1
00:00:03,279 --> 00:00:05,640
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of

2
00:00:05,640 --> 00:00:10,520
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and

3
00:00:10,560 --> 00:00:14,160
Speaker 1: this is the Monster Fact, a short form series from

4
00:00:14,200 --> 00:00:18,759
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind, focusing in on mythical creatures, ideas,

5
00:00:18,800 --> 00:00:25,080
Speaker 1: and monsters. In time among the First Nation's Naskapi people

6
00:00:25,200 --> 00:00:28,880
Speaker 1: of what is now Labrador, an old tale resonated into

7
00:00:28,920 --> 00:00:33,400
Speaker 1: modern times. There was a monstrous giant by the name

8
00:00:33,840 --> 00:00:38,360
Speaker 1: of katschet Oshchu. In his most notorious act of rage,

9
00:00:38,640 --> 00:00:41,600
Speaker 1: the monster trampled a man and woman to death with

10
00:00:41,720 --> 00:00:45,839
Speaker 1: his strange round feet. He cast the woman's unborn child

11
00:00:45,880 --> 00:00:49,760
Speaker 1: aside with his long nose, but the couple's daughter raised

12
00:00:49,760 --> 00:00:53,519
Speaker 1: the child into a mighty warrior. His name was to

13
00:00:53,680 --> 00:00:58,600
Speaker 1: jacob Ish. To Jacobish hunted the monster. He tracked his

14
00:00:58,720 --> 00:01:02,280
Speaker 1: strange round foot prints across the wilderness. He fought the

15
00:01:02,320 --> 00:01:06,640
Speaker 1: bears sent to kill him by the cowardly cot Chet. Finally,

16
00:01:06,800 --> 00:01:10,280
Speaker 1: he confronted his parents killer and pelted him with arrows.

17
00:01:10,959 --> 00:01:14,480
Speaker 1: In defeat, the monster said, kill me, cut me into pieces,

18
00:01:14,520 --> 00:01:17,559
Speaker 1: eat my head, but keep my ears for your bed.

19
00:01:18,360 --> 00:01:22,080
Speaker 1: To Jacobish and his sister did just this. Some of

20
00:01:22,080 --> 00:01:25,240
Speaker 1: the discarded pieces of the monster's body became birds and

21
00:01:25,319 --> 00:01:29,080
Speaker 1: other animals. The ears were saved for the jacobish's bed,

22
00:01:29,800 --> 00:01:33,039
Speaker 1: and the head of the monster well. It emerged from

23
00:01:33,040 --> 00:01:36,560
Speaker 1: the cooking pot and tried to follow our hero, but

24
00:01:36,680 --> 00:01:39,520
Speaker 1: he heard its chattering teeth and shot it with an arrow.

25
00:01:44,040 --> 00:01:47,760
Speaker 1: This tale is related by Mary Chandler Edmondston in a

26
00:01:47,880 --> 00:01:52,080
Speaker 1: n paper published in the Journal of the Illinois State

27
00:01:52,200 --> 00:01:56,280
Speaker 1: Archaeological Society. Contained several elements found in other folk tales,

28
00:01:56,520 --> 00:01:59,120
Speaker 1: such as a flying head and the fragments of a

29
00:01:59,200 --> 00:02:03,280
Speaker 1: monster's body becoming different animals. But perhaps you noticed three

30
00:02:03,280 --> 00:02:08,519
Speaker 1: other attributes of the monster catchet or school, his round feet,

31
00:02:08,840 --> 00:02:13,760
Speaker 1: his long nose, his ears like blankets. Edmonstone's paper was

32
00:02:13,800 --> 00:02:16,880
Speaker 1: titled the Mammoth and the Mastodon in the Folklore of

33
00:02:16,880 --> 00:02:19,720
Speaker 1: the Indians of North America, serving as a kind of

34
00:02:19,960 --> 00:02:23,800
Speaker 1: meta analysis of the time concerning different tales and traditions

35
00:02:23,800 --> 00:02:26,680
Speaker 1: among the native peoples of North America that could be

36
00:02:26,760 --> 00:02:32,359
Speaker 1: interpreted as describing mastodons and mammoths. These North American relatives

37
00:02:32,360 --> 00:02:36,000
Speaker 1: of elopments vanished during the late Pleistocene era, most likely

38
00:02:36,080 --> 00:02:38,800
Speaker 1: due to a combination of climate change and human hunting.

39
00:02:39,720 --> 00:02:42,560
Speaker 1: Is it possible that memories of human interactions with these

40
00:02:42,560 --> 00:02:46,480
Speaker 1: creatures survived in the oral tradition. Edmonston and others have

41
00:02:46,600 --> 00:02:49,760
Speaker 1: made the case that it is possible the stories she

42
00:02:49,880 --> 00:02:52,959
Speaker 1: writes would have survived because they were simply good stories,

43
00:02:53,120 --> 00:02:55,959
Speaker 1: while some of the elements would have evolved over time

44
00:02:56,120 --> 00:03:00,400
Speaker 1: influenced by other tales and encounters with living animals ecs

45
00:03:00,480 --> 00:03:03,840
Speaker 1: such as bears. Of course, we can never count out

46
00:03:03,880 --> 00:03:07,720
Speaker 1: the importance of human creativity in such traditions, but perhaps

47
00:03:07,760 --> 00:03:12,040
Speaker 1: the more outlandish physical attributes of the mammoths and mastodons

48
00:03:12,080 --> 00:03:17,440
Speaker 1: of old survived as unique counterintuitive elements. Scholars such as

49
00:03:18,000 --> 00:03:21,400
Speaker 1: Adrian Mayor, author of two thousand thirteen Fossil Legends of

50
00:03:21,440 --> 00:03:24,640
Speaker 1: the First Americans, have also considered the role of skeletal

51
00:03:24,680 --> 00:03:29,440
Speaker 1: and fossil remnants in the generation of these stories. Now,

52
00:03:29,760 --> 00:03:33,480
Speaker 1: there is one interesting aspect of the Catchette myth and

53
00:03:33,520 --> 00:03:38,320
Speaker 1: possibly other linked traditions. The monster we are told eats humans.

54
00:03:39,440 --> 00:03:43,600
Speaker 1: Elephants are famously herbivores, and we have reason to believe

55
00:03:43,720 --> 00:03:47,280
Speaker 1: mastodons and mammoths were as well. But as we've discussed

56
00:03:47,320 --> 00:03:50,040
Speaker 1: on stuff to bow your mind in the past, herbivorous

57
00:03:50,200 --> 00:03:53,520
Speaker 1: animals such as cows have been observed to eat meat

58
00:03:53,720 --> 00:03:58,080
Speaker 1: on occasion, and as Edmondson pointed out, at least one

59
00:03:58,080 --> 00:04:00,840
Speaker 1: account of an elephant killing and eating a human being

60
00:04:01,320 --> 00:04:06,119
Speaker 1: was in the books, a ninety case at the Zurich Zoo. Furthermore,

61
00:04:06,160 --> 00:04:09,400
Speaker 1: in twenty eleven, a rogue elephant was found to have

62
00:04:09,720 --> 00:04:13,280
Speaker 1: human flesh in its stomach after killing seventeen people in India.

63
00:04:14,000 --> 00:04:16,880
Speaker 1: In the latter case, however, the animal was allegedly under

64
00:04:16,920 --> 00:04:20,240
Speaker 1: durest following the killing of its calf, and the former

65
00:04:20,279 --> 00:04:24,440
Speaker 1: case involved a mid twentieth century zoo environment. Still, Edmondson

66
00:04:24,560 --> 00:04:28,080
Speaker 1: argues that under just the right circumstances, it was conceivably

67
00:04:28,120 --> 00:04:31,760
Speaker 1: possible for a mastodon or mammoth to have consumed human

68
00:04:31,800 --> 00:04:35,400
Speaker 1: flesh at some point. A single incident, after all, could

69
00:04:35,440 --> 00:04:38,839
Speaker 1: have been enough to enter the cycle of storytelling. But

70
00:04:38,880 --> 00:04:41,839
Speaker 1: there's another wrinkle in our tale of man eating elephants,

71
00:04:42,160 --> 00:04:45,800
Speaker 1: as reported by Brian Swytek for Wired in twenty twelve,

72
00:04:46,080 --> 00:04:49,480
Speaker 1: during the eighteenth century, the specialized molars of the mastodon

73
00:04:49,720 --> 00:04:52,960
Speaker 1: caused a certain amount of confusion. We know now that

74
00:04:53,000 --> 00:04:56,520
Speaker 1: the pointed cones on these teeth were specially adapted for

75
00:04:56,600 --> 00:05:00,240
Speaker 1: eating woody material. But at the time some thought these

76
00:05:00,279 --> 00:05:03,640
Speaker 1: teeth found amid masted on bones were those of some

77
00:05:03,839 --> 00:05:07,960
Speaker 1: unknown carnivore. British anatomist William Hunter, on the other hand,

78
00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:11,480
Speaker 1: went as far as to suggest that the mastodon itself,

79
00:05:11,839 --> 00:05:17,120
Speaker 1: dubbed American incognitum, was in fact a ravenous carnivore. Among

80
00:05:17,240 --> 00:05:21,839
Speaker 1: his detractors Benjamin Franklin, who advised that these molers quote

81
00:05:22,120 --> 00:05:24,839
Speaker 1: might be as useful to grind the small branches of

82
00:05:24,920 --> 00:05:32,160
Speaker 1: trees as to chaw flesh. Tune into additional editions of

83
00:05:32,440 --> 00:05:37,359
Speaker 1: the Monster Fact each week in September and October. As always,

84
00:05:37,560 --> 00:05:40,800
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

85
00:05:40,839 --> 00:05:51,560
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

86
00:05:51,560 --> 00:05:54,200
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for

87
00:05:54,240 --> 00:05:57,320
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

88
00:05:57,360 --> 00:05:59,160
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.