. We're

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Speaker 1: talking about a tool that is a simple lever, and

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Speaker 1: then at various points people have decided to fancy it

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Speaker 1: up a bit because you can just have something that,

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Speaker 1: you know, crabcloth crunchers are basically the same thing. Crabcriot

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Speaker 1: crackers just a simple lever to allow you to apply

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Speaker 1: the necessary force to break a shell open, be it

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Speaker 1: the cell of a crustacean or the shell of a nut.

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Speaker 1: But people just end up having fun with it, creating

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Speaker 1: luxury items even that are still to some degree functional,

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Speaker 1: And then in doing it, you know, you can't help

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Speaker 1: but let your imagination run wild. Is it the mouth

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Speaker 1: of a man? Is it the mouth of a beast?

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Speaker 1: The legs of a beast? Perhaps, you know, perhaps it

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Speaker 1: has nothing to do with actual anatomical movements. You just

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Speaker 1: want to add some beautiful motifs to the overall nutcracker. Now,

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Speaker 1: according to Noreen Malone, writing for Slate and twenty ten,

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Speaker 1: the German nutcracker dolls the standard ones that we're talking

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Speaker 1: about here that look like soldiers were at least considered

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Speaker 1: good luck in German traditions. And I've seen other sources

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Speaker 1: at least loosely allude to some sort of apotropaic properties

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Speaker 1: as well. You know, the idea that it's this soldier

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Speaker 1: is going to frighten away evil spirits or bad luck

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Speaker 1: or something to that effect. So you know, the idea

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Speaker 1: that something not only as could be lucky, but it

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Speaker 1: could also keep ill luck, keep bad spirits away. This,

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Speaker 1: of course, is not uncommon with artifacts of this basic nature,

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Speaker 1: you know, because look at the standard Nutcracker. It has

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Speaker 1: a fierce face. Oftentimes it has kind of big and

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Speaker 1: alarming eyes, and certainly it's not blinking. So you could

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Speaker 1: imagine easily leaning into the idea of putting this character

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Speaker 1: on guard against your enemies.

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Speaker 2: This seems to connect with traditions as old as the

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Speaker 2: ones we talked about in our series on necromancy, this

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Speaker 2: October in ancient Mesopotamia, where you would have these little

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Speaker 2: figurines that might look like a warrior or king or

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Speaker 2: something that would be there to ward off ghosts and

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Speaker 2: demons that might want to attack you in your sleep.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and so perhaps Hoffman was playing with this concept

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Speaker 1: a little bit in his writing of the original Nutcracker story.

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Speaker 1: You know, the Nutcracker is a protector in this but

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Speaker 1: also he turns things on its head. He is also

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Speaker 1: something that needs protecting. He need to be protected by Marie.

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Speaker 1: I should point out that, yes, the little girl's name

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Speaker 1: is Marie in the original story, even though I believe

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Speaker 1: she becomes Clara in the Nutcracker Ballet. So we'll get

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Speaker 1: back to traditions of nut cracking technology here in a bit.

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Speaker 1: But to give this the proper sort of invention treatment,

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Speaker 1: we really need to go back before that. We need

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Speaker 1: to get back to the basic idea of cracking nuts.

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Speaker 1: And indeed, why crack a nut anyway? And why does

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Speaker 1: the nut need to be cracked?

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Speaker 2: Great question? So what are nuts? We know them when

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Speaker 2: we see them, and we can list a bunch of examples,

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Speaker 2: but botanically what are they? And I've actually found some

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Speaker 2: rather different definitions offered in seemingly authoritative sources. But to

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Speaker 2: synthesize as best I can, here are the main points.

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Speaker 2: First of all, nuts are fruits. Huh. Yes, they are fruits.

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Speaker 2: We don't usually think of them. So this raises the question,

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Speaker 2: going one step back further, what is a fruit? In

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Speaker 2: a botanical sense, a fruit is usually defined as the mature,

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Speaker 2: ripened ovary of a flowering plant which contains the plant's

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Speaker 2: seed or seeds. So, according to scientific classification. Fruits include

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Speaker 2: lots of foods we do normally think of as fruits,

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Speaker 2: like apples, peaches, and oranges, but lots of other fleshy

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Speaker 2: things that grow off of plants that we don't usually

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Speaker 2: think of as fruits, even foods like cucumbers, tomatoes, avocados,

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Speaker 2: and chili peppers, and in fact, technically even grains like

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Speaker 2: wheat and oats are a type of fruit. So a

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Speaker 2: fruit is a mass that grows from the reproductive structure

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Speaker 2: of a flour and ends up containing or bearing the

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Speaker 2: fertilized seed of that plant. The form of the fruit

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Speaker 2: is designed by evolution to help the seeds disperse, which

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Speaker 2: could mean taking the form of a delicious snack that

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Speaker 2: animals will want to eat and then swallow and then

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Speaker 2: deposit elsewhere in a nice, healthy pile of dung. But

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Speaker 2: there are other animal dispersal strategies we'll get to in

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Speaker 2: a minute. So, according to the Encyclopedia of Fruit and

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Speaker 2: Nuts edited by Yannick and Paul, nuts are a specialized

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Speaker 2: subcategory of fruit quote characterized by a hard shell that

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Speaker 2: is separable from a firmer inner kernel. So it's a

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Speaker 2: fruit that's got an inside kernel and a hard shell

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Speaker 2: on the outside. Now, to offer some of these contrasting definitions,

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Speaker 2: I found a different source by the USDA Forest Service

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Speaker 2: that claimed that quote nuts are strictly a particular kind

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Speaker 2: of dry fruit that has a single seed, a hard shell,

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Speaker 2: and a protective husk. Also adding to the confusion is

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Speaker 2: the fact that there are some things that are generally

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Speaker 2: classified as nuts by people, but are not nuts in

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Speaker 2: the botanical sense. Classic example is a peanut. These are

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Speaker 2: technically legumes. And in this episode, I am sure we

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Speaker 2: will casually refer to some of these false nuts as nuts.

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Speaker 2: It's just going to happen. Just be aware that some

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Speaker 2: quote nuts are not technically nuts. But to come back

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Speaker 2: to the synthesis definition here, among other possible criteria like

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Speaker 2: bearing a single seed, or having a husk, or maybe

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Speaker 2: having high oil content or something like that, the common

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Speaker 2: thread seems to be that nuts are fruits that evolved

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Speaker 2: a hard shell. But why how does the plant benefit

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Speaker 2: from having a hard shell around its fruit and seed

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Speaker 2: as opposed to a nice, soft, fleshy seed capsule like

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Speaker 2: a tomato or like any of these other soft fleshy

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Speaker 2: fruits where the plant in an evolutionary sense wants the

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Speaker 2: animal to gobble them up and carry them away and

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Speaker 2: poot them out somewhere. Well, I found a paper that

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Speaker 2: explains one important evolutionary strategy of nut bearing plants, and

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Speaker 2: I think this is really interesting. So the paper was

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Speaker 2: by Stephen B. Van Wall called How Plants Manipulate the

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Speaker 2: scatter Hoarding behavior of seed dispersing Animals, published in Philosophical

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Speaker 2: Transactions of the Royal Society b Biological Sciences in twenty ten.

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Speaker 2: So this paper is about interactions between plants and animals,

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Speaker 2: particularly plants and an animal behavior called scatter hoarding, in

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Speaker 2: which the animal and you can picture a squirrel, but

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Speaker 2: there are a bunch of different kinds of animals that

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Speaker 2: do this as well, primarily birds and rodents, in which

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Speaker 2: the animal or the squirrel will collect a bunch of

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Speaker 2: food items in hidden caches to be stored for later.

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Speaker 2: So our squirrel runs around gathering up a bunch of

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Speaker 2: nuts fallen from under a tree, and instead of eating

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Speaker 2: them right away, the squirrel will carry them off to

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Speaker 2: bury or hide somewhere for later, maybe in lots of

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Speaker 2: locations all around the squirrel's territory. Now, why does this

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Speaker 2: benefit the plant? For the squirrel or other animal to

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Speaker 2: do this or run off with a bunch of nuts,

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Speaker 2: take them somewhere else and bury them well. In some cases,

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Speaker 2: these storage caches of plant seeds will benefit from reproductive

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Speaker 2: fitness enhancements via animal dispersal. And we've talked on the

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Speaker 2: show before about the reasons that it is good for

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Speaker 2: a plant to have its seeds dispersed geographically away, taken

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Speaker 2: away from the parent plant. There are multiple reasons for this,

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Speaker 2: but just one example is now. If they're dispersed far away,

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Speaker 2: the offspring plant will not have to compete with the

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Speaker 2: parent plant for access to sunlight. Parent and child will

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Speaker 2: not be fighting against one another to get the sun.

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Speaker 2: But in many cases, these scatter hoarded caches will be

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Speaker 2: forgotten or otherwise abandoned by the animal that made them,

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Speaker 2: allowing the seeds to germinate and grow in the places

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Speaker 2: they were hidden. So squirrel takes a bunch of nuts,

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Speaker 2: stashes them all over the place, buries them, hides them.

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Speaker 2: The squirrel will go back and get some of them

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Speaker 2: later and eat them. But some of them the squirrels

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Speaker 2: never going to get again, and they'll just be wherever

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Speaker 2: they are, and they might have a chance to sprout

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Speaker 2: and grow.

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Speaker 1: Plus, the world can be pretty rough on a squirrel,

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Speaker 1: so even if the squirrel remembers where those nuts are,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't mean that squirrel is going to be around

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Speaker 1: to come back and claim them later on.

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Speaker 2: Right, So, Vanderwald explains how plants have evolved to encourage

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Speaker 2: scatter hoarding behavior in animals and why it helps them

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Speaker 2: so that you know, it is good for the plant

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Speaker 2: to get animals to practice scatter hoarding with its seeds.

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Speaker 2: How does it get the animals to do that? First

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Speaker 2: of all, by producing seeds that are delicious and nutritious,

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Speaker 2: so they are highly attractive to animals as a food.

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Speaker 2: But second, here's the important one for our question about

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Speaker 2: why why nuts have hard shells, by imposing what Vanderwald

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Speaker 2: calls handling costs that mean the animal cannot feasibly eat

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Speaker 2: all of the seeds immediately upon discovery. And there are

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Speaker 2: two main strategies mentioned for increasing these handling costs. One

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Speaker 2: is by lacing the nutritious seed or fruit with chemicals

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Speaker 2: that make it hard to digest, such as tannins, which

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Speaker 2: kind of slows down the buffet, you know. But then

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Speaker 2: the second thing is by putting in place, physical barriers

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Speaker 2: that take time and energy to break through. So here's

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Speaker 2: our hard outer nutshell. The hard shell of a nut

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Speaker 2: makes it impossible for the squirrel to just gobble up

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Speaker 2: all of the fruits immediately. They want that good stuff inside,

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Speaker 2: but each one is going to take time and energy

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Speaker 2: to open an access, So the animal is encouraged to

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Speaker 2: take the nuts away and hide them for later. Now,

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Speaker 2: there are a couple more strategies Vanderwall mentions as well.

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Speaker 2: One is masting. This is quote where a population of

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Speaker 2: plants synchronizes reproductive effort, producing large nut crops at intervals

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Speaker 2: of several years. Massed crops not only satiate seed predators,

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Speaker 2: but also increase the amount of seed dispersal because scatter

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Speaker 2: hoarding animals are not easily satiated during cashing, causing animals

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Speaker 2: to store more food than they can consume, but are

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Speaker 2: satiated during cash recovery. So does that make sense. There's

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Speaker 2: a lot of nuts, and because they take time to

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Speaker 2: get into, the scatter hoarding animal is going to be

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Speaker 2: hungry while they're gathering all these nuts, so it just

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Speaker 2: encourages them to keep gathering more and more nuts and

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Speaker 2: storing them and planting them for the plant, but then

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Speaker 2: they will get full on these nuts when it's finally

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Speaker 2: time to recover the cash and crack them open and

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Speaker 2: eat them, so they're probably not going to get to

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Speaker 2: all of the stuff they stored.

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Speaker 1: Basically exploiting a real eyes bigger than one's stomach sort

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Speaker 1: of situation with the squirrels exactly.

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Speaker 2: And then the last strategy mentioned here is by having

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Speaker 2: seeds that don't put off strong smells, making them harder

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Speaker 2: for the animal to find later after they are hidden,

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Speaker 2: so really just sort of helping squirrel or bird or

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Speaker 2: whatever animal forget where it put some of its nuts. So,

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Speaker 2: according to this theory, hard nutshells are part of a

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Speaker 2: suite of strategies used by plants to aid in seed

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Speaker 2: dispersal by animals like birds and rodents, which makes it

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Speaker 2: more difficult for the animal to eat the nut, making

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Speaker 2: it more likely that the animal will carry the nut

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Speaker 2: off and hide it or bury it somewhere later and

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Speaker 2: then possibly forget about it or for whatever reason, never

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Speaker 2: come back to it, allowing the plant to germinate in

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Speaker 2: its hiding place. Hard nutshells you could think of sort

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Speaker 2: of like a speed bump in the eating process. They

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Speaker 2: make it hard for the bird or the rodent or

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Speaker 2: whatever to just like blaze through whatever it finds that

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Speaker 2: it can't just eat it all at once, but to

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Speaker 2: come back at this from the animal's perspective, nuts are great.

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Speaker 2: Animals want to eat them, so how to get the

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Speaker 2: good part out? Animals do have strategies for getting at

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Speaker 2: those good parts. Even if while benefiting from the nuts

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Speaker 2: they do crack open and eat, they're sort of inadvertently

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Speaker 2: helping the plant by not getting to a lot of

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Speaker 2: the nuts they store. Let's look at a few strategies here.

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Speaker 2: One is brute force, you know, teeth, jaws, beaks, or bills,

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Speaker 2: and other intrinsic mechanisms that allow an animal to crack

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Speaker 2: or punch through hard nutshells. We've already mentioned that rodents

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Speaker 2: are a major consumer of nuts in the wild, but

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Speaker 2: also other hard substances, and rodents like rats, squirrels, and beavers,

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Speaker 2: have an adaptation that helps them in this regard, which

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Speaker 2: is they're incisors, pairs of front teeth at the top

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Speaker 2: and bottom that, unlike our teeth, continuously grow throughout the

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Speaker 2: rodent's life. So this means rodents must gnaw on things

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Speaker 2: and also must grind to their front teeth to maintain

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Speaker 2: good dental health. Rat incisors not worn down by continuous

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Speaker 2: gnawing can grow into a bizarre, unsettling spiral shapes they

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Speaker 2: go off, and this is obviously really bad for the rat.

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Speaker 2: And while having teeth like this imposes a burden to

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Speaker 2: constantly be gnawing and grinding the teeth together, it also

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00:22:23,160 --> 00:22:26,280
Speaker 2: helps equip rodents to put their front teeth through some

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Speaker 2: serious abuse because the teeth will just continue growing in

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Speaker 2: and the grinding will continue to sharpen them. So you know,

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Speaker 2: if an adult human cracks a tooth, that's sort of

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Speaker 2: a permanent problem. Rodents like rats can just let their

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Speaker 2: teeth keep growing in so they can put them through

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Speaker 2: a lot. Rodents like rats also have very strong and

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00:22:46,760 --> 00:22:51,560
Speaker 2: specially adapted jaw muscles for their size, specifically the massiter muscles,

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00:22:51,720 --> 00:22:55,640
Speaker 2: and their special teeth and chewing muscles help them cut

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00:22:55,680 --> 00:22:59,800
Speaker 2: through tough barriers like nutshells. Of course, on the larger

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00:23:00,200 --> 00:23:03,760
Speaker 2: of the animal spectrum, you've got bigger animals that just

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Speaker 2: have big teeth, big jaws that can pretty easily crush

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00:23:07,240 --> 00:23:11,600
Speaker 2: through nutshells. For example, elephants and some wild pigs. You know,

405
00:23:11,640 --> 00:23:13,960
Speaker 2: if you've got big enough jaws and teeth and stuff,

406
00:23:13,960 --> 00:23:16,600
Speaker 2: crushing a nutshell isn't that hard. I even found one

407
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Speaker 2: report of gorillas allegedly cracking nuts with their teeth, so

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Speaker 2: there's some question about to what extent this comes with

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00:23:23,000 --> 00:23:26,719
Speaker 2: significant risk of tooth damage to the gorilla. And then

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Speaker 2: also some birds, such as like Jay's blue jays, will

411
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Speaker 2: collect the nuts so that they can break through nutshells

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Speaker 2: with their bills. But some other animals have a different strategy,

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Speaker 2: which is just, you know, swallow the nuts whole and

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Speaker 2: let the gizzard work it out. Wild turkeys are an example.

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Speaker 1: Here.

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Speaker 2: Turkeys eat a lot of nuts, such as wild pecans,

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Speaker 2: but they don't bother cracking them or chewing them. There's

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Speaker 2: just no need. They gulp the whole thing, shell and all,

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Speaker 2: and then it goes to the gizzard. And the gizzard

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Speaker 2: works essentially like an internal jaw. It is a part

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00:24:00,359 --> 00:24:04,359
Speaker 2: of the bird's digestive system, a sort of muscular sack

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00:24:04,880 --> 00:24:09,560
Speaker 2: in which food stuffs are churned around with externally acquired

423
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Speaker 2: abrasives like rocks and sand, which the turkey also swallows,

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00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:19,000
Speaker 2: and eventually this muscular sack churning nuts around with rocks

425
00:24:19,040 --> 00:24:22,280
Speaker 2: and sand grinds the nuts or whatever food into pieces

426
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Speaker 2: so it can pass on down through the rest of

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Speaker 2: the digestive tract.

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Speaker 1: See, we need more gizzard based nutcrackers. Maybe the screw

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Speaker 1: nutcracker is kind of a gizzard nutcracker in a limited sense.

430
00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:37,240
Speaker 2: I g Yeah, it would be like what would a

431
00:24:37,280 --> 00:24:39,800
Speaker 2: gizzard based nutcracker be. It would be more like a

432
00:24:39,920 --> 00:24:42,200
Speaker 2: like a rock polisher, you know, you get the nuts

433
00:24:42,200 --> 00:24:44,560
Speaker 2: in there and it's got like an internal like shaker

434
00:24:44,640 --> 00:24:46,439
Speaker 2: with rocks and they bust them up.

435
00:24:46,920 --> 00:24:47,560
Speaker 1: Yeah.

436
00:24:47,640 --> 00:24:50,359
Speaker 2: So those are the internal mechanisms, but there are also

437
00:24:50,440 --> 00:24:54,040
Speaker 2: animals that do use external mechanisms, in other words, tools

438
00:24:54,119 --> 00:24:57,320
Speaker 2: to crack nuts. Tool use in nutcracking has been observed

439
00:24:57,320 --> 00:25:00,159
Speaker 2: in multiple primate species. I came across a paper for

440
00:25:00,280 --> 00:25:04,479
Speaker 2: documenting novel observations of orangutans figuring out how to smash

441
00:25:04,560 --> 00:25:09,280
Speaker 2: nuts with a wooden hammer. The paper was by Bandini

442
00:25:09,400 --> 00:25:16,240
Speaker 2: at All, called Naive Orangutans Individually Acquire nutcracking using hammer Tools,

443
00:25:16,280 --> 00:25:18,840
Speaker 2: published in the American Journal of Primatology in the year

444
00:25:18,840 --> 00:25:21,840
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one, and I found the background section of

445
00:25:21,880 --> 00:25:26,760
Speaker 2: this paper helpful for collecting other documented examples of primate

446
00:25:26,800 --> 00:25:29,919
Speaker 2: tool use in nutcracking, especially the use of tools by

447
00:25:29,960 --> 00:25:34,879
Speaker 2: chimpanzees to open nuts. The authors say that chimpanzees, long

448
00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:39,320
Speaker 2: tailed macaques, and capuchin monkeys have been observed using tools

449
00:25:39,359 --> 00:25:43,560
Speaker 2: to break through nutshells, and wild chimpanzees have been observed

450
00:25:43,600 --> 00:25:48,399
Speaker 2: in multiple locations using hammer tools to smash nuts and

451
00:25:48,480 --> 00:25:52,520
Speaker 2: access kernels. So, to read from their background quote, the

452
00:25:52,600 --> 00:25:57,600
Speaker 2: crux of the nutcracking behavioral form in chimpanzees involves three steps.

453
00:25:57,920 --> 00:26:01,600
Speaker 2: One retrieving a nut from the surrounding area and placing

454
00:26:01,640 --> 00:26:04,199
Speaker 2: it on an anvil e g. A tree root or

455
00:26:04,200 --> 00:26:08,440
Speaker 2: a stone. Two picking up a stone or a wooden hammer,

456
00:26:08,560 --> 00:26:12,800
Speaker 2: and three hitting the nut with the hammer, parentheses holding

457
00:26:12,840 --> 00:26:16,359
Speaker 2: it with one or both hands until its shell is

458
00:26:16,359 --> 00:26:20,399
Speaker 2: cracked open and the inside kernel can be retrieved and consumed.

459
00:26:21,840 --> 00:26:26,040
Speaker 2: And this is noted as being a really interesting case

460
00:26:26,080 --> 00:26:29,360
Speaker 2: of tool use in non human animals because most cases

461
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:33,040
Speaker 2: of animal tool use involve only a single object and

462
00:26:33,080 --> 00:26:36,320
Speaker 2: a single type of action, you know, thinking something like

463
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:40,040
Speaker 2: using a stick to extend reach into holes and crevices.

464
00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:44,520
Speaker 2: But this nut hammering process involves two separate tools apart

465
00:26:44,560 --> 00:26:48,040
Speaker 2: from the nut, the hammer and the anvil, and it

466
00:26:48,119 --> 00:26:51,600
Speaker 2: involves multiple steps, only culminating in a food reward at

467
00:26:51,600 --> 00:26:55,119
Speaker 2: the end of the process. So it's extremely interesting and

468
00:26:55,160 --> 00:26:59,119
Speaker 2: impressive and has been the subject of a lot of

469
00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:02,879
Speaker 2: study and debate, And there are also interesting scientific debates

470
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:06,800
Speaker 2: about how this process first arose in wild chimpanzees and

471
00:27:06,840 --> 00:27:10,919
Speaker 2: how it gets passed from one individual to another. But anyway,

472
00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:14,640
Speaker 2: coming back to the experimental portion of the study in orangutans,

473
00:27:14,720 --> 00:27:18,680
Speaker 2: the authors here tested naive orangutans who had no experience

474
00:27:18,760 --> 00:27:22,480
Speaker 2: cracking nuts with tools that were in captivity to see

475
00:27:22,520 --> 00:27:25,800
Speaker 2: what they would do if given hard shelled nuts and

476
00:27:25,880 --> 00:27:29,680
Speaker 2: tools for nutcracking, but no demonstration of how it was done.

477
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:31,760
Speaker 2: So just like, here's the stuff you would need, but

478
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:36,840
Speaker 2: there's no teaching or showing them. And somewhat shockingly, quote,

479
00:27:37,160 --> 00:27:41,520
Speaker 2: out of twelve orangutans tested, at least four individuals, one

480
00:27:41,520 --> 00:27:46,640
Speaker 2: from Leipzig and three from Zurich, spontaneously expressed nutcracking using

481
00:27:46,640 --> 00:27:47,520
Speaker 2: wooden hammers.

482
00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:48,920
Speaker 1: Fascinating.

483
00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:52,800
Speaker 2: I thought so too, And they say that this result

484
00:27:53,080 --> 00:27:56,760
Speaker 2: seems to be evidence that orangutans can in fact quite

485
00:27:56,760 --> 00:28:02,600
Speaker 2: readily produce emergent tool use behaviors through individual learning, they say,

486
00:28:02,680 --> 00:28:06,040
Speaker 2: just sort of personal trial and error learning without having

487
00:28:06,080 --> 00:28:10,400
Speaker 2: to watch another do it and copy the behavior from them.

488
00:28:10,520 --> 00:28:12,679
Speaker 2: Though they did say they actually make a distinction in

489
00:28:12,720 --> 00:28:17,560
Speaker 2: this paper between non copying social learning and copying social learning.

490
00:28:17,800 --> 00:28:20,600
Speaker 2: So copying social learning is what they call like the

491
00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:24,399
Speaker 2: how to knowledge where you watch another individual do something

492
00:28:24,800 --> 00:28:28,400
Speaker 2: and then you copy what they're doing. They do say

493
00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:31,439
Speaker 2: there could be some social learning involved here. That's not

494
00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:34,359
Speaker 2: watching what the other individual is doing, but just seeing

495
00:28:34,400 --> 00:28:37,879
Speaker 2: kind of like what area of the enclosure they're paying

496
00:28:37,920 --> 00:28:40,880
Speaker 2: attention to, what kind of objects they're paying attention to,

497
00:28:41,320 --> 00:28:43,800
Speaker 2: and so forth, in the words of the author, is

498
00:28:43,880 --> 00:28:47,400
Speaker 2: not how to social information, but sort of what and

499
00:28:47,440 --> 00:28:50,960
Speaker 2: where social information. And then finally just wanted to mention

500
00:28:51,040 --> 00:28:52,760
Speaker 2: that this has also come up on the show before.

501
00:28:52,840 --> 00:28:56,560
Speaker 2: But there are some bird species that have evolved ways

502
00:28:56,560 --> 00:28:59,720
Speaker 2: of using external tools to crack nuts. One of the

503
00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:03,760
Speaker 2: most interesting examples is the case of Japanese crows, specifically

504
00:29:03,880 --> 00:29:07,280
Speaker 2: Japanese crows, because as far as I know, this behavior

505
00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:10,920
Speaker 2: has not been found in crow populations elsewhere, but Japanese

506
00:29:10,920 --> 00:29:16,000
Speaker 2: crows have been observed leaving difficult nuts on busy streets

507
00:29:16,040 --> 00:29:18,200
Speaker 2: so that cars will run over them and crack the

508
00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:19,560
Speaker 2: shells for them.

509
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:22,640
Speaker 1: That's fascinating, man, to you, it's a highway to us

510
00:29:22,760 --> 00:29:27,479
Speaker 1: a nutcracker. So coming back to humans, specifically, coming back

511
00:29:27,520 --> 00:29:32,280
Speaker 1: to modern humans, modern humans absolutely can crack nuts with

512
00:29:32,320 --> 00:29:35,960
Speaker 1: their teeth. This is a true statement. However, modern humans

513
00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:39,239
Speaker 1: absolutely cannot crack all nuts with their teeth, and they

514
00:29:39,280 --> 00:29:43,080
Speaker 1: certainly can't do so without risking permanent damage to their teeth.

515
00:29:43,520 --> 00:29:46,480
Speaker 2: Right again, we are not rodents. Their teeth will keep

516
00:29:46,520 --> 00:29:49,120
Speaker 2: growing in if they hurt them while getting into a nut.

517
00:29:49,480 --> 00:29:51,920
Speaker 2: Not so much for an adult human, that's right.

518
00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:55,000
Speaker 1: So, as such, there is a huge advantage, even a

519
00:29:55,040 --> 00:29:58,640
Speaker 1: survival advantage, in being able to turn to various tools

520
00:29:58,680 --> 00:30:01,440
Speaker 1: to crack open said nuts and get at the precious

521
00:30:01,520 --> 00:30:04,360
Speaker 1: nutrients inside, and of course then not be held and

522
00:30:04,400 --> 00:30:06,440
Speaker 1: also not be held back by the speed bump so much.

523
00:30:06,480 --> 00:30:08,160
Speaker 1: I mean, you are hitting the speed bump of having

524
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:11,320
Speaker 1: to manually crack nuts. But if you can utilize technology

525
00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:14,280
Speaker 1: to speed that process along, then you can do a

526
00:30:14,320 --> 00:30:15,880
Speaker 1: whole host of other things.

527
00:30:15,840 --> 00:30:16,320
Speaker 2: That's right.

528
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:19,960
Speaker 1: As such, prehistoric humans made use of their surroundings to

529
00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:23,280
Speaker 1: open many a nut much in the same way that

530
00:30:23,520 --> 00:30:26,200
Speaker 1: other tool using animals did and the examples that we

531
00:30:26,320 --> 00:30:30,320
Speaker 1: just mentioned stones of course do wonders. And eventually this

532
00:30:30,520 --> 00:30:34,800
Speaker 1: was fine tuned to make use of pitted stones. Pitted stone,

533
00:30:34,880 --> 00:30:36,760
Speaker 1: you know, a stone that has a little indentation there,

534
00:30:36,920 --> 00:30:39,200
Speaker 1: kind of a spot that holds the nut in place

535
00:30:40,240 --> 00:30:42,880
Speaker 1: while you either whack it with another stone or use

536
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:46,360
Speaker 1: some sort of like hammer and chisel scenario to apply

537
00:30:46,440 --> 00:30:48,600
Speaker 1: force to it. And then this will also sort of

538
00:30:48,600 --> 00:30:51,120
Speaker 1: collect the fragments and keep the nut and or fragments

539
00:30:51,160 --> 00:30:53,520
Speaker 1: from just flying off in all directions.

540
00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:56,080
Speaker 2: In terms of getting over the speed bump is speeding

541
00:30:56,160 --> 00:30:58,720
Speaker 2: up the process. This is a great advancement actually using

542
00:30:58,720 --> 00:31:02,800
Speaker 2: a pitted stone like this, of moving from the hammer

543
00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:06,200
Speaker 2: and anvil principle to the mortar and pestle principle.

544
00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:09,200
Speaker 1: Now, according to Wagner, example of this sort of artifact

545
00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:12,760
Speaker 1: go back thousands and thousands of years. Indeed, according to

546
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:15,640
Speaker 1: I was looking at a twenty nineteen paper published in

547
00:31:16,200 --> 00:31:19,280
Speaker 1: Plos one or plus one. I forget which way we're

548
00:31:19,320 --> 00:31:22,120
Speaker 1: supposed to say it these days. It's plus plus.

549
00:31:22,120 --> 00:31:24,440
Speaker 2: I said it wrong. For years I spelled it out.

550
00:31:24,480 --> 00:31:28,360
Speaker 1: It's plus all right, Well, plus one, twenty nineteen. This

551
00:31:28,600 --> 00:31:33,640
Speaker 1: was a paper by Colleen Pardeaut titled Quondong stones a

552
00:31:33,680 --> 00:31:38,360
Speaker 1: Specialized Australian nut cracking tool. And in this the author

553
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:42,120
Speaker 1: points out that paleolithic sites in the levant provide evidence

554
00:31:42,240 --> 00:31:45,120
Speaker 1: of the importance of nuts in the human diet as

555
00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:48,240
Speaker 1: far back as seven hundred and forty thousand to seven

556
00:31:48,360 --> 00:31:51,880
Speaker 1: hundred ninety thousand years ago, and we see this via

557
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:56,160
Speaker 1: the evidence of specialized stone implements for shell cracking in

558
00:31:56,240 --> 00:32:01,520
Speaker 1: kernel extraction. Additionally, early Holoslene site suggests that hazel nuts

559
00:32:01,520 --> 00:32:06,680
Speaker 1: were important in Mesolithic and early Neolithic European diets. The

560
00:32:06,720 --> 00:32:08,960
Speaker 1: paper in question, by the way, highlights the use of

561
00:32:09,040 --> 00:32:13,840
Speaker 1: pitted stones by Aboriginal Australians to crack open the quandong

562
00:32:14,040 --> 00:32:17,760
Speaker 1: or native peach. They point out that pits in stones

563
00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:22,040
Speaker 1: like this are common and they sometimes indicate other functions.

564
00:32:22,080 --> 00:32:25,160
Speaker 1: It's not always there for nut cracking. You know, it

565
00:32:25,200 --> 00:32:27,920
Speaker 1: could be an anvil or it could have multiple functions,

566
00:32:28,440 --> 00:32:31,960
Speaker 1: but the stones in question have multiple pits and were

567
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:35,320
Speaker 1: found in areas where quand dongs are common. They also

568
00:32:35,440 --> 00:32:38,480
Speaker 1: analyze the exact nature of the wear and tear on

569
00:32:38,560 --> 00:32:40,480
Speaker 1: these stones. Apparently, if you know what you're looking for.

570
00:32:40,920 --> 00:32:43,680
Speaker 1: You can analyze that wear and tear and see like, okay,

571
00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:48,920
Speaker 1: what kind of regular and or repeated force was applied here?

572
00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:54,920
Speaker 1: And they believe that these artifacts indicate nutcracking. I included

573
00:32:54,960 --> 00:32:57,200
Speaker 1: a couple of pictures here from you below. One is

574
00:32:57,240 --> 00:33:03,280
Speaker 1: from Wagner's museum. You see like basic pitted stone nutcracking scenario.

575
00:33:03,760 --> 00:33:06,560
Speaker 1: And then I have some images from this paper about

576
00:33:06,680 --> 00:33:09,840
Speaker 1: Aboriginal Australian artifacts and you can see like a like

577
00:33:10,240 --> 00:33:13,640
Speaker 1: multiple pits in one of the stones they're talking about.

578
00:33:13,920 --> 00:33:18,400
Speaker 1: M Yeah, by the way, broadly speaking, nuts cracked in

579
00:33:18,400 --> 00:33:21,000
Speaker 1: this manner were sometimes, of course just eaten raw. You know,

580
00:33:21,080 --> 00:33:25,200
Speaker 1: you've solved the puzzle. Now enjoy the spoils. But they

581
00:33:25,200 --> 00:33:28,440
Speaker 1: were also initially eventually used for other purposes. You could

582
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:31,960
Speaker 1: make flowers out of them, or nut butters. There's apparently

583
00:33:32,040 --> 00:33:35,600
Speaker 1: evidence for peanut butter of a sort in Aztec and

584
00:33:35,600 --> 00:33:40,080
Speaker 1: Inca civilizations, and one can only assume that ancient European

585
00:33:40,120 --> 00:33:43,440
Speaker 1: hazel nuts scavengers would have done something similar, though of course,

586
00:33:43,720 --> 00:33:47,160
Speaker 1: without access to South America's chocolate, they'd be denied the

587
00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:51,200
Speaker 1: invention of nutella. Up until I believe the eighteen hundreds.

588
00:33:51,520 --> 00:33:53,200
Speaker 2: Are you a nutella lover, Rube?

589
00:33:53,840 --> 00:33:58,400
Speaker 1: I mean I like nutella, but I deny myself nutella.

590
00:33:59,320 --> 00:34:00,000
Speaker 2: It's too easy.

591
00:34:00,560 --> 00:34:03,040
Speaker 1: It is it needs some speed bumps, and so the

592
00:34:03,880 --> 00:34:08,080
Speaker 1: speed bump I put down is just not buying it. Now,

593
00:34:08,200 --> 00:34:12,919
Speaker 1: coming back to other nutcracker designs, obviously, simple wooden nutcrackers

594
00:34:13,560 --> 00:34:17,160
Speaker 1: are also a pretty ancient scenario. You know, likely some

595
00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:21,160
Speaker 1: combination of wood pieces, perhaps a strip of leather, exactly

596
00:34:21,239 --> 00:34:24,480
Speaker 1: the sort of thing to easily vanish from the archaeological record,

597
00:34:24,560 --> 00:34:27,520
Speaker 1: like this is just organic matter that's not going to last.

598
00:34:27,719 --> 00:34:31,320
Speaker 1: But eventually, with the advent of metalworking, humans begin making

599
00:34:31,400 --> 00:34:35,680
Speaker 1: simple nutcrackers, which are also again largely identical to crab

600
00:34:35,760 --> 00:34:39,160
Speaker 1: claw crackers that enable them to use hand strength and

601
00:34:39,280 --> 00:34:42,400
Speaker 1: a lever to crack nuts. This again is the basic

602
00:34:42,480 --> 00:34:46,000
Speaker 1: principle of the German wooden nutcracker that we associate with Christmas.

603
00:34:46,520 --> 00:34:49,920
Speaker 1: Wagner writes that the oldest evidence of a metal nutcracker

604
00:34:49,960 --> 00:34:53,000
Speaker 1: goes back to the third or fourth century BCE. Apparently,

605
00:34:53,280 --> 00:34:57,640
Speaker 1: this nutcracker is on display in the Toronto Museum in Italy.

606
00:34:58,400 --> 00:35:02,880
Speaker 1: It's exceedingly ornate, considering consisting of a pair of bronze

607
00:35:02,880 --> 00:35:06,960
Speaker 1: hands with gold bracelets making use of an internal hinge

608
00:35:07,400 --> 00:35:11,360
Speaker 1: to function as a nutcracker. Obviously this is a luxury item,

609
00:35:12,280 --> 00:35:14,680
Speaker 1: and really the subject matter here is quite fascinating. I

610
00:35:14,680 --> 00:35:18,000
Speaker 1: included an image of this nutcracker device for you here, Joe.

611
00:35:18,160 --> 00:35:19,720
Speaker 2: That is creepy looking.

612
00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:25,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are like these bronze hands with golden like

613
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:30,600
Speaker 1: they're dark bronze hands with golden like serpent bracelets, and

614
00:35:30,680 --> 00:35:33,160
Speaker 1: it's like they're reaching up out of the void to

615
00:35:33,520 --> 00:35:34,480
Speaker 1: crack a nut for you.

616
00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:38,479
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly hands from the portal to the underdark. There's

617
00:35:38,640 --> 00:35:43,040
Speaker 2: just like extremely creepy looking. Though when I first saw these,

618
00:35:43,080 --> 00:35:46,919
Speaker 2: I didn't realize these were just solid to be used

619
00:35:46,920 --> 00:35:50,000
Speaker 2: with the lever to crush. What I honestly imagine was

620
00:35:50,040 --> 00:35:53,960
Speaker 2: that these were like rigid metal gloves that you would

621
00:35:53,960 --> 00:35:57,360
Speaker 2: put on to just smash a nut between your palms.

622
00:35:58,000 --> 00:35:59,920
Speaker 1: Yeah. I was looking around to see some sort of

623
00:36:00,239 --> 00:36:03,239
Speaker 1: video or demonstration of exactly how the mechanism works. There.

624
00:36:03,280 --> 00:36:07,680
Speaker 1: Supposedly is a mechanism there, but most of the images

625
00:36:07,719 --> 00:36:11,839
Speaker 1: I was pulling up just show the hands and yeah,

626
00:36:11,840 --> 00:36:15,280
Speaker 1: there they're quite beautiful to look at now. Wagner's Museum

627
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:18,960
Speaker 1: apparently has a Roman nutcracker dated to between two hundred

628
00:36:19,000 --> 00:36:22,320
Speaker 1: BCE and two hundred CE, and this one is also

629
00:36:22,480 --> 00:36:25,800
Speaker 1: ornate with animal motifs, but it is it is otherwise

630
00:36:25,960 --> 00:36:29,760
Speaker 1: like not something that mimics human or animal crushing power.

631
00:36:29,880 --> 00:36:32,640
Speaker 1: No jaws or anything including an image of this for

632
00:36:32,760 --> 00:36:33,879
Speaker 1: you here as well, Joe.

633
00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:36,399
Speaker 2: It's just the standard pencer lever.

634
00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:39,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, and of course you know they're all manner of

635
00:36:39,719 --> 00:36:43,040
Speaker 1: tools and objects in human history that have been turned

636
00:36:43,360 --> 00:36:47,360
Speaker 1: into something ornate and something even more decorative than functional.

637
00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:50,040
Speaker 1: But again, I know there's something about the nutcracker. There's

638
00:36:50,040 --> 00:36:52,439
Speaker 1: sort of even though it is work, there's also sort

639
00:36:52,440 --> 00:36:55,239
Speaker 1: of an implied leisure there, Like it is the kind

640
00:36:55,280 --> 00:36:59,239
Speaker 1: of work that you can imagine even an emperor being

641
00:36:59,280 --> 00:37:03,360
Speaker 1: okay with do because there is something satisfying about it. Yeah.

642
00:37:03,480 --> 00:37:07,760
Speaker 2: Maybe it's because the food reward is in most cases

643
00:37:07,800 --> 00:37:10,600
Speaker 2: implied to be immediate. But I know exactly what you're

644
00:37:10,640 --> 00:37:15,320
Speaker 2: saying that there's a different energy to a nutcracker versus

645
00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:18,480
Speaker 2: like a potato peeler. So you imagine the process of

646
00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:23,320
Speaker 2: peeling a potato is labor. It's not associated with fun.

647
00:37:23,800 --> 00:37:25,960
Speaker 2: It's like just something you've got to do in the

648
00:37:26,000 --> 00:37:29,520
Speaker 2: process of cooking something. But that's not the same. Yeah,

649
00:37:29,719 --> 00:37:32,640
Speaker 2: not the case with a nutcracker. The nutcracker is an

650
00:37:32,680 --> 00:37:35,960
Speaker 2: emblem of coziness and leisure and getting what you want

651
00:37:36,080 --> 00:37:36,600
Speaker 2: right now.

652
00:37:37,080 --> 00:37:41,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like a novel technological enhancement of human abilities.

653
00:37:41,640 --> 00:37:44,040
Speaker 1: It's like, look what I can do. That's not as

654
00:37:44,040 --> 00:37:48,120
Speaker 1: nothing compared to my strength, as my strength is accentuated

655
00:37:48,360 --> 00:37:51,000
Speaker 1: by this tiny wooden man that cracks my nuts for

656
00:37:51,120 --> 00:37:55,879
Speaker 1: me now. Wagner also showcases multiple European metal nuttrackers from

657
00:37:55,880 --> 00:37:59,000
Speaker 1: the thirteenth century onward. In many of these, I didn't

658
00:37:59,000 --> 00:38:01,319
Speaker 1: even include pictures off Joe because they just look like

659
00:38:01,520 --> 00:38:05,200
Speaker 1: metal lever tools. You know, it's just exactly all that

660
00:38:05,239 --> 00:38:08,640
Speaker 1: you would need to crack nuts and nothing fancy. But

661
00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:12,440
Speaker 1: they sometimes take on other fanciful forms. I included a

662
00:38:12,480 --> 00:38:15,719
Speaker 1: couple of images from her museum here. One is I

663
00:38:15,760 --> 00:38:18,080
Speaker 1: believe an eagle and the other is a dog.

664
00:38:18,520 --> 00:38:22,360
Speaker 2: Okay, does the eagle crushed the nut in its beak?

665
00:38:22,480 --> 00:38:24,080
Speaker 2: I guess does the beak pop open?

666
00:38:24,360 --> 00:38:26,400
Speaker 1: It looks like, yeah, I believe the beak is powered

667
00:38:26,400 --> 00:38:29,120
Speaker 1: by the lever. And then we also have the dog,

668
00:38:29,160 --> 00:38:31,879
Speaker 1: which I guess the tail is the lever for the

669
00:38:31,920 --> 00:38:32,600
Speaker 1: dog's mouth.

670
00:38:33,200 --> 00:38:36,560
Speaker 2: You know, I really enjoy the grotesque unreality of the

671
00:38:36,600 --> 00:38:40,560
Speaker 2: way that the human awoid nutcracker's mouth opens so wide

672
00:38:40,600 --> 00:38:42,080
Speaker 2: with the lever. I don't think I would have that

673
00:38:42,120 --> 00:38:43,800
Speaker 2: same enjoyment with the dog figure.

674
00:38:44,080 --> 00:38:46,319
Speaker 1: Do you think it's just not becoming of the dog? Yeah.

675
00:38:46,360 --> 00:38:50,560
Speaker 2: I don't know a man whose jaw opens down to

676
00:38:50,640 --> 00:38:53,880
Speaker 2: his belly button and has gigantic teeth bigger than his eyes,

677
00:38:54,280 --> 00:38:56,799
Speaker 2: that's funny. A dog that has that, I don't know.

678
00:38:56,840 --> 00:38:58,720
Speaker 2: It's just like I want it to be cuter.

679
00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:04,759
Speaker 1: Now, there's another variety of metal nut opening. I guess

680
00:39:04,760 --> 00:39:06,719
Speaker 1: you would say tool that I want to touch on here.

681
00:39:07,719 --> 00:39:11,080
Speaker 1: It's one that's also hinged, often of bronze or iron.

682
00:39:12,360 --> 00:39:16,560
Speaker 1: But these are nut openers found in various Asian cultures,

683
00:39:16,560 --> 00:39:22,200
Speaker 1: including in India, in Indonesia, in Afghanistan. Many of these

684
00:39:22,320 --> 00:39:26,480
Speaker 1: also boast animal in human design motifs. These were not

685
00:39:26,600 --> 00:39:29,360
Speaker 1: used to crack open a nut, but to slice the

686
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:33,320
Speaker 1: aureka nut of the Areca palm, which is then wrapped

687
00:39:33,360 --> 00:39:36,520
Speaker 1: in a beetle leaf. These are beetle nuts. These are

688
00:39:36,719 --> 00:39:40,839
Speaker 1: then chewed, sometimes with other additives, in order to get

689
00:39:40,840 --> 00:39:45,520
Speaker 1: at the psychoactive properties all then I included some images

690
00:39:45,560 --> 00:39:48,920
Speaker 1: of these beetle nut slicers. I guess is really the

691
00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:52,320
Speaker 1: more accurate terminology, though they're basic. The basic physics of

692
00:39:52,320 --> 00:39:55,440
Speaker 1: the design is similar to many of the nutcrackers we're

693
00:39:55,440 --> 00:39:57,879
Speaker 1: talking about here. But as you can see, Joe and

694
00:39:57,920 --> 00:40:00,719
Speaker 1: I encourage folks to look up images of these. There's

695
00:40:00,760 --> 00:40:03,760
Speaker 1: some that look like birds, there are some not pictured

696
00:40:03,800 --> 00:40:06,239
Speaker 1: here for you, Joe, that are very ornate but don't

697
00:40:06,239 --> 00:40:09,440
Speaker 1: look like any any particular animal or what have you.

698
00:40:09,680 --> 00:40:14,080
Speaker 1: And then some just straight up resemble human beings, sometimes

699
00:40:14,120 --> 00:40:17,680
Speaker 1: with the handles of the slicer being the legs of

700
00:40:17,719 --> 00:40:20,840
Speaker 1: a humanoid or the legs of two humanoids that are dancing.

701
00:40:21,800 --> 00:40:24,920
Speaker 2: Okay, but it is a slicing action, not a cracking action,

702
00:40:25,080 --> 00:40:28,480
Speaker 2: so it's more kind of like those little cigar guillotines

703
00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:30,080
Speaker 2: that people have. I don't know what those are called.

704
00:40:30,680 --> 00:40:32,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I guess it would be similar that similar

705
00:40:32,520 --> 00:40:35,400
Speaker 1: to that. Yeah, they're there for slicing, but they do

706
00:40:35,440 --> 00:40:39,080
Speaker 1: resemble nut crackers a lot, and you'll often find collectors

707
00:40:39,120 --> 00:40:40,960
Speaker 1: of one may collect the other as well.

708
00:40:42,080 --> 00:40:43,480
Speaker 2: Beautiful designs though.

709
00:40:43,640 --> 00:40:48,040
Speaker 1: Now I'd also run across examples of apotropaic uses of

710
00:40:48,280 --> 00:40:51,520
Speaker 1: these devices as well, such as using them to protect

711
00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:55,719
Speaker 1: sleeping child. I also found mention of protective qualities that

712
00:40:56,120 --> 00:41:01,120
Speaker 1: are attributed to beetlenuts in general in some culture. There's

713
00:41:01,160 --> 00:41:05,000
Speaker 1: a nineteenth century beetlenutcutter from Malaysia in the collection of

714
00:41:05,080 --> 00:41:07,799
Speaker 1: the Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK, and they

715
00:41:07,800 --> 00:41:10,920
Speaker 1: have this featured on their website. It has a stylized

716
00:41:10,960 --> 00:41:14,840
Speaker 1: bird shaped head set with rubies mounted with gold, so

717
00:41:15,040 --> 00:41:18,400
Speaker 1: very ornate, and the museum shares the following quote. Although

718
00:41:18,400 --> 00:41:21,880
Speaker 1: the habit of beetle chewing had rapidly declined in the

719
00:41:21,920 --> 00:41:26,040
Speaker 1: Malay world by the mid twentieth century, iron araka nut

720
00:41:26,120 --> 00:41:28,800
Speaker 1: cutters are still in use today for their power, according

721
00:41:28,800 --> 00:41:32,960
Speaker 1: to local tradition, in warding off evil spirits the shears.

722
00:41:33,239 --> 00:41:35,640
Speaker 1: And I think that's accurate. You can describe these as

723
00:41:35,640 --> 00:41:38,840
Speaker 1: shears are usually placed above the head of a newborn

724
00:41:38,920 --> 00:41:40,080
Speaker 1: baby for protection.

725
00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:45,440
Speaker 2: Oh. That's an interesting parallel to the decorative or ritual

726
00:41:45,680 --> 00:41:50,319
Speaker 2: use of the no longer functional nutcrackers and Christmas celebrations.

727
00:41:50,920 --> 00:41:54,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I do find it fascinating that you'll have

728
00:41:54,200 --> 00:41:58,000
Speaker 1: like two very distant cultures here and they both have

729
00:41:58,400 --> 00:42:01,880
Speaker 1: some sort of an ornate device that has that is

730
00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:06,240
Speaker 1: used to get at the goodness, be it nutritional or psychoactive,

731
00:42:07,280 --> 00:42:10,480
Speaker 1: or I think they are also medicinal traditions concerning the

732
00:42:10,480 --> 00:42:12,840
Speaker 1: beetle nut as well. But to get at the goodness

733
00:42:12,840 --> 00:42:15,560
Speaker 1: in the nut, you have to use this device, and

734
00:42:15,600 --> 00:42:18,839
Speaker 1: then that device becomes more and more ornate, it takes

735
00:42:18,880 --> 00:42:22,440
Speaker 1: on various forms and then begins to have these supernatural

736
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:25,080
Speaker 1: properties as well. Or even if you're looking at the

737
00:42:25,120 --> 00:42:30,319
Speaker 1: modern nutcracker, like the decorative nutcracker, has no function other

738
00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:33,759
Speaker 1: than to provide a bit of holiday whimsy and to

739
00:42:34,800 --> 00:42:37,600
Speaker 1: you know, to put us in the spirit of things

740
00:42:37,600 --> 00:42:38,840
Speaker 1: for the holiday.

741
00:42:39,160 --> 00:42:42,320
Speaker 2: Or alternately to chase your sibling around the house biting

742
00:42:42,360 --> 00:42:42,919
Speaker 2: at them with.

743
00:42:44,480 --> 00:42:46,600
Speaker 1: Now, I would love to hear from folks out there

744
00:42:46,640 --> 00:42:49,280
Speaker 1: if you have certainly if you can speak from personal

745
00:42:49,320 --> 00:42:52,279
Speaker 1: experience or family experience, cultural experience to anything that we've

746
00:42:52,280 --> 00:42:54,800
Speaker 1: touched on in the episode, including the beetle nuts. Shears.

747
00:42:55,320 --> 00:42:58,160
Speaker 1: But even like the classic German nutcracker, if there's anyone

748
00:42:58,160 --> 00:43:00,560
Speaker 1: out there who has a like a family addition in

749
00:43:00,640 --> 00:43:03,480
Speaker 1: which there are protective elements to it, you know, like

750
00:43:03,520 --> 00:43:06,680
Speaker 1: the nutcracker is placed in a child's room to ward

751
00:43:06,760 --> 00:43:10,960
Speaker 1: off some sort of you know, ill luck, no matter

752
00:43:11,000 --> 00:43:14,239
Speaker 1: how you know, overt no matter how strong the superstition

753
00:43:14,360 --> 00:43:16,560
Speaker 1: or weak the superstition is. I'd love to hear about

754
00:43:16,600 --> 00:43:19,799
Speaker 1: that as well. But so I'm partially speaking from my

755
00:43:19,800 --> 00:43:23,959
Speaker 1: own experience, in which the standard nutcracker like doesn't really

756
00:43:24,000 --> 00:43:27,920
Speaker 1: carry a lot of supernatural or focal or weight. It

757
00:43:28,040 --> 00:43:30,839
Speaker 1: is just festive, you know. It's a completely secular thing.

758
00:43:31,640 --> 00:43:34,080
Speaker 1: Like the elf on the shelf ends up having more

759
00:43:34,160 --> 00:43:36,960
Speaker 1: power in a given home than the nutcracker usually does,

760
00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:39,879
Speaker 1: or at least that's how it seems to me. I'd

761
00:43:39,920 --> 00:43:41,880
Speaker 1: love to hear if that's not the case, though.

762
00:43:41,800 --> 00:43:44,400
Speaker 2: Though at the same time, I wouldn't undervalue the ritual

763
00:43:44,480 --> 00:43:48,160
Speaker 2: power of holiday decorations. I mean, like, it is interesting

764
00:43:48,200 --> 00:43:51,640
Speaker 2: how we surround ourselves with these physical objects literally to

765
00:43:52,320 --> 00:43:55,000
Speaker 2: sort of engineer our own minds. It's like, I want

766
00:43:55,040 --> 00:43:59,440
Speaker 2: to make myself feel festive, I want to put myself

767
00:43:59,480 --> 00:44:02,560
Speaker 2: in the mind space of a particular season, and in

768
00:44:02,680 --> 00:44:04,279
Speaker 2: order to do that, I know I will have to

769
00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:07,319
Speaker 2: surround myself with objects that are hidden for the rest

770
00:44:07,320 --> 00:44:07,759
Speaker 2: of the year.

771
00:44:08,680 --> 00:44:10,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I feel like that's kind of the approach

772
00:44:10,520 --> 00:44:12,680
Speaker 1: my family takes with our Christmas tree. You know, it's

773
00:44:12,719 --> 00:44:14,520
Speaker 1: and this is you know, I think how a lot

774
00:44:14,520 --> 00:44:17,680
Speaker 1: of people do it. You know, each little decoration you

775
00:44:17,719 --> 00:44:19,319
Speaker 1: put up in there, put up on the tree has

776
00:44:19,320 --> 00:44:22,120
Speaker 1: some sort of value to you. You know, it either

777
00:44:22,120 --> 00:44:24,799
Speaker 1: speaks to a time or a place, or an aspiration

778
00:44:25,239 --> 00:44:28,719
Speaker 1: or an idea that you like. You know, it has

779
00:44:28,800 --> 00:44:33,520
Speaker 1: religious significance and or cultural significance. And it all becomes

780
00:44:33,560 --> 00:44:37,680
Speaker 1: this kind of you know, this kind of amalgam of

781
00:44:37,719 --> 00:44:41,440
Speaker 1: different values. Then you light it up and yeah, you

782
00:44:41,520 --> 00:44:43,959
Speaker 1: transform your world at least for a few weeks there.

783
00:44:44,840 --> 00:44:47,360
Speaker 2: All right, should we crush this nut once and for all.

784
00:44:48,280 --> 00:44:51,400
Speaker 1: Let's do it. Yes. We hope you enjoyed our look

785
00:44:51,480 --> 00:44:53,879
Speaker 1: at the Nutcracker and earlier in the week the rat King.

786
00:44:53,960 --> 00:44:55,799
Speaker 1: If you didn't hear the rat King episode, go back

787
00:44:55,920 --> 00:44:58,200
Speaker 1: listen to that. I think it's a nice companion for

788
00:44:58,239 --> 00:45:03,359
Speaker 1: this episode. But yeah, we obviously we wish everyone out

789
00:45:03,360 --> 00:45:07,080
Speaker 1: there who celebrates the holidays, Happy holidays, will remind you

790
00:45:07,320 --> 00:45:09,840
Speaker 1: that Stuff to Blow your Mind is a science podcast

791
00:45:09,840 --> 00:45:13,640
Speaker 1: for Core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Mondays, we

792
00:45:13,680 --> 00:45:16,040
Speaker 1: tend to do listener mail on Wednesdays we tend to

793
00:45:16,080 --> 00:45:18,719
Speaker 1: do a short form monster fact or Artifact episode, and

794
00:45:18,760 --> 00:45:20,800
Speaker 1: on Fridays we set aside most series concerns to just

795
00:45:20,800 --> 00:45:22,920
Speaker 1: talk about a weird movie on Weird House Cinema.

796
00:45:23,120 --> 00:45:26,719
Speaker 2: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

797
00:45:27,080 --> 00:45:28,759
Speaker 2: If you would like to get in touch with us

798
00:45:28,760 --> 00:45:31,280
Speaker 2: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

799
00:45:31,320 --> 00:45:33,520
Speaker 2: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

800
00:45:33,800 --> 00:45:36,560
Speaker 2: you can email us at contact stuff to Blow your

801
00:45:36,600 --> 00:45:45,800
Speaker 2: Mind dot com.

802
00:45:45,880 --> 00:45:48,840
Speaker 3: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

803
00:45:48,920 --> 00:45:51,720
Speaker 3: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

804
00:45:51,880 --> 00:46:09,160
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows

805
00:46:05,840 --> 00:46:05,880
Speaker 3: or