Speaker 1: Come out of the man thou let spirit. What is
Speaker 1: thy name? My name is Legion, because yawnny, and he
Speaker 1: besought him much that he would not send them away
Speaker 1: out of the country. Now there was there nigh unto
Speaker 1: the mountains, a great herd of swine feeting, and all
Speaker 1: the devils besought him, saying, sitting us among the peaks,
Speaker 1: allow us to go into them, and forthwith Jesus gave
Speaker 1: them leave, and the unclean spirits went out and entered
Speaker 1: into the swine, and the herd ran violently down a
Speaker 1: steep place into the sea, and were choked from the sea.
Speaker 1: Welcome Stuff to Blow your Mind. A production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, you welcome to Stuff
Speaker 1: to blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and
Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick. And it's still October, so of course
Speaker 1: we're letting out a great demonic oink today, Robert, I know. So,
Speaker 1: so you wanted to talk about a demoniac today. And
Speaker 1: this was a very exciting idea to me because this
Speaker 1: story in the Bible about the garrison or gathering demoniac
Speaker 1: has long been one of my favorites, but also because
Speaker 1: it's a story that concerns possessed swine. I think it
Speaker 1: gives us a great opportunity to talk about pig technology. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this is a really fun one. I guess
Speaker 1: you'd say. This is definitely a section of the New
Speaker 1: Testament that I remember turning to when I would if
Speaker 1: I was bored in church growing up, because it it
Speaker 1: is such a weird little scene, you know, Jesus meeting
Speaker 1: with um an individual that's possessed not by one demon,
Speaker 1: but by like thousands of demons, a legion of demons
Speaker 1: and uh, and then negotiating them out of the man,
Speaker 1: but not only that, sending them then into a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of pigs, which subsequently fall off the side of
Speaker 1: a cliff into the ocean. Inge rown right. And there
Speaker 1: are plenty of other stories in the New Testament about
Speaker 1: Jesus doing various healings, doing exorcisms, so that that happens elsewhere.
Speaker 1: But it's like the setting and the weird conclusion of
Speaker 1: this story that make it so memorable going into the pigs.
Speaker 1: So maybe we should look at the story in a
Speaker 1: little bit of context and then come back to talk
Speaker 1: about thoughts about it's you know, historical and theological role,
Speaker 1: and then thoughts about pigs as animals and uh and
Speaker 1: what a stampede of of devilish intelligence they might bring forth.
Speaker 1: So I guess let's start with the story in the
Speaker 1: context of the Gospel of Mark. And I think that's
Speaker 1: a good place to start, because pretty much all scholars
Speaker 1: agree that Mark is the earliest of the four canonical gospels,
Speaker 1: since it's clear that the other gospels used Mark as
Speaker 1: a source and like they made variations on it according
Speaker 1: to their storytelling priorities, and probably also from the use
Speaker 1: of other sources. Uh. Now, this story does also appear
Speaker 1: in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, but with some changes. Uh. So.
Speaker 1: In the Gospel of Mark, the story happens in chapter five,
Speaker 1: and it's right after a chapter where Jesus is out
Speaker 1: preaching to a crowd. He tells the crowd a bunch
Speaker 1: of familiar parables, like the parable of the lamp under
Speaker 1: the bushel basket and the parable of the mustard seed.
Speaker 1: You know, if you have faith is only the size
Speaker 1: of a mustard seed, you can do great things, hits right. Uh.
Speaker 1: And in the chapters before this in Mark, he's done
Speaker 1: some various preaching, some healing. I think he heals the paralytic,
Speaker 1: he heals a man with a withered hand. But so
Speaker 1: at the end of this UH, at the fourth chapter,
Speaker 1: after he's been doing this preaching, Jesus says, okay, let's
Speaker 1: go across the sea, which is taken to refer to
Speaker 1: the Sea of Galilee. It's a body of water UH
Speaker 1: in the area. So Jesus and the disciples leave behind
Speaker 1: the crowds. They get in the boat to cross the water,
Speaker 1: and on the way across, a big storm comes up,
Speaker 1: and the disciples are all shaken in their boots. But
Speaker 1: then Jesus wakes up and he says, peace be still,
Speaker 1: and the storm is replaced with dead calm. And then
Speaker 1: Jesus goes on to immediately shame his disciples for being afraid, saying,
Speaker 1: have you still no faith? And they're all of course
Speaker 1: amazed by his powers, saying who is this then that
Speaker 1: even the wind and the sea obey him. So I think,
Speaker 1: in the context of the Gospel story, UH, this preacher
Speaker 1: Jesus has been telling parables that shows great wisdom about
Speaker 1: the coming Kingdom of God, and he's showing more and
Speaker 1: more direct power himself all the time, not just as
Speaker 1: a teacher, but as possibly some kind of sorcerer or
Speaker 1: even divine being. And that's when we get to the
Speaker 1: demoniac here. So they get to the other side of
Speaker 1: the Sea of Galilee, and Mark says it's in the
Speaker 1: country of the Garacenes, but other gospels say it's in
Speaker 1: a different place, the country of the Maternes. And that's
Speaker 1: why they're different names for this story, the gathering Swine,
Speaker 1: the gathering demoniac, the Guarristine and swine the Garristine demoniac.
Speaker 1: But wherever it is, we immediately meet this man out
Speaker 1: of the tombs. Yeah. And it's it's worth noting that,
Speaker 1: you know, the differences in the other two gospels. Um,
Speaker 1: in Matthew, for instance, it's not one man out of
Speaker 1: the tomb, but two men out of the tomb. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then also in Luke, it's one man again, but
Speaker 1: this time he's also naked, as if to you know,
Speaker 1: really stress the feral nature of the individual. Well, yes,
Speaker 1: and then Luke's telling of the story, Uh, it's I
Speaker 1: think it's that's the one where it's stressed that he
Speaker 1: was naked before he got the demons cast out, and
Speaker 1: then he puts on clothes at once the demons are
Speaker 1: out of him, right, and then sometimes in like retellings
Speaker 1: I've noticed, especially in artistic depictions of this scene, sometimes
Speaker 1: the artists seemed to just pick and choose from all three,
Speaker 1: you know. So I saw one where it was two
Speaker 1: naked individuals serving as the men of the tomb. Oh,
Speaker 1: this is a very common thing that happens. Because you've got,
Speaker 1: you know, different versions of the same story that appear
Speaker 1: across the four Gospels. Sometimes people will just, like as
Speaker 1: modern readers come, bind them all into one, so they'll
Speaker 1: put all the elements there next to each other in
Speaker 1: ways that don't always make sense, but it can be funny.
Speaker 1: So what follows is, yeah, an exorcism scene, you know,
Speaker 1: one that's maybe not as as dramatic as modern horror
Speaker 1: viewers would would hope for. It's a little more more
Speaker 1: of a negotiation in some respects. Yeah, but yeah, on
Speaker 1: the face of it, we have a very disturbed individual
Speaker 1: who seems to live among the tombs and abuses himself
Speaker 1: with rocks, like scratching himself up with rocks. Yeah, we're
Speaker 1: told he lives in the graveyard, but he spends day
Speaker 1: and night prowling the graveyard in the mountains, bruising himself
Speaker 1: with rocks and howling. Yeah, and then of course when
Speaker 1: Jesus shows up, right, we get the the unclean spirits.
Speaker 1: Immediately they start begging Jesus like they recognize his power,
Speaker 1: which I think is a thing that's supposed to be
Speaker 1: important in the story. Yeah, they realized they don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of bargaining strength her into this. It's like
Speaker 1: when the bad Cops shows up in the interrogation room.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh no, yeah, now we're we've been getting
Speaker 1: away with this, but now we're in trouble. And so
Speaker 1: they immediately begged Jesus not to send them away. They
Speaker 1: reveal their name, which I think we can come back
Speaker 1: to that, but that might be a theologically significant thing.
Speaker 1: They revealed their name is Legion, as in a large
Speaker 1: Roman military unit consisting of more than a thousand soldiers.
Speaker 1: It was different numbers at different times. Yeah. I was
Speaker 1: looking at at various modern translations, and there's at least
Speaker 1: one translation that just said our name is a lot
Speaker 1: because there are a lot of us. I mean, I
Speaker 1: do think that's sort of what it was supposed to mean,
Speaker 1: but but it lacks that right you know, like, what
Speaker 1: if it was the name is a whole message us,
Speaker 1: Like what if the film was The Exorcist three colon
Speaker 1: a lot instead of Legion, which which of course is
Speaker 1: referring back to this very this very line. Uh. Though
Speaker 1: it might also be significant that Legion is like a
Speaker 1: Roman concept because of course at the time, like a
Speaker 1: huge theme of the Gospels is that the people, the
Speaker 1: Jewish people are being occupied by the Romans, and there
Speaker 1: are a lot of sort of rebellious sentiments and anti
Speaker 1: Roman ideas. Yeah, yeah, and when we'll definitely come back
Speaker 1: to some of the Roman elements here. Yeah. But to
Speaker 1: conclude the story, of course, this was in the opening
Speaker 1: passage we read. But Jesus commands the demons out. They
Speaker 1: asked him to send them into a flock of pigs nearby,
Speaker 1: and Jesus is like, okay, take the pigs. So he
Speaker 1: sends them into the pigs, and then the pigs immediately
Speaker 1: go stampeding down into the water of the Sea of
Speaker 1: Galilee to their doom. So I see overall that I
Speaker 1: think this story in its place in the Gospel of
Speaker 1: Mark is kind of an escalation moment. Like Jesus keeps
Speaker 1: showing greater and greater power, not just wisdom and teaching,
Speaker 1: not just power over the winds and the seas, but
Speaker 1: now even over a legion of demons. And so all
Speaker 1: the disciples are of course like, oh wow, how you
Speaker 1: know he's he's so powerful. They keep emphasizing that this
Speaker 1: is even more powerful than we thought he was before.
Speaker 1: So I was looking around for a little more information
Speaker 1: on this than I read A Spirit Possession and the
Speaker 1: Garrison h Demoniac by J. Duncan M. Derrett from The
Speaker 1: journal Man in nine and he made the following points
Speaker 1: about it. The first of all, he points out there
Speaker 1: are no really important textual textual variance of the tale,
Speaker 1: you know, like one one man possessed by demons, too
Speaker 1: naked or not naked like still, that the story is
Speaker 1: essentially the same. Now, I wonder if that also refers
Speaker 1: to the fact that there are not major like non
Speaker 1: canonical early older texts that have different versions of the
Speaker 1: story that change, because that is the case with some stories.
Speaker 1: He also points out that the man here is clearly
Speaker 1: shunned as unclean, and he's engaging and in kind of
Speaker 1: an out of control cleansing ritual, you know, the scraping
Speaker 1: of the body, um you know, the the abusing of
Speaker 1: himself with rocks, you know, really on those same lines
Speaker 1: as like flagellation and so forth. Um Deret also draws
Speaker 1: comparisons to various rights of possession in other cultures where
Speaker 1: sensation to physical pain is dulled, which I think is
Speaker 1: an interesting point because there are various like especially religious
Speaker 1: trials and rituals, in which one will do something that
Speaker 1: is either you know, definitely painful or takes on the
Speaker 1: appearance of painful and just be via the like the
Speaker 1: frenzy of the of the ritual, one is able to
Speaker 1: to experience less pain or to uh or at least
Speaker 1: it's you know, you get into that area where it's
Speaker 1: like there's the experience of the of the right, and
Speaker 1: then there is the the story of the right you know.
Speaker 1: Well yeah. This also makes me think, of course, about
Speaker 1: the nature of what was going on when people believe
Speaker 1: they encounter demon possession in the ancient world. I mean, so,
Speaker 1: of course, there are multiple theories about this, and it
Speaker 1: would probably vary from case to case. Of course, one
Speaker 1: major and pretty obvious thing is the idea that people
Speaker 1: in the ancient world often didn't understand that they were
Speaker 1: looking at the symptoms of various mental illnesses, and you know,
Speaker 1: would characterize that as a person being possessed by an
Speaker 1: unclean spirit. But you could also imagine a person who
Speaker 1: might not necessarily have a particular mental illness, but would
Speaker 1: be prompted in some various way by the religious context
Speaker 1: to believe that they were possessed in some way and
Speaker 1: act out the role. Yeah. I think of some of
Speaker 1: the medieval rights of penance that would come much later,
Speaker 1: in which one would say, for instance, flatulate yourself with
Speaker 1: with sticks or whips, uh you know where, ragged clothing
Speaker 1: and crawl through the streets. Uh, you know that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. Uh. So in in in all of this,
Speaker 1: Dred is saying that this is you know, potentially essentially
Speaker 1: at the theater of protests that's taking place. You know
Speaker 1: that there is a you know, there's a performance quality
Speaker 1: to it, um of course. And then he points out that,
Speaker 1: you know, Jesus acquires the demon's name, which is often
Speaker 1: an important aspect of some sort of an exorcism ritual.
Speaker 1: And I think that even shows up in like the
Speaker 1: the Conjuring movies, right. Really, Yeah, I didn't know if
Speaker 1: there was a like an actual ancient exorcism precedent for that,
Speaker 1: but it's in the second Conjuring movie. There's this whole
Speaker 1: thing where it's like I figured out the demon's name,
Speaker 1: now I can defeat it. Oh yeah, it's definitely definitely
Speaker 1: part of Dungeons and Dragons, you know, really the demon's name,
Speaker 1: you have some power over it. Usually from the Gospel
Speaker 1: of Guy GaX. Yeah. Um. And then he also points
Speaker 1: out what we just discussed already. Legion is, of course
Speaker 1: a military term. The man is possessed by a host
Speaker 1: of demons, and Jesus is he's either speaking to all
Speaker 1: of them or perhaps to the leader commanding them. And
Speaker 1: Jesus has presented as being, you know, much more than
Speaker 1: a match for an entire legion of demons. Like you said,
Speaker 1: this is a lot of this is about presenting just
Speaker 1: how how powerful Jesus is. Yes, And I think that's
Speaker 1: an important point of comparison. When even you look at
Speaker 1: something like in The Exorcist, you know, the priests show
Speaker 1: up and the demon taunts them and stuff. It's like, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm ready to do bad attle. When Jesus shows up,
Speaker 1: the demon is immediately crying uncle. He's like Oh no,
Speaker 1: don't send me out too far. Maybe just let me
Speaker 1: go to the pigs, like he immediately knows he's beaten now. Pigs,
Speaker 1: Derek reminds us, were slaughtered in offering to the underworld
Speaker 1: at Roman burials, thus their connection to the tombs and
Speaker 1: to this particular individual's fascination with morbidity and with death.
Speaker 1: Pigs are associated with sacrifices to demons as well as
Speaker 1: with beast reality, and Derett stresses that there is a
Speaker 1: sexual connotation to spirit possession. Uh, you know, this idea
Speaker 1: of of entering into the pigs, or also just the
Speaker 1: idea of a spirit having entered into you and taken
Speaker 1: hold of your senses. Well, that also makes me think
Speaker 1: about another possible explanation for a belief in spirit possession
Speaker 1: in the ancient world, which is just maybe a person
Speaker 1: wasn't even necessarily experiencing symptoms of mental illness or even
Speaker 1: acting out a possession. Maybe they were just behaving in
Speaker 1: an unconventional way and people around them said, well, you know,
Speaker 1: nobody in the right mind would act like that. So
Speaker 1: if they violated sexual taboos or something like that, you
Speaker 1: could say they must have had a demon in order
Speaker 1: to do that. Now, one thing that he does point
Speaker 1: out is that pigs are actually great swimmers, really yeah,
Speaker 1: and also that they don't stampede. So there's a big
Speaker 1: problem with this idea of potentially it defends how I
Speaker 1: guess you read into the demon possession of the pigs.
Speaker 1: But pigs on their own are not going to stampede.
Speaker 1: They're probably not going to drown in the river. Now,
Speaker 1: I guess you could say that, well, they're not. They're
Speaker 1: no longer pig brains controlling those pigs. Those are scared
Speaker 1: demon brains, and maybe they don't know how to swim. Well,
Speaker 1: this is funny. I was also looking up examples. I
Speaker 1: was trying to find things about pigs stampeding. I didn't
Speaker 1: really find anything like good documented like zoological literature about
Speaker 1: pig stampeding, though I did find a news story about
Speaker 1: supposedly somewhere in Syria stampede of pigs killing some IIS
Speaker 1: fighters and in recent years. But I think that's probably
Speaker 1: just like a news like a journalist appellation. It might
Speaker 1: have not have been a stampede, but just like a
Speaker 1: herd of pigs. Wasn't there a scene in a cornte
Speaker 1: McCarthy novel where I heard of pigs trample off into
Speaker 1: the river, though probably a reference to this very tale.
Speaker 1: I feel like it was. It was one of the
Speaker 1: Appalachian books, like maybe Child of God or Outer Dark.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I've I've read some of those books,
Speaker 1: but I don't remember that scene. But I could be wrong. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it might not have been picked, been something else. But
Speaker 1: there are a lot of drowned animals at one point,
Speaker 1: certainly now on the uncleanliness of pigs. Obviously, much has
Speaker 1: been written about this because there you know, there there
Speaker 1: are uh supposed practical reasons that pork is prohibited in
Speaker 1: Judaism and Islam. One is that pigs are not very
Speaker 1: sustainable and drier environments. That's the argument. Another is that pork,
Speaker 1: of course can contain trickin nosis, but of course that's
Speaker 1: taken care of if it's cooked properly. Um so, so
Speaker 1: it's often in it out that like that, even when
Speaker 1: Judaism and Islam, even when these religions travel out of
Speaker 1: areas where you could make the argument that a pig
Speaker 1: is not suitable for this environment, like, the restriction still remains. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I'm convinced by any of the alleged
Speaker 1: practical reasons behind the prohibition on pork and other foods
Speaker 1: in Judaism and Islam, because I mean, I haven't seen
Speaker 1: any really convincing evidence there. It seems to be more likely.
Speaker 1: This is another one of the many unique practices and
Speaker 1: characteristics you'd find in any religion or culture that don't
Speaker 1: necessarily result from some kind of clear material environmental mandate.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are some like we were just recently
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, sky burial practices in Tibet being
Speaker 1: a religious cultural practice, but perhaps resulting from the fact
Speaker 1: that also within that landscape, it's hard to find places
Speaker 1: to dig graves, it's hard to find wood to burn
Speaker 1: bodies with, so it just sort of makes sense from
Speaker 1: a material environmental standpoint. I think sometimes explanations like that
Speaker 1: makes sense. But I'm I'm not convinced by any of
Speaker 1: the pork ones, right. Another one that sometimes brought up
Speaker 1: well there in the texts themselves. Sometimes a point is
Speaker 1: made about the cloven hoof, which seems kind of nonsensical. Why, yeah,
Speaker 1: what's the problem. Yeah, there's also the idea that, well,
Speaker 1: pigs are omnivores and they may consume scavenged flesh, and
Speaker 1: that could be seen as unclean. But yes, we've discussed
Speaker 1: in the show before even strict herbivores will eat meat
Speaker 1: on occasion. Um. I Unfortunately, like I did some searching
Speaker 1: on this, uh and and saw some videos of like
Speaker 1: like how many ducklings can can a particular cow eat that?
Speaker 1: You know? I mean, it just it happens, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's so it's never considered cows before. We've thought about
Speaker 1: like deer eating meat. Of course, squirrels and meat, we think, yeah,
Speaker 1: wilder creatures, right, But this now is just haunting my brain.
Speaker 1: Why is it so much scarier to be eaten by
Speaker 1: a cow than any other animal? I can think because
Speaker 1: you trusted it so much. I thought that you had it,
Speaker 1: had invested through a domestication. Seems so docile, and then
Speaker 1: it jumps seven feet straight in the air and eats you.
Speaker 1: Have you ever seen how high cows can jump? It
Speaker 1: looks wrong. I don't know that I have. Certainly I'm
Speaker 1: always impressed by how fast a horse can move, and
Speaker 1: how fast it can like PLoP unto the ground and
Speaker 1: pop back up again. So let's get back though to
Speaker 1: the religious reasons that ultimately the social reasons to prohibit
Speaker 1: something like a pork is explained by a Nigel Barber, PhD.
Speaker 1: In psychology today. The signaling theory of religion puts forth
Speaker 1: that abstaining from something like pork is a way of
Speaker 1: signaling your devotion and provides something that a social group
Speaker 1: can bond over, and there's a you're all going to
Speaker 1: be paying a ritual cost for this. Basically, food taboos
Speaker 1: keep co religionists together and and it's something where like
Speaker 1: everyone has to give up something, you have to pay
Speaker 1: a fee to to join this club. Yeah, that makes
Speaker 1: a lot of sense to me. Again, I don't know
Speaker 1: that that's the primary real reason, but that certainly seems
Speaker 1: very plausible. I mean, I think they are all kinds
Speaker 1: of things that religions do where the main goal of
Speaker 1: doing them is showing that you are a devoted member
Speaker 1: of the religion and good standing. Right. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: like for a modern example, one turns to like the
Speaker 1: straight edge movement. Right, We're on one hand, you can say, okay,
Speaker 1: there is a sort of signaling going on here. People
Speaker 1: who are abstaining from these various substances are doing so
Speaker 1: and by doing so they can they can claim to
Speaker 1: be a part of a particular group. However, it's not
Speaker 1: the only thing, like they're also you know, any individual
Speaker 1: that's that's following that lifestyle will also point to other
Speaker 1: reasons why they are abstaining, not merely to be a
Speaker 1: part of a group, but for you know, various other
Speaker 1: lifestyle purposes. Oh sure, yeah, yeah, I mean, but whether
Speaker 1: or not those other reasons are also truly motivating them,
Speaker 1: I think it's hard to deny that shared abstinence creates solidarity. Right,
Speaker 1: But to come back to the Romans, the Romans definitely
Speaker 1: a pork. And so when the Omens roll in and began,
Speaker 1: you know, controlling your territory, derating the pork, you are not.
Speaker 1: There's a firm line to be drawn in the sand
Speaker 1: there between us and them, right right, So there could
Speaker 1: be like people all around with flocks of pigs that
Speaker 1: they're preparing to eat, and you can look at those
Speaker 1: things and be like, well, that's no part of my life. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And of course, ultimately, you know, rules against eating certain
Speaker 1: animals are going to be kind of an arbitrary agreement.
Speaker 1: And I think a huge example of this, as well
Speaker 1: discussed is the predominant American notion that it's well and
Speaker 1: good to eat a pig, that eating a pig is
Speaker 1: something that should be celebrated, we should have parades about it.
Speaker 1: But eating a dog, well, that's just that's just not
Speaker 1: acceptable now. And then nature of exercismicism itself, Well, we've
Speaker 1: covered exorcism on the show before, and I think it's
Speaker 1: always important to to think about rights of exorcism across
Speaker 1: various cultures. Is is being rights potentially too, of expulsion
Speaker 1: of negative feelings, uh, negative attributes, and in some cases
Speaker 1: an attempt crude attempt in some cases to treat mental illness,
Speaker 1: you know. But I think think we have to think about,
Speaker 1: you know, a tendency to think about the exorcisms as
Speaker 1: a pure, superstitious right, and you know, not to think
Speaker 1: about its connotations to more secular rights, such as expelling
Speaker 1: negative thoughts via breath in various meditation and yoga practices,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, we don't think of that as exorcism,
Speaker 1: We don't think of that as magic, but it is
Speaker 1: an exercise that can allow us to well to to
Speaker 1: to quote, doone to you know, to allow your your
Speaker 1: fear to pass over and through you Oh yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean I've see no problem at all from a secular standpoint,
Speaker 1: excepting that exorcism could sometimes be a successful psychological intervention,
Speaker 1: not because there are actually like like spirit demons, but
Speaker 1: because like going like you're saying, like going through a
Speaker 1: cathartic event where you go through some kind of ritual purging. Uh.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that it's necessarily a reliable practice, but
Speaker 1: it's not surprising that it might work sometimes in some cases.
Speaker 1: And certainly not to say that it is a better
Speaker 1: method for like, for actual mental illness. But but at
Speaker 1: any rate, I just want to like frame, you know,
Speaker 1: provide a frame of reference for it. Um. Also, I
Speaker 1: want to come back to the idea of pig based
Speaker 1: u beings, pig based monsters, and pig based creatures. Um.
Speaker 1: You do see these should pop up in a lot
Speaker 1: of different mythologies around the world wherever they are pigs.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just given right, wherever there are pigs,
Speaker 1: there is going to be some idea of the pig
Speaker 1: half man, half pig being man. Pig monsters are are
Speaker 1: underrated for horror value, yeah, absolutely, I feel like sometimes
Speaker 1: they're rolled out as more comedic relief uh. And in
Speaker 1: those cases, I don't I don't think enough you know,
Speaker 1: enough emphasis is placed on just how how horrifying, how
Speaker 1: scary like a wild boar can be. I have no
Speaker 1: respect to whatsoever for the solo movies. That's just not
Speaker 1: my kind of horror film. But the one thing I
Speaker 1: remember thinking was actually successful about them is just the
Speaker 1: fact that, like the creep in them, Where's sometimes wears
Speaker 1: a pig mask. Oh yeah, that was one of his
Speaker 1: many disguises, and one of a very dramatic individual. He
Speaker 1: had a mask, yet a puppet. He had a whole
Speaker 1: production truck. The puppets just kind of goofy. The pig
Speaker 1: mask is where it's at. Uh. Now, I want to
Speaker 1: make a quick side note about Chinese tradition, you know,
Speaker 1: and all this talk of demons and pigs, I can't
Speaker 1: help but think of Pigsy. Are you familiar with Pigsy?
Speaker 1: I don't think I know Pigsy, Pigsy or what is it?
Speaker 1: A zoo um bagier from Journey into the West. So
Speaker 1: if you just if you look up Journey into the
Speaker 1: West and Pigsy, uh, for instance, on YouTube, you'll find
Speaker 1: numerous clips I'm sure from the various film and TV
Speaker 1: adaptations of Journey into the West. I mean, they've also
Speaker 1: been video game adaptations of Journey into the West, but
Speaker 1: the accounts vary. But basically, he was punished by the
Speaker 1: Jade Emperor for lusting after chang Uh, the Goddess of
Speaker 1: the Moon, and his punishment, he's cast down to Earth
Speaker 1: and winds up in the form of a half pig,
Speaker 1: half human monster. But just his faults, he becomes a
Speaker 1: great adventure and is a key character and Journey into
Speaker 1: the West and ultimately slays many demons. Oh, a pig slayer.
Speaker 1: Did we talk about him in our in our monster
Speaker 1: Slayer episode last year? I don't think we did. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think Journey into the West has has actually
Speaker 1: come up on the show before. But there's you know,
Speaker 1: there's a there's a lot of wonderful material there if
Speaker 1: we ever choose to come back to it. Oh, I
Speaker 1: guess I gotta read it now. Yeah, we're watching. Like
Speaker 1: I said, there's some fabulous film adaptations of this. You
Speaker 1: got the Monkey King, you got Pigsy or the whole group.
Speaker 1: All right, I think we have to take a break,
Speaker 1: but we will be right back with more about about
Speaker 1: the garristine demoniac, the gathering swine, pig science, and and
Speaker 1: much more than Alright, we're back. So I've I've already
Speaker 1: mentioned how this is. This is one of those little
Speaker 1: Bible stories that if you're if you're bored in a
Speaker 1: Christian church, you sometimes turned to. Also, it has had
Speaker 1: a big influence on on horror and sort of demonic
Speaker 1: and occults themed material, most notably The Exorcist three Legion,
Speaker 1: a surprisingly good movie, given that The Exorcist one, of
Speaker 1: course horror classic Exorcist to one of the most hilarious
Speaker 1: bad horror movies of all time. I remember it's got
Speaker 1: a line in it it's something like your machine has
Speaker 1: scientifically proven there's an ancient demon locked inside her. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think if I had to rewatch an Exorcist film
Speaker 1: this year, it would be three, Like like one is
Speaker 1: a classic. But also I've always been one that is
Speaker 1: believed that the best parts of the Exorcist are not
Speaker 1: the you know, the screaming crazy uh you know Reagan,
Speaker 1: the you know, raging out with demonic possession. It's smaller moments.
Speaker 1: It's like the little what Pozoozu, the creature that's been
Speaker 1: made by the child or or drawn on a sheet
Speaker 1: in the background. That sure, yeah, yeah, I totally agree.
Speaker 1: I actually think some of the best stuff in The
Speaker 1: Exorcist is the parts where it's kind of like a
Speaker 1: seventies character study movie. I mean, there are parts that
Speaker 1: almost feel kind of like a Scorsese movie or something,
Speaker 1: with like father Cares visiting his mother and that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, and his horrible nightmares. And I think it's
Speaker 1: a very effective horror film. But Exorcist three is also
Speaker 1: really really good. It's been years since I've seen it,
Speaker 1: but uh, at least I won't say it's as good
Speaker 1: as the first one, but it's surprisingly good for being
Speaker 1: a third film. I can't think of a third film
Speaker 1: that competes apart from Halloween three. Oh um, Underworld three
Speaker 1: is the best of the Underworld. So there's that. But
Speaker 1: the the ie An Legion things shows up in all
Speaker 1: kinds of just like you know, demon horror, right, it's
Speaker 1: how can you resist? It seems like such an easy
Speaker 1: thing to pick up and run with. I remember it
Speaker 1: also shows up in something that I inexplicably read when
Speaker 1: I was a kid. I remember buying a used copy
Speaker 1: of the screenplay or the teleplay to Stephen King's Storm
Speaker 1: of the Century, which is I think not ever a
Speaker 1: piece of fiction. I think he wrote it directly for
Speaker 1: like made for TV. So I was just reading the
Speaker 1: original work, which is his teleplay, not kings best work,
Speaker 1: but basically, uh, the demon Legion shows up in a
Speaker 1: small island town in New England, of course, and he
Speaker 1: demands to steal the town's children. And he he's originally
Speaker 1: disguised as a man named Lenoge and of course it's
Speaker 1: an anagram for my name is for Legion for but
Speaker 1: also he's played by the demon is played by Comb Fiori,
Speaker 1: a prolific character actor and the bad guy from one
Speaker 1: of your favorites, Robert Chronicles of Rittick. Oh yeah, he's
Speaker 1: what the Lord Marshall right right, yeah? Is he like
Speaker 1: he's like the main big bad in it and yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's the head necromonger. Yeah yeah, and he's he is
Speaker 1: a wonderful character Actor's been in tons of things, so
Speaker 1: great comedic actor as well. Now, in any given like
Speaker 1: piece of a religious text, there, you know, there's always
Speaker 1: various things going on with it, right, there's a question
Speaker 1: of what does it say, what is the story, What
Speaker 1: did the the people who wrote it or told it
Speaker 1: or transcribed it mean for it to say? And then
Speaker 1: what is the tradition of using it? How has it
Speaker 1: been used and even misused over the years to drive
Speaker 1: home particular points? Right? Often, what did the author intend
Speaker 1: for it to mean versus how has it been interpreted
Speaker 1: by the faithful over the years is a very different thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And one one interpretation of this text I was surprised
Speaker 1: by was the fact that it's been uh is, there's
Speaker 1: been used to drive home this idea that humans have
Speaker 1: no responsibility towards animals, particularly uh suggested by St. Augustine
Speaker 1: of Hippo. Augustine wrote, quote, Christ himself shows that to
Speaker 1: refrain from the killing of animals and the destroying of
Speaker 1: plants is the height of superstition. For judging that there
Speaker 1: are no common rights between us and the beasts and trees,
Speaker 1: he sent the devils into a herd of swine, and
Speaker 1: with a curse, withered the tree on which he found
Speaker 1: no fruit. Oh yeah, that's the withering of the fig tree, right,
Speaker 1: which is a different story In the Bible, Jesus comes
Speaker 1: across a fig tree. It says there were no figs
Speaker 1: on the tree, for figs were not in season, and
Speaker 1: Jesus becomes angry with the tree and he withers it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean he was having a bad day in that day. Well,
Speaker 1: I think that story it to go back to what
Speaker 1: authors actually intended versus how they're interpreted. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of scholars think that that story was originally meant
Speaker 1: to be like a metaphor for people who did not
Speaker 1: bear good fruits. Right, so it's not literally about trees
Speaker 1: or are showing off his abilities to wither fruit? Right?
Speaker 1: At least yeah, at least under this interpretation, it seems
Speaker 1: very a very plausible interpretation to me. But here Augustine's
Speaker 1: running with it is like now it's literally about trees.
Speaker 1: It's about how trees not worth nothing. You can do
Speaker 1: whatever you want to them, it doesn't matter. Jesus showed
Speaker 1: it in this parable. Yeah, seen, you can well imagine that.
Speaker 1: Like Augustine like was kicking a pig or something or
Speaker 1: a dog and someone say, hey, don't don't kick that dog,
Speaker 1: and he's like, well, Jesus put a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: demons in pigs and drove him off a cliff, So
Speaker 1: I have free reign to kick as many dogs and
Speaker 1: pigs as I see fit. Somebody like somebody shamed him
Speaker 1: for letting his orchard with her, and then he's like,
Speaker 1: I'll show you. When he goes and looks up the Bible,
Speaker 1: He's like, look right here. So various authors have have
Speaker 1: have taken issue with Augustine's interpretation here uh, Christian vegetarian
Speaker 1: uh and Anglican priest Andrew Lindsay, author of Christianity and
Speaker 1: the Rights of Animals. He counter argues and says, you know,
Speaker 1: this is ridiculous. It's just propping up Augustine's prior opinion
Speaker 1: that animals have no rights. And he contends that the
Speaker 1: demons ultimately that they're selecting their own vessel here and
Speaker 1: uh and did so because they were weaker creatures. Uh
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, and obviously the demons themselves don't
Speaker 1: care for animal rights. Meanwhile, he argues that there are
Speaker 1: plenty of other passages where it's far easier to read
Speaker 1: pro animal ideas in the words of Christ than it
Speaker 1: is to uh, you know, to to to shoehorn in
Speaker 1: an anti animal rights agenda. Well, there is one thing
Speaker 1: that I actually do wonder about the story that's very interesting.
Speaker 1: Is there supposed to be some kind of metaphorical or
Speaker 1: theological meaning to the fact that the pigs, So that
Speaker 1: Jesus sends the demons into the pigs where they asked
Speaker 1: to go, He's like, okay, you can go into the pigs,
Speaker 1: and then they go into the pigs, and then the
Speaker 1: pigs immediately stampede and die. Why did they stampede and die?
Speaker 1: Is there is that just like? Was that just added
Speaker 1: to the story because like, okay, you know, that'd be
Speaker 1: an interesting way to conclude it. And now the demons
Speaker 1: are dealt with? Or was there some like meaning They're like,
Speaker 1: does does this have something to do with the Romans
Speaker 1: or with you know, yeah, because we already touched on
Speaker 1: the connection between the Romans and pigs. We touched on
Speaker 1: the connection between pigs and the location with the you know,
Speaker 1: the the tombs. So and then also you always have
Speaker 1: to wonder too with stories like this, like what what
Speaker 1: other you know, pre existing narratives where they're out there
Speaker 1: that have potentially been otherwise lost, that are reflected in
Speaker 1: this story. Now, Thomas Aquinas, apparently I read thought that
Speaker 1: this passage showed that Christ was primarily concerned with men
Speaker 1: rather than pigs. But and and I've seen that pointed
Speaker 1: out a few different places. But I was looking for
Speaker 1: like a direct quote on this, and I was looking
Speaker 1: at acquaintas his thoughts on the passage, and most of
Speaker 1: it seemed to come down to him stressing the fact
Speaker 1: that the pigs were unclean. So of course that's the
Speaker 1: best place to send a bunch of demons. They love
Speaker 1: unclean things. And it also shows shows he would he
Speaker 1: argued that the devil can't kill you unless you present
Speaker 1: yourself as an unclean animal. But I don't know that.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of riffing on the scripture that I
Speaker 1: ran across, but I'm not sure animal rights are the
Speaker 1: lack thereof was the primary concern. Well, while we're on
Speaker 1: the subject of the demonic oink, I think, uh, this
Speaker 1: is a great opportunity to jump over to talking a
Speaker 1: little bit about pig intelligence, pig behavior, and even a
Speaker 1: very recent discovery about possible pig tool use. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that that was. That was I think ultimately the the
Speaker 1: bit of news that that made up my mind on
Speaker 1: pursuing this as a topic. Yeah, so we've touched on
Speaker 1: animal rights, we've touched on the notion of higher intelligence
Speaker 1: in the form of demons being dropped into the bodies
Speaker 1: of pigs. H Plus the notion that in some traditions
Speaker 1: pigsy from journeying into the West is a product of reincarnation.
Speaker 1: Uh So, having touched on these notions, you know, we
Speaker 1: come back around to the question, well, how smart is
Speaker 1: just a normal pig? You know, certainly I think we
Speaker 1: can assume its brain is not on part of the humans.
Speaker 1: We can more than assume that. We can state that.
Speaker 1: But they're not the dumb animals we all we sometimes
Speaker 1: take them for, uh the sort of comic relief. Look,
Speaker 1: how dumb the pig is. It's covered in mud, it
Speaker 1: lives in a pig pin. Well, I don't know if
Speaker 1: this is actually a good explanation, but at least something
Speaker 1: I've heard postulated in the past is what if the
Speaker 1: common prohibitions on eating pigs in some religions stem from
Speaker 1: not the uncleanness of pigs, but the similarity between pigs
Speaker 1: and humans. I mean, there are a lot of sort
Speaker 1: of biological and morphological similarities. For example, some pigs having
Speaker 1: like fairly bare skin kind of like a less hair
Speaker 1: than most mammals have unlike kind of like they're human cousins, uh,
Speaker 1: just things. Oh apparently human meat tasting kind of like pork. Apparently.
Speaker 1: I've also noticed that when a pig is butchered, uh,
Speaker 1: sometimes its body looks like that of a of a
Speaker 1: human um. Particularly ever, if you watch a lot of
Speaker 1: like cooking shows on you know, very streaming channels, and
Speaker 1: the inevitably there'll be a scene where someone has uh
Speaker 1: you know, they're they're rolling out the slaughtered pig, or
Speaker 1: then it's been prepared for the barbecue grill and it
Speaker 1: looks alarmingly like a small person. Yeah, and so again,
Speaker 1: I don't know if that really has all that much
Speaker 1: explanatory power, but I can see that a little bit
Speaker 1: like maybe we anthropomorphize pigs because it's just already pretty close.
Speaker 1: There's a natural leap from humans to pigs, and boy
Speaker 1: do we I mean, this has always disturbed me, the
Speaker 1: level to which a barbecue restaurant will anthropomorphize a pig,
Speaker 1: usually on the logo, where it'll be you know, it'll
Speaker 1: be like smiling, happy humanoid pigs roaming around or even
Speaker 1: doing grizzly things like cooking themselves or climbing into grills, Like,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? Uh, you know you shouldn't you
Speaker 1: be like distancing yourself from this notion that the pigs
Speaker 1: are rational beings and you're eating them. Well, it makes
Speaker 1: me think of the Chick fil A marketing strategy where
Speaker 1: they would have the cows painting the signs. It's brilliant,
Speaker 1: really anthropomorphized the other animal. That's that. That was I
Speaker 1: think the wise choice. So also looking around a little
Speaker 1: bit just on sort of pre existing um knowledge about
Speaker 1: the intelligence of pigs, because there's there's been a lot
Speaker 1: of data on this. So Barry Esterbrook wrote a book
Speaker 1: called Pigtails which gets into all of this. Uh. He's
Speaker 1: a science writer, and he points out some of the
Speaker 1: big key points about peg behavior. First of all, pigs
Speaker 1: have been taught to play computer games, and this gets
Speaker 1: to to basically do it to the fact that pigs
Speaker 1: have proven themselves to be very good at learning new task,
Speaker 1: learning new tricks um, which is essentially what's going on
Speaker 1: when they're playing a computer game and some of these
Speaker 1: experiments they're trainable. Yeah, pigs have a sense of self
Speaker 1: and they can recognize themselves in mirrors. They can also
Speaker 1: figure out how a mirror works. I mean not in
Speaker 1: terms of like how it's made and how it's like
Speaker 1: the optics of it, but you know, they can they
Speaker 1: can figure out what they're seeing through it and use
Speaker 1: it to identify food. Oh really, so they can recognize
Speaker 1: that the mirror is a reflection of what's you know,
Speaker 1: behind them and stuff. Yeah, and also pigs can look
Speaker 1: at another pig and calculate what that pig might do
Speaker 1: or how it might act. A two thousand sixteen University
Speaker 1: of Lincoln study found that, as with humans, the pig's
Speaker 1: judgment and decisions are governed by mood and personality type. Uh.
Speaker 1: They're also proven to be really good remembering where food
Speaker 1: stores are, and not only that, how they rate in
Speaker 1: size to each other. So it's not just a matter
Speaker 1: of like, oh, there's some the researchers put so much food,
Speaker 1: you know, put put food here and here and here. No,
Speaker 1: they can remember the proportions as well, you can rank
Speaker 1: them in their their heads um. And they're also really
Speaker 1: good at deceiving each other when it comes to food. Oh,
Speaker 1: how does that work? Basically comes down to the fact
Speaker 1: that they're they're intelligent animals, but they're also highly social animals.
Speaker 1: So you know they in the wild, wild hogs are
Speaker 1: not living in seclusion. They're living in contact with one another. Uh,
Speaker 1: so they are social creatures. And on the subject of domestication, Uh,
Speaker 1: the domesticated pig diverge from wild hogs somewhere like eight
Speaker 1: thousand years ago. That's that's when we began domesticating pigs
Speaker 1: and uh, and it's it is kind of impressive that
Speaker 1: we haven't managed to domesticate the smarts out of them,
Speaker 1: like they're like, even the domesticated pig is an intelligent creature. Well,
Speaker 1: maybe we should explore more of that intelligence after we
Speaker 1: come back from a break and we can talk about
Speaker 1: pigs and tool use. Than all right, we're back. So
Speaker 1: tool use this is uh, this is really fascinating because
Speaker 1: of course tool use is our thing the humans. Tools
Speaker 1: are the things we use to build our barbecue restaurants
Speaker 1: and to slaughter pigs and then to cook pigs and
Speaker 1: serve pigs and then to eat pigs. But apparently it
Speaker 1: takes no tools to cast demons from a human into pigs.
Speaker 1: We're not told there's a wand involved or anything. So yeah, Robert,
Speaker 1: I I found out about this interesting report on pig
Speaker 1: intelligence recently, I think because you shared it with me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the day it came out, I I shared it with
Speaker 1: our our Facebook group. Stuff to Blow your mind a
Speaker 1: discussion module, which is a place you can go if
Speaker 1: you want to discuss episodes of the show and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of related studies with other listeners. Uh So,
Speaker 1: for some background talking about tool use. Tool use is
Speaker 1: often taken, of course, is one of the most interesting
Speaker 1: and most important signs of higher intelligence and animals. It's
Speaker 1: you know, it's I think fairly plausibly argued to be
Speaker 1: one of the main things that makes humans very special. Right.
Speaker 1: We've got language, we've got tool use, right, But we're
Speaker 1: not the only animals that use tools. A few non
Speaker 1: human animals show pretty clear or undisputed use of tools.
Speaker 1: Of course. One great example is other primates, right, like chimpanzees, binobo's, orangutans,
Speaker 1: and even I think you know, guerrillas, and some monkeys
Speaker 1: and stuff. Chimpanzees will sometimes like use large rocks to
Speaker 1: crush nutshells, use sticks for hunting or for fishing insects
Speaker 1: or other prey out of crevices and enclosures. We've also
Speaker 1: extensively covered tool use in some bird species in the past.
Speaker 1: If you want to learn more, you can check out
Speaker 1: our older episodes on the Unsettling depths of bird intelligence.
Speaker 1: I think it was called Yes. The primary examples here
Speaker 1: are birds like Corvid's and parrots. Great example is the
Speaker 1: new Caledonian crow, which has been involved in a lot
Speaker 1: of research. They can use sticks or bark for rooting
Speaker 1: around inside crevices, fishing for insects and larvae. Uh, sometimes
Speaker 1: even displaying really startling levels of abstraction. I believe there
Speaker 1: are examples of them constructing tools, like putting things together
Speaker 1: to make tools, or using one tool not to get food,
Speaker 1: but to access a second, better tool which can be
Speaker 1: used to get food. I mean that's interesting. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: of course there are other mammals. Marine mammals like cetaceans
Speaker 1: also sometimes display behaviors that might count as tool use.
Speaker 1: I think you've mentioned before dolphins, like using sponges as tools. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that definitely comes up. What was the it's basically like
Speaker 1: for sea floor foraging. I believe so. Yeah, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: a little foggy on the details of that one, but
Speaker 1: but there is a there's definitely a case that has
Speaker 1: been made for tool use by dolphins, even the octopus.
Speaker 1: Actually it's invertebrate tool use. Uh. The octopus for example,
Speaker 1: well sometimes carry shells or like coconut shells with them
Speaker 1: to fold over their bodies to use as shelter, armor,
Speaker 1: hunting blind uh. And then there are more arguable examples
Speaker 1: of things that might or might not be tool used,
Speaker 1: depending on your criteria. I mean, if you really stretch it,
Speaker 1: like sometimes even reptiles like croc crocodilians are alleged to
Speaker 1: use tools. But I think not everyone would agree on
Speaker 1: whether these behaviors count. But maybe the newest, most surprising
Speaker 1: discovery of animal tool use as of the day we're
Speaker 1: recording this is this very recent documentation of tool use
Speaker 1: by pigs. So what would count as tool use? Well,
Speaker 1: I was reading a great article about this new discovery
Speaker 1: and nat GEO by Christine Delamore. I think this is
Speaker 1: the best article I've found about the this new research,
Speaker 1: and she cites a definition here which seems very reasonable
Speaker 1: to me. So the definition of tool use here is
Speaker 1: quote the exertion of control over a freely manipulable external object,
Speaker 1: which is the tool, with the goal of altering the
Speaker 1: physical properties of another object, substance, surface, or medium via
Speaker 1: a dynamic mechanical interaction, or to mediating the flow of information,
Speaker 1: which sounds a little complicated, but basically means you've got
Speaker 1: to use an object that's not part of your body,
Speaker 1: an object from the outside, to make changes to your
Speaker 1: environment or objects in your environment, or to control information somehow. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're wondering, like, how can information work, I believe
Speaker 1: that would mean, for example, by changing what can be
Speaker 1: seen and by whom. So if you use an object
Speaker 1: to help you see something you couldn't otherwise see, or
Speaker 1: to keep somebody else from seeing something, like you put
Speaker 1: up something to hide yourself, that could be considered tool use. Right.
Speaker 1: So yeah, Like so the idea of say the octopus
Speaker 1: climbing inside of a coconut is arguably an example of this, right,
Speaker 1: And I think though there would be differences between, Like
Speaker 1: going into a hole is not tool used, so you
Speaker 1: could be hiding there. I think it would be like
Speaker 1: if you carry along a thing with you that you
Speaker 1: can hide inside. But then even then you run into
Speaker 1: some difficulties. I mean, when you see an octopus doing that,
Speaker 1: that seems like tool use. But when a hermit crab
Speaker 1: doesn't that that doesn't seem like tool use, right, So
Speaker 1: they're they're like, uh, They're always going to be these
Speaker 1: difficulties with these edge cases about what counts and what doesn't.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of arguing, I think in the
Speaker 1: scientific literature about does this case count or does it
Speaker 1: not count and why? But anyway, this new research about
Speaker 1: pig tool use originates with a conservation ecologist named Meredith
Speaker 1: root Bernstein who in October of was at a zoo
Speaker 1: in Paris. She was observing a group of vision wardy
Speaker 1: pigs at this Parisian zoo and Visayan warty pigs are
Speaker 1: a critically endangered species of wild pig native to the Philippines.
Speaker 1: They're critically endangered, like so many other creatures, because of
Speaker 1: habitat destruction. It's the ruin of their natural rainforest homeland
Speaker 1: that has driven them to this point. You may have
Speaker 1: actually seen images of them. The males of the species
Speaker 1: often have a natural mohawk hairdo running down the length
Speaker 1: of their bodies, so they look pretty cool. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they look pretty rough and tumble. But this group observed
Speaker 1: by root Bernstein, they were in captivity and that's important
Speaker 1: to remember because that can sometimes change animal behavior. I've
Speaker 1: got an image, by the way for you to look
Speaker 1: at here, Robert. The hair is mighty. Absolutely, I would
Speaker 1: go as far as to say that this particular hog
Speaker 1: looks rad This hog could play with some kind of like, uh,
Speaker 1: some kind of minor tough and a Russell Mulkahi movie.
Speaker 1: So in October fifteen, root Burnstein she was at this
Speaker 1: zooe and she noticed one of the pigs in this
Speaker 1: enclosure picking up a piece of tree bark with its
Speaker 1: mouth and then using the bark as a spade to
Speaker 1: dig around in the soil within its enclosure. Uh. The
Speaker 1: pig was named Priscilla, by the way, and Priscilla's mate
Speaker 1: was named Billy. So the French are good at naming pigs. Actually,
Speaker 1: I don't know if the French name them, but Priscilla
Speaker 1: and Billy, and then of course there were there were
Speaker 1: younger pigs and the enclosure too. But root Burnstein, so
Speaker 1: she saw this happening, the pig picking up the bark
Speaker 1: with its mouth and digging with it, and she never
Speaker 1: heard of documented tool use in any species of pigs.
Speaker 1: So she went home to look it up, and she
Speaker 1: couldn't find anything in the animal behavior literature, so she
Speaker 1: kept returning to the zoo and documenting the pig's behavior
Speaker 1: with the help of colleagues. But for several months she
Speaker 1: never saw it happen again. So what was going on here? Well?
Speaker 1: Delamore writes that Rude Bernstein suspected that the digging behavior
Speaker 1: was part of the pigs nest building process. And of
Speaker 1: course nest building doesn't happen year round. It's not all
Speaker 1: the time, it's whenever there is a new litter of
Speaker 1: piglets coming, and this happens about twice a year. So
Speaker 1: root Bernstein and her colleagues waited, and in the following
Speaker 1: spring they did, in fact observe tool use. Yet again,
Speaker 1: three of the four pigs in the enclosure we're using
Speaker 1: bark to help dig out their nests bark or sticks.
Speaker 1: So does digging with bark count as tool use? We
Speaker 1: can look in more detail in a minute, but yes,
Speaker 1: I think it meets the regular criteria right. It's using
Speaker 1: an object outside the body, a freely manipulable object to
Speaker 1: change the environment, and there's no doubt that they're doing it.
Speaker 1: There's video you can watch online. Though they do seem
Speaker 1: a little clumsy at it. They don't look like hyper
Speaker 1: like dexterrous tool users. It's more kind of like they're
Speaker 1: flipping the stick all over the place and it kind
Speaker 1: of moves the dirt around, which does make me wonder
Speaker 1: what did tool use look like when like our ancestors
Speaker 1: first started doing it, just like, you know, wildly swinging
Speaker 1: things around and occasionally getting some benefit out of it. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think a lot of us probably fit
Speaker 1: that description when we use, you know, a particular utensil
Speaker 1: or go after a particular task in the kitchen that
Speaker 1: we don't normally do. Like I was grading a sweet
Speaker 1: potato last night, and I feel like that was basically
Speaker 1: what was happening. People who were observing it might think, wow,
Speaker 1: this this uh, this ape can barely manipulate this tool. Uh.
Speaker 1: I don't know if this counts. Is too using intelligence? Yes?
Speaker 1: Is it tool using intelligence? Or is it just occasionally
Speaker 1: rubbing and fumbling this piece of the metal against the
Speaker 1: this tuber. We're not sure, Robert, or your knuckles, Okay,
Speaker 1: did you lose an they knuckles? Lucky, my my knuckles,
Speaker 1: my skin, that's all fine, But that potato did suffer
Speaker 1: I have lost a knuckler two to the greater before.
Speaker 1: But my my point being, uh, you don't have to be, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, an artful user of a tool to be
Speaker 1: a tool user, right, Uh, you know, that's exactly right.
Speaker 1: So rut Bernstein and her co authors published their research
Speaker 1: in the journal Mammalian Biology in September twenty nineteen, and
Speaker 1: so all the authors were Meredith Root Bernstein, A Trumpteen, Narayan,
Speaker 1: Lucille Cornier, and Audi Bourgeois. The article is called context
Speaker 1: specific tool use in sus Sebifrons in Mammalian Biology and
Speaker 1: that this was published just in September in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: so specifically, what's going on with the digging process here? Well,
Speaker 1: the things become kind of interesting. So the authors documented
Speaker 1: pigs using tools to dig four times in twenty sixteen
Speaker 1: and seven times in twenty seventeen, and it seems that
Speaker 1: the tool use always came in the middle of the
Speaker 1: nest to digging process. Ultimately, of course, the nest they're
Speaker 1: producing is going to be like a little dugout pit
Speaker 1: and that's gonna be lined with leaves and that's where
Speaker 1: the pig let's go. Uh. They also observed that the
Speaker 1: male pigs digging was clumsier and less productive than the
Speaker 1: digging by the females. Uh. It also seemed that the
Speaker 1: knowledge about how to use the digging implements was being
Speaker 1: passed on both vertically from mother to offspring and horizontally
Speaker 1: by being taught to the males by the females. Interesting.
Speaker 1: They also introduced foreign objects into the enclosure, like they
Speaker 1: put spatulas in there to see if the pigs would
Speaker 1: try to use them. Apparently they did sort of a
Speaker 1: couple of times, but they seemed to prefer the sticks
Speaker 1: in the bark. Yeah, I mean a spatulist seems like
Speaker 1: it would It would not be the best tool anyway
Speaker 1: for that task. Oh, I don't know. You could dig
Speaker 1: in loose soil okay with a spatula okay, but like
Speaker 1: a metal spoon would be better. Yeah, but biting on
Speaker 1: a metal spoon might hurt us in their mouth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're still giving them a human tool of and and
Speaker 1: this this is a creature that that is using a
Speaker 1: tool in a in a different manner. We need to
Speaker 1: make special pig digging mecca suits. Then we'll really see
Speaker 1: how far their tool using intelligence goes. But The authors
Speaker 1: argued that the observed behaviors do meet the best definition
Speaker 1: of tool use. And I want to read a quote
Speaker 1: about how they explain this. They say, Uh, it is
Speaker 1: tool use quote, because it involved the manipulation of an
Speaker 1: external object, the bark, the stick, or the spatula. It
Speaker 1: occurred exclusively and regularly within a goal oriented, repeated action pattern. Okay,
Speaker 1: so it's not just like they're running around with sticks
Speaker 1: in their mouths all the time and occasionally it moves
Speaker 1: some soil. It only happens sometimes and only when they're
Speaker 1: digging nests. And to continue with their quote, they say,
Speaker 1: and as its end result, it altered both the distribution
Speaker 1: of the soil to make a pit and the physical
Speaker 1: properties of the tool user a physical disposition digging action,
Speaker 1: and thus it likely also included information transfer to the
Speaker 1: tool user in the form of appropriate receptive feedback different
Speaker 1: to that without tool use. So there's an information thing again,
Speaker 1: like using the stick to have a different method of
Speaker 1: like feeling how deep the hole is and stuff. So
Speaker 1: one question is how has this behavior escaped attention so long? Uh?
Speaker 1: In Delamore's article, she mentions that well, wild pigs are
Speaker 1: sometimes understudied so maybe that's the case. But also, you know,
Speaker 1: one thing to think about is these pigs are in captivity.
Speaker 1: Animals in captivity also sometimes show behaviors that the same
Speaker 1: animals do not exhibit in the wild. But then again,
Speaker 1: it seemed like the bark was only used for digging
Speaker 1: nests and only at a specific stage in the nest
Speaker 1: building process, which makes it pretty different from most of
Speaker 1: the repetitive, compulsive types of behaviors that you would see
Speaker 1: induced by captivity. Right. Yeah, it's not not a situation
Speaker 1: where these pigs were doing this all the time. They
Speaker 1: were only doing it like every six months during their
Speaker 1: their nest building activities. Right. It's not the panther pacing
Speaker 1: in its cage in the way that it would not
Speaker 1: pace in the wild. So the question is do we
Speaker 1: find examples of these endangered pigs or other related pigs
Speaker 1: using tools in the wild. I think this is the
Speaker 1: first really documented case that's clear. But in her article,
Speaker 1: Delamore notes an interesting anecdote from somebody. She talks to,
Speaker 1: somebody named Fernando Dino Gutierrez who's president of the Philippine
Speaker 1: conservation group known as the Tallara Foundation. And so here's
Speaker 1: this story. Quoting from Delmore's article uh quote. A few
Speaker 1: years ago, Gautierra has witnessed a group of wild pigs
Speaker 1: pushing rocks toward an electric fence to test it. And
Speaker 1: Gautierra says, as soon as they push and the rocks
Speaker 1: make contact, they would wait for the clicking sound or
Speaker 1: absence thereof clicking means the wires are hot and they
Speaker 1: will back off and not cross. No sounds mean it
Speaker 1: is safe to investigate what's beyond the wire. So that
Speaker 1: seems like pigs using like possible edge case there of
Speaker 1: pigs using tools to mediate the flow of information. They
Speaker 1: were testing the fences systematically for weaknesses they remember. But
Speaker 1: as for whether these specific pigs, the vision warty pigs
Speaker 1: do this kind of thing in the wild, I think
Speaker 1: we don't really know that. Of course, there aren't many
Speaker 1: of them in the wild. I think there might just
Speaker 1: be a few hundred that their numbers are not really known.
Speaker 1: But wild pig scientists of the world, combine your powers,
Speaker 1: figure this out, plunge the depths of pig technology. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it would be would be wonderful to hear more about this,
Speaker 1: and certainly to hear about how it's occurring in the wild.
Speaker 1: Now there's one last thing though, that makes this even
Speaker 1: more interesting. It's not clear to root Bernstein and her
Speaker 1: co authors that the bark or the stick provides much
Speaker 1: of a utilitarian advantage, if any. According to the study,
Speaker 1: it seemed digging with the stick was sometimes less efficient
Speaker 1: than digging with the hoofs or with the snout, which
Speaker 1: is of course what they would normally use. I think
Speaker 1: so if and again you can see this if you
Speaker 1: watch the video. The digging does sort of work, but
Speaker 1: it also it looks kind of bumbling and funny, and
Speaker 1: you can imagine that digging with the snout or the
Speaker 1: hoofs would actually be pretty quick. So if the bark
Speaker 1: isn't necessarily speeding up the digging process even though it
Speaker 1: is working, it's if it's not making the process faster
Speaker 1: or more efficient, why do it at all. One thing
Speaker 1: that occurred to me is why, well, maybe the snout
Speaker 1: gets sore. I mean, that could be a thing. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's one possibility. M One also wonders, of course,
Speaker 1: if if there is something communicated through the act of
Speaker 1: using the tool, and it's some sort of like a
Speaker 1: physical mental fitness communication. Yeah, that's a that's an interesting thing.
Speaker 1: So this could be tool use that actually, even though
Speaker 1: it's tool use, doesn't exist primarily for utilitarian advantage. What
Speaker 1: if this is just a learned animal cultural behavior. Sometimes
Speaker 1: animals do just pick up and repeat behaviors from one
Speaker 1: another even though they don't provide an obvious continuing material benefit. Uh.
Speaker 1: Of course we can imagine that the brain must be
Speaker 1: supplying some kind of internal reward that motivates the pig's behavior.
Speaker 1: But of course, you know, we know from our own
Speaker 1: experience that we do behaviors all the time that don't
Speaker 1: provide a clear evolutionary utilitarian benefit. They're just sort of
Speaker 1: like a cultural artifact. There's something a behavior popped up,
Speaker 1: it gets rewarded for some reason in our brains, even
Speaker 1: though it's not helping us like live longer, be stronger,
Speaker 1: or reproduce more well. And then via culture, there there
Speaker 1: are various specific tools that we continue to use despite
Speaker 1: the fact that there are much better ways to go
Speaker 1: about a particular task. The main idea that the main
Speaker 1: example comes to my mind is the wooden honey ladle
Speaker 1: uh implement Um. We've talked about this on the show,
Speaker 1: but about how it's just it's a messy, unnecessary thing
Speaker 1: that looks cool. People like the way it looks. People
Speaker 1: like the way it looks. But the honey bear, the
Speaker 1: squeezable honey bear, is by far the superior means of
Speaker 1: putting honey on anything or in anything. But what if
Speaker 1: these pigs are using the sticks to dig for the
Speaker 1: same reason that you might use the might use the
Speaker 1: wooden honey spoon thing. I don't even know what you
Speaker 1: call it. I think it has a name, and we're
Speaker 1: forgetting it once more, the honey knob, honey, the ridged
Speaker 1: honey knob, even though yeah, the squeeze bear that you
Speaker 1: just squeeze with your own hands is more efficient. But yeah, Now,
Speaker 1: another possibility that comes to mind here too is so
Speaker 1: so we're looking to learn more about the wild implement
Speaker 1: implementation of this tool use. So one question I would
Speaker 1: have is, Okay, in the wild, are they using the
Speaker 1: same pieces of wood, the same pieces of bark? Are
Speaker 1: they comparable? Uh? And if they're not, that could be
Speaker 1: an issue. Right, maybe they're using a different type of
Speaker 1: wood in the wild the other that's true, Yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: this is a behavior that they're trying to use tools
Speaker 1: that are the inferior versions of the tool that would
Speaker 1: be in their native range right or then also they're
Speaker 1: threatened by habitat loss, so maybe they'd only even in
Speaker 1: the wild, have the same access anymore, and they're making
Speaker 1: do with inferior tools to carry out this, uh, this
Speaker 1: practice that they've been doing for you know, for for
Speaker 1: for so long. It's like after a nuclear apocalypse finding
Speaker 1: humans making phone calls with tin cans and string. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like, uh, why are they doing that? The tin
Speaker 1: the tin cans and string don't work all that well.
Speaker 1: But it's because they they're so used to doing the
Speaker 1: regular phone calls and they don't have the right tools anymore.
Speaker 1: Oh man, can you imagine a post apocalyptic world in
Speaker 1: which there are no more smartphones, but but the people
Speaker 1: still use like little chunks of stone or wood as
Speaker 1: if they were smartphones that essentially like little idols, little
Speaker 1: wooden gods that they speak to and listen to. Yes,
Speaker 1: they carry around little rectangular flints that they stare at
Speaker 1: while they're out in public, and then if they see
Speaker 1: somebody they don't want to talk to, they can pretend
Speaker 1: to be doing something on their flint and then so
Speaker 1: they don't have to look up and make eye contact. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well to bring it back to the gathering swine. I
Speaker 1: mean it makes me think about how, in a way,
Speaker 1: a lot of our our culturally learned behaviors are kind
Speaker 1: of like a weird little demon possession, right there, a
Speaker 1: thing that gets in our brain and exists for its
Speaker 1: own sake, even though it doesn't necessarily help us in
Speaker 1: any way, we just keep doing it. You know. It's
Speaker 1: like it's the it's the self rewarding subroutine. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: all right, So that you have it, I feel like
Speaker 1: we covered a lot of ground in this episode. You know, Uh,
Speaker 1: if you're playing the the Stuff to Blow your mind
Speaker 1: drinking game, I guess you got to. You got to
Speaker 1: take multiple shots here. We managed to fit a Bible
Speaker 1: story in there. We had a skit with demons in it.
Speaker 1: We got into tool use and animal intelligence, a little
Speaker 1: bit of Chinese mythology incorporated as well. It's a lot
Speaker 1: of my favorite stuff. Yeah, and and it's all ultimately
Speaker 1: Halloween episode because at the heart we're still dealing with
Speaker 1: the story of exorcism. So I'm looking up anagrams for
Speaker 1: legion and like like Leno's in the Stephen King's story.
Speaker 1: There are really not very many good ones. We got
Speaker 1: leg I on Okay, let's not really good but but
Speaker 1: still good. That just inserts the space. But we also
Speaker 1: got ogl in sounds good ego Nil, Yeah, I like
Speaker 1: that one, Lean Go line Go and old Jin Old Jen. Well,
Speaker 1: those demons are gonna need a lot of names, because
Speaker 1: there are a lot of them. I think we must
Speaker 1: in there all right. Well, if you want to listen
Speaker 1: to other episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, go
Speaker 1: forth and do so. You'll find them wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts and wherever you get your podcast Just make
Speaker 1: sure you rate and review, make sure you've subscribed. It's
Speaker 1: a great way to support the show. You can also
Speaker 1: get us find our episodes that Stuff with your Mind
Speaker 1: dot com. Also, we have another show called Invention that
Speaker 1: we uh we we highly recommend you check out this month.
Speaker 1: We have a number of episodes that have come out
Speaker 1: about caskets, casket science, casket history, weird casket inventions, well
Speaker 1: worth listening to if you're in the mood for more
Speaker 1: seasonal content. Yeah, if you're not subscribed to Invention, go
Speaker 1: subscribe now. Ogl In Big Thanks as always to our
Speaker 1: excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us with feedback on this
Speaker 1: episode or any other, to suggest topic for the future,
Speaker 1: or just to say hello, come on and ogle on
Speaker 1: in at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeart
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