1
00:00:03,040 --> 00:00:06,760
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

2
00:00:12,880 --> 00:00:14,960
Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My

3
00:00:15,040 --> 00:00:16,280
Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb.

4
00:00:16,200 --> 00:00:18,880
Speaker 2: And I'm Joe McCormick. And today we're back with the

5
00:00:19,000 --> 00:00:23,120
Speaker 2: third part in a series on lick licking with the tongue,

6
00:00:23,160 --> 00:00:26,640
Speaker 2: which we began before the week we were recently out

7
00:00:26,720 --> 00:00:29,960
Speaker 2: for the holiday. We thought we might end the series

8
00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:32,480
Speaker 2: after the second part. We got some great listener mail

9
00:00:32,560 --> 00:00:34,800
Speaker 2: on this subject and decided we'd like to come back

10
00:00:35,120 --> 00:00:38,120
Speaker 2: and talk about it for at least one more episode,

11
00:00:38,520 --> 00:00:42,600
Speaker 2: so to refresh on the previous two episodes. In part one,

12
00:00:43,159 --> 00:00:47,000
Speaker 2: we talked about licking in the context of ancient Egyptian

13
00:00:47,120 --> 00:00:51,520
Speaker 2: ritual magic, where licking could bestow healing and divine blessings.

14
00:00:51,720 --> 00:00:55,040
Speaker 2: For example, in the Licks of the Cow goddess Hathor

15
00:00:55,160 --> 00:00:59,160
Speaker 2: who is described licking the limbs of Pharaoh Hatchupsot to

16
00:00:59,200 --> 00:01:02,240
Speaker 2: give her life and kingly power, and licking could also

17
00:01:02,280 --> 00:01:05,200
Speaker 2: be a vehicle for curses and magical violence, like the

18
00:01:05,280 --> 00:01:07,600
Speaker 2: danger described in the Book of the Dead of the

19
00:01:07,680 --> 00:01:10,840
Speaker 2: danger of being licked by the demon Crocodile in the afterlife,

20
00:01:10,840 --> 00:01:13,640
Speaker 2: where the lick is some kind of attack understood is

21
00:01:14,000 --> 00:01:18,280
Speaker 2: removing protective magic from the dead person's soul. We briefly

22
00:01:18,319 --> 00:01:22,279
Speaker 2: talked about some research on at what age children start

23
00:01:22,319 --> 00:01:25,840
Speaker 2: to get the idea that food or eating utensils can

24
00:01:25,880 --> 00:01:30,160
Speaker 2: be contaminated by being licked by other people. And we

25
00:01:30,200 --> 00:01:34,200
Speaker 2: also talked about the surprisingly interesting question how many licks

26
00:01:34,240 --> 00:01:35,959
Speaker 2: does it take to get to the center of a

27
00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:39,360
Speaker 2: TUTSI pop? That question kind of well, it starts from

28
00:01:39,400 --> 00:01:42,360
Speaker 2: a classic candy commercial. If you haven't seen it, where

29
00:01:42,360 --> 00:01:44,920
Speaker 2: have you been? Look it up? But also that sort

30
00:01:44,920 --> 00:01:48,560
Speaker 2: of moved from the commercial to a bunch of laboratory experiments,

31
00:01:49,280 --> 00:01:51,880
Speaker 2: empirical testing, and then I think you could say, finally

32
00:01:51,960 --> 00:01:54,080
Speaker 2: winds up in the mind of the philosopher or the

33
00:01:54,120 --> 00:01:57,960
Speaker 2: philosopher of science, prompting us to think about think about

34
00:01:57,960 --> 00:02:02,080
Speaker 2: the ways that assumptions are often hit in seemingly mundane

35
00:02:02,120 --> 00:02:05,280
Speaker 2: empirical questions and how that should affect the way we

36
00:02:05,320 --> 00:02:06,240
Speaker 2: try to answer them.

37
00:02:06,480 --> 00:02:08,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, we got some good listener mail about the tussy

38
00:02:08,639 --> 00:02:09,600
Speaker 1: Rall topic as well.

39
00:02:09,880 --> 00:02:14,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely addressed in the listener mail episode from earlier

40
00:02:14,320 --> 00:02:16,080
Speaker 2: this week on Tuesday, So if you haven't heard that,

41
00:02:16,160 --> 00:02:18,760
Speaker 2: check it out after this In part two of the

42
00:02:18,800 --> 00:02:22,040
Speaker 2: Licking series, we talked about wound licking behavior in animals,

43
00:02:22,160 --> 00:02:26,200
Speaker 2: especially in mammals, and the difficult trade offs involved. In effect,

44
00:02:26,560 --> 00:02:30,720
Speaker 2: the licking of wounds comes with both benefits and dangers biologically,

45
00:02:30,800 --> 00:02:34,040
Speaker 2: so there's a balancing of risk and reward underlying the

46
00:02:34,040 --> 00:02:37,800
Speaker 2: evolution and preservation of that behavior. Though fortunately humans have

47
00:02:37,840 --> 00:02:41,160
Speaker 2: come up with a technological replacement for wound locking, which

48
00:02:41,240 --> 00:02:44,200
Speaker 2: is washing wounds with clean water or clean water and soap,

49
00:02:44,240 --> 00:02:47,280
Speaker 2: which gives us most of the same benefits while eliminating

50
00:02:47,320 --> 00:02:50,680
Speaker 2: most of the risks. We also talked about the specific

51
00:02:50,840 --> 00:02:55,440
Speaker 2: qualities of the cat's tongue and its roughness and function,

52
00:02:55,560 --> 00:02:58,840
Speaker 2: and self cleaning, and some prevailing theories about what it

53
00:02:58,960 --> 00:03:01,960
Speaker 2: means when a cat licks of human. After this, we

54
00:03:02,000 --> 00:03:06,120
Speaker 2: got into eye locking, especially self eye looking in geckos

55
00:03:06,160 --> 00:03:09,280
Speaker 2: and in a few alleged cases, I guess, some verified

56
00:03:09,320 --> 00:03:13,440
Speaker 2: cases in humans with extraordinarily long tongues. And we're back

57
00:03:13,440 --> 00:03:14,800
Speaker 2: today to do another episode.

58
00:03:15,240 --> 00:03:18,639
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's start with bears. So this is the one.

59
00:03:18,680 --> 00:03:20,720
Speaker 1: This is the reason that we're doing a part three,

60
00:03:20,760 --> 00:03:22,799
Speaker 1: though not everything that we're going to be discussing here

61
00:03:22,880 --> 00:03:24,520
Speaker 1: is going to relate directly to bears.

62
00:03:24,800 --> 00:03:27,640
Speaker 2: Right, So I wanted to begin with an email we

63
00:03:27,760 --> 00:03:32,760
Speaker 2: received after the first two parts from listener Elena. Elena says, hello,

64
00:03:32,880 --> 00:03:36,080
Speaker 2: Robert and Joe. I really enjoyed the episodes on licking.

65
00:03:36,200 --> 00:03:39,360
Speaker 2: They made me think of a medieval belief about bears.

66
00:03:39,840 --> 00:03:44,760
Speaker 2: People thought that bears gave birth to shapeless blobs of

67
00:03:44,920 --> 00:03:48,920
Speaker 2: flesh and only through licking the mother would give them

68
00:03:49,000 --> 00:03:53,320
Speaker 2: the physical characteristics of a bear cub. Elena, that's the

69
00:03:53,360 --> 00:03:56,040
Speaker 2: whole message, So thank you, Elena. I actually did not

70
00:03:56,200 --> 00:03:58,640
Speaker 2: know that. That was really interesting to me, and it

71
00:03:58,680 --> 00:04:00,520
Speaker 2: made me want to do a whole segment here. But

72
00:04:00,600 --> 00:04:04,000
Speaker 2: I have to also mention that with this email, Elena

73
00:04:04,160 --> 00:04:08,920
Speaker 2: attached a medieval illustration of an adult bear licking. I

74
00:04:08,920 --> 00:04:11,600
Speaker 2: guess what's supposed to be an unformed lump of flesh.

75
00:04:11,680 --> 00:04:15,280
Speaker 2: It is like a three lobed little pink ham, just

76
00:04:15,400 --> 00:04:20,760
Speaker 2: a little kind of three three hump thing. And I

77
00:04:20,760 --> 00:04:23,400
Speaker 2: didn't know where this was from. Elena did not include

78
00:04:23,400 --> 00:04:25,440
Speaker 2: that information in the email, but I did a reverse

79
00:04:25,480 --> 00:04:29,200
Speaker 2: image search and figured out that this is originally from

80
00:04:29,360 --> 00:04:33,680
Speaker 2: a twelfth century text called the Aberdeen Bestiery, which has

81
00:04:33,760 --> 00:04:37,080
Speaker 2: been held by the Aberdeen Library in Scotland. Since the

82
00:04:37,120 --> 00:04:41,680
Speaker 2: mid sixteenth century. The bear entry in this bestiary actually

83
00:04:41,720 --> 00:04:44,919
Speaker 2: shares a page with the entry for the monoceros, a

84
00:04:45,320 --> 00:04:49,400
Speaker 2: legendary one horned creature sometimes equated with the unicorn, or

85
00:04:49,440 --> 00:04:51,680
Speaker 2: maybe a different creature than a unicorn, but sharing a

86
00:04:51,720 --> 00:04:54,760
Speaker 2: lot of the same characteristics. Rab I went back and

87
00:04:54,760 --> 00:04:56,680
Speaker 2: I got a picture of the whole page for you

88
00:04:56,760 --> 00:04:59,480
Speaker 2: to look at here, so you can get bear licking

89
00:04:59,520 --> 00:05:04,280
Speaker 2: the three and the one horned unicorn or non unicorn

90
00:05:04,320 --> 00:05:06,160
Speaker 2: type creature right above it.

91
00:05:06,520 --> 00:05:08,440
Speaker 1: Well, I certainly can't read any of the text, but

92
00:05:08,480 --> 00:05:11,120
Speaker 1: the mere fact that the bear image is on the

93
00:05:11,160 --> 00:05:13,680
Speaker 1: same page with the unicorn image lets me know that

94
00:05:13,720 --> 00:05:15,520
Speaker 1: I can trust its accuracy. Right.

95
00:05:16,400 --> 00:05:19,920
Speaker 2: The University of Aberdeen Collections website hosts a full scan

96
00:05:20,040 --> 00:05:21,680
Speaker 2: of the text, so you can actually go look at

97
00:05:21,720 --> 00:05:24,400
Speaker 2: it yourself if you'd like to. It's worth the look.

98
00:05:24,440 --> 00:05:28,719
Speaker 2: It's pretty interesting. They've also got sort of interpretation materials

99
00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:30,960
Speaker 2: beneath each page of the text, as well as their

100
00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:34,400
Speaker 2: own translations of the Latin. I believe it's in Latin,

101
00:05:35,520 --> 00:05:38,919
Speaker 2: but there are modern English translations. First of all, I

102
00:05:38,960 --> 00:05:41,280
Speaker 2: have to say that the best Eieri entry on the

103
00:05:41,279 --> 00:05:46,800
Speaker 2: bear is full of awesome twelfth century bear facts varying accuracy.

104
00:05:47,839 --> 00:05:50,600
Speaker 2: I'm going to come back to the claims about the

105
00:05:50,720 --> 00:05:54,599
Speaker 2: unformed newborn bear in a bit, but first I just

106
00:05:54,640 --> 00:05:57,039
Speaker 2: wanted to talk about a few other things said in

107
00:05:57,080 --> 00:05:59,040
Speaker 2: this text, especially since a few of them end up

108
00:05:59,040 --> 00:06:03,080
Speaker 2: connecting in interesting ways. Back to the bear's tongue. The

109
00:06:03,120 --> 00:06:07,000
Speaker 2: first thing that this book says, apart from some claims

110
00:06:07,000 --> 00:06:11,240
Speaker 2: about bears being unformed at birth, is quote, the bear's

111
00:06:11,320 --> 00:06:14,880
Speaker 2: head is not strong. Its greatest strength lies in its

112
00:06:15,040 --> 00:06:20,000
Speaker 2: arms and loins. For this reason, bears sometimes stand upright.

113
00:06:20,600 --> 00:06:23,640
Speaker 2: And I don't know, I think it's kind of hilarious

114
00:06:23,680 --> 00:06:26,200
Speaker 2: to imagine somebody in the twelfth century looking at a

115
00:06:26,200 --> 00:06:28,159
Speaker 2: bear and saying, not a very strong head.

116
00:06:30,440 --> 00:06:32,159
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. I feel like I've seen plenty

117
00:06:32,160 --> 00:06:35,640
Speaker 1: of bear footage where I'm thinking long and hard about

118
00:06:35,640 --> 00:06:37,560
Speaker 1: how strong and terrifying the head is.

119
00:06:38,000 --> 00:06:39,640
Speaker 2: To be fair, I think this might not be an

120
00:06:39,800 --> 00:06:43,960
Speaker 2: inaccurate original observation. Probably a lot of the facts in

121
00:06:44,000 --> 00:06:47,640
Speaker 2: this bestiary are not direct observations by the author, but

122
00:06:47,680 --> 00:06:50,680
Speaker 2: there are things being repeated from other texts going back

123
00:06:50,960 --> 00:06:52,159
Speaker 2: into classical times.

124
00:06:52,440 --> 00:06:54,599
Speaker 1: Yeah, that kind of game of telephone, And I don't know,

125
00:06:54,640 --> 00:06:57,880
Speaker 1: I guess you could. You know, you can probably imagine

126
00:06:58,240 --> 00:07:03,160
Speaker 1: certain interpretation of the basic form of the bear, and

127
00:07:03,200 --> 00:07:06,080
Speaker 1: maybe in some cases, with some bears particularly, I'm thinking,

128
00:07:06,160 --> 00:07:09,920
Speaker 1: like you know, black bears, you could maybe interpret the

129
00:07:10,000 --> 00:07:13,240
Speaker 1: head as being smaller than the body. Like, you know,

130
00:07:13,840 --> 00:07:15,480
Speaker 1: there's a way of looking at, say a black bear,

131
00:07:15,520 --> 00:07:17,720
Speaker 1: where you might interpret this. I can sort of see

132
00:07:17,720 --> 00:07:19,080
Speaker 1: where they're maybe coming from.

133
00:07:19,440 --> 00:07:22,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so there's a way in which you could say.

134
00:07:22,160 --> 00:07:25,360
Speaker 2: This is kind of true, but not as stated. It

135
00:07:25,440 --> 00:07:27,720
Speaker 2: is not fair to say that bears have weak heads.

136
00:07:27,920 --> 00:07:32,080
Speaker 2: A brown bear, for example, has an extremely powerful skull

137
00:07:32,520 --> 00:07:36,600
Speaker 2: with powerful bones and jaw muscles, powerful neck muscles, with

138
00:07:36,680 --> 00:07:40,400
Speaker 2: a bite capable of crushing bones. What is true, however,

139
00:07:40,680 --> 00:07:44,960
Speaker 2: is that when you compare the bite force to the

140
00:07:45,000 --> 00:07:48,920
Speaker 2: body mass in a factor that's called bite force quotient,

141
00:07:49,120 --> 00:07:51,320
Speaker 2: that's how strong the bite is compared to how big

142
00:07:51,360 --> 00:07:54,720
Speaker 2: your body is. Even brown bears tend to have a

143
00:07:54,880 --> 00:07:59,640
Speaker 2: smaller bite force quotient than many other carnivores, like less

144
00:07:59,680 --> 00:08:02,720
Speaker 2: than half of that of standouts like the Tasmanian devil,

145
00:08:02,760 --> 00:08:06,040
Speaker 2: which has an incredibly high bite force quotient and still

146
00:08:06,040 --> 00:08:09,520
Speaker 2: significantly lower than that of a jaguar very high bite

147
00:08:09,560 --> 00:08:12,800
Speaker 2: force quotient. So it's a huge body and a very

148
00:08:12,800 --> 00:08:15,680
Speaker 2: powerful jaw. But you can say that its jaw is

149
00:08:15,720 --> 00:08:19,640
Speaker 2: not especially powerful for its body size, but its body

150
00:08:19,640 --> 00:08:20,560
Speaker 2: size is enormous.

151
00:08:20,800 --> 00:08:21,000
Speaker 1: Yeah.

152
00:08:21,360 --> 00:08:24,200
Speaker 2: I also thought it was interesting how the text claims that,

153
00:08:24,720 --> 00:08:27,240
Speaker 2: so it doesn't have a strong head, its greatest strength

154
00:08:27,320 --> 00:08:31,160
Speaker 2: lies in its arms and loins. For this reason, bears

155
00:08:31,240 --> 00:08:36,280
Speaker 2: sometimes stand upright. That actually got me wondering why do

156
00:08:36,400 --> 00:08:39,920
Speaker 2: bears usually stand upright when they do? We've seen bears

157
00:08:39,960 --> 00:08:41,920
Speaker 2: doing this, you know, what are the most common reasons?

158
00:08:42,240 --> 00:08:44,760
Speaker 2: I was reading around. It seems that people with a

159
00:08:44,760 --> 00:08:48,600
Speaker 2: lot of experience with bears emphasize that the most common

160
00:08:48,640 --> 00:08:53,320
Speaker 2: reasons bears seem to do this is for information gathering purposes.

161
00:08:53,720 --> 00:08:57,600
Speaker 2: So the head contains the sensory array the eyes, the ears,

162
00:08:57,640 --> 00:09:00,800
Speaker 2: and the nose, and by standing up and placing the

163
00:09:00,840 --> 00:09:05,120
Speaker 2: head higher, bears allow themselves a longer viewing horizon, seeing

164
00:09:05,120 --> 00:09:09,760
Speaker 2: over obstacles, better ability to use directional hearing, and the

165
00:09:09,800 --> 00:09:13,240
Speaker 2: ability to isolate smells wafting from a distance as opposed

166
00:09:13,280 --> 00:09:15,920
Speaker 2: to what's coming up from right around the ground where

167
00:09:15,920 --> 00:09:21,040
Speaker 2: you are. Bears might also stand up to reach objects

168
00:09:21,120 --> 00:09:24,959
Speaker 2: high up or to manipulate objects with their forelimbs. So

169
00:09:25,000 --> 00:09:27,640
Speaker 2: there is some truth here. Bears do tend to have

170
00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:31,640
Speaker 2: more forelimb dexterity than many other carnivores, though not as

171
00:09:31,720 --> 00:09:35,000
Speaker 2: much as most primates. That dexterity comes from a number

172
00:09:35,040 --> 00:09:38,400
Speaker 2: of things, in part, like the way that bears are

173
00:09:38,440 --> 00:09:41,160
Speaker 2: able to rotate their arms with a greater degree of

174
00:09:41,200 --> 00:09:44,080
Speaker 2: freedom than animals like dogs, whose fore limb movement is

175
00:09:44,080 --> 00:09:47,000
Speaker 2: more restricted to the backward forward motion parallel to the

176
00:09:47,080 --> 00:09:50,360
Speaker 2: length of the body. There are also differences in the

177
00:09:50,360 --> 00:09:54,160
Speaker 2: bear's posture, like walking flat footed versus walking on the digits,

178
00:09:54,200 --> 00:09:59,559
Speaker 2: which some carnivores do, having more separated digits independently movable digits.

179
00:09:59,600 --> 00:10:02,640
Speaker 2: Things like that, and these things make bear arms and

180
00:10:02,679 --> 00:10:05,679
Speaker 2: bare four paws more versatile than like a dog's fore

181
00:10:05,720 --> 00:10:08,760
Speaker 2: legs and four paws, which are built with more focus

182
00:10:08,760 --> 00:10:09,560
Speaker 2: on running speed.

183
00:10:09,960 --> 00:10:11,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I guess something to keep in mind in

184
00:10:11,440 --> 00:10:13,880
Speaker 1: all of this, too, is that in general, when we're

185
00:10:13,880 --> 00:10:18,319
Speaker 1: talking about bears, especially modern bears, you're mostly dealing with

186
00:10:19,040 --> 00:10:23,000
Speaker 1: a varied omnivorous diet. Of course, there are outliers on

187
00:10:23,080 --> 00:10:26,960
Speaker 1: either end, you know, considering polar bears and panda bears.

188
00:10:27,000 --> 00:10:28,840
Speaker 1: But for the most part, you're dealing with a bear

189
00:10:28,880 --> 00:10:31,360
Speaker 1: that like one. Depending on what's available in the season,

190
00:10:31,400 --> 00:10:35,000
Speaker 1: it might be eating a bunch of vegetation. It might

191
00:10:35,040 --> 00:10:37,360
Speaker 1: be eating a part of a dead whale. It might

192
00:10:37,440 --> 00:10:40,200
Speaker 1: be eating honey, it might be eating the contents of

193
00:10:40,200 --> 00:10:43,120
Speaker 1: a refrigerator. You know, it's going to depend and it

194
00:10:43,200 --> 00:10:46,720
Speaker 1: needs to have the abilities to shift between these different

195
00:10:47,600 --> 00:10:48,480
Speaker 1: sources of food.

196
00:10:48,960 --> 00:10:52,240
Speaker 2: The diet is more varied. Therefore, the bear's behavior needs

197
00:10:52,280 --> 00:10:55,240
Speaker 2: to be more general as opposed to more specific, and

198
00:10:55,320 --> 00:10:57,959
Speaker 2: so as a generalist, it has to have more freedom

199
00:10:58,040 --> 00:10:59,959
Speaker 2: to do different kinds of things with its bot.

200
00:11:00,559 --> 00:11:01,119
Speaker 1: Yeah.

201
00:11:01,200 --> 00:11:04,120
Speaker 2: Another interesting claim from this book is about bear sex.

202
00:11:04,720 --> 00:11:08,080
Speaker 2: It says bears and we have to assume here that

203
00:11:08,080 --> 00:11:11,440
Speaker 2: this is talking mainly about brown bears, you know, for

204
00:11:11,559 --> 00:11:16,400
Speaker 2: geographical historical reasons. It says they do not mate like

205
00:11:16,480 --> 00:11:20,400
Speaker 2: other quadrupeds, but embrace each other when they copulate, just

206
00:11:20,480 --> 00:11:21,959
Speaker 2: like the couplings of humans.

207
00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:25,960
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't have time to see what else

208
00:11:26,000 --> 00:11:29,120
Speaker 1: Plenty had to say about sexual positions for humans, but

209
00:11:29,200 --> 00:11:31,560
Speaker 1: it almost sounds like he's saying for humans, only two

210
00:11:31,559 --> 00:11:35,080
Speaker 1: sexual positions are known, and this is how bears stack,

211
00:11:35,559 --> 00:11:36,360
Speaker 1: or maybe just one.

212
00:11:36,480 --> 00:11:41,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so it says, yeah, it says that they

213
00:11:41,960 --> 00:11:45,160
Speaker 2: embrace one another. I can't say for sure that bears

214
00:11:45,400 --> 00:11:48,319
Speaker 2: never face each other during copulation. I can't like rule

215
00:11:48,320 --> 00:11:51,400
Speaker 2: out that that happens. But after some extensive kind of

216
00:11:51,440 --> 00:11:55,320
Speaker 2: awkward googling, it seems to me that the standard what's

217
00:11:55,320 --> 00:11:58,719
Speaker 2: called the dorso ventral position, which you see in other

218
00:11:58,800 --> 00:12:02,240
Speaker 2: quadrupedal mammals, the male mounting from behind, that is also

219
00:12:02,320 --> 00:12:04,400
Speaker 2: the norm for bears, at least most of the time.

220
00:12:05,280 --> 00:12:08,800
Speaker 2: What is definitely true, however, and what may have inspired

221
00:12:08,840 --> 00:12:13,000
Speaker 2: this claim, is that male and female bears engage in

222
00:12:13,280 --> 00:12:18,240
Speaker 2: extensive courtship rituals, lasting for days or even weeks at

223
00:12:18,280 --> 00:12:22,280
Speaker 2: a time. And these courtship rituals, while the bears are

224
00:12:22,320 --> 00:12:26,319
Speaker 2: sort of getting to know one another, they can include

225
00:12:26,320 --> 00:12:29,959
Speaker 2: all kinds of things that could be mistaken for face

226
00:12:30,000 --> 00:12:33,480
Speaker 2: to face copulation. So this can include face to face

227
00:12:33,720 --> 00:12:37,680
Speaker 2: wrestling and play fighting, which does sometimes look like embracing,

228
00:12:38,040 --> 00:12:40,360
Speaker 2: as well as just lots of sniffing each other and

229
00:12:40,480 --> 00:12:43,920
Speaker 2: nuzzling and body rubbing of various sorts. So bears go

230
00:12:43,960 --> 00:12:48,120
Speaker 2: through extensive courtship rituals, and you could think how somebody

231
00:12:48,160 --> 00:12:50,560
Speaker 2: seeing this from a distance could think that this was

232
00:12:50,600 --> 00:12:52,440
Speaker 2: actually the act of mating.

233
00:12:53,000 --> 00:12:53,959
Speaker 1: Okay, that makes sense.

234
00:12:54,040 --> 00:12:58,160
Speaker 2: Another interesting claim here is the entry says when sick,

235
00:12:58,400 --> 00:13:03,320
Speaker 2: the bear eats ants. Now bears do eat ants, though

236
00:13:03,360 --> 00:13:06,199
Speaker 2: I couldn't find any evidence that they do so, especially

237
00:13:06,240 --> 00:13:08,480
Speaker 2: when they're sick. It just seems ants are part of

238
00:13:08,480 --> 00:13:13,120
Speaker 2: a bear's omnivorous repertoire, especially it seems with black bears.

239
00:13:13,960 --> 00:13:16,640
Speaker 2: I was reading up on this and I discovered that

240
00:13:16,800 --> 00:13:21,960
Speaker 2: bears are not usually interested in eating adult ants. Instead,

241
00:13:21,960 --> 00:13:24,400
Speaker 2: when they go ant hunting, they are looking for what's

242
00:13:24,440 --> 00:13:29,160
Speaker 2: called the ant brood, the plump little insect sausages that

243
00:13:29,240 --> 00:13:32,040
Speaker 2: are the ant colonies young. This would be the larvae

244
00:13:32,160 --> 00:13:36,480
Speaker 2: and the pewpe These are little grub like juveniles that

245
00:13:36,559 --> 00:13:39,960
Speaker 2: are packed with protein and fat, and they are especially

246
00:13:40,040 --> 00:13:44,040
Speaker 2: prized as a nutritious food source by black bears. And

247
00:13:44,120 --> 00:13:46,720
Speaker 2: in fact, to come back to the subject of licking,

248
00:13:46,880 --> 00:13:50,120
Speaker 2: have you ever seen a black bear's tongue, rob, I.

249
00:13:50,040 --> 00:13:52,600
Speaker 1: Don't think I had until you shared this image here,

250
00:13:52,640 --> 00:13:54,960
Speaker 1: and it is. Oh, it is extensive. This is a

251
00:13:55,000 --> 00:13:58,440
Speaker 1: creature that I'm not saying it could. It could of

252
00:13:58,480 --> 00:14:02,720
Speaker 1: its own power, own eye but the tongue is long

253
00:14:02,840 --> 00:14:06,240
Speaker 1: enough to at least with help reach the eye of desire.

254
00:14:06,440 --> 00:14:09,000
Speaker 2: Certainly. I've got one image here in the outline, and

255
00:14:09,080 --> 00:14:11,560
Speaker 2: it looks like a whole can of bubble tape hanging

256
00:14:11,600 --> 00:14:14,440
Speaker 2: out of the bear's mouth. It's just this long, long,

257
00:14:15,200 --> 00:14:20,000
Speaker 2: pink thing. So a black bear's tongue is quite long, flexible,

258
00:14:20,200 --> 00:14:23,560
Speaker 2: and sticky, and a major reason for it to be

259
00:14:23,720 --> 00:14:27,320
Speaker 2: that way is to help the bear attack difficult to

260
00:14:27,320 --> 00:14:29,920
Speaker 2: reach food sources. And this this can be I don't know,

261
00:14:30,000 --> 00:14:31,840
Speaker 2: reaching up to get berries and other stuff. It's not

262
00:14:32,080 --> 00:14:34,640
Speaker 2: limited to ants, but ants are a big part of this,

263
00:14:35,960 --> 00:14:40,280
Speaker 2: attacking ant broods inside nests. So the bear wants to

264
00:14:40,320 --> 00:14:43,520
Speaker 2: get the ant larvae and the pupet inside the cavities

265
00:14:43,520 --> 00:14:45,960
Speaker 2: of a rock crevice or a hollow log or a

266
00:14:45,960 --> 00:14:49,080
Speaker 2: piece of wood. Might chew, you know, chew at a

267
00:14:49,480 --> 00:14:51,640
Speaker 2: rotten log or piece of wood to get some holes

268
00:14:51,680 --> 00:14:53,200
Speaker 2: in it, and then kind of stick the tongue in

269
00:14:53,240 --> 00:14:56,760
Speaker 2: trying to get the ant brewed out. And so I

270
00:14:56,800 --> 00:15:00,960
Speaker 2: was reading about black bears attacking ant colonies to get

271
00:15:00,960 --> 00:15:05,720
Speaker 2: at the brood, and I came across a fascinating hypothesis

272
00:15:06,080 --> 00:15:08,960
Speaker 2: about that on a fact page for the North American

273
00:15:09,040 --> 00:15:13,200
Speaker 2: Bear Center. This is relating to the chemical warfare that

274
00:15:13,240 --> 00:15:18,080
Speaker 2: goes on during these black bear versus ant raids. And

275
00:15:18,200 --> 00:15:22,200
Speaker 2: so the North American Bear Center page says, quote, when

276
00:15:22,240 --> 00:15:26,040
Speaker 2: researchers experimentally put their faces next to the bears faces

277
00:15:26,080 --> 00:15:31,840
Speaker 2: at logs, First of all, that's funny. The researchers jerked

278
00:15:31,880 --> 00:15:35,640
Speaker 2: away from the acrid cloud of formic acid. Okay, so

279
00:15:35,720 --> 00:15:39,480
Speaker 2: the ants are producing this formic acid to repel the

280
00:15:39,520 --> 00:15:43,200
Speaker 2: attacking bear that's trying to steal all their children. But

281
00:15:43,320 --> 00:15:46,400
Speaker 2: then this goes on to say, quote, they stood amazed

282
00:15:46,440 --> 00:15:50,480
Speaker 2: that the bears could keep working. Formic acid is probably

283
00:15:50,600 --> 00:15:53,120
Speaker 2: and again I want to emphasize this is just a hypothesis.

284
00:15:53,160 --> 00:15:55,440
Speaker 2: This is not proven. But they say formic acid is

285
00:15:55,480 --> 00:16:01,560
Speaker 2: probably a reason bears sometimes bite into insulated snowmobile seats,

286
00:16:01,960 --> 00:16:07,600
Speaker 2: hot tub covers, and refrigerator walls. Huh, what's going on there? Well,

287
00:16:07,640 --> 00:16:12,320
Speaker 2: they explain these items all produce formic acid when the

288
00:16:12,320 --> 00:16:17,000
Speaker 2: formaldehyde in the insulation breaks down, making them smell like

289
00:16:17,120 --> 00:16:18,000
Speaker 2: ant colonies.

290
00:16:18,600 --> 00:16:20,120
Speaker 1: Huh. That is fascinating.

291
00:16:20,320 --> 00:16:26,040
Speaker 2: So yeah, some industrially produced foams and insulating materials apparently

292
00:16:26,080 --> 00:16:29,920
Speaker 2: do release these these scents that are reminiscent of the

293
00:16:29,960 --> 00:16:33,880
Speaker 2: scent of ant chemical warfare. So what the ants would

294
00:16:33,880 --> 00:16:36,680
Speaker 2: be producing in order to repel and attacking animal like

295
00:16:36,720 --> 00:16:39,560
Speaker 2: a bear, it and you know, to a hungry enough

296
00:16:39,600 --> 00:16:42,320
Speaker 2: bear that probably just smells like, well, you know, there's

297
00:16:42,320 --> 00:16:45,760
Speaker 2: something in there that's good to eat. Another thing that

298
00:16:45,880 --> 00:16:49,280
Speaker 2: is mentioned in this Besteria entry is quote they attack

299
00:16:49,440 --> 00:16:53,120
Speaker 2: beehives and try hard to get honeycombs. There is nothing

300
00:16:53,200 --> 00:16:57,200
Speaker 2: they sees more eagerly than honey. This one I rule

301
00:16:57,560 --> 00:17:01,200
Speaker 2: partially true. Hard to say, hard to actually rank the

302
00:17:01,240 --> 00:17:04,080
Speaker 2: food sources or say, there's nothing that bears like more

303
00:17:04,119 --> 00:17:08,080
Speaker 2: than honey, but honey is and especially energy dense food,

304
00:17:08,160 --> 00:17:11,800
Speaker 2: and black bears and brown bears will aggressively pursue honey

305
00:17:11,800 --> 00:17:16,720
Speaker 2: resources in their environment. They are partially protected from beastings

306
00:17:16,760 --> 00:17:18,960
Speaker 2: by their thick fur coat, though they will just also

307
00:17:19,119 --> 00:17:21,240
Speaker 2: put up with a lot of stings on the face

308
00:17:21,320 --> 00:17:25,080
Speaker 2: to get at the honeycomb, which it's worth emphasizing is

309
00:17:25,880 --> 00:17:30,320
Speaker 2: rich with both the sugar dense honey and the fat

310
00:17:30,359 --> 00:17:33,600
Speaker 2: and protein dense bee broods. So once again we're back

311
00:17:33,640 --> 00:17:37,840
Speaker 2: to the hymenopter and brood. Those insect young are like

312
00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:43,000
Speaker 2: little arthropod sausages, but unlike the ant sausages, which are

313
00:17:43,040 --> 00:17:46,960
Speaker 2: retrieved through a cloud of chemical warfare, these sausages come

314
00:17:47,000 --> 00:17:49,639
Speaker 2: preloaded with their own thick sugar syrup. So it's like

315
00:17:49,680 --> 00:17:50,240
Speaker 2: even better.

316
00:17:50,520 --> 00:17:54,760
Speaker 1: All right, So the bear appreciation for honey is it's

317
00:17:54,800 --> 00:17:58,280
Speaker 1: a little different compared to the human appreciation for honey.

318
00:17:58,320 --> 00:18:00,399
Speaker 1: We maybe shouldn't lean too much on Winnie the Poof

319
00:18:00,400 --> 00:18:01,399
Speaker 1: for understanding it.

320
00:18:01,600 --> 00:18:03,920
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, when humans look for honey, they're actually looking

321
00:18:04,000 --> 00:18:06,600
Speaker 2: usually just for the honey. They're not as much interested

322
00:18:06,640 --> 00:18:19,840
Speaker 2: in trying to eat the bee broods. Yeah yeah, but okay,

323
00:18:19,840 --> 00:18:21,760
Speaker 2: we want to come back to the idea of licking

324
00:18:22,000 --> 00:18:25,440
Speaker 2: the newborns, the stuff that Elayna mentioned in that original email.

325
00:18:25,720 --> 00:18:27,600
Speaker 2: So here I'm going to read a couple of passages

326
00:18:27,720 --> 00:18:31,399
Speaker 2: directly from the Aberdeen Library's online translation of the entry

327
00:18:31,480 --> 00:18:36,080
Speaker 2: on the bear. First passage says the bear is said

328
00:18:36,119 --> 00:18:39,679
Speaker 2: to get its name because the female shapes her newborn

329
00:18:39,760 --> 00:18:43,480
Speaker 2: cub with her mouth or a giving it so to speak.

330
00:18:43,600 --> 00:18:47,760
Speaker 2: It's beginning or sus ford is said that they produce

331
00:18:47,840 --> 00:18:51,200
Speaker 2: a shapeless fetus, and that a piece of flesh is born.

332
00:18:51,880 --> 00:18:54,600
Speaker 2: The mother forms the parts of the body by licking it.

333
00:18:55,119 --> 00:18:57,560
Speaker 2: The shapelessness of the cub is the result of its

334
00:18:57,600 --> 00:19:01,640
Speaker 2: premature birth. It is born only thirty days after conception,

335
00:19:02,080 --> 00:19:04,719
Speaker 2: and as a result of this rapid fertility, it is

336
00:19:04,760 --> 00:19:10,040
Speaker 2: born unformed. And then later the entry says, repeating some

337
00:19:10,080 --> 00:19:13,359
Speaker 2: of the same ideas it says among bears, the time

338
00:19:13,359 --> 00:19:17,840
Speaker 2: of gestation is accelerated. Indeed, the thirtieth day sees the

339
00:19:17,880 --> 00:19:20,480
Speaker 2: womb free of the cub. As a result of this

340
00:19:20,600 --> 00:19:24,480
Speaker 2: rapid fertility, the cubs are created without form. The females

341
00:19:24,560 --> 00:19:28,280
Speaker 2: produce tiny lumps of flesh, white in color, with no eyes.

342
00:19:28,920 --> 00:19:32,520
Speaker 2: These they shape gradually, holding them meanwhile to their breasts,

343
00:19:32,640 --> 00:19:35,320
Speaker 2: so that the cubs are warmed by the constant embrace

344
00:19:35,720 --> 00:19:39,000
Speaker 2: and draw out the spirit of life. So, to review

345
00:19:39,040 --> 00:19:43,119
Speaker 2: the claims here, the bear's pregnancy lasts only thirty days.

346
00:19:43,800 --> 00:19:47,919
Speaker 2: Newborn bear cubs are shapeless pieces of flesh, white in color,

347
00:19:48,000 --> 00:19:51,719
Speaker 2: with no eyes. And then the mother licks the flesh

348
00:19:51,800 --> 00:19:54,920
Speaker 2: lump into shape, giving it limbs, giving it a head,

349
00:19:55,359 --> 00:19:57,760
Speaker 2: and all the other parts of the body, forming it

350
00:19:57,800 --> 00:20:02,000
Speaker 2: with her tongue like a sculptor mold clay. I think

351
00:20:02,040 --> 00:20:04,720
Speaker 2: most of you can guess correctly that this is not true,

352
00:20:05,280 --> 00:20:08,280
Speaker 2: but it is interesting to compare to reality because, while

353
00:20:08,359 --> 00:20:13,119
Speaker 2: literally incorrect, it taps into the spirit of some true

354
00:20:13,200 --> 00:20:16,879
Speaker 2: facts about bear birth, about dinning, and maternal care in

355
00:20:16,960 --> 00:20:20,719
Speaker 2: several different bear species. So one of the ideas mentioned

356
00:20:20,720 --> 00:20:23,560
Speaker 2: here is that the bear cubs are born as these

357
00:20:23,600 --> 00:20:28,080
Speaker 2: limbless flesh lumps after a mere thirty day pregnancy. That

358
00:20:28,240 --> 00:20:31,480
Speaker 2: is not correct, but it does tap into something. So

359
00:20:31,560 --> 00:20:34,679
Speaker 2: the total pregnancy time for a bear varies bear to

360
00:20:34,680 --> 00:20:37,000
Speaker 2: bear in species to species, but generally it's going to

361
00:20:37,040 --> 00:20:41,720
Speaker 2: be a lot longer than thirty days. Nevertheless, bears actually

362
00:20:41,760 --> 00:20:48,520
Speaker 2: do have an interesting adaptation called delayed implantation, which means

363
00:20:48,600 --> 00:20:54,360
Speaker 2: that a fertilized embryo will pause its development for months

364
00:20:54,400 --> 00:20:58,360
Speaker 2: at a time, only implanting in the uterine, lining, and

365
00:20:58,520 --> 00:21:04,000
Speaker 2: continuing growth if certain timing and metabolic conditions are met.

366
00:21:04,359 --> 00:21:08,320
Speaker 2: For example, in the North American black bear, mating typically

367
00:21:08,359 --> 00:21:11,600
Speaker 2: happens in the spring or early summer, and then you

368
00:21:11,640 --> 00:21:14,160
Speaker 2: will get a fertilized egg inside the body that will

369
00:21:14,240 --> 00:21:16,760
Speaker 2: just kind of float in the uterus and it will

370
00:21:16,760 --> 00:21:20,600
Speaker 2: temporarily halt or at least dramatically slow down its development.

371
00:21:21,480 --> 00:21:26,960
Speaker 2: Shortly after fertilization at the blasticist stage, and it doesn't

372
00:21:27,000 --> 00:21:31,560
Speaker 2: implant and begin differentiated cell growth until late fall or

373
00:21:31,600 --> 00:21:35,240
Speaker 2: the onset of wintertime, and only then if the mother

374
00:21:35,359 --> 00:21:38,439
Speaker 2: has reached a sufficient body weight so that she will

375
00:21:39,080 --> 00:21:42,400
Speaker 2: have the energy resources to survive and sustain a pregnancy

376
00:21:42,480 --> 00:21:45,040
Speaker 2: and provide milk for offspring born over the winter in

377
00:21:45,080 --> 00:21:48,840
Speaker 2: the mother's den. The actual period of embryonic development after

378
00:21:48,880 --> 00:21:52,240
Speaker 2: the pause, again, it varies. It might be like, you know,

379
00:21:52,359 --> 00:21:54,680
Speaker 2: two months or something. Maybe maybe up to three months,

380
00:21:54,720 --> 00:21:56,800
Speaker 2: so like two to three months or something, but the

381
00:21:56,800 --> 00:22:00,280
Speaker 2: total time between mating and birth is a lot longer,

382
00:22:00,520 --> 00:22:03,719
Speaker 2: might be more like six to nine months, though it

383
00:22:03,800 --> 00:22:06,640
Speaker 2: is true, and I don't know if this is the

384
00:22:06,880 --> 00:22:10,360
Speaker 2: reason for the initial claim that's repeated in the bestiary here.

385
00:22:10,640 --> 00:22:15,280
Speaker 2: It is interesting that the actual time between the resumption

386
00:22:15,600 --> 00:22:19,480
Speaker 2: of development here from the blastocyst stage until birth is

387
00:22:19,600 --> 00:22:22,359
Speaker 2: quite short. It's still longer than thirty days, but it

388
00:22:22,560 --> 00:22:26,560
Speaker 2: happens pretty fast. Interesting, and I was just talking about

389
00:22:26,640 --> 00:22:29,560
Speaker 2: black bears. A similar overall pattern occurs in brown bears,

390
00:22:29,720 --> 00:22:34,600
Speaker 2: with a few different slight timing differences. Now coming to

391
00:22:34,640 --> 00:22:37,480
Speaker 2: the idea of the flesh lump, of course, that's not

392
00:22:37,600 --> 00:22:40,879
Speaker 2: literally correct. Newborn bears of all species do actually have

393
00:22:41,000 --> 00:22:44,399
Speaker 2: limbs and heads and fully formed individual body parts. But

394
00:22:44,640 --> 00:22:47,760
Speaker 2: the grain of truth in the flesh lump legend is

395
00:22:47,800 --> 00:22:53,520
Speaker 2: that newborn bear cubs are highly altricial and extremely small

396
00:22:53,680 --> 00:22:57,360
Speaker 2: compared to adults of the same species. Rob, I've got

397
00:22:57,359 --> 00:22:59,720
Speaker 2: a picture of some grizzly bear cubs for you to

398
00:22:59,720 --> 00:23:02,680
Speaker 2: look at at here that are adorable, But they're also

399
00:23:02,880 --> 00:23:06,399
Speaker 2: just so tiny compared to the adult. And they also

400
00:23:06,640 --> 00:23:09,360
Speaker 2: look I don't know, you know, they're very cute. There's

401
00:23:09,760 --> 00:23:13,560
Speaker 2: that signal of helplessness in what cuteness is. In a way,

402
00:23:14,520 --> 00:23:19,560
Speaker 2: so animals that are highly altricial are at one end

403
00:23:19,560 --> 00:23:25,160
Speaker 2: of a spectrum known as altriciality and precociality. This refers

404
00:23:25,200 --> 00:23:29,199
Speaker 2: to how independent an animal is after birth. If a

405
00:23:29,240 --> 00:23:32,879
Speaker 2: newborn animal is independent, able to use its senses and

406
00:23:32,920 --> 00:23:36,520
Speaker 2: move around and feed itself shortly after birth, that species

407
00:23:36,680 --> 00:23:41,040
Speaker 2: is precocial. If the newborn is relatively helpless and needs

408
00:23:41,080 --> 00:23:45,080
Speaker 2: a lot of parental care to survive, that species is altricial.

409
00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:47,560
Speaker 2: And it's not a binary, it's a spectrum. You know,

410
00:23:47,600 --> 00:23:50,400
Speaker 2: you can be somewhere along the spectrum toward one one

411
00:23:50,480 --> 00:23:54,280
Speaker 2: end or the other. Megapode birds like brush turkeys are

412
00:23:54,320 --> 00:23:58,199
Speaker 2: known for being highly precocial. Almost immediately after hatching. The

413
00:23:58,280 --> 00:24:00,960
Speaker 2: newborn chicks can run around and even fly a bit,

414
00:24:01,080 --> 00:24:03,679
Speaker 2: They can feed themselves, and they can basically make it

415
00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:07,320
Speaker 2: on their own. Bears are on the altricial end of

416
00:24:07,320 --> 00:24:11,760
Speaker 2: the spectrum. They are highly altricial, with tiny, helpless newborns

417
00:24:12,160 --> 00:24:16,400
Speaker 2: with extremely limited mobility and limited senses. Their eyes are

418
00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:19,679
Speaker 2: closed for some time after birth, and so bear cubs

419
00:24:19,720 --> 00:24:24,520
Speaker 2: need a lot of maternal care to survive. This reality

420
00:24:24,640 --> 00:24:28,560
Speaker 2: of altricial helplessness lends itself in a way to the

421
00:24:28,600 --> 00:24:31,679
Speaker 2: idea of a newborn bear as a tiny, formless lump,

422
00:24:32,359 --> 00:24:35,200
Speaker 2: and the way they look really helps with that as well,

423
00:24:35,240 --> 00:24:39,600
Speaker 2: because while they are born with limbs and differentiated body parts,

424
00:24:39,800 --> 00:24:43,040
Speaker 2: their skin and fur tends to be much paler than

425
00:24:43,080 --> 00:24:46,040
Speaker 2: that of an adult of the same species. The bestiary

426
00:24:46,080 --> 00:24:48,840
Speaker 2: text says that they're born as white lumps. They're typically

427
00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:51,159
Speaker 2: not white, but they might be more kind of a

428
00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:55,800
Speaker 2: pale gray or a paler gray brown, so they're paler

429
00:24:55,840 --> 00:24:58,960
Speaker 2: than the adults. Their eyes are closed, and they must

430
00:24:59,080 --> 00:25:02,800
Speaker 2: nuzzle against their mother for warmth and for nursing. So

431
00:25:03,080 --> 00:25:06,080
Speaker 2: even if you could somehow see them right after birth,

432
00:25:06,160 --> 00:25:09,240
Speaker 2: which that takes place inside the mother's winter den, it's

433
00:25:09,320 --> 00:25:11,680
Speaker 2: kind of hard to see that in nature without some

434
00:25:11,720 --> 00:25:15,719
Speaker 2: really special circumstances arising. If you could see them, they

435
00:25:15,720 --> 00:25:18,000
Speaker 2: would not be up and roaming around on their own.

436
00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:20,760
Speaker 2: They would be huddling close for warmth and trying to nurse.

437
00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:25,840
Speaker 2: Some other realities probably contributing to the licking the formless

438
00:25:25,920 --> 00:25:31,080
Speaker 2: lump myth. Mother bears do lick and then usually eat

439
00:25:31,320 --> 00:25:34,639
Speaker 2: the birth membrane almost immediately after the cub is born.

440
00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:39,560
Speaker 2: Mother bears of multiple species also do lick the cubs

441
00:25:39,680 --> 00:25:42,880
Speaker 2: right after birth. They've been observed licking the cubs themselves

442
00:25:42,920 --> 00:25:46,639
Speaker 2: after parturition, and this is a common maternal behavior, not

443
00:25:46,680 --> 00:25:50,320
Speaker 2: just in bears, but across lots of mammalian species. And

444
00:25:51,280 --> 00:25:56,919
Speaker 2: I think we can infer some probable survival motivations that

445
00:25:56,960 --> 00:26:00,560
Speaker 2: would drive the selection of this behavior. First of all,

446
00:26:00,760 --> 00:26:05,080
Speaker 2: licking after birth helps clean the cubs fur of the

447
00:26:05,520 --> 00:26:10,159
Speaker 2: wet residual amniotic fluid after birth. So why would this

448
00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:12,880
Speaker 2: be important cleaning the amniotic fluid off of the fur

449
00:26:12,960 --> 00:26:17,520
Speaker 2: and skin. A big reason, probably the biggest reason is thermoregulation.

450
00:26:18,400 --> 00:26:22,320
Speaker 2: Newborn bear cubs are incredibly tiny compared to adults. Like

451
00:26:22,400 --> 00:26:26,240
Speaker 2: newborn brown bears are typically at most around a one

452
00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:29,280
Speaker 2: to five hundredth of the body mass of their mother,

453
00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:33,480
Speaker 2: and thus they have a very high surface area to

454
00:26:33,560 --> 00:26:36,439
Speaker 2: body mass ratio. The smaller you are, the harder it

455
00:26:36,520 --> 00:26:39,159
Speaker 2: is for your body to retain heat to keep the

456
00:26:39,160 --> 00:26:43,639
Speaker 2: heat inside. So these babies, these baby bears lose heat

457
00:26:43,760 --> 00:26:47,760
Speaker 2: much faster than an adult bear. Also, they're usually born

458
00:26:47,800 --> 00:26:51,720
Speaker 2: in winter during cold weather. Also, they have much less

459
00:26:51,800 --> 00:26:55,400
Speaker 2: heat insulation in the form of subcutaneous fat and body fur.

460
00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:57,199
Speaker 2: They've got a lot less fur when they're born than

461
00:26:57,200 --> 00:27:01,359
Speaker 2: adults have. So newborn bears are at great risk of

462
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:05,480
Speaker 2: hypothermia from the moment that they're born. Being coated in

463
00:27:05,560 --> 00:27:08,920
Speaker 2: amniotic fluid obviously makes that risk a lot worse. By

464
00:27:09,040 --> 00:27:12,120
Speaker 2: keeping the fur wet and matted down, it makes the bear,

465
00:27:12,320 --> 00:27:15,080
Speaker 2: the bear cub subject to evaporative cooling. You know, when

466
00:27:15,080 --> 00:27:18,359
Speaker 2: you're wet that the the evaporation steals energy from the

467
00:27:18,400 --> 00:27:22,280
Speaker 2: surface of your body. And to the extent that the

468
00:27:22,320 --> 00:27:25,320
Speaker 2: newborn bear has any fur, this very some of the

469
00:27:25,359 --> 00:27:27,879
Speaker 2: different bear species, but they're not going to have a

470
00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:30,199
Speaker 2: lot of fur, but what fur they have is going

471
00:27:30,240 --> 00:27:33,480
Speaker 2: to be matted down and matted down and wet, and

472
00:27:33,520 --> 00:27:35,359
Speaker 2: when it's matted and wet, it's not really going to

473
00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:39,080
Speaker 2: work very well as insulation against the cold. So by

474
00:27:39,080 --> 00:27:42,240
Speaker 2: licking the newborn clean, the mother is actually increasing the

475
00:27:42,280 --> 00:27:45,679
Speaker 2: cub's ability the cub's ability to retain body heat. A

476
00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:49,320
Speaker 2: second big thing that I see mentioned in the literature

477
00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:55,080
Speaker 2: about mother bears licking their newborns is in addition to

478
00:27:55,119 --> 00:27:59,960
Speaker 2: cleaning cleaning the body, licking of the perenneal or anogenital

479
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:04,119
Speaker 2: region is important because that is thought to help stimulate

480
00:28:04,240 --> 00:28:08,400
Speaker 2: the cubs to urinate and defecate. In some cases, newborn

481
00:28:08,440 --> 00:28:13,080
Speaker 2: bears apparently can't poop or pee without external stimulation of

482
00:28:13,119 --> 00:28:16,200
Speaker 2: the ans and genitals, and at the very least, the

483
00:28:16,680 --> 00:28:21,120
Speaker 2: licking seems to make that easier. So the mother will

484
00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:25,840
Speaker 2: lick the nether regions to make the cubs poop and pee,

485
00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:28,760
Speaker 2: and then we'll often eat the feces after the cubs

486
00:28:28,760 --> 00:28:31,119
Speaker 2: poop and the den. I thought that was interesting, so

487
00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:34,880
Speaker 2: I was investigating, like, why eat the poop? This seems

488
00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:39,400
Speaker 2: to be often explained as a den hygiene behavior. I

489
00:28:39,440 --> 00:28:41,800
Speaker 2: can't prove this, but I wonder if a reason for

490
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:45,000
Speaker 2: this is that it would help prevent the den from

491
00:28:45,080 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 2: having an excess of smells that would attract predators.

492
00:28:49,120 --> 00:28:52,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was thinking about the smell issue earlier, just

493
00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:56,160
Speaker 1: in terms of say the ambiotic fluid, thinking of non

494
00:28:56,280 --> 00:29:00,120
Speaker 1: bear mamalion creatures that in which part of the the

495
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:03,080
Speaker 1: young's protection is that they are sometimes described as being

496
00:29:03,520 --> 00:29:08,479
Speaker 1: perhaps smell neutral or having a much less pronounced odor.

497
00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:11,000
Speaker 1: It could alert predators to their presence.

498
00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:14,560
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I was thinking about that as well. This

499
00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:17,360
Speaker 2: is something that again that I have not found proof of,

500
00:29:17,440 --> 00:29:21,480
Speaker 2: but I was just wondering if smells associated with birth

501
00:29:21,560 --> 00:29:24,760
Speaker 2: I think would usually signal to predators if they're present,

502
00:29:25,400 --> 00:29:28,560
Speaker 2: that you are in a vulnerable state and that they're

503
00:29:28,560 --> 00:29:33,200
Speaker 2: a vulnerable newborns present. And so this did come up.

504
00:29:33,480 --> 00:29:35,560
Speaker 2: This wasn't in bears, but I was looking at another

505
00:29:35,600 --> 00:29:39,320
Speaker 2: study about maternal licking behaviors in mammals in general. Actually

506
00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:44,560
Speaker 2: this was more about not just licking but general postparturition

507
00:29:44,840 --> 00:29:48,120
Speaker 2: maternal bonding behaviors, and one of the things that was

508
00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:50,720
Speaker 2: looking at was licking. And this study reported in the

509
00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:55,040
Speaker 2: context of rodents that the presence of predator smells. If

510
00:29:55,040 --> 00:29:57,920
Speaker 2: you pipe in some smells of a predator, that actually

511
00:29:58,080 --> 00:30:01,040
Speaker 2: increased licking behavior in mother with newborns.

512
00:30:01,280 --> 00:30:02,280
Speaker 1: Oh fascinating.

513
00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:05,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that did make me wonder if that it

514
00:30:05,240 --> 00:30:08,760
Speaker 2: does have something to do with trying to remove smells

515
00:30:08,760 --> 00:30:11,400
Speaker 2: that might signal prey vulnerability.

516
00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:15,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it seems possible, at least to me, that

517
00:30:15,160 --> 00:30:19,360
Speaker 1: the consumption of the feces here by the mother would

518
00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:23,320
Speaker 1: perhaps factor into that, because I've read about the reverse

519
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:30,360
Speaker 1: the offspring's consumption of the mother's feces in some animals,

520
00:30:30,560 --> 00:30:33,840
Speaker 1: perhaps having to do with the transfer of the microbiome

521
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:38,040
Speaker 1: and so forth. But obviously that wouldn't to my understanding,

522
00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:38,760
Speaker 1: be the case here.

523
00:30:39,040 --> 00:30:41,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, going the other way, it's harder to see why

524
00:30:41,160 --> 00:30:42,200
Speaker 2: that would be necessary.

525
00:30:42,520 --> 00:30:44,760
Speaker 1: Yeah. The only other option that immediately comes to mind

526
00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:48,960
Speaker 1: is remaining nutrients that are still within the fecal matter

527
00:30:49,080 --> 00:30:52,920
Speaker 1: of the newborns. But ye, which is something you also

528
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:54,000
Speaker 1: see in this kind of behavior.

529
00:30:54,280 --> 00:30:59,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, overwintering in the den is also a resource conservation time. Yeah,

530
00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:02,040
Speaker 2: and there could be other motivations as well, Like in

531
00:31:02,120 --> 00:31:05,920
Speaker 2: lots of mammals, licking and mutual grooming behaviors promote social bonding.

532
00:31:05,960 --> 00:31:09,000
Speaker 2: We're already talking about that in part two of the series,

533
00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:11,240
Speaker 2: and so that might be another thing. There is just

534
00:31:11,320 --> 00:31:15,040
Speaker 2: part of a social bonding behavior that strengthens the emotional

535
00:31:15,040 --> 00:31:19,120
Speaker 2: connection between mother bear and offspring in some animal. In

536
00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:24,160
Speaker 2: some animals, maternal licking might stimulate autonomic survival functions like

537
00:31:24,200 --> 00:31:27,080
Speaker 2: breathing and blood flow. So maybe something like that is

538
00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:31,719
Speaker 2: going on here. But what's absolutely clear is that the

539
00:31:31,760 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 2: mother bear does lick the baby bear. At least part

540
00:31:35,360 --> 00:31:40,280
Speaker 2: of this seems to be related to stimulating urination and defecation,

541
00:31:40,800 --> 00:31:43,440
Speaker 2: and a big part of it, I think it's fair

542
00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:46,960
Speaker 2: to say, is motivated by cleaning the baby bear to

543
00:31:47,040 --> 00:31:49,360
Speaker 2: help it thermoregulate, help it retain heat.

544
00:31:49,560 --> 00:31:52,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, but there are a number of things that are

545
00:31:52,120 --> 00:31:55,440
Speaker 1: just not online yet with the newborn bear, they eventually

546
00:31:55,480 --> 00:31:59,760
Speaker 1: come online, and part of the process, at least as

547
00:31:59,840 --> 00:32:03,680
Speaker 1: a observed, is the licking by the mother. Yeah.

548
00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:07,600
Speaker 2: I was actually reading about licking behaviors in bears in

549
00:32:07,640 --> 00:32:11,560
Speaker 2: a study that was like a this was really interesting.

550
00:32:11,560 --> 00:32:11,960
Speaker 1: It was a.

551
00:32:12,000 --> 00:32:16,760
Speaker 2: Wild den camera study. This was published in the journal

552
00:32:16,840 --> 00:32:20,400
Speaker 2: Animals in the year twenty twenty by Lynn Rogers and

553
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:24,080
Speaker 2: a bunch of co authors. The title was behavior in

554
00:32:24,160 --> 00:32:28,480
Speaker 2: free living American black bear dens, parturition, maternal care, and

555
00:32:28,520 --> 00:32:33,880
Speaker 2: cub behavior, and the authors explain their method here. They say, quote,

556
00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:36,680
Speaker 2: we report here some of the major findings on the

557
00:32:36,720 --> 00:32:39,960
Speaker 2: behavior of black bear mothers and cubs in their dens

558
00:32:40,080 --> 00:32:44,000
Speaker 2: in the wild, based on observations in the state of Minnesota, USA.

559
00:32:44,600 --> 00:32:48,280
Speaker 2: Wild female bears were outfitted with radio callers and their

560
00:32:48,320 --> 00:32:51,560
Speaker 2: dens located as they prepared for hibernation in the fall.

561
00:32:52,080 --> 00:32:56,080
Speaker 2: Cameras were installed in the dens and events in the

562
00:32:56,080 --> 00:32:59,640
Speaker 2: den recorded until they and their cubs finally abandoned their

563
00:32:59,640 --> 00:33:02,640
Speaker 2: dens in the spring. So this is amazing. They actually

564
00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:06,080
Speaker 2: were able to get cameras into wild dens so they

565
00:33:06,080 --> 00:33:08,200
Speaker 2: could see what the bears were doing in the dens

566
00:33:08,240 --> 00:33:10,320
Speaker 2: in the wild. This is something that normally is really

567
00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:13,680
Speaker 2: hard to see. Obviously, you can study captive bears, but

568
00:33:13,800 --> 00:33:17,840
Speaker 2: captivity might alter the bear's behavior. It often does, so

569
00:33:17,880 --> 00:33:19,640
Speaker 2: this study looked at a bunch of different things, but

570
00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:23,400
Speaker 2: I was interested in the licking behaviors observed. So one

571
00:33:23,760 --> 00:33:27,080
Speaker 2: thing they documented was the licking of cubs right after birth,

572
00:33:27,200 --> 00:33:30,720
Speaker 2: started almost immediately, and it does seem to be related

573
00:33:30,760 --> 00:33:33,920
Speaker 2: to a period where the mothers are trying to warm

574
00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:38,560
Speaker 2: and stimulate their newborns. So, to read from the author's results,

575
00:33:38,600 --> 00:33:42,600
Speaker 2: quote activities were sufficiently visible for three litters born in

576
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:47,000
Speaker 2: twenty ten Lily, twenty eleven Lily, and twenty twelve Jewel.

577
00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:50,480
Speaker 2: These are bear names to determine that the mothers began

578
00:33:50,600 --> 00:33:54,560
Speaker 2: licking embryonic membranes from the first born cubs within nine

579
00:33:54,760 --> 00:33:58,760
Speaker 2: sixteen and eighty five seconds of parturition. On the twenty

580
00:33:58,760 --> 00:34:01,280
Speaker 2: second of January twenty two twelve, when it was negative

581
00:34:01,320 --> 00:34:06,160
Speaker 2: eight degrees celsius outside, Jewel licked her first born seventy

582
00:34:06,200 --> 00:34:09,840
Speaker 2: seven times per minute for six point five minutes before

583
00:34:09,920 --> 00:34:14,239
Speaker 2: assuming the ventrally recumbent warming position and placing the cub

584
00:34:14,360 --> 00:34:18,040
Speaker 2: under her sparsely furred chest and belly. In that position,

585
00:34:18,200 --> 00:34:20,640
Speaker 2: with her head tucked under her chest and her crown

586
00:34:20,680 --> 00:34:23,880
Speaker 2: against the den floor, she continued licking the cubs dry

587
00:34:23,920 --> 00:34:26,960
Speaker 2: while warming them with her breath. So this seems to

588
00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:30,880
Speaker 2: me to be associated with a licking, clean, drying, and

589
00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:35,280
Speaker 2: warming behavior after birth, where the mother bear is trying

590
00:34:35,280 --> 00:34:38,600
Speaker 2: to make sure that the cub is sufficiently kept warm

591
00:34:38,920 --> 00:34:42,280
Speaker 2: and it's also adorable. The idea of warming her warming

592
00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:43,719
Speaker 2: the cub with her breath.

593
00:34:44,160 --> 00:34:44,640
Speaker 1: Yeah.

594
00:34:45,200 --> 00:34:48,280
Speaker 2: The study also does document another thing I talked about,

595
00:34:48,320 --> 00:34:52,320
Speaker 2: the licking of the perineal region in what the study

596
00:34:52,360 --> 00:34:56,480
Speaker 2: calls toilet licking. Okay, that's the name for it. It

597
00:34:56,480 --> 00:35:00,560
Speaker 2: says in this process they lick, but also the mother's

598
00:35:00,640 --> 00:35:04,000
Speaker 2: quote ingest the urine and feces to avoid fouling their

599
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:08,880
Speaker 2: living quarters. And it says that Lily and Jewel routinely

600
00:35:08,880 --> 00:35:13,239
Speaker 2: did this, often in response to their cubs cries. And

601
00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:16,360
Speaker 2: then finally they document one more thing that it seems

602
00:35:16,360 --> 00:35:18,719
Speaker 2: like actually totally different. This is not like licking of

603
00:35:18,760 --> 00:35:23,920
Speaker 2: newborn cubs. But they say, in our quote previous studies

604
00:35:23,920 --> 00:35:27,920
Speaker 2: in northeastern Minnesota, we have seen cubs, juveniles, and adults

605
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:33,440
Speaker 2: touch tongues and engage in reciprocal tongue licking in apparent

606
00:35:33,520 --> 00:35:37,000
Speaker 2: signs of friendship, but we have not seen these behaviors

607
00:35:37,000 --> 00:35:41,120
Speaker 2: reported for bears in dens. Reciprocal tongue looking involves bears

608
00:35:41,160 --> 00:35:45,279
Speaker 2: simultaneously touching and or entwining tongues as they lick each

609
00:35:45,280 --> 00:35:48,680
Speaker 2: other in and around the mouth. And then they say

610
00:35:48,719 --> 00:35:53,000
Speaker 2: the webcams revealed Lily's licking Hope's mouth without Hope reciprocating

611
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:55,960
Speaker 2: when Hope was thirty nine, forty one and fifty one

612
00:35:56,040 --> 00:36:00,839
Speaker 2: days old. However, on March seventeenth, twenty ten, fifty four

613
00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:04,480
Speaker 2: day old Hope vocalized the pulsing home of suckling for

614
00:36:04,520 --> 00:36:08,040
Speaker 2: twenty four seconds during a thirty seven second session of

615
00:36:08,160 --> 00:36:12,040
Speaker 2: reciprocal tongue licking. So, first, mom is trying to do

616
00:36:12,120 --> 00:36:15,000
Speaker 2: reciprocal tongue licking with the cub. First few times the

617
00:36:15,040 --> 00:36:17,799
Speaker 2: cub does not lick back, but then finally the cub

618
00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:23,319
Speaker 2: does start. They they're now reciprocal tongue licking, and it

619
00:36:23,440 --> 00:36:26,080
Speaker 2: mentions a couple other examples too. But I don't know,

620
00:36:26,120 --> 00:36:28,200
Speaker 2: I thought that was interesting. That seems to be maybe

621
00:36:28,239 --> 00:36:31,080
Speaker 2: another just social bonding thing. I don't know if there's

622
00:36:31,120 --> 00:36:34,439
Speaker 2: an established reason why they're licking each other's tongues other

623
00:36:34,520 --> 00:36:36,600
Speaker 2: than just some form of play or bonding.

624
00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:40,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it does sound like it could just be bonding.

625
00:36:40,120 --> 00:36:43,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that's what I've got on bear locking of

626
00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:46,600
Speaker 2: newborns for now. But Elena, thank you for writing in

627
00:36:46,640 --> 00:36:47,400
Speaker 2: on this subject.

628
00:36:47,800 --> 00:36:51,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. After I read this email and we

629
00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:54,840
Speaker 1: decided we were going to discuss this on the show,

630
00:36:55,360 --> 00:36:58,759
Speaker 1: I picked a bear book off of my bookshelf here.

631
00:36:58,800 --> 00:37:00,799
Speaker 1: It's one that I've referenced in the show before by

632
00:37:01,120 --> 00:37:08,200
Speaker 1: Wolf Dieter Storrel. He's a German American cultural anthropologist and ethnobotanist.

633
00:37:09,360 --> 00:37:11,880
Speaker 1: But he has some interesting little bits about this. He

634
00:37:11,920 --> 00:37:16,719
Speaker 1: does briefly refer to this idea that we've been discussing about,

635
00:37:16,760 --> 00:37:22,680
Speaker 1: the bear licking this this this mass into form, and

636
00:37:22,719 --> 00:37:28,160
Speaker 1: he notes the Franco, German and otherwise Northern European proverbial

637
00:37:28,239 --> 00:37:33,719
Speaker 1: expression an unlicked bear, which was apparently used historically to

638
00:37:33,800 --> 00:37:40,080
Speaker 1: describe an unrefined person, like, oh, look at there, whatever

639
00:37:40,080 --> 00:37:42,880
Speaker 1: they're doing, you know, in breach of etiquette, that person's

640
00:37:42,920 --> 00:37:47,080
Speaker 1: an unlicked bear. Also, the idea licked into shape apparently

641
00:37:47,080 --> 00:37:50,919
Speaker 1: also stems from this idea as well, which is which

642
00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:54,600
Speaker 1: is one that certainly I'm more familiar with. Loked into shape.

643
00:37:54,640 --> 00:37:56,719
Speaker 1: That's I mean, that's exactly what we're talking about the

644
00:37:56,719 --> 00:38:11,120
Speaker 1: bear doing electually. All right, I want to return to

645
00:38:11,200 --> 00:38:13,560
Speaker 1: a couple of animals that we've already talked about and

646
00:38:13,640 --> 00:38:18,200
Speaker 1: get into some various beliefs and traditions surrounding them, Starting

647
00:38:18,239 --> 00:38:22,240
Speaker 1: first with cows, as we discussed in our previous licking episodes.

648
00:38:22,280 --> 00:38:25,520
Speaker 1: Cows are big liquors, and when they lick humans, it's

649
00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:29,640
Speaker 1: sometimes perceived as auspicious or even some manner of good luck.

650
00:38:30,400 --> 00:38:33,560
Speaker 1: This seems to especially be true in cultures where cattle

651
00:38:33,719 --> 00:38:37,319
Speaker 1: enjoy sacred status. There's a particular account of how the

652
00:38:37,400 --> 00:38:43,680
Speaker 1: cattle gathered around fifteenth and sixteenth century Hindu saint Chaitanya Mahapruvu,

653
00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:49,280
Speaker 1: founder of the Godhea Vishnuism Hindu religious movement, and licked

654
00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:52,720
Speaker 1: his body as an act of love. Accounts of cows

655
00:38:52,760 --> 00:38:55,319
Speaker 1: licking Krishna are also important, I understand in the Hadi

656
00:38:55,400 --> 00:38:59,120
Speaker 1: Krishna movement or the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, which

657
00:38:59,360 --> 00:39:04,880
Speaker 1: is itself a modern expression of Godia Vishnuism. Now, in

658
00:39:05,040 --> 00:39:09,440
Speaker 1: mentioning cowlix, I'm sure a number of you also were

659
00:39:09,480 --> 00:39:12,160
Speaker 1: instantly reminded that, hey, that's what we call this weird

660
00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:15,160
Speaker 1: part in our hair that may be difficult to comb

661
00:39:15,280 --> 00:39:18,399
Speaker 1: into shape. I have one of these. This is one

662
00:39:18,400 --> 00:39:21,440
Speaker 1: of the prime reasons I eventually gave up on combing

663
00:39:21,440 --> 00:39:24,960
Speaker 1: my hair and keep up a more sort of I

664
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:29,800
Speaker 1: don't know, ruffled style, if you will, because the cowlick

665
00:39:29,960 --> 00:39:33,760
Speaker 1: itself is so difficult to manage. The cowlick, of course,

666
00:39:33,840 --> 00:39:38,080
Speaker 1: is just a pattern of follicle disruption on the human scalp.

667
00:39:39,160 --> 00:39:41,640
Speaker 2: Sort of like going in the opposite direction of the

668
00:39:41,680 --> 00:39:42,719
Speaker 2: follicles around it.

669
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:45,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it kind of looks like I grew up

670
00:39:45,360 --> 00:39:49,880
Speaker 1: hearing this word cowlick, which I have to made it

671
00:39:49,920 --> 00:39:52,520
Speaker 1: feel all the more silly and undesirable to have one,

672
00:39:52,560 --> 00:39:55,640
Speaker 1: because the idea of being lickd by a cow, for me,

673
00:39:55,760 --> 00:39:58,520
Speaker 1: it felt rather foolish. I think it's a good name, though,

674
00:39:58,560 --> 00:40:00,800
Speaker 1: because you look at a cow lick a very pronounced

675
00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:02,560
Speaker 1: cowl like and it does kind of look like some

676
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:06,480
Speaker 1: sort of big wet tongue reached out and kind of disrupted.

677
00:40:06,480 --> 00:40:08,480
Speaker 1: It kind of made like a crop circle.

678
00:40:08,120 --> 00:40:08,600
Speaker 2: In your hair.

679
00:40:08,960 --> 00:40:12,200
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I do wonder how I might have felt

680
00:40:12,200 --> 00:40:13,960
Speaker 1: about it if I'd been raised in a culture that

681
00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:16,279
Speaker 1: saw the actual look of a cow as a potentially

682
00:40:16,320 --> 00:40:21,120
Speaker 1: auspicious thing unknown. But I was looking around and reading.

683
00:40:21,800 --> 00:40:23,839
Speaker 1: In some cases these were just like you know, like

684
00:40:23,920 --> 00:40:29,440
Speaker 1: online conversations people were having about different cultural traditions. But

685
00:40:30,560 --> 00:40:34,720
Speaker 1: in parts of India, having two cowlcks is considered lucky

686
00:40:35,560 --> 00:40:37,600
Speaker 1: and or that that child may be a handful and

687
00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:40,960
Speaker 1: I've read that this tradition like is also found in

688
00:40:41,040 --> 00:40:44,360
Speaker 1: other cultures. I was seeing threads where people of Korean

689
00:40:44,360 --> 00:40:49,680
Speaker 1: descent were talking about this as well, where another case

690
00:40:50,360 --> 00:40:52,879
Speaker 1: in which two hair licks meant that the child would

691
00:40:52,880 --> 00:40:55,719
Speaker 1: go on to have two marriages in their life, and

692
00:40:55,760 --> 00:40:57,520
Speaker 1: if you had more than two, it might mean more

693
00:40:57,560 --> 00:41:01,480
Speaker 1: than two marriages. So I would be very interested to

694
00:41:01,520 --> 00:41:03,920
Speaker 1: hear from listeners out there if you have some insight

695
00:41:04,040 --> 00:41:09,720
Speaker 1: on these, you know, you know, I think generally light

696
00:41:09,719 --> 00:41:13,400
Speaker 1: hearted interpretations of what a cow lick might mean for someone,

697
00:41:13,960 --> 00:41:17,000
Speaker 1: you know, especially as scene in a child. Now, I

698
00:41:17,040 --> 00:41:21,200
Speaker 1: want to turn from here to Norse traditions, because there

699
00:41:21,239 --> 00:41:24,720
Speaker 1: is some very important cosmic cow licking that goes on there,

700
00:41:26,080 --> 00:41:29,280
Speaker 1: as detailed in the twelve to twenty work The pros

701
00:41:29,400 --> 00:41:32,560
Speaker 1: at A, two entities emerged from the melting of the

702
00:41:32,560 --> 00:41:36,360
Speaker 1: primordial ice in Neffelheim. The first was, of course, the

703
00:41:36,400 --> 00:41:41,400
Speaker 1: giant Yemir, but the second was the giant cow Uhumla,

704
00:41:42,040 --> 00:41:46,480
Speaker 1: and her milk is said to have sustained Yemir. The

705
00:41:46,560 --> 00:41:49,879
Speaker 1: quote translated, of course, is four milk streams ran from

706
00:41:49,880 --> 00:41:54,879
Speaker 1: her teats, and she fed Yeamer. But then, while how's

707
00:41:54,920 --> 00:41:56,760
Speaker 1: she going to produce this milk, she has to consume

708
00:41:56,840 --> 00:42:00,840
Speaker 1: something herself. And what she does is she the frost

709
00:42:00,880 --> 00:42:06,160
Speaker 1: covered salt stones or the salty rhymestones for her own nourishment.

710
00:42:06,719 --> 00:42:11,400
Speaker 1: And as she licks them, something interesting happens. Depending on

711
00:42:11,440 --> 00:42:14,040
Speaker 1: the actual translation, and I think how you interpret it,

712
00:42:14,239 --> 00:42:17,480
Speaker 1: the rough action of her tongue against the salt stones

713
00:42:17,600 --> 00:42:21,279
Speaker 1: either uncovers a man, first his hair and then the

714
00:42:21,320 --> 00:42:25,080
Speaker 1: rest of him, a man perhaps already within the salt stone,

715
00:42:25,400 --> 00:42:28,160
Speaker 1: kind of like reaching the center of a TUTSI roll pop. Yes,

716
00:42:28,760 --> 00:42:31,960
Speaker 1: Or she licks the salt stone into the shape of

717
00:42:32,000 --> 00:42:36,399
Speaker 1: a man, forming the man out of the stone, kind

718
00:42:36,400 --> 00:42:39,200
Speaker 1: of carving him out of the stone with her tongue,

719
00:42:39,560 --> 00:42:42,000
Speaker 1: or something akin to what we were talking about with

720
00:42:42,040 --> 00:42:46,960
Speaker 1: the bear. The licking by the mammalian mother brings form

721
00:42:47,120 --> 00:42:50,120
Speaker 1: to the formless, And I think the latter is the

722
00:42:50,120 --> 00:42:52,440
Speaker 1: more popular interpretation. Yeah.

723
00:42:52,640 --> 00:42:56,440
Speaker 2: Interesting, Yeah, I could imagine how it might be ambiguous

724
00:42:56,480 --> 00:42:59,520
Speaker 2: if it said something like the cow licked a man

725
00:42:59,600 --> 00:43:03,680
Speaker 2: out of the stone, setting one loose from the stone,

726
00:43:03,760 --> 00:43:05,160
Speaker 2: or turning the stone into a man.

727
00:43:05,480 --> 00:43:07,880
Speaker 1: Yeah. I did a quick looking around and surveying. It

728
00:43:07,880 --> 00:43:13,040
Speaker 1: seems like most scholarly works are discussing it, not in

729
00:43:13,120 --> 00:43:15,520
Speaker 1: terms of revealing, like you know, the man was in

730
00:43:15,560 --> 00:43:18,319
Speaker 1: there to begin with, but she's literally forming him out

731
00:43:18,360 --> 00:43:23,920
Speaker 1: of the stone. So either way though, the individual inside

732
00:43:24,239 --> 00:43:26,759
Speaker 1: the stone or made from the stone, et cetera, is

733
00:43:27,200 --> 00:43:32,560
Speaker 1: important because it's this figure Bury or Burr grandfather of

734
00:43:32,600 --> 00:43:36,480
Speaker 1: Odin and also grandfather of course of Odin's brothers VILLI

735
00:43:36,600 --> 00:43:39,520
Speaker 1: and V and they become the first gods. They are

736
00:43:39,560 --> 00:43:42,440
Speaker 1: the slayers of Yamir. And the earth, of course is

737
00:43:42,440 --> 00:43:45,080
Speaker 1: going to be born out of this dead giant's bones.

738
00:43:47,080 --> 00:43:49,720
Speaker 1: So again interesting once more that we have this idea

739
00:43:50,040 --> 00:43:53,480
Speaker 1: of a mother's licking of a newborn, giving life and

740
00:43:53,560 --> 00:43:56,839
Speaker 1: perhaps echoing the ideas concerning the bear forming the birth

741
00:43:56,920 --> 00:44:00,120
Speaker 1: mass into a cup or calf. And I included an

742
00:44:00,160 --> 00:44:05,840
Speaker 1: illustration of from the pros here, and you can, folks

743
00:44:05,840 --> 00:44:08,600
Speaker 1: can look this up if you look up the cow

744
00:44:08,719 --> 00:44:12,840
Speaker 1: in question Odumla on say Wikipedia, you can see this

745
00:44:12,920 --> 00:44:15,440
Speaker 1: illustration of the big cow. You see the big tongue there,

746
00:44:15,640 --> 00:44:18,640
Speaker 1: you see the four streams of milk. And I believe

747
00:44:18,719 --> 00:44:23,040
Speaker 1: we see the figure being licked from the stone here

748
00:44:23,080 --> 00:44:24,000
Speaker 1: from the salt stone.

749
00:44:24,280 --> 00:44:26,759
Speaker 2: Oh okay, that's what that is. At first, I thought

750
00:44:26,800 --> 00:44:27,080
Speaker 2: that was you.

751
00:44:27,200 --> 00:44:27,439
Speaker 1: Mer.

752
00:44:29,440 --> 00:44:32,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, doesn't look happy to be being licked out of

753
00:44:32,480 --> 00:44:36,440
Speaker 2: the stone. He's got a big grimace on his face, like, oh, brother,

754
00:44:36,600 --> 00:44:37,800
Speaker 2: I got to live in this world.

755
00:44:38,000 --> 00:44:41,000
Speaker 1: Didn't ask for this, But here we are, all right,

756
00:44:41,080 --> 00:44:42,880
Speaker 1: And then I want to come back to the world

757
00:44:42,880 --> 00:44:44,879
Speaker 1: of dogs. I believe we talked a little bit about

758
00:44:44,920 --> 00:44:48,080
Speaker 1: dogs licking and also about the idea that a dog's

759
00:44:48,160 --> 00:44:53,160
Speaker 1: lick would have a healing power to it, and yeah,

760
00:44:53,200 --> 00:44:56,600
Speaker 1: this was a widespread idea in the ancient world, and

761
00:44:56,640 --> 00:45:01,279
Speaker 1: we discussed it's it's use in some ma interpretations, and

762
00:45:01,280 --> 00:45:04,799
Speaker 1: so we have another another chapter of that here to

763
00:45:04,880 --> 00:45:08,200
Speaker 1: discuss specifically, I want to talk about dog related rituals

764
00:45:08,200 --> 00:45:12,560
Speaker 1: attributed to the Hittites, an ancient Anatolian Bronze Age empire

765
00:45:12,840 --> 00:45:15,680
Speaker 1: in what is now Turkey, and there's some bleed over

766
00:45:15,760 --> 00:45:19,359
Speaker 1: into some related groups as well. Of note here there's

767
00:45:19,360 --> 00:45:23,080
Speaker 1: a fair amount of scholarly discussion about the relationship between

768
00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:27,000
Speaker 1: actual historic Hittites and the people described as Hittites in

769
00:45:27,040 --> 00:45:27,960
Speaker 1: the Bible.

770
00:45:28,440 --> 00:45:31,680
Speaker 2: Like questioning whether that's actually referring to the same people.

771
00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:35,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I like, are the Hittites that we know

772
00:45:35,760 --> 00:45:39,760
Speaker 1: from other literature and archaeological evidence. Are they the same

773
00:45:39,800 --> 00:45:41,759
Speaker 1: as the people called Hittites in the Bible? And there

774
00:45:41,760 --> 00:45:46,040
Speaker 1: seems to be a fair amount of disagreeance that basically

775
00:45:46,160 --> 00:45:48,200
Speaker 1: they certainly don't line up one for one, and they

776
00:45:48,200 --> 00:45:51,200
Speaker 1: may be rather disaligned. But I didn't have time to

777
00:45:51,200 --> 00:45:53,880
Speaker 1: get into it too deeply in my own research, I see,

778
00:45:54,280 --> 00:45:56,279
Speaker 1: so I looked at a couple of papers on this.

779
00:45:56,680 --> 00:45:59,560
Speaker 1: An older nineteen ninety two were titled The Puppy in

780
00:45:59,640 --> 00:46:03,400
Speaker 1: Hittie Ritual by Billy Jean Collins, published by the University

781
00:46:03,400 --> 00:46:07,279
Speaker 1: of Chicago's Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, as

782
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:13,719
Speaker 1: well as the more recent Puppy Sacrifice in Sinophagi from

783
00:46:13,800 --> 00:46:19,359
Speaker 1: early Philistine tel Nickney Ekron, contextualized by livtov at All,

784
00:46:19,400 --> 00:46:24,040
Speaker 1: published in the journal Jamas in twenty eighteen.

785
00:46:25,040 --> 00:46:29,960
Speaker 2: Wait, hold on puppy sacrifice and Sinophagi. That dog eating.

786
00:46:30,560 --> 00:46:32,880
Speaker 1: Yes, so I'm not going to talk as much about

787
00:46:32,880 --> 00:46:35,680
Speaker 1: dog eating, but I am going to talk a little

788
00:46:35,719 --> 00:46:38,160
Speaker 1: bit about puppy sacrifice. So I'm not going to get

789
00:46:38,160 --> 00:46:40,799
Speaker 1: into gross details at all, and not everything I'm going

790
00:46:40,880 --> 00:46:44,040
Speaker 1: to discuss is going to involve puppies being sacrificed outright,

791
00:46:44,360 --> 00:46:46,879
Speaker 1: But I totally understand if anyone wants to go ahead

792
00:46:46,920 --> 00:46:49,800
Speaker 1: and call it here and close this episode out. But

793
00:46:50,960 --> 00:46:52,360
Speaker 1: trust me that I'm not going to get We're not

794
00:46:52,360 --> 00:46:53,399
Speaker 1: going to get too gross here.

795
00:46:53,600 --> 00:46:58,440
Speaker 2: Well, I understand. Also my reaction is an unfair dog bias,

796
00:46:58,600 --> 00:47:00,560
Speaker 2: you know. Well, now, I mean to talk about animal

797
00:47:00,640 --> 00:47:02,160
Speaker 2: sacrifices of other kinds a lot.

798
00:47:03,000 --> 00:47:06,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's humans have a special relationship with dogs,

799
00:47:06,960 --> 00:47:08,680
Speaker 1: and you know, even if you're not a dog person,

800
00:47:08,960 --> 00:47:10,799
Speaker 1: I'm not much of a dog person, but I of

801
00:47:10,840 --> 00:47:14,200
Speaker 1: course I don't want puppies to be sacrificed. I don't

802
00:47:14,239 --> 00:47:18,160
Speaker 1: like that idea. Puppies are cute, undeniably, and yeah, and

803
00:47:18,320 --> 00:47:23,040
Speaker 1: humans and dogs have a special relationship and it's, you know,

804
00:47:23,120 --> 00:47:25,120
Speaker 1: part of our culture and part of who we are,

805
00:47:25,520 --> 00:47:27,400
Speaker 1: whether there's one in your house or in your lap

806
00:47:28,160 --> 00:47:28,360
Speaker 1: or not.

807
00:47:29,000 --> 00:47:31,279
Speaker 2: Let me steal my emotions, and we will. I want

808
00:47:31,280 --> 00:47:32,040
Speaker 2: to learn about this.

809
00:47:32,320 --> 00:47:36,400
Speaker 1: Yes, So the recent the more. The more recent paper

810
00:47:36,400 --> 00:47:40,080
Speaker 1: that I reference here concerns a fine in Ekron, historically

811
00:47:40,120 --> 00:47:43,279
Speaker 1: a Canaanite and then Philistine city, where evidence of a

812
00:47:43,600 --> 00:47:48,000
Speaker 1: beheaded sacrifice dog dated to twelfth to tenth centuries BC

813
00:47:48,360 --> 00:47:52,160
Speaker 1: during the Iron Age are discussed, and then the remains

814
00:47:52,200 --> 00:47:54,440
Speaker 1: here are thought to be tied to the sorts of

815
00:47:54,560 --> 00:47:58,319
Speaker 1: rights that we'll be discussing here, and in this case,

816
00:47:58,360 --> 00:48:02,399
Speaker 1: not a funerary rite a quote, non elite domestic right,

817
00:48:03,239 --> 00:48:05,440
Speaker 1: So in other words, not something that was just done

818
00:48:05,480 --> 00:48:08,400
Speaker 1: by you know, for the king and queen, by the

819
00:48:08,480 --> 00:48:12,160
Speaker 1: king and Queen's you know, you know, wizards or priests,

820
00:48:12,520 --> 00:48:16,000
Speaker 1: but rather something that would be the part of non

821
00:48:16,040 --> 00:48:17,400
Speaker 1: elite domestic.

822
00:48:17,000 --> 00:48:18,759
Speaker 2: Life, household magic. Yeah.

823
00:48:18,840 --> 00:48:21,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, So essentially this is how the issue breaks down.

824
00:48:21,760 --> 00:48:24,920
Speaker 1: So we know from literature and archaeological evidence that the

825
00:48:25,000 --> 00:48:30,680
Speaker 1: Hittites valued dogs as trained herders, as hunters, and as

826
00:48:30,760 --> 00:48:34,760
Speaker 1: guardians guard dogs, but they also made use of young,

827
00:48:34,920 --> 00:48:39,240
Speaker 1: as yet untrained dogs, puppies, which they would have ready

828
00:48:39,280 --> 00:48:43,440
Speaker 1: access to, and they would sometimes be used in cases

829
00:48:43,480 --> 00:48:47,719
Speaker 1: of magical sacrifice. You know, this kind of part of

830
00:48:47,760 --> 00:48:50,760
Speaker 1: this comes back again. This is a culture that prized dogs,

831
00:48:50,800 --> 00:48:54,920
Speaker 1: but a puppy is untrained, they're around, they're easy to acquire.

832
00:48:55,440 --> 00:49:00,000
Speaker 1: And this also ties into some of these prevailing eyes

833
00:49:00,040 --> 00:49:02,080
Speaker 1: ideas that were present in the ancient world. Who've always

834
00:49:02,160 --> 00:49:05,799
Speaker 1: that we've already referred to that dogs have some sort

835
00:49:05,840 --> 00:49:09,640
Speaker 1: of a healing property to them. So the basic idea

836
00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:13,560
Speaker 1: here is that in specific cases of ritual is that

837
00:49:13,600 --> 00:49:17,200
Speaker 1: the puppy would serve as a sacrifice in a transfer

838
00:49:17,360 --> 00:49:20,720
Speaker 1: ritual by which the dog would lick the afflicted human

839
00:49:21,120 --> 00:49:25,120
Speaker 1: and in doing so absorb that affliction, and then the

840
00:49:25,160 --> 00:49:30,560
Speaker 1: dog would be ritually sacrificed. So again the tradition here's

841
00:49:30,560 --> 00:49:32,800
Speaker 1: a link to others who had discussed before the idea

842
00:49:32,800 --> 00:49:36,680
Speaker 1: that dogs heal via their licking. The ancient Greeks believed

843
00:49:36,719 --> 00:49:39,719
Speaker 1: in this, and also, according to Collins, would engage in

844
00:49:39,719 --> 00:49:43,240
Speaker 1: a kind of transfer ritual of their own. The dog

845
00:49:43,280 --> 00:49:47,239
Speaker 1: would lick an afflicted individual, absorb the illness, and then

846
00:49:47,239 --> 00:49:50,279
Speaker 1: the dog would be killed and examined to determine the

847
00:49:50,360 --> 00:49:54,279
Speaker 1: nature of the human malady. So in the Greek case,

848
00:49:54,400 --> 00:49:56,600
Speaker 1: not a situation all right, we've driven the illness into

849
00:49:56,600 --> 00:49:58,160
Speaker 1: the dog, and now we must kill the dog. But

850
00:49:58,280 --> 00:50:01,279
Speaker 1: rather we've driven the illness into to the dog, and

851
00:50:01,360 --> 00:50:03,719
Speaker 1: now let us examine the dog to see what the

852
00:50:03,760 --> 00:50:06,760
Speaker 1: sickness is, so we can then treat the human. Collins

853
00:50:06,800 --> 00:50:09,920
Speaker 1: also points out that among the Spartans, dogs were sacrificed

854
00:50:10,000 --> 00:50:13,759
Speaker 1: by the cult of their god of War, and that

855
00:50:13,800 --> 00:50:15,759
Speaker 1: it was thought that the lick of a dog could

856
00:50:15,840 --> 00:50:22,080
Speaker 1: cure blindness, and perhaps related, Hippocrates suggested dog meat as

857
00:50:22,120 --> 00:50:25,439
Speaker 1: being good for the eyes. Like you having ailments, will

858
00:50:25,600 --> 00:50:30,000
Speaker 1: cook up some dog meat that will help. Plenty the

859
00:50:30,040 --> 00:50:33,279
Speaker 1: Elder also wrote of such uses for the puppy, specifically

860
00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:37,239
Speaker 1: that a blind puppy, and this is playing off the

861
00:50:37,280 --> 00:50:42,239
Speaker 1: observation that dogs are born blind much like bears are

862
00:50:42,280 --> 00:50:44,880
Speaker 1: born blind. As we've discussed, you know, their eyes are not,

863
00:50:44,920 --> 00:50:48,040
Speaker 1: you know, fully operational and open and so forth, and

864
00:50:48,440 --> 00:50:51,279
Speaker 1: then by this view, are kind of healed by their

865
00:50:51,800 --> 00:50:55,640
Speaker 1: or given sight via their mother's licking. Plenty rights that

866
00:50:55,680 --> 00:50:58,040
Speaker 1: you could take a blind puppy press it to a

867
00:50:58,080 --> 00:51:01,839
Speaker 1: sick person's abdomen for three during which the puppy would

868
00:51:01,840 --> 00:51:07,000
Speaker 1: absorb the illness of the individual and die of said illness. Again,

869
00:51:07,800 --> 00:51:11,200
Speaker 1: nobody wants the idea of struggling up to a puppy

870
00:51:11,280 --> 00:51:15,080
Speaker 1: until it dies, but this was one idea that was

871
00:51:15,160 --> 00:51:18,839
Speaker 1: explored in the ancient world. By the way, Plenty is

872
00:51:18,880 --> 00:51:22,000
Speaker 1: full of eye wisdom elsewhere in the natural history as well.

873
00:51:22,239 --> 00:51:25,080
Speaker 1: Here's a quote in translation. It is said that goats

874
00:51:25,080 --> 00:51:26,960
Speaker 1: can see by night as well as they can in

875
00:51:26,960 --> 00:51:30,040
Speaker 1: the daytime, and that consequently a diet of goat's liver

876
00:51:30,160 --> 00:51:33,279
Speaker 1: restores twilight's sight to persons suffering from what is called

877
00:51:33,360 --> 00:51:34,120
Speaker 1: night blindness.

878
00:51:35,280 --> 00:51:40,080
Speaker 2: Interesting, Okay, I wonder why the liver, Well.

879
00:51:39,840 --> 00:51:43,200
Speaker 1: You know, that's where most of the goat teness is.

880
00:51:43,840 --> 00:51:48,480
Speaker 2: I mean, does the flavor Yeah, I mean I don't know.

881
00:51:48,600 --> 00:51:51,800
Speaker 1: You know, you can certainly get into the health potential

882
00:51:51,840 --> 00:51:55,920
Speaker 1: health benefits of eating a mammal's liver, as well as

883
00:51:55,920 --> 00:51:59,120
Speaker 1: some of the health risks in some animals. So I

884
00:51:59,120 --> 00:52:01,640
Speaker 1: don't know. It's one of these things that without going

885
00:52:01,800 --> 00:52:03,799
Speaker 1: actually looking into it in depth, you know, there might

886
00:52:03,840 --> 00:52:05,440
Speaker 1: be some wisdom to it. There might be something in

887
00:52:05,480 --> 00:52:08,960
Speaker 1: an animal's liver that would help people with certain maladies.

888
00:52:08,960 --> 00:52:11,120
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's gonna actually help with night blindness,

889
00:52:11,880 --> 00:52:12,759
Speaker 1: but there you.

890
00:52:12,719 --> 00:52:16,880
Speaker 2: Are, public service announcement, never read a polar bear's liver exactly.

891
00:52:28,239 --> 00:52:31,840
Speaker 1: Collins also adds that there was a medieval German ritual,

892
00:52:32,520 --> 00:52:34,880
Speaker 1: and I'm guessing this is sort of like a folk ritual,

893
00:52:34,960 --> 00:52:39,279
Speaker 1: folk magic, very much domestic in nature, where you could

894
00:52:39,360 --> 00:52:42,520
Speaker 1: rid yourself a fever or some other ailment by placing

895
00:52:42,520 --> 00:52:46,040
Speaker 1: a bowl of sweet milk before a dog and reciting

896
00:52:46,080 --> 00:52:49,600
Speaker 1: the following good luck you hound, may you be sick

897
00:52:49,719 --> 00:52:53,680
Speaker 1: and I be sound this. I think the rhyme in

898
00:52:53,719 --> 00:52:57,120
Speaker 1: German would be gossooned and hooned. So the idea is

899
00:52:57,160 --> 00:53:01,480
Speaker 1: the dog drinks, then the human drinks sickness transferred to

900
00:53:01,520 --> 00:53:04,640
Speaker 1: the dog. And I love how this pre germ theory

901
00:53:04,640 --> 00:53:07,600
Speaker 1: folk ritual actually seems to invert the way that an

902
00:53:07,640 --> 00:53:11,200
Speaker 1: illness might conceivably be transferred between two participants.

903
00:53:11,719 --> 00:53:12,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's interesting.

904
00:53:13,320 --> 00:53:16,359
Speaker 1: So again the Hittites, where we're not standouts in any

905
00:53:16,360 --> 00:53:20,640
Speaker 1: of their beliefs. Here she references the Hittite ritual of

906
00:53:21,000 --> 00:53:28,000
Speaker 1: Zui zu Wi in this text, by which a puppy

907
00:53:28,080 --> 00:53:32,160
Speaker 1: is called on to absorb one's sicknesses. Quote, just as

908
00:53:32,200 --> 00:53:35,200
Speaker 1: the puppy licks its own nine body parts in the

909
00:53:35,239 --> 00:53:38,880
Speaker 1: same way, let it lick up the illness in the

910
00:53:38,920 --> 00:53:43,160
Speaker 1: subject's body parts. And then each part is named, including

911
00:53:43,160 --> 00:53:47,120
Speaker 1: the butt. Just go through just the whole anatomy and saying,

912
00:53:47,520 --> 00:53:49,600
Speaker 1: just there's like a chant to it, like a very

913
00:53:49,640 --> 00:53:52,920
Speaker 1: much a ritualistic invocation to it. As the puppy then

914
00:53:53,040 --> 00:53:55,440
Speaker 1: licks the different parts of the human body and brings

915
00:53:55,440 --> 00:54:00,760
Speaker 1: about healing via transference. Wow. Yeah, And I'm not. I'm

916
00:54:00,840 --> 00:54:04,439
Speaker 1: not certain that in this particular ritual the dog's death

917
00:54:04,560 --> 00:54:09,480
Speaker 1: is inherently implied. Elsewhere in Hittite rituals and ideas presented

918
00:54:09,520 --> 00:54:12,040
Speaker 1: that the dead puppy of some sort of transfer like

919
00:54:12,080 --> 00:54:15,080
Speaker 1: this could be buried, and in doing so, you are

920
00:54:15,160 --> 00:54:20,040
Speaker 1: burying the illness as well. I don't know about you, Joe,

921
00:54:20,080 --> 00:54:21,920
Speaker 1: but in thinking about this, I was reminded of a

922
00:54:21,960 --> 00:54:24,360
Speaker 1: topic we've discussed on the show before, the story of

923
00:54:24,440 --> 00:54:29,000
Speaker 1: Jesus casting the demon Legion into the pigs and then

924
00:54:29,040 --> 00:54:31,560
Speaker 1: the pigs dying very much an act of transference.

925
00:54:31,800 --> 00:54:34,600
Speaker 2: Yes, always seemed interesting to me. The logic of that

926
00:54:34,800 --> 00:54:37,879
Speaker 2: in the story, that the demon can't just be removed

927
00:54:38,000 --> 00:54:41,480
Speaker 2: to go nowhere, it has to be sent into something else.

928
00:54:41,640 --> 00:54:44,040
Speaker 2: The pigs must be there to receive the demon.

929
00:54:44,480 --> 00:54:48,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I detect a certain amount of kinship between

930
00:54:48,600 --> 00:54:55,359
Speaker 1: these two ideas. Collins also outlines a Hittite apotropaic practice

931
00:54:55,680 --> 00:54:57,680
Speaker 1: that does not involve a dead dog. We're going to

932
00:54:57,800 --> 00:55:00,760
Speaker 1: end on a nice light note here, but this practice

933
00:55:00,880 --> 00:55:03,799
Speaker 1: is a practice by which a tallow puppy, so kind

934
00:55:03,800 --> 00:55:06,880
Speaker 1: of like a soap or a candle puppy, was placed

935
00:55:06,920 --> 00:55:10,680
Speaker 1: in the King and Queen's bedchamber at night to keep

936
00:55:10,800 --> 00:55:13,120
Speaker 1: evil at bay in the same way that the adult

937
00:55:13,239 --> 00:55:16,520
Speaker 1: guard dogs, or I think the term that she uses

938
00:55:16,680 --> 00:55:18,880
Speaker 1: the dogs of the table, and I think this is

939
00:55:18,880 --> 00:55:22,560
Speaker 1: also referred to in the writings of Homer as well,

940
00:55:22,600 --> 00:55:25,319
Speaker 1: the dogs of the table being the dogs that hang

941
00:55:25,360 --> 00:55:28,160
Speaker 1: around you and eat food scraps that you throw out

942
00:55:28,200 --> 00:55:30,520
Speaker 1: from under the table. They're also your protectors, but I

943
00:55:30,560 --> 00:55:32,800
Speaker 1: guess they are not allowed to sleep with you, or

944
00:55:32,880 --> 00:55:34,759
Speaker 1: they're not in the bedchamber, or maybe they's just a

945
00:55:34,800 --> 00:55:37,720
Speaker 1: sleep and kind of lousy, or they can't protect against

946
00:55:37,719 --> 00:55:43,600
Speaker 1: supernatural threats, and therefore you need this magical tallow puppy,

947
00:55:44,200 --> 00:55:47,279
Speaker 1: the soap puppy that's gonna keep the enemy at bay

948
00:55:47,400 --> 00:55:47,879
Speaker 1: at night.

949
00:55:48,320 --> 00:55:52,279
Speaker 2: Well, this also reminds me of ancient Mesopotamian traditions we've

950
00:55:52,280 --> 00:55:55,319
Speaker 2: talked about on the show before, of apotropeic figurines, that

951
00:55:56,000 --> 00:55:58,960
Speaker 2: you would have a guard figurine some kind of might

952
00:55:59,000 --> 00:56:01,640
Speaker 2: represent a dema or might represent a kind of like

953
00:56:01,719 --> 00:56:05,080
Speaker 2: strong human soldier or something like that, a figurine that

954
00:56:05,120 --> 00:56:07,319
Speaker 2: would protect you in some way, maybe around your bed

955
00:56:07,360 --> 00:56:08,080
Speaker 2: while you sleep.

956
00:56:08,360 --> 00:56:10,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly, very much the same thread.

957
00:56:10,880 --> 00:56:15,319
Speaker 2: But here it's c puppy. Yes, all right. Are we

958
00:56:15,360 --> 00:56:17,280
Speaker 2: done with licking for the time being?

959
00:56:17,520 --> 00:56:21,000
Speaker 1: I think so, unless we get just a really intriguing

960
00:56:21,040 --> 00:56:23,640
Speaker 1: bit of listener mail, which is always a possibility, So

961
00:56:24,920 --> 00:56:27,920
Speaker 1: at least conceivably for the time being, we're going to

962
00:56:27,920 --> 00:56:30,960
Speaker 1: go ahead and close the book on licking. Okay, just

963
00:56:31,000 --> 00:56:33,439
Speaker 1: a reminder for everyone out there that Stuff to Blow

964
00:56:33,480 --> 00:56:35,759
Speaker 1: Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast of

965
00:56:35,800 --> 00:56:39,080
Speaker 1: core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, short form episodes on

966
00:56:39,120 --> 00:56:42,120
Speaker 1: Wednesdays and on Fridays. We set aside most serious concerns

967
00:56:42,120 --> 00:56:45,520
Speaker 1: to just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.

968
00:56:45,560 --> 00:56:47,359
Speaker 1: I didn't even get to my film notes. I had

969
00:56:47,360 --> 00:56:51,360
Speaker 1: some notes about angels licking people's eyeballs and the prophecy

970
00:56:51,440 --> 00:56:54,880
Speaker 1: three to learn their history, something that I think has

971
00:56:55,040 --> 00:56:58,279
Speaker 1: no real counterpart in actual folklore and mythology.

972
00:56:58,680 --> 00:57:01,359
Speaker 2: Well maybe not for history learning purposes, but we have

973
00:57:01,440 --> 00:57:05,640
Speaker 2: talked about gods licking people's eyeballs in Egyptian magic. Yes,

974
00:57:05,719 --> 00:57:06,799
Speaker 2: probably the whole deal there.

975
00:57:06,960 --> 00:57:08,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so it could be it could be related

976
00:57:09,000 --> 00:57:10,960
Speaker 1: to that. I just don't know that I've ever read

977
00:57:11,000 --> 00:57:17,040
Speaker 1: anything concerning angels per se. Licking eyeballs, but yeah, there's

978
00:57:17,120 --> 00:57:20,400
Speaker 1: likely a connection there. I also had some notes about

979
00:57:20,480 --> 00:57:23,680
Speaker 1: the other prophecy movie, the nineteen seventy five Bear movie,

980
00:57:24,000 --> 00:57:29,160
Speaker 1: in which the mutant bear is essentially a partially formless mass,

981
00:57:29,920 --> 00:57:32,480
Speaker 1: and I had some notes there where I was probably

982
00:57:32,480 --> 00:57:34,440
Speaker 1: reading too much into all of this, where it's like,

983
00:57:34,720 --> 00:57:37,280
Speaker 1: is it the idea that instead of the environment is

984
00:57:37,320 --> 00:57:40,920
Speaker 1: not nurtured by humans, it is polluted by humans, resulting

985
00:57:40,960 --> 00:57:44,000
Speaker 1: in mutant bears. There are also some mutant bear cubs

986
00:57:44,000 --> 00:57:46,680
Speaker 1: in that film as well, But like I say, I'm

987
00:57:46,680 --> 00:57:49,360
Speaker 1: probably reaching with all of that.

988
00:57:49,720 --> 00:57:51,160
Speaker 2: One of these days, I mean have to see it.

989
00:57:51,600 --> 00:57:53,840
Speaker 1: I don't know. I tried to watch it once. It

990
00:57:53,880 --> 00:57:57,160
Speaker 1: immediately begins with the death of like nine dogs, so

991
00:57:59,600 --> 00:58:02,680
Speaker 1: it's a it's a more serious film than Killer Mutant

992
00:58:02,680 --> 00:58:06,600
Speaker 1: Bear might make you think it's gonna be anyway. That's sorry,

993
00:58:06,680 --> 00:58:09,560
Speaker 1: That once again stuff to blow your mind. Find us

994
00:58:09,560 --> 00:58:13,480
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts, subscribe and listen to us

995
00:58:13,600 --> 00:58:14,280
Speaker 1: whenever you like.

996
00:58:15,640 --> 00:58:19,360
Speaker 2: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

997
00:58:19,640 --> 00:58:21,080
Speaker 2: If you would like to get in touch with us

998
00:58:21,120 --> 00:58:23,520
Speaker 2: with feedback on this episode or any other to suggest

999
00:58:23,520 --> 00:58:25,520
Speaker 2: a topic for the future, or just to say hello.

1000
00:58:25,880 --> 00:58:28,560
Speaker 2: You can email us at contact Stuff to Blow Your

1001
00:58:28,600 --> 00:58:36,919
Speaker 2: Mind dot com.

1002
00:58:37,080 --> 00:58:39,600
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio.

1003
00:58:39,920 --> 00:58:42,880
Speaker 2: For more podcasts My heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1004
00:58:43,040 --> 00:59:01,600
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows

1005
00:59:01,680 --> 00:59:03,160
Speaker 2: have FOCU