1 00:00:03,360 --> 00:00:07,000 Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff to blow your mind from how stepwork docomog. 2 00:00:14,560 --> 00:00:17,599 Speaker 1: The nation of all the Gauls is extremely devoted to 3 00:00:17,720 --> 00:00:21,200 Speaker 1: superstitious rights, and on that account, they who are troubled 4 00:00:21,200 --> 00:00:25,479 Speaker 1: with unusually severe diseases, and they who are engaged in 5 00:00:25,560 --> 00:00:30,240 Speaker 1: battles and dangers, either sacrifice men as victims, or vowed 6 00:00:30,320 --> 00:00:33,879 Speaker 1: that they will sacrifice them, and employed the druids as 7 00:00:33,880 --> 00:00:37,879 Speaker 1: the performers of those sacrifices. Because they think that unless 8 00:00:37,920 --> 00:00:40,320 Speaker 1: the life of a man be offered for the life 9 00:00:40,320 --> 00:00:43,440 Speaker 1: of a man, the mind of the immortal gods cannot 10 00:00:43,479 --> 00:00:47,560 Speaker 1: be rendered propitious, and they have sacrifices of that kind 11 00:00:47,800 --> 00:00:52,680 Speaker 1: ordained for national purposes. Others have figures of vast size, 12 00:00:52,880 --> 00:00:55,800 Speaker 1: the limbs of which are woven out of twigs. They 13 00:00:55,880 --> 00:00:59,200 Speaker 1: fill with living men, which, being set on fire, the 14 00:00:59,240 --> 00:01:02,960 Speaker 1: men pair enveloped in the flames. They consider that the 15 00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:06,399 Speaker 1: oblation of such as have been taken in theft, or 16 00:01:06,440 --> 00:01:10,039 Speaker 1: in robbery or any other offense is more acceptable to 17 00:01:10,120 --> 00:01:13,040 Speaker 1: the immortal gods. But when a supply of that class 18 00:01:13,160 --> 00:01:17,199 Speaker 1: is wanting, they have recourse to the oblation of even 19 00:01:17,360 --> 00:01:21,280 Speaker 1: the innocent. Hey, welcome to stuff to blow your mind. 20 00:01:21,280 --> 00:01:23,720 Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And 21 00:01:23,760 --> 00:01:28,039 Speaker 1: that is from The Gallic Wars by Julius Caesar, Book six, 22 00:01:28,200 --> 00:01:32,199 Speaker 1: chapter sixteen, translated by W. A. Mcdevite and W. S. Bone, 23 00:01:32,280 --> 00:01:36,960 Speaker 1: though with a couple of substitutions of my own for clarity. Yeah, 24 00:01:37,000 --> 00:01:39,759 Speaker 1: and so what are we talking about there? That that 25 00:01:39,760 --> 00:01:42,640 Speaker 1: that is the ritual that has come to be known 26 00:01:43,160 --> 00:01:45,839 Speaker 1: as the wicker Man, though you might know it better 27 00:01:45,959 --> 00:01:49,080 Speaker 1: from the movie than from the works of Julius Caesar, 28 00:01:49,360 --> 00:01:52,760 Speaker 1: or perhaps from the new Radiohead music video for Burn 29 00:01:52,840 --> 00:01:55,720 Speaker 1: the Witch which just came out, which actually came out 30 00:01:55,760 --> 00:01:59,160 Speaker 1: after we had already decided on this episode. Some wonderful 31 00:01:59,440 --> 00:02:03,200 Speaker 1: synchronous going on there. Um. But but the music video 32 00:02:03,520 --> 00:02:07,000 Speaker 1: to basically depict some of the key moments in the 33 00:02:07,200 --> 00:02:12,720 Speaker 1: classic film The Wickerman, in which this little um pagan 34 00:02:12,800 --> 00:02:15,000 Speaker 1: community out in the middle of nowhere I think on 35 00:02:15,040 --> 00:02:17,120 Speaker 1: an island, correct. Yeah, it's an island off the western 36 00:02:17,200 --> 00:02:19,880 Speaker 1: coast of Scotland, and it's a little it's a pagan 37 00:02:19,919 --> 00:02:26,960 Speaker 1: community run by a jolly gentleman pagan played by Christopher Lee. 38 00:02:27,400 --> 00:02:30,160 Speaker 1: He's singing, he's dancing around. You don't see it, You 39 00:02:30,200 --> 00:02:32,680 Speaker 1: don't see enough of that from his themography. So yeah, 40 00:02:32,720 --> 00:02:35,079 Speaker 1: if you haven't seen The Wickerman nineteen seventy three, it's 41 00:02:35,080 --> 00:02:37,880 Speaker 1: a horror cult classic, you should check it out. It's 42 00:02:38,080 --> 00:02:42,120 Speaker 1: very weird and very good and and very uh should 43 00:02:42,120 --> 00:02:44,760 Speaker 1: we say, yeah, very good, but also kind of silly 44 00:02:45,560 --> 00:02:47,720 Speaker 1: in a wonderful way. Yeah. I mean there's also there's 45 00:02:47,720 --> 00:02:49,520 Speaker 1: a hand of glory in it. We don't have another 46 00:02:49,600 --> 00:02:54,359 Speaker 1: hand of glory. Is such a bizarre item of folklore mythology. 47 00:02:54,440 --> 00:02:57,280 Speaker 1: This this dead man, this dead criminals hand with like 48 00:02:57,720 --> 00:03:00,960 Speaker 1: candled fingers, that that causes every one to just become 49 00:03:01,080 --> 00:03:03,800 Speaker 1: in you know, immobile, and it's used by by thieves 50 00:03:03,880 --> 00:03:07,040 Speaker 1: and robbers in their in their mischief. Like that's such 51 00:03:07,240 --> 00:03:11,440 Speaker 1: a wonderfully absurd and hideous idea. I'm surprised we don't 52 00:03:11,440 --> 00:03:13,680 Speaker 1: see it more often. Yeah, and so it also of 53 00:03:13,720 --> 00:03:16,960 Speaker 1: course has animal masks and human sacrifice. So so we 54 00:03:17,040 --> 00:03:20,919 Speaker 1: are going to be talking about human sacrifice today and 55 00:03:21,040 --> 00:03:24,880 Speaker 1: actually a very specific kind of human sacrifice. But one 56 00:03:24,919 --> 00:03:27,760 Speaker 1: thing I was wondering when I was reading Julius Caesar's 57 00:03:27,800 --> 00:03:30,240 Speaker 1: account of the Wickerman, you know, putting all these people 58 00:03:30,240 --> 00:03:33,560 Speaker 1: and basically a human figure woven like a basket out 59 00:03:33,600 --> 00:03:36,720 Speaker 1: of out of willow twigs and then burning them alive. 60 00:03:37,000 --> 00:03:39,720 Speaker 1: Did the Gallic Celts really do this? This would be 61 00:03:39,760 --> 00:03:42,480 Speaker 1: he would be talking about the Celtic people's occupying the 62 00:03:42,480 --> 00:03:45,720 Speaker 1: regions sort of now known as France Um and they 63 00:03:46,120 --> 00:03:48,560 Speaker 1: of course were Caesar's enemies. It's kind of hard to 64 00:03:48,600 --> 00:03:52,240 Speaker 1: say whether or not we can trust Caesar's word on this. Obviously, 65 00:03:52,320 --> 00:03:56,240 Speaker 1: Julius Caesar is describing the culture of his enemies and 66 00:03:56,280 --> 00:03:59,440 Speaker 1: the victims of his conquest, so he's obviously not the 67 00:03:59,440 --> 00:04:03,080 Speaker 1: most simpaththetic or unbiased anthropologist in this sense. Right, He's 68 00:04:03,120 --> 00:04:06,040 Speaker 1: coming from the standpoint of a of of of an 69 00:04:06,080 --> 00:04:10,040 Speaker 1: aggressor from a different culture that sees itself as as superior, 70 00:04:10,400 --> 00:04:13,120 Speaker 1: and just about every form, yeah, he did. It was 71 00:04:13,160 --> 00:04:16,240 Speaker 1: definitely uh not not just that he saw a Roman 72 00:04:16,240 --> 00:04:18,400 Speaker 1: culture as superior, but a lot of this was written 73 00:04:18,400 --> 00:04:22,279 Speaker 1: specifically to show how superior Roman culture was. Like. The 74 00:04:22,360 --> 00:04:27,000 Speaker 1: Romans were interested in portraying their enemies as barbaric and uncivilized, 75 00:04:27,000 --> 00:04:30,200 Speaker 1: and one of the huge primary signifiers of barbarity for 76 00:04:30,279 --> 00:04:34,320 Speaker 1: them was the practice of human sacrifice. Also, in addition, 77 00:04:34,400 --> 00:04:37,680 Speaker 1: I couldn't find any independent evidence of of anything like 78 00:04:37,720 --> 00:04:40,880 Speaker 1: the Wickerman ritual taking place. So who knows if anything 79 00:04:40,960 --> 00:04:44,080 Speaker 1: like this actually happened. It could be just a bunch 80 00:04:44,080 --> 00:04:47,320 Speaker 1: of slander from the Romans point of view, spoken like 81 00:04:47,360 --> 00:04:50,119 Speaker 1: a man who is foreshadowing his own death, a giant, 82 00:04:50,200 --> 00:04:54,000 Speaker 1: flaming Wickerman. Right, I'm in denial, that's exactly what it is. 83 00:04:54,040 --> 00:04:56,320 Speaker 1: I just it can't be true. No, he made it 84 00:04:56,360 --> 00:04:59,640 Speaker 1: all up. But then again, it's not like it's out 85 00:04:59,680 --> 00:05:03,280 Speaker 1: of the question, because when you wade into the shadows 86 00:05:03,320 --> 00:05:06,760 Speaker 1: of ancient history, and especially prehistory, I think pretty much 87 00:05:06,880 --> 00:05:10,120 Speaker 1: no matter what corner of earth you're looking at, you're 88 00:05:10,160 --> 00:05:13,440 Speaker 1: likely to find traces of human sacrifice. Like you could 89 00:05:13,440 --> 00:05:16,240 Speaker 1: be like Julius Caesar the Romans and say, oh, that's 90 00:05:16,279 --> 00:05:19,919 Speaker 1: what those other people over there do. But if you 91 00:05:19,960 --> 00:05:22,600 Speaker 1: go back far enough, it looks like we find traces 92 00:05:22,600 --> 00:05:25,440 Speaker 1: of human sacrifice all over the place. It's not what 93 00:05:25,760 --> 00:05:28,560 Speaker 1: those other people over there do, it's what we did. 94 00:05:28,720 --> 00:05:32,960 Speaker 1: It's what everybody seemed to do. Yeah, And it's one 95 00:05:33,000 --> 00:05:35,480 Speaker 1: of the you look back and just about any culture 96 00:05:35,520 --> 00:05:40,640 Speaker 1: you do find some evidence of this. And on one hand, 97 00:05:40,680 --> 00:05:43,040 Speaker 1: we look back at these ancient people and you think, well, 98 00:05:43,080 --> 00:05:46,640 Speaker 1: they were different than us. They were, uh, they were 99 00:05:46,880 --> 00:05:48,800 Speaker 1: you know, they were a primitive people. They lived with 100 00:05:48,839 --> 00:05:53,680 Speaker 1: a more cyclical mindset, and like the individuality just wasn't 101 00:05:53,760 --> 00:05:56,520 Speaker 1: quite the same. But then on the other hand, like 102 00:05:56,600 --> 00:05:59,000 Speaker 1: we can't distance ourselves too much from them, Like the 103 00:05:59,080 --> 00:06:01,600 Speaker 1: human experience in many ways, it's still gonna be the same, 104 00:06:02,200 --> 00:06:06,000 Speaker 1: and death is still the same. Um, no matter how 105 00:06:06,400 --> 00:06:08,600 Speaker 1: you know, mythic it's wrappings. Yeah, I mean, you can't 106 00:06:08,640 --> 00:06:13,719 Speaker 1: just let your sort of urban ethnocentrism take over and 107 00:06:13,839 --> 00:06:17,200 Speaker 1: imagine how oh how different we are than those uncivilized 108 00:06:17,200 --> 00:06:20,840 Speaker 1: savages out there, especially for example, coming back to Julius Caesar, 109 00:06:21,080 --> 00:06:24,440 Speaker 1: the fact that the Romans probably practiced human sacrifice. In fact, 110 00:06:24,640 --> 00:06:27,360 Speaker 1: we know that they did not that long before Caesar, 111 00:06:27,440 --> 00:06:30,159 Speaker 1: maybe just a couple of centuries before, especially if you 112 00:06:30,200 --> 00:06:32,760 Speaker 1: count the gladiatorial games, which I mean, come on, you know, 113 00:06:32,800 --> 00:06:35,159 Speaker 1: fighting ledge themselves to a god and then fight to 114 00:06:35,200 --> 00:06:38,560 Speaker 1: the death. That sounds kind of like human sacrifice to me. Yeah, 115 00:06:38,600 --> 00:06:40,840 Speaker 1: and as well discussed in this episode several different top 116 00:06:40,880 --> 00:06:45,279 Speaker 1: points here. There there's there's human sacrifice, and then there's 117 00:06:45,320 --> 00:06:47,840 Speaker 1: human sacrifice, and then there are things that that that 118 00:06:48,000 --> 00:06:52,520 Speaker 1: fill the role of human sacrifice in lethal forms, non 119 00:06:52,640 --> 00:06:57,040 Speaker 1: lethal forms, symbolic forms, and uh, in surrogate forms. Yeah, 120 00:06:57,080 --> 00:06:59,760 Speaker 1: that's that's absolutely true. And and in a lot of 121 00:06:59,800 --> 00:07:01,719 Speaker 1: case says, I think in our culture we can find 122 00:07:01,880 --> 00:07:06,240 Speaker 1: relics and ritual traces and residue of human sacrifice even 123 00:07:06,279 --> 00:07:10,280 Speaker 1: when that sacrifice is no longer performed. One good example 124 00:07:10,320 --> 00:07:13,480 Speaker 1: I think would be looking too ancient Rome. You know 125 00:07:13,480 --> 00:07:16,240 Speaker 1: about this festival of the r Gay. I hope I'm 126 00:07:16,240 --> 00:07:19,160 Speaker 1: pronouncing that right. It's a r g e I. I 127 00:07:19,240 --> 00:07:21,679 Speaker 1: was not familiar with this. No, I wasn't either until 128 00:07:21,680 --> 00:07:24,480 Speaker 1: we were doing the reading before this episode. I thought 129 00:07:24,480 --> 00:07:27,120 Speaker 1: this was really interesting. So in this festival, you have 130 00:07:27,200 --> 00:07:30,200 Speaker 1: twice a year in the springtime in Rome, a bunch 131 00:07:30,240 --> 00:07:32,280 Speaker 1: of big procession to go through the city and they'd 132 00:07:32,280 --> 00:07:35,080 Speaker 1: stop at all these stations would be festivals almost like 133 00:07:35,080 --> 00:07:37,200 Speaker 1: you know, Stations of the Cross or something like a 134 00:07:37,320 --> 00:07:40,280 Speaker 1: like a processional where you go to different places and 135 00:07:40,280 --> 00:07:43,000 Speaker 1: you pick up things at these places. And what they 136 00:07:43,040 --> 00:07:47,960 Speaker 1: were picking up were these human shaped effigies bound together 137 00:07:48,080 --> 00:07:51,280 Speaker 1: out of rushes, you know, bull rushes, like cattails. They 138 00:07:51,280 --> 00:07:55,040 Speaker 1: were rush dummies, uh. And they'd carry the rush dummies 139 00:07:55,080 --> 00:07:58,080 Speaker 1: to a bridge in Rome over the Tiber River and 140 00:07:58,120 --> 00:08:01,040 Speaker 1: then they dump them into the river. And the Roman 141 00:08:01,120 --> 00:08:03,640 Speaker 1: historians and all the people at the time, they couldn't 142 00:08:03,640 --> 00:08:07,200 Speaker 1: remember why anybody did this. They couldn't They didn't know 143 00:08:07,200 --> 00:08:10,440 Speaker 1: where the ritual came from, They didn't know what it meant, 144 00:08:10,600 --> 00:08:13,880 Speaker 1: what it was supposed to be about. But many people 145 00:08:13,960 --> 00:08:16,760 Speaker 1: ancient and modern have kind of speculated, Wow, I wonder 146 00:08:16,800 --> 00:08:20,920 Speaker 1: if those Rush dummies weren't dummies originally, Like, what is this? 147 00:08:21,360 --> 00:08:24,800 Speaker 1: Is this a converted ritual of human sacrifice that has 148 00:08:24,840 --> 00:08:30,120 Speaker 1: been tamed and domesticated by substituting effigies for real people. Yeah, 149 00:08:30,520 --> 00:08:34,679 Speaker 1: this example did remind me of something from my childhood. Um, 150 00:08:34,800 --> 00:08:36,160 Speaker 1: I spent I spent a couple of years of my 151 00:08:36,200 --> 00:08:39,320 Speaker 1: childhood in Newfoundland, Canada, and there they had a tradition 152 00:08:39,440 --> 00:08:42,160 Speaker 1: known as as Bonfire Night, where you everyone would get 153 00:08:42,200 --> 00:08:45,040 Speaker 1: together and you just have a big bonfire. Sounds great, yeah, 154 00:08:45,080 --> 00:08:48,160 Speaker 1: but but it apparently my understanding is that this was 155 00:08:48,240 --> 00:08:51,920 Speaker 1: essentially Guy Fox Day, where you know, across the ocean, 156 00:08:52,360 --> 00:08:55,320 Speaker 1: you were burning effigies of Guy Fox. The of course, 157 00:08:55,360 --> 00:08:58,840 Speaker 1: the the Trader, the Gunpowder plot. What year was that 158 00:08:58,880 --> 00:09:01,320 Speaker 1: he tried to blow up Parliament? There's a rhyme, isn't 159 00:09:01,360 --> 00:09:03,720 Speaker 1: there I'm supposed to remember a rhyme. I don't remember. 160 00:09:03,720 --> 00:09:07,559 Speaker 1: Remember remember the fifth of November. Oh that doesn't tell 161 00:09:07,559 --> 00:09:09,440 Speaker 1: you the year, tell me the year. Well, anyway, so 162 00:09:09,480 --> 00:09:11,720 Speaker 1: guy Fox tried to blow up parliament, right right, So 163 00:09:11,840 --> 00:09:15,160 Speaker 1: he's burned in effigy for his crime, which will discuss. 164 00:09:15,200 --> 00:09:19,000 Speaker 1: I mean, there's certainly a symbolic human sacrifice him play there. 165 00:09:19,360 --> 00:09:22,880 Speaker 1: But as the tradition crosses the ocean, it like the 166 00:09:22,880 --> 00:09:27,840 Speaker 1: geographical distance, the as well as the as the temporal distance, 167 00:09:28,559 --> 00:09:31,719 Speaker 1: just completely changes the practice until it's just this, Hey, 168 00:09:31,800 --> 00:09:33,800 Speaker 1: let's get together and have this big bonfire. Yeah, you 169 00:09:33,800 --> 00:09:35,840 Speaker 1: can't even remember why you're supposed to do it. Yeah, 170 00:09:36,720 --> 00:09:45,280 Speaker 1: we're celebrating the burning of the would the festival of chemistry? Yeah, 171 00:09:45,280 --> 00:09:47,319 Speaker 1: but does make me wonder if that Roman tradition is 172 00:09:47,360 --> 00:09:50,920 Speaker 1: a similar situation. Yeah, dude, were these once live people 173 00:09:50,920 --> 00:09:53,520 Speaker 1: thrown over the bridge, and then after that were they 174 00:09:53,600 --> 00:09:58,720 Speaker 1: symbolic individuals that represented enemies? You know, it could just 175 00:09:58,760 --> 00:10:02,160 Speaker 1: be that it remained and after it no longer had significance. Right, 176 00:10:02,240 --> 00:10:04,679 Speaker 1: you know, people like just enjoy having a bonfire, They 177 00:10:04,720 --> 00:10:07,319 Speaker 1: just enjoy making some rush dummies and throwing them into 178 00:10:07,360 --> 00:10:09,720 Speaker 1: the water, and he excused to sit around in craft, 179 00:10:09,840 --> 00:10:12,640 Speaker 1: right exactly. Okay, so we are going to be focusing 180 00:10:12,640 --> 00:10:16,120 Speaker 1: on a specific kind of human sacrifice today, and we 181 00:10:16,320 --> 00:10:17,720 Speaker 1: that we wanted to get into the one of the 182 00:10:17,760 --> 00:10:21,640 Speaker 1: weirdest examples of it, which is ritual regicide, that the 183 00:10:21,840 --> 00:10:27,040 Speaker 1: symbolic or ritual slaughter of a king or divine leader. 184 00:10:27,360 --> 00:10:29,080 Speaker 1: But before we get to that, I think we should 185 00:10:29,120 --> 00:10:31,839 Speaker 1: just go go over some of the basics of what 186 00:10:31,960 --> 00:10:36,480 Speaker 1: the profile of human sacrifice is on planet Earth, Like 187 00:10:36,720 --> 00:10:39,720 Speaker 1: how common and how widespread was the practice of human 188 00:10:39,760 --> 00:10:43,959 Speaker 1: sacrifice in prehistory in the ancient world. Yeah, well, pretty widespread, 189 00:10:44,240 --> 00:10:47,079 Speaker 1: and you're basically you can you can pretty much expect 190 00:10:47,080 --> 00:10:49,240 Speaker 1: to find a supernatural element in any of these. Obviously 191 00:10:49,240 --> 00:10:53,400 Speaker 1: it's tied into into into old beliefs involving deities and 192 00:10:53,440 --> 00:10:56,840 Speaker 1: appeasing the deities. Yeah, or I think for the purpose 193 00:10:56,880 --> 00:10:58,679 Speaker 1: of this episode, let me know if you disagree, but 194 00:10:58,760 --> 00:11:01,160 Speaker 1: I think we should go with the the broad definition 195 00:11:01,200 --> 00:11:04,480 Speaker 1: offered sort of by the uh the Roman interpretation of 196 00:11:04,520 --> 00:11:08,640 Speaker 1: human sacrifice, which is any homicide for magical purposes. Yes, 197 00:11:09,480 --> 00:11:11,440 Speaker 1: and yeah, I think that's a very good definition to 198 00:11:11,440 --> 00:11:14,840 Speaker 1: move forward with. So there are different modes of human 199 00:11:14,880 --> 00:11:18,160 Speaker 1: sacrifice underneath that. The tent now one of the oldest 200 00:11:18,240 --> 00:11:20,800 Speaker 1: you're gonna find. And this is like more or less 201 00:11:20,960 --> 00:11:24,200 Speaker 1: literal sacrifice, is the mass sacrifice of the dead leader's 202 00:11:24,400 --> 00:11:29,920 Speaker 1: um uh cordiers followers to accompany them into the afterlife, 203 00:11:30,200 --> 00:11:32,320 Speaker 1: like the Pharaoh's right exactly. Yeah, this is the old 204 00:11:32,320 --> 00:11:34,839 Speaker 1: trope of like, oh, the king's dead, you were his 205 00:11:34,920 --> 00:11:37,960 Speaker 1: best friend, you were a slever as mistresses, queen, his 206 00:11:38,080 --> 00:11:40,720 Speaker 1: cat whatever. Don't want him to be lonely in the 207 00:11:40,720 --> 00:11:42,640 Speaker 1: next day. I wanted to be lonely. Do the right thing, 208 00:11:42,679 --> 00:11:45,240 Speaker 1: go with him, and so in that that's something that's 209 00:11:45,240 --> 00:11:49,400 Speaker 1: worth noting too, is that depending on the account or 210 00:11:49,400 --> 00:11:51,960 Speaker 1: the lack of an account, in many cases you have 211 00:11:52,040 --> 00:11:55,120 Speaker 1: to ask what extent is this a self sacrifice or 212 00:11:55,559 --> 00:11:59,480 Speaker 1: you know, a homicide. But you know it dates back 213 00:11:59,520 --> 00:12:02,920 Speaker 1: at least five thousand years in agricultural societies in Europe. 214 00:12:03,080 --> 00:12:05,800 Speaker 1: We see evidence of this with the Royal Tombs of 215 00:12:05,840 --> 00:12:10,040 Speaker 1: ancient Mesopotamia from you know, thirty five BC, the tombs 216 00:12:10,080 --> 00:12:13,440 Speaker 1: of the First Dynasty of Egyptian pharaohs from around UT 217 00:12:13,520 --> 00:12:17,680 Speaker 1: one hundred to nine b C. The royal tombs of 218 00:12:17,679 --> 00:12:21,320 Speaker 1: the Shang dynasty in China from sixteen hundred BC e 219 00:12:21,400 --> 00:12:25,720 Speaker 1: to ten, as well as the tomb of Quinshai Hung, 220 00:12:26,480 --> 00:12:29,800 Speaker 1: who died into twenty b C, the first Emperor of China, 221 00:12:30,360 --> 00:12:33,520 Speaker 1: and we also see elements of this inviking funeral customs 222 00:12:33,520 --> 00:12:39,280 Speaker 1: from around uh The ancient civilizations of the America's were 223 00:12:39,320 --> 00:12:42,120 Speaker 1: also quite well known for the human sacrifices. The Incas, 224 00:12:42,200 --> 00:12:45,120 Speaker 1: the Aztecs, I mean the Aztecs engaged in the mass 225 00:12:45,320 --> 00:12:49,240 Speaker 1: sacrifice of defeated enemy warriors, sometimes through the use of 226 00:12:49,400 --> 00:12:55,600 Speaker 1: flower wars, which were themselves ritualized warfare and engagements. And 227 00:12:55,640 --> 00:12:58,360 Speaker 1: of course the Aztecs, the Incas, and the Maya all 228 00:12:58,400 --> 00:13:02,199 Speaker 1: seem to engage in child sacer defice as well on occasion. Now, 229 00:13:02,200 --> 00:13:04,880 Speaker 1: one thing you'll notice from a lot of these examples 230 00:13:04,880 --> 00:13:09,920 Speaker 1: we mentioned is what types of people were usually sacrificed to. 231 00:13:10,040 --> 00:13:12,640 Speaker 1: So we have we see practices of human sacrifice going 232 00:13:12,679 --> 00:13:15,120 Speaker 1: on all around the ancient world, all over the place. 233 00:13:15,760 --> 00:13:18,640 Speaker 1: Who was usually the victim of this sacrifice? I would 234 00:13:18,720 --> 00:13:20,720 Speaker 1: argue that in most cases, like you just talked about 235 00:13:20,760 --> 00:13:24,760 Speaker 1: defeated enemies, children, it's the powerless, it's people who don't 236 00:13:24,840 --> 00:13:27,520 Speaker 1: have a lot of power and say so about what 237 00:13:27,600 --> 00:13:31,680 Speaker 1: happens in society. So you get, you know, the follower, 238 00:13:31,880 --> 00:13:34,280 Speaker 1: the followers of the king who has failed and who 239 00:13:34,360 --> 00:13:36,720 Speaker 1: has died, the person who the people who have come 240 00:13:36,760 --> 00:13:39,120 Speaker 1: out of favor and out of power, but then also 241 00:13:39,480 --> 00:13:45,640 Speaker 1: defeated enemies, children, teenagers, criminals, people convicted of crimes, and 242 00:13:45,840 --> 00:13:50,679 Speaker 1: enemies of the state, people people generally without power. Yes, 243 00:13:50,720 --> 00:13:53,040 Speaker 1: I think that's a fair assessment. And so even like 244 00:13:53,120 --> 00:13:55,600 Speaker 1: Caesar Julius, Caesar tells us in his story of the 245 00:13:55,600 --> 00:13:59,800 Speaker 1: wicker Man, whether truthfully or not, again, the goals preferred 246 00:14:00,040 --> 00:14:03,520 Speaker 1: to load up their wicker man with thieves and other criminals. 247 00:14:03,800 --> 00:14:06,000 Speaker 1: But hey, if you're out of thieves, you know, some 248 00:14:06,120 --> 00:14:08,840 Speaker 1: innocent people will just have to do. You gotta feel 249 00:14:08,840 --> 00:14:12,000 Speaker 1: that Wickerman. So generally, you're you're gonna want to assume 250 00:14:12,120 --> 00:14:14,600 Speaker 1: that the victims of human sacrifice most often are going 251 00:14:14,640 --> 00:14:18,520 Speaker 1: to be chosen from among the most disadvantaged stations of society. 252 00:14:18,559 --> 00:14:24,760 Speaker 1: So the poor, slaves, women, press, ethnic minorities, defeated enemies, criminals, 253 00:14:25,520 --> 00:14:28,640 Speaker 1: or perceived criminals. And and this is for fairly obvious reasons. 254 00:14:28,680 --> 00:14:32,440 Speaker 1: The people making the rules in a society don't usually 255 00:14:32,480 --> 00:14:36,400 Speaker 1: make rules that involve putting themselves at risk of being burned, 256 00:14:36,440 --> 00:14:39,800 Speaker 1: alive or beheaded. But today we want to look at 257 00:14:39,840 --> 00:14:44,520 Speaker 1: a fascinating historical principle that runs counter to that, the 258 00:14:44,600 --> 00:14:51,320 Speaker 1: concept of ritual regicide, the ritual sacrifice or or murder 259 00:14:51,440 --> 00:14:55,080 Speaker 1: for magical purposes of a king or a monarch, the 260 00:14:55,200 --> 00:15:00,440 Speaker 1: sacred slaughter of the most powerful person in a society. Yeah, 261 00:15:00,440 --> 00:15:04,720 Speaker 1: it definitely turns most of our preconceptions of human sacrifice 262 00:15:04,760 --> 00:15:07,120 Speaker 1: completely on their head. But as we discuss it, it 263 00:15:07,600 --> 00:15:09,760 Speaker 1: makes it makes a lot of sense, and you can 264 00:15:09,800 --> 00:15:12,920 Speaker 1: see it even in the even in the fabric of 265 00:15:12,920 --> 00:15:15,760 Speaker 1: our current systems of rule. Yeah, we'll definitely get into 266 00:15:15,800 --> 00:15:18,560 Speaker 1: that more later. But this idea is is not something 267 00:15:18,600 --> 00:15:21,120 Speaker 1: we've just recently discovered. This is actually an idea that 268 00:15:21,120 --> 00:15:24,520 Speaker 1: has a lot of precedent and uh in comparative religions 269 00:15:24,520 --> 00:15:27,120 Speaker 1: and anthropology. In one place you can find a historical 270 00:15:27,160 --> 00:15:30,520 Speaker 1: precedent for talking about ritual regicide is in the work 271 00:15:30,560 --> 00:15:34,560 Speaker 1: of James G. Fraser. Uh, Fraser and the Golden Bow. 272 00:15:34,720 --> 00:15:37,280 Speaker 1: So James Fraser, we should say right at the beginning, 273 00:15:38,160 --> 00:15:41,560 Speaker 1: he was a great writer, and he was somebody who 274 00:15:41,680 --> 00:15:44,840 Speaker 1: who did were. He was a Scottish anthropologist and The 275 00:15:44,880 --> 00:15:47,760 Speaker 1: Golden Bow was his magnum opus. It was this huge 276 00:15:47,880 --> 00:15:52,520 Speaker 1: work on religious anthropology and a comparative study and religions. 277 00:15:52,560 --> 00:15:54,840 Speaker 1: So it was various volumes of The Golden Bow that 278 00:15:54,880 --> 00:15:58,120 Speaker 1: we're published, starting in eighteen ninety and then continuing over 279 00:15:58,160 --> 00:16:00,440 Speaker 1: the next few decades. And what he was trying to 280 00:16:00,480 --> 00:16:03,920 Speaker 1: do is find the common roots of myths and religious 281 00:16:04,040 --> 00:16:07,520 Speaker 1: rituals around the world. And the killing of the Divine 282 00:16:07,640 --> 00:16:11,040 Speaker 1: King is a ritual that plays centrally in his theory 283 00:16:11,120 --> 00:16:14,960 Speaker 1: about where all these myths and rituals come from. So 284 00:16:15,480 --> 00:16:20,080 Speaker 1: Fraser's work is what it's just chock full of, I 285 00:16:20,120 --> 00:16:23,920 Speaker 1: don't know, nineteenth century isms and what people would today 286 00:16:23,920 --> 00:16:28,200 Speaker 1: would probably just recognize as speculation. Very interesting speculation, and 287 00:16:28,240 --> 00:16:32,560 Speaker 1: Fraser was a very smart and creative and thoughtful guy. 288 00:16:32,600 --> 00:16:36,320 Speaker 1: But it's full of him making connections in his mind 289 00:16:37,080 --> 00:16:39,920 Speaker 1: and uh, and things that would not be considered the 290 00:16:39,960 --> 00:16:44,600 Speaker 1: most rigorous or or neutral, unbiased science by our standards 291 00:16:44,640 --> 00:16:48,440 Speaker 1: of social science today. But it's still a fascinating and 292 00:16:48,520 --> 00:16:52,240 Speaker 1: highly influential work of let's say English literature. Yeah, yeah, 293 00:16:52,240 --> 00:16:55,240 Speaker 1: it's highly readable and uh, you know, it's just researching 294 00:16:56,080 --> 00:17:00,680 Speaker 1: um anthropolic anthropological views on myth for an episode that 295 00:17:00,960 --> 00:17:03,080 Speaker 1: has at this point already come out for stuff to 296 00:17:03,080 --> 00:17:05,639 Speaker 1: blow your mind, and that of course deals with all 297 00:17:05,680 --> 00:17:08,120 Speaker 1: the different ways you can try and interpret interpret myth 298 00:17:08,160 --> 00:17:11,359 Speaker 1: and folklore and legend and uh and and and of 299 00:17:11,359 --> 00:17:13,560 Speaker 1: course Fraser's work came up in a number of the 300 00:17:13,600 --> 00:17:15,800 Speaker 1: things I was reading most most of them. You know, 301 00:17:15,840 --> 00:17:18,240 Speaker 1: even that even if they had severe bones to pick 302 00:17:18,320 --> 00:17:21,719 Speaker 1: with him on certain issues that they would tend to say, well, 303 00:17:21,760 --> 00:17:24,040 Speaker 1: you can't just discount Frasier, like, oh, it's such an 304 00:17:24,080 --> 00:17:28,560 Speaker 1: important work of of of anthropology that you know, everybody's 305 00:17:28,600 --> 00:17:30,320 Speaker 1: kind of working in a shad out to a certain extent. 306 00:17:30,440 --> 00:17:32,840 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean, it's it's so good to read too. 307 00:17:32,960 --> 00:17:35,480 Speaker 1: He was just such a great writer. It's one of 308 00:17:35,520 --> 00:17:38,320 Speaker 1: those great works of in the history of what you 309 00:17:38,400 --> 00:17:41,200 Speaker 1: might call social science or the or the predecessors to 310 00:17:41,280 --> 00:17:43,960 Speaker 1: modern social science. While it might not have a whole 311 00:17:43,960 --> 00:17:47,200 Speaker 1: lot of scientific merit today, it's still just a really 312 00:17:47,320 --> 00:17:50,680 Speaker 1: great book to read. As a book. It's great fun reading, 313 00:17:50,720 --> 00:17:54,679 Speaker 1: it's imaginative, it's fascinating, and it was hugely influential at 314 00:17:54,680 --> 00:17:56,119 Speaker 1: the time, so it's a great thing to read if 315 00:17:56,160 --> 00:18:00,359 Speaker 1: you want to understand the literature of the early twenty century, 316 00:18:00,400 --> 00:18:02,880 Speaker 1: because it influenced all kinds of people. The Waste Land 317 00:18:02,920 --> 00:18:06,600 Speaker 1: by T. S. Eliott is highly influenced modernist literature in general. 318 00:18:06,640 --> 00:18:09,080 Speaker 1: A lot of these writers were reading James Fraser and 319 00:18:09,359 --> 00:18:13,320 Speaker 1: his ideas about myths and rituals. But so Fraser gets 320 00:18:13,359 --> 00:18:16,080 Speaker 1: into the killing of the divine king in chapter twenty 321 00:18:16,119 --> 00:18:18,000 Speaker 1: four of The Golden Bow, and and this has a 322 00:18:18,000 --> 00:18:20,399 Speaker 1: few sections. So first of all, he he establishes this 323 00:18:20,440 --> 00:18:24,240 Speaker 1: principle that he calls the mortality of the gods, which 324 00:18:24,280 --> 00:18:27,240 Speaker 1: is where he says that in many traditional pagan religions, 325 00:18:27,560 --> 00:18:33,120 Speaker 1: the gods are understood to be mortal. They're not timeless, perfect, abstract, 326 00:18:33,160 --> 00:18:36,040 Speaker 1: eternal beings. They're they're not the ground of all being, 327 00:18:36,200 --> 00:18:39,520 Speaker 1: they're not the origin of all but they're there beings, 328 00:18:39,560 --> 00:18:43,359 Speaker 1: their flesh and blood, beings that can walk around, that 329 00:18:43,440 --> 00:18:48,240 Speaker 1: they experienced travails, passions, struggles, and eventually they die. And 330 00:18:48,320 --> 00:18:50,879 Speaker 1: of course, if you are linking the idea of kingship 331 00:18:50,960 --> 00:18:54,040 Speaker 1: with the idea of godship, if the gods at some 332 00:18:54,119 --> 00:18:57,240 Speaker 1: point die, then the king at some point must die. Yeah, 333 00:18:57,280 --> 00:18:59,399 Speaker 1: one is then as an extension of the other. Yeah, 334 00:18:59,640 --> 00:19:03,240 Speaker 1: And so Fraser goes on to talk about the concept 335 00:19:03,400 --> 00:19:08,600 Speaker 1: of kings killed when their strength fails. So many societies, 336 00:19:08,640 --> 00:19:11,879 Speaker 1: he says, have a belief in this divine king concept, 337 00:19:11,880 --> 00:19:15,520 Speaker 1: where the king is in some sense a species of God. Right, 338 00:19:16,160 --> 00:19:19,399 Speaker 1: the king is is somewhere between a mortal and a 339 00:19:19,480 --> 00:19:22,720 Speaker 1: full on divine God, or might in some sense be 340 00:19:22,960 --> 00:19:25,159 Speaker 1: a full on divine God, that is just you know, 341 00:19:25,240 --> 00:19:28,439 Speaker 1: living among your society as a king. And also in 342 00:19:28,520 --> 00:19:31,440 Speaker 1: some sense the king and the kingdom are one there 343 00:19:31,440 --> 00:19:34,760 Speaker 1: they are linked by sympathetic magic, and their fates are 344 00:19:34,800 --> 00:19:39,200 Speaker 1: inextricably linked. So the health of the king relates directly 345 00:19:39,320 --> 00:19:42,159 Speaker 1: to the health of the kingdom. His body is the 346 00:19:42,200 --> 00:19:44,439 Speaker 1: body of the people, of the body of the nation, 347 00:19:45,040 --> 00:19:47,959 Speaker 1: and and is in a sense that the manifestation of 348 00:19:47,960 --> 00:19:50,639 Speaker 1: the God as well. Exactly so, the failure of a 349 00:19:50,720 --> 00:19:53,120 Speaker 1: king is the failure of the kingdom, and the king 350 00:19:53,200 --> 00:19:56,920 Speaker 1: becomes this magical metaem for the society itself. And what 351 00:19:57,200 --> 00:19:59,800 Speaker 1: Fraser does here is he goes on to give all 352 00:19:59,800 --> 00:20:04,359 Speaker 1: the anthropological examples of societies that he claims societies and 353 00:20:04,400 --> 00:20:07,919 Speaker 1: religions and tribal groups that he claims have this idea 354 00:20:08,000 --> 00:20:12,240 Speaker 1: of divine kingship where the king is killed when his 355 00:20:12,800 --> 00:20:17,600 Speaker 1: when his failing strength or failing health, or failing virility, 356 00:20:17,640 --> 00:20:21,280 Speaker 1: or or something like that seems to indicate a a 357 00:20:21,520 --> 00:20:24,959 Speaker 1: by by link of sympathetic magic, a bad omen for 358 00:20:25,040 --> 00:20:28,440 Speaker 1: the kingdom. So if the king begins to become weak, 359 00:20:29,080 --> 00:20:31,560 Speaker 1: you've got to kill the king to save the kingdom 360 00:20:31,600 --> 00:20:33,840 Speaker 1: from becoming weak as well. Yeah, I don't go out 361 00:20:33,840 --> 00:20:36,640 Speaker 1: on a good note right exactly while he's still young 362 00:20:36,680 --> 00:20:39,840 Speaker 1: and healthy. And I want to read a quote from Fraser. 363 00:20:39,880 --> 00:20:42,600 Speaker 1: He says, quote, for they believe, as we have seen, 364 00:20:42,680 --> 00:20:46,000 Speaker 1: that the king's life or spirit is so sympathetically bound 365 00:20:46,080 --> 00:20:48,960 Speaker 1: up with the prosperity of the whole country that if 366 00:20:49,040 --> 00:20:52,439 Speaker 1: he fell ill or grew senile, the cattle would sicken 367 00:20:52,600 --> 00:20:56,320 Speaker 1: and cease to multiply, the crops would rot in the fields, 368 00:20:56,400 --> 00:21:00,400 Speaker 1: and men would perish of widespread disease. Hence, in their opinion, 369 00:21:00,680 --> 00:21:03,359 Speaker 1: the only way of averting these calamities is to put 370 00:21:03,400 --> 00:21:06,439 Speaker 1: the king to death while he is still hail and hearty, 371 00:21:06,880 --> 00:21:09,680 Speaker 1: in order that the divine spirit which he has inherited 372 00:21:09,720 --> 00:21:13,400 Speaker 1: from his predecessors may be transmitted in turn, by him 373 00:21:13,480 --> 00:21:16,680 Speaker 1: to his successor while it is still in full vigor 374 00:21:16,720 --> 00:21:19,359 Speaker 1: and has not yet been impaired by the weakness of 375 00:21:19,480 --> 00:21:22,920 Speaker 1: disease and old age. So there are all these stories 376 00:21:22,960 --> 00:21:25,480 Speaker 1: he he gives where you know, there's an account of 377 00:21:25,480 --> 00:21:28,000 Speaker 1: a tribe where the tribe has a king, and then 378 00:21:28,080 --> 00:21:30,000 Speaker 1: as soon as the try, as soon as the king 379 00:21:30,080 --> 00:21:32,920 Speaker 1: maybe begins to show gray hair or begin or has 380 00:21:32,920 --> 00:21:36,240 Speaker 1: a missing tooth, or has any other or cannot produce 381 00:21:36,320 --> 00:21:39,440 Speaker 1: children anymore, or has any kind of sign that their 382 00:21:39,480 --> 00:21:43,440 Speaker 1: strength and youth and vigor is failing, there's a ritualized 383 00:21:43,560 --> 00:21:46,280 Speaker 1: process by which the king is put to death so 384 00:21:46,359 --> 00:21:49,639 Speaker 1: that a new healthy king can be installed, saving the 385 00:21:49,680 --> 00:21:53,280 Speaker 1: country from being punished by this link with weakness through 386 00:21:53,280 --> 00:21:57,480 Speaker 1: sympathetic magic. And then sometimes he also recounts that there 387 00:21:57,480 --> 00:21:59,879 Speaker 1: are there are societies and groups that don't want to 388 00:22:00,040 --> 00:22:04,040 Speaker 1: wait until the king shows signs of illness or failing strength, 389 00:22:04,200 --> 00:22:06,040 Speaker 1: so they just have a fixed term. It's sort of 390 00:22:06,080 --> 00:22:08,800 Speaker 1: like a term limit on the king. But you don't 391 00:22:08,880 --> 00:22:10,639 Speaker 1: want to come to the end of that term because 392 00:22:10,640 --> 00:22:12,840 Speaker 1: you don't just leave office, you get put to death. 393 00:22:13,600 --> 00:22:16,199 Speaker 1: So this is Fraser's idea. And as I said, you know, 394 00:22:16,600 --> 00:22:19,680 Speaker 1: his work is really fascinating, it's fun to read, but 395 00:22:20,359 --> 00:22:24,120 Speaker 1: it's not necessarily the most rigorous work of modern anthropology. 396 00:22:24,160 --> 00:22:27,160 Speaker 1: So the question is this whole process Fraser is talking 397 00:22:27,200 --> 00:22:30,840 Speaker 1: about the the ritual sacrifice of the divine king. Do 398 00:22:30,920 --> 00:22:34,520 Speaker 1: we really see the ritual sacrifice of kings in the 399 00:22:34,560 --> 00:22:37,520 Speaker 1: real world? Is this something that really gets enacted in 400 00:22:37,600 --> 00:22:40,000 Speaker 1: one form or another, and what role does it play 401 00:22:40,040 --> 00:22:44,120 Speaker 1: in the society's that do the do practice things like this? Well, 402 00:22:44,160 --> 00:22:46,159 Speaker 1: to answer that question, Joe, I think we're gonna have 403 00:22:46,200 --> 00:22:49,760 Speaker 1: to go to the bog. Yeah, I think it's time 404 00:22:49,760 --> 00:22:52,119 Speaker 1: to consult some bog bodies. What do you think the 405 00:22:53,560 --> 00:22:55,879 Speaker 1: I'm gonna put you in a scenario, Okay, put me 406 00:22:55,880 --> 00:23:00,920 Speaker 1: in it. Imagine you are digging down into a peat ball. Now, 407 00:23:01,160 --> 00:23:05,159 Speaker 1: bogs are places where there's vertical accumulation of dead plant 408 00:23:05,240 --> 00:23:08,000 Speaker 1: matter over time, such as layers of dead moss or 409 00:23:08,040 --> 00:23:11,520 Speaker 1: something like that. That this is dead old plant matter, 410 00:23:11,600 --> 00:23:13,680 Speaker 1: and it's known as pete and it makes a very 411 00:23:13,760 --> 00:23:16,080 Speaker 1: useful fuel if you want to heat your house or 412 00:23:16,160 --> 00:23:19,280 Speaker 1: boil some porridge for dinner. Uh. So you go out 413 00:23:19,320 --> 00:23:22,200 Speaker 1: and you dig in the peat and you're shoveling through 414 00:23:22,200 --> 00:23:24,520 Speaker 1: the peat getting some nice fuel for the fire, and 415 00:23:24,560 --> 00:23:27,199 Speaker 1: your shovel strikes something that looks like a hunk of 416 00:23:27,240 --> 00:23:30,840 Speaker 1: old leather. But then you notice this hunk of old leather. 417 00:23:31,440 --> 00:23:33,320 Speaker 1: You know, it almost looks like in the shape of 418 00:23:33,359 --> 00:23:37,760 Speaker 1: a foot, like an old leathery fruit by the foot 419 00:23:38,640 --> 00:23:42,679 Speaker 1: or fruit roll up. That's us dark and withered. But 420 00:23:42,760 --> 00:23:47,720 Speaker 1: it's it's foot shaped, and it has toes, and the 421 00:23:47,760 --> 00:23:51,439 Speaker 1: toes have toenails, and it's attached to a leg, and 422 00:23:51,520 --> 00:23:53,640 Speaker 1: you keep going up the leg and the legs attached 423 00:23:53,640 --> 00:23:57,040 Speaker 1: to a body. Oh, it seems you have discovered a 424 00:23:57,080 --> 00:24:00,800 Speaker 1: bog body. So Pete bogs, these bogs we talked about, 425 00:24:00,840 --> 00:24:04,040 Speaker 1: have been known to naturally preserve bodies that are laid 426 00:24:04,080 --> 00:24:07,320 Speaker 1: to rest into them, essentially because of the soil chemistry, 427 00:24:07,320 --> 00:24:10,360 Speaker 1: the chemistry of the bog environment. When you sink under 428 00:24:10,400 --> 00:24:14,280 Speaker 1: the peat, you are in this cold, an aerobic environment 429 00:24:14,320 --> 00:24:18,880 Speaker 1: with a low pH that's a non oxygenated environment with 430 00:24:18,880 --> 00:24:22,160 Speaker 1: with acidity, which staves off rot and provides a sort 431 00:24:22,200 --> 00:24:26,119 Speaker 1: of natural mummification to a body that's that's preserved this way. 432 00:24:26,720 --> 00:24:30,320 Speaker 1: And these human remains can be very pristine in some way, 433 00:24:30,359 --> 00:24:33,000 Speaker 1: so they'll they'll often be sort of darkened and shriveled 434 00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:36,199 Speaker 1: and hardened, but they'll keep all the tissues intact, like 435 00:24:36,200 --> 00:24:38,439 Speaker 1: a lot of momification. You would notice if one of 436 00:24:38,440 --> 00:24:40,200 Speaker 1: these was walking down the street, and you would say, 437 00:24:40,240 --> 00:24:42,399 Speaker 1: that does not right, that should not be alive, right, 438 00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:45,800 Speaker 1: we should rise up with fire against it. But in 439 00:24:45,920 --> 00:24:48,560 Speaker 1: terms of finding a body from the from the past, 440 00:24:48,920 --> 00:24:51,479 Speaker 1: it's very well preserved. Yeah, there's far less decay than 441 00:24:51,480 --> 00:24:54,520 Speaker 1: there would be from a burial and normal soil. Uh. 442 00:24:54,560 --> 00:24:57,640 Speaker 1: And so we can often see signs from these bog 443 00:24:57,640 --> 00:25:00,960 Speaker 1: bodies because of how pristinely they're preserved that the person 444 00:25:01,080 --> 00:25:04,679 Speaker 1: interred in the bog died by homicide. That's interesting. So 445 00:25:04,720 --> 00:25:07,359 Speaker 1: we see these all over. Were mainly focusing here on 446 00:25:07,440 --> 00:25:09,960 Speaker 1: the ones that are in like a northern and western Europe. 447 00:25:10,359 --> 00:25:12,960 Speaker 1: So in northern Europe you have pete bog bodies that 448 00:25:13,040 --> 00:25:16,080 Speaker 1: often look like they didn't just fall into a bog 449 00:25:16,160 --> 00:25:19,040 Speaker 1: and die. These people were put to death. They might 450 00:25:19,080 --> 00:25:22,239 Speaker 1: be bound, have their hands or feet bound, they might 451 00:25:22,280 --> 00:25:25,520 Speaker 1: be partially or fully naked. In some of these cases, 452 00:25:25,560 --> 00:25:28,360 Speaker 1: it might be the simple execution of criminals, but there 453 00:25:28,359 --> 00:25:31,879 Speaker 1: have been many that have been interpreted as likely sacrificial 454 00:25:31,920 --> 00:25:34,959 Speaker 1: in nature. There's human sacrifice going on in northern Europe, 455 00:25:35,320 --> 00:25:38,000 Speaker 1: and these bodies are ending up in bogs. So there's 456 00:25:38,119 --> 00:25:41,399 Speaker 1: there's perhaps even a sacred idea about what the bog 457 00:25:41,560 --> 00:25:43,359 Speaker 1: is and why they are taken to the bog, like 458 00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:46,080 Speaker 1: perhaps it's a it's a no man's land, or a 459 00:25:46,119 --> 00:25:51,880 Speaker 1: crossroads or a or a a sacred or or damned place. Yeah, 460 00:25:51,920 --> 00:25:53,880 Speaker 1: some of them might have been sacred locations. In fact, 461 00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:56,160 Speaker 1: we're going to talk about one now that could have been. 462 00:25:56,600 --> 00:25:58,840 Speaker 1: So let's meet a couple of bog bodies. Both of 463 00:25:58,840 --> 00:26:01,800 Speaker 1: these were discovered in Troll, Ireland in two thousand three, 464 00:26:02,280 --> 00:26:05,640 Speaker 1: just about forty kilometers apart, and it was in the 465 00:26:05,680 --> 00:26:08,280 Speaker 1: one was in the town of clony Can, County Meath, 466 00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:11,919 Speaker 1: and the other was near krogan Hill, County Offaly. And 467 00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:15,240 Speaker 1: so the krogan Hill one is known as Old krogan Man. 468 00:26:15,480 --> 00:26:17,800 Speaker 1: That sounds like a great name for an Irish whiskey, 469 00:26:17,880 --> 00:26:20,520 Speaker 1: by the way, Yeah, Old Krogan Man. Yeah, what's your 470 00:26:20,520 --> 00:26:22,800 Speaker 1: what's your brand? Oh? I only drink Old krogan Man. 471 00:26:22,880 --> 00:26:26,600 Speaker 1: Give me four fingers an Old Krogan Man, four pruney 472 00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:29,960 Speaker 1: black fingers from Oh it's great, So Old Krogan Man 473 00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:33,520 Speaker 1: probably lived due to radio carbon dating, probably lived between 474 00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:36,879 Speaker 1: three sixty two b C E and one b C. 475 00:26:37,800 --> 00:26:41,720 Speaker 1: And he is missing his head and legs, but based 476 00:26:41,760 --> 00:26:44,480 Speaker 1: on what remains, his height can be calculated to be 477 00:26:44,920 --> 00:26:47,800 Speaker 1: six ft and six inches or a hundred and nine 478 00:26:48,200 --> 00:26:54,880 Speaker 1: centimeters tall. That is dang tall for the ancient world. Yeah, 479 00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:57,560 Speaker 1: that's tall today. Back then people were short. Yeah, but 480 00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:00,239 Speaker 1: this is like pro wrestler height right here. Yeah, this 481 00:27:00,280 --> 00:27:03,280 Speaker 1: is a specially tall for the time. Uh. And so 482 00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:07,639 Speaker 1: another interesting thing about him is finally manicured nails and 483 00:27:07,960 --> 00:27:12,119 Speaker 1: delicate hands preserved, indicating that he was an aristocratic person 484 00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:16,040 Speaker 1: who didn't have to do manual labor. His last meal 485 00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:19,199 Speaker 1: was determined to be buttermilk and cereals, but based on 486 00:27:19,280 --> 00:27:21,600 Speaker 1: his body we can determine that his diet was rich 487 00:27:21,680 --> 00:27:24,040 Speaker 1: in meat. This is interesting because when you think back 488 00:27:24,040 --> 00:27:27,879 Speaker 1: on ancient people's and especially if you're thinking about the 489 00:27:27,920 --> 00:27:30,240 Speaker 1: type of culture of where people are taken out to 490 00:27:30,280 --> 00:27:33,040 Speaker 1: the bog and hacked pieces, you might think I was 491 00:27:33,080 --> 00:27:35,639 Speaker 1: just a bunch of sort of primal barbarian types. But no, 492 00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:38,560 Speaker 1: here we see evidence that there's there's there's definitely a 493 00:27:38,600 --> 00:27:41,720 Speaker 1: social hierarchy and perhaps even kind of kind of a 494 00:27:41,760 --> 00:27:46,119 Speaker 1: subspecies of individual that is, uh, that that that doesn't 495 00:27:46,119 --> 00:27:48,440 Speaker 1: have to engage in physical labor, that gets to eat 496 00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:50,479 Speaker 1: a better diet, and in a way maybe they're kind 497 00:27:50,520 --> 00:27:55,400 Speaker 1: of they're pampered. They're like a pampered, uh, sacrificial subspecies 498 00:27:55,880 --> 00:27:58,840 Speaker 1: of the of the of of the people. Well, I mean, yeah, 499 00:27:58,920 --> 00:28:00,919 Speaker 1: what people do make of this, what whether or not 500 00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:04,000 Speaker 1: he was prepared for sacrifice in any way knowingly or not. 501 00:28:04,119 --> 00:28:06,159 Speaker 1: What people do make of that is that he was 502 00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:10,119 Speaker 1: definitely some kind of aristocrat. He was of some upper class, 503 00:28:10,200 --> 00:28:12,000 Speaker 1: leading you to think he maybe if there was anything 504 00:28:12,040 --> 00:28:16,119 Speaker 1: like a kingly class in this ancient Irish setting there, 505 00:28:16,160 --> 00:28:18,520 Speaker 1: this guy would have been among it. So he was 506 00:28:18,600 --> 00:28:21,040 Speaker 1: able to have plenty of access to meet which means 507 00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:24,160 Speaker 1: he was rich. You know, had good diet, he didn't 508 00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:26,119 Speaker 1: have to work with his hands. He had these nicely 509 00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:29,840 Speaker 1: manicured hands, and he had the good nutrition that would 510 00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:32,959 Speaker 1: allow you to achieve a height like six six has 511 00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:36,840 Speaker 1: nothing to complain about, right, But well, no, he might 512 00:28:36,880 --> 00:28:39,160 Speaker 1: have something to complain one thing to complain about at 513 00:28:39,160 --> 00:28:40,960 Speaker 1: the end. But don't we all, Yeah, so we'll get 514 00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:42,960 Speaker 1: to that in a moment. So then there's this other guy, 515 00:28:43,040 --> 00:28:46,600 Speaker 1: this Clony Cavanman, different bog body, likely lived around the 516 00:28:46,640 --> 00:28:48,840 Speaker 1: same time three N two b C E two two 517 00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:52,280 Speaker 1: hundred and one BC. This guy, how tall was he 518 00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:55,400 Speaker 1: five ft and two inches or a hundred and fifty 519 00:28:55,440 --> 00:28:59,400 Speaker 1: seven centimeters that's I wonder if that would have been 520 00:28:59,400 --> 00:29:02,320 Speaker 1: short even for the time. Yeah, maybe so, But then again, 521 00:29:02,320 --> 00:29:05,480 Speaker 1: he probably made up for it in personality. You know, 522 00:29:05,680 --> 00:29:07,680 Speaker 1: he made up for it by spiking his hair. And 523 00:29:07,680 --> 00:29:11,960 Speaker 1: this is Clony cavan Man wore ancient hair gel. He 524 00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:14,240 Speaker 1: spiked his hair up into how would you describe this? 525 00:29:14,280 --> 00:29:16,400 Speaker 1: It was like a cross between a fox hawk and 526 00:29:16,440 --> 00:29:21,240 Speaker 1: a pompadoor. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like yes, sort of a mohawk, 527 00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:25,040 Speaker 1: sort of a pompadoor, all sort of gel together with this, uh, 528 00:29:25,200 --> 00:29:29,040 Speaker 1: this ancient palm ay. Yeah. So he actually had ancient 529 00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:31,800 Speaker 1: hair gel that they did a chemical analysis and found 530 00:29:31,840 --> 00:29:34,880 Speaker 1: it was made from vegetable oil and pine resin. And 531 00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:38,480 Speaker 1: the pine resin was sourced from trees not local to 532 00:29:38,560 --> 00:29:41,640 Speaker 1: this region of Ireland. It was from Spain and France, 533 00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:45,440 Speaker 1: which was determined by the archaeologist Stephen Buckley, And so 534 00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:49,200 Speaker 1: that indicates that this person had resources to spare. You know, 535 00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:52,520 Speaker 1: money to spend on personal grooming products that were imported 536 00:29:52,560 --> 00:29:56,280 Speaker 1: from elsewhere. Oh mine, my hair jel is from southern Europe. 537 00:29:57,160 --> 00:29:59,240 Speaker 1: He's not using fop. He's a dapper dan man, but 538 00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:04,240 Speaker 1: that's for sure. He's a effort dan man indeed. But okay, 539 00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:07,600 Speaker 1: so what's the deal with these guys? Both of them, 540 00:30:07,880 --> 00:30:10,800 Speaker 1: both of them and had some troubles before they ended 541 00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:13,000 Speaker 1: up in the bog. Something happened to them. Yeah, you 542 00:30:13,040 --> 00:30:15,640 Speaker 1: don't just wind up in the boy running into trouble. 543 00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:17,920 Speaker 1: So let's go back to old crogan man. He had 544 00:30:17,960 --> 00:30:20,640 Speaker 1: some nice jewelry too, nicely at the time he around 545 00:30:20,680 --> 00:30:23,560 Speaker 1: one bicep. He had this leather arm band with like 546 00:30:23,600 --> 00:30:26,760 Speaker 1: a bronze amulet on it that had these uh, these 547 00:30:26,800 --> 00:30:30,560 Speaker 1: copper alloy elements. So that makes you think again he 548 00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:32,880 Speaker 1: had some money to spend on, just some some nice 549 00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:36,080 Speaker 1: looking stuff, and perhaps that there was something very official 550 00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:40,280 Speaker 1: and sacred in his death because he's still wearing that. 551 00:30:40,360 --> 00:30:43,720 Speaker 1: I mean, oh yeah, because it's we're about to discuss. Uh, 552 00:30:44,360 --> 00:30:46,600 Speaker 1: something was done to him and those that did it, 553 00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:49,680 Speaker 1: uh didn't make off with an arm band. Yeah. So 554 00:30:49,760 --> 00:30:52,680 Speaker 1: according to a National Geographic article I was reading about 555 00:30:52,680 --> 00:30:54,920 Speaker 1: this I want to read a quote Old crogan Man. 556 00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:58,080 Speaker 1: He was stabbed, his nipples were sliced, and he had 557 00:30:58,120 --> 00:31:01,560 Speaker 1: holes cut in his upper arms through which a rope 558 00:31:01,760 --> 00:31:05,240 Speaker 1: was threaded in order to restrain him. And he was 559 00:31:05,240 --> 00:31:09,480 Speaker 1: also cut in half across the torso. So I mean 560 00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:13,560 Speaker 1: somebody was this was going down. I mean, this was 561 00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:16,200 Speaker 1: not not good for Old krogan Man. He was getting 562 00:31:16,240 --> 00:31:19,320 Speaker 1: his arms threat I mean that's gross. Yeah, that's something 563 00:31:19,360 --> 00:31:23,640 Speaker 1: that I've seen come up occasionally in historical documents. Specifically 564 00:31:23,760 --> 00:31:26,440 Speaker 1: in one of the Viking sagas, there's a scene where 565 00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:30,560 Speaker 1: I believe it's one faction in one family. They they 566 00:31:30,640 --> 00:31:32,800 Speaker 1: get into trouble, they fall out of favor, and there's 567 00:31:32,800 --> 00:31:35,080 Speaker 1: a scene where they're all strung up on a rope 568 00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:39,400 Speaker 1: with the rope going through their behind their achilles tendon. Yeah, 569 00:31:39,600 --> 00:31:44,120 Speaker 1: so there is something symbolic, I guess, in the idea 570 00:31:44,200 --> 00:31:47,520 Speaker 1: that you're not only tying someone up, but you're you're 571 00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:50,920 Speaker 1: tying them like through their body, so there their body 572 00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:53,880 Speaker 1: becomes a part of the bind. It's it's weird. It's 573 00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:56,160 Speaker 1: one of those things that I'm not sure there's quite 574 00:31:56,440 --> 00:31:59,239 Speaker 1: an accurate description for it or name for it. At 575 00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:01,480 Speaker 1: least in any English, like what do you what do 576 00:32:01,480 --> 00:32:06,600 Speaker 1: you call that? It's it's more severe than just restraining someone. Yeah, 577 00:32:06,840 --> 00:32:09,880 Speaker 1: and then of course they also cut him in half. True, 578 00:32:09,920 --> 00:32:12,920 Speaker 1: they went for the complete fatality on this one. Yeah, 579 00:32:12,960 --> 00:32:15,520 Speaker 1: But then of course there were some serious wounds in 580 00:32:15,560 --> 00:32:18,080 Speaker 1: Clony cavan Man as well. So Clony cavan Man was 581 00:32:18,120 --> 00:32:21,040 Speaker 1: cut in half by the pete cutting machine that discovered 582 00:32:21,120 --> 00:32:23,440 Speaker 1: him when he was discovered. But that was not the 583 00:32:23,440 --> 00:32:26,920 Speaker 1: only injury to this bog body. Before he died, or 584 00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:29,120 Speaker 1: maybe not before he died, before he was deposited in 585 00:32:29,200 --> 00:32:32,400 Speaker 1: the bog, he had three axe wounds to the head, 586 00:32:33,120 --> 00:32:36,280 Speaker 1: one axe wound to the chest, and he was disemboweled. 587 00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:39,400 Speaker 1: So that's the guy with the with the faux hawk pompadour. 588 00:32:39,560 --> 00:32:44,080 Speaker 1: He had all those axe wounds and disemboweled. So yeah, 589 00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:46,400 Speaker 1: so what's going on with these two men, Well, both 590 00:32:46,440 --> 00:32:49,560 Speaker 1: of them were young. They showed a few signs of 591 00:32:49,560 --> 00:32:51,880 Speaker 1: physical labor during their lives, They were healthy at the 592 00:32:51,880 --> 00:32:54,480 Speaker 1: time of their deaths, they looked like they were rich. 593 00:32:54,640 --> 00:32:56,680 Speaker 1: And so there are a lot of different ways when 594 00:32:56,720 --> 00:32:59,320 Speaker 1: you find bodies like this that you could interpret what 595 00:32:59,400 --> 00:33:01,320 Speaker 1: happened to them. Because we don't know. You know, this 596 00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:04,440 Speaker 1: isn't the this isn't the cloudy mists of history. The 597 00:33:04,480 --> 00:33:08,440 Speaker 1: cloudy mists. What a wonderful, uh little tautology that is 598 00:33:08,800 --> 00:33:13,240 Speaker 1: in the the boggy mists of history. So we don't 599 00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:15,080 Speaker 1: know what happened, but there have been people who have 600 00:33:15,200 --> 00:33:17,920 Speaker 1: offered some interpretations, and there's one I'm going to get 601 00:33:17,960 --> 00:33:19,840 Speaker 1: to in a minute that was pretty interesting. But what 602 00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:22,680 Speaker 1: is the information we have to work with? Well, these 603 00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:27,240 Speaker 1: guys were rich, they were they were well cared for 604 00:33:27,280 --> 00:33:29,680 Speaker 1: in one way or another physically before their deaths, and 605 00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:31,680 Speaker 1: they met a violin in So what do you make 606 00:33:31,760 --> 00:33:34,800 Speaker 1: of that? And I was reading an article in Archaeology 607 00:33:34,840 --> 00:33:37,640 Speaker 1: magazine about these two bog bodies that had a really 608 00:33:37,680 --> 00:33:41,920 Speaker 1: interesting interpretive theory coming from Amon P. Kelly, who is 609 00:33:41,960 --> 00:33:45,560 Speaker 1: the keeper of Irish Antiquities at the National Museum of Ireland. 610 00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:50,320 Speaker 1: And his interpretation is that these two guys were in 611 00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:54,120 Speaker 1: some sense failed kings. Now whether this means they were 612 00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:58,280 Speaker 1: vying for kingship and they failed and were punished, or 613 00:33:58,400 --> 00:34:01,560 Speaker 1: whether they were kings who were the their you know, 614 00:34:01,600 --> 00:34:04,479 Speaker 1: their rule had faltered in the in the Fraser kind 615 00:34:04,520 --> 00:34:07,280 Speaker 1: of sense, like their their strength had failed or uh, 616 00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:09,719 Speaker 1: something bad had happened and they were held accountable for 617 00:34:09,800 --> 00:34:13,279 Speaker 1: it for sort of magical sympathetic reasons. We don't know, 618 00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:17,920 Speaker 1: but Kelly says this, I believe these men were failed 619 00:34:18,040 --> 00:34:21,279 Speaker 1: kings or failed candidates for kingship who were killed and 620 00:34:21,320 --> 00:34:25,600 Speaker 1: placed in bogs that formed important tribal boundaries. Both Clony 621 00:34:25,680 --> 00:34:28,960 Speaker 1: Cavan and Old Krogan men's nipples were pinched and cut 622 00:34:29,080 --> 00:34:32,680 Speaker 1: and and Kelly says that sucking a king's nipples was 623 00:34:32,719 --> 00:34:36,479 Speaker 1: a gesture of submission in ancient Ireland. Cutting them would 624 00:34:36,480 --> 00:34:41,640 Speaker 1: have made him incapable of kingship. Okay, wow, I was 625 00:34:41,680 --> 00:34:44,600 Speaker 1: not I was not familiar with this association of the 626 00:34:44,680 --> 00:34:47,000 Speaker 1: king's nipples at all. I'd never heard of this before. 627 00:34:47,000 --> 00:34:51,080 Speaker 1: But but according to this, uh to Kelly here. Yeah, 628 00:34:51,120 --> 00:34:53,399 Speaker 1: so you want to show that you you are sent 629 00:34:53,480 --> 00:34:55,680 Speaker 1: to the rule of the king in ancient Ireland, you 630 00:34:55,719 --> 00:34:58,799 Speaker 1: suck on his nipples and if you thus damage a 631 00:34:58,840 --> 00:35:05,560 Speaker 1: man's nipples very decisively, he is incapable of being a king. Huh. 632 00:35:05,560 --> 00:35:07,799 Speaker 1: It's it's interesting to think about this in terms of 633 00:35:08,280 --> 00:35:13,000 Speaker 1: ancient societies and the tug of war between between feminine 634 00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:15,200 Speaker 1: and masculine powers. But could here because here we see 635 00:35:15,239 --> 00:35:20,800 Speaker 1: the appropriation of feminine power qualities in the male kings, 636 00:35:21,239 --> 00:35:23,799 Speaker 1: that there is a nurturing aspect to their nipples. It's 637 00:35:23,800 --> 00:35:27,239 Speaker 1: really interesting that slices away to their point, and you 638 00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:30,439 Speaker 1: have taken away a part of their rule, like you've 639 00:35:30,480 --> 00:35:32,279 Speaker 1: bodily taken away part of the ruin, in the same 640 00:35:32,320 --> 00:35:34,919 Speaker 1: way that by cutting a six six ft six man 641 00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:37,440 Speaker 1: and half you were taking away his stature, in the 642 00:35:37,480 --> 00:35:41,040 Speaker 1: same way that by threading rope through his limbs you 643 00:35:41,040 --> 00:35:44,280 Speaker 1: are binding him not only you know, not only binding 644 00:35:44,320 --> 00:35:47,080 Speaker 1: his limbs, but you were Let's see, there's not really 645 00:35:47,080 --> 00:35:49,480 Speaker 1: an accurate word for this, right, It's like you're that 646 00:35:49,520 --> 00:35:52,479 Speaker 1: the limbs themselves are becoming part of the binding. Yeah, 647 00:35:52,480 --> 00:35:54,680 Speaker 1: it's clear that with all this violence, it's not just 648 00:35:54,800 --> 00:35:57,080 Speaker 1: for the purpose of killing and causing pain. All of 649 00:35:57,120 --> 00:35:59,760 Speaker 1: it seems to have a very symbolic kind of quality 650 00:35:59,800 --> 00:36:03,720 Speaker 1: to it. All of it gets some kind of magical significance. 651 00:36:03,800 --> 00:36:07,399 Speaker 1: Crammed through. One last thing from that archaeology magazine from 652 00:36:08,040 --> 00:36:11,080 Speaker 1: where the they interview Aim and Kelly, I'll just quote 653 00:36:11,080 --> 00:36:13,840 Speaker 1: from it. Quote the body served as offerings to the 654 00:36:13,880 --> 00:36:16,440 Speaker 1: Goddess of the land, to whom the king was wed 655 00:36:16,640 --> 00:36:20,919 Speaker 1: in his inauguration ceremony. That's interesting. According to Kelly, both 656 00:36:20,960 --> 00:36:24,240 Speaker 1: men's multiple injuries may reflect the belief that the goddess 657 00:36:24,440 --> 00:36:28,160 Speaker 1: was not only one of the land and fertility, but 658 00:36:28,280 --> 00:36:32,600 Speaker 1: also of sovereignty, war and death by uh and then 659 00:36:32,640 --> 00:36:34,799 Speaker 1: this is a quote directly from Kelly. By using a 660 00:36:34,920 --> 00:36:37,800 Speaker 1: range of methods to kill the victim, the ancient Irish 661 00:36:37,840 --> 00:36:41,319 Speaker 1: sacrifice to the goddess in all her forms. That also 662 00:36:41,360 --> 00:36:43,520 Speaker 1: makes the nipple things interesting to think of it as 663 00:36:44,080 --> 00:36:48,400 Speaker 1: a matriarchal pantheon. Yeah. And then but but then you 664 00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:52,560 Speaker 1: have you have male rulers exactly, who then have symbolic 665 00:36:52,600 --> 00:36:56,760 Speaker 1: power of their nurturing nipples. Yeah, and so if Kelly's 666 00:36:56,800 --> 00:36:59,200 Speaker 1: interpretation is correct, like we say that, you know, there's 667 00:36:59,239 --> 00:37:01,440 Speaker 1: no way to know actually what happened here. But Kelly's 668 00:37:01,480 --> 00:37:04,200 Speaker 1: interpretation is these guys are in some sense of the 669 00:37:04,280 --> 00:37:07,680 Speaker 1: kingly class. They may have been failed kings or attempted kings, 670 00:37:07,719 --> 00:37:11,400 Speaker 1: and this is a magical symbolic ritual putting them down 671 00:37:11,640 --> 00:37:14,879 Speaker 1: in some way, decisively rejecting their kingship at the same 672 00:37:14,920 --> 00:37:18,400 Speaker 1: time reinforcing their religious ideals, you know, saying this is 673 00:37:18,440 --> 00:37:22,799 Speaker 1: for the goddess. You will not wed the goddess. Yeah, 674 00:37:23,640 --> 00:37:26,239 Speaker 1: or you're already having wed the goddess is now dissolved. 675 00:37:26,280 --> 00:37:29,880 Speaker 1: But there's another way you can approach the idea of 676 00:37:30,040 --> 00:37:33,520 Speaker 1: ritual regicide, which is sort of something we talked about earlier, 677 00:37:33,560 --> 00:37:37,080 Speaker 1: which is simulating it right. Yeah, and there's a wonderful 678 00:37:37,080 --> 00:37:40,320 Speaker 1: example of this, uh from Timor. We have to travel 679 00:37:40,320 --> 00:37:42,880 Speaker 1: all the way to team Or. And the main article 680 00:37:43,000 --> 00:37:46,160 Speaker 1: here that we're drawing from is uh an worth of 681 00:37:46,239 --> 00:37:50,120 Speaker 1: anthropology from David Hicks, making the King Divine a case 682 00:37:50,160 --> 00:37:53,000 Speaker 1: study in in ritual regicide from team Or and this 683 00:37:53,040 --> 00:37:58,000 Speaker 1: is from published in the Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute. Yeah, 684 00:37:58,040 --> 00:38:01,520 Speaker 1: and he's gonna he's going to explain this, uh, this 685 00:38:01,840 --> 00:38:05,160 Speaker 1: very interesting and very complex and detailed ritual that takes 686 00:38:05,160 --> 00:38:07,480 Speaker 1: place between a couple of tribes on the island of 687 00:38:07,520 --> 00:38:10,440 Speaker 1: team Or. Yes, and I will I'll spare you some 688 00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:12,720 Speaker 1: of the details because it honestly gets a little tedious 689 00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:16,160 Speaker 1: at times, but but overall it's it's extremely fascinating. So 690 00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:19,960 Speaker 1: Teamore is an island of the Melee Archipelago, currently divided 691 00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:22,360 Speaker 1: between the sovereign states of East team Or in Indonesia. 692 00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:26,080 Speaker 1: All right, So here for for our purposes, as though, 693 00:38:26,080 --> 00:38:28,080 Speaker 1: we want to focus in on two ethnic groups in 694 00:38:28,120 --> 00:38:32,120 Speaker 1: central team or Uh, the Tatum and the Emma, each 695 00:38:32,120 --> 00:38:34,200 Speaker 1: with their own distinct languages but with a lot of 696 00:38:34,239 --> 00:38:36,920 Speaker 1: cultural crossover, and they share a belief in a dualistic 697 00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:41,040 Speaker 1: universe and a cyclical nature of human existence, etcetera. Along 698 00:38:41,080 --> 00:38:43,759 Speaker 1: the north coast of team Or so imagine, if you 699 00:38:43,760 --> 00:38:45,000 Speaker 1: don't have a map in front of you, you you can 700 00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:47,239 Speaker 1: just imagine this island right. The island kind of runs 701 00:38:47,280 --> 00:38:49,520 Speaker 1: east west. Yeah, it looks, you know, kind of a 702 00:38:49,560 --> 00:38:52,080 Speaker 1: rectangle looks you know, it's kind of it looks like 703 00:38:52,120 --> 00:38:54,840 Speaker 1: kind of like Tennessee, except as an island. And along 704 00:38:54,840 --> 00:38:57,399 Speaker 1: the north coast there's a there's a lagoon known as 705 00:38:57,760 --> 00:39:02,000 Speaker 1: Bemali and it's rich and fish and crabs, crocodiles or shrimp, 706 00:39:02,719 --> 00:39:05,520 Speaker 1: very important um for the people who live near it. 707 00:39:05,800 --> 00:39:08,040 Speaker 1: And there are two villages that border it. One is 708 00:39:08,280 --> 00:39:10,719 Speaker 1: a Teetam village and one is an Ema village. And 709 00:39:10,760 --> 00:39:14,520 Speaker 1: they share a myth myth rich history of bloody conflict 710 00:39:14,600 --> 00:39:17,920 Speaker 1: over the lagoons riches, and over time this violent history 711 00:39:18,320 --> 00:39:24,240 Speaker 1: has transformed into a regular shared ritual called abbey climaxing 712 00:39:24,360 --> 00:39:28,680 Speaker 1: in the symbolic killing and restoration of a surrogate who 713 00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:32,120 Speaker 1: is standing in for one of the villages kings. So 714 00:39:32,239 --> 00:39:35,240 Speaker 1: all this serves as a means to commemorate the myth 715 00:39:35,560 --> 00:39:39,640 Speaker 1: of the creation of the lagoon itself, to recreate that myth, 716 00:39:39,880 --> 00:39:42,719 Speaker 1: and to ensure that the fish supply remains abundant, you know, 717 00:39:42,800 --> 00:39:46,359 Speaker 1: via supernatural ritual. Yeah. Now, in in this article, Hicks 718 00:39:46,360 --> 00:39:49,400 Speaker 1: seems to be working with some sort of theoretical framework 719 00:39:49,440 --> 00:39:53,320 Speaker 1: based on Durkheim and some other anthropologists and social critics. 720 00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:57,960 Speaker 1: I think where where the idea is that rituals sort 721 00:39:58,000 --> 00:40:02,520 Speaker 1: of reinforced categories of understanding in the society. And so 722 00:40:02,680 --> 00:40:05,719 Speaker 1: he's looking at this he has an interpretive framework, and 723 00:40:05,719 --> 00:40:09,120 Speaker 1: he's looking at this ritual as something that helps people 724 00:40:09,280 --> 00:40:14,560 Speaker 1: understand the relationship between social groups and the relationship to 725 00:40:14,920 --> 00:40:19,320 Speaker 1: a geographical location and natural resources. Right. So Ve and 726 00:40:19,440 --> 00:40:22,520 Speaker 1: Auld nineteen fifties, they carried this out every year around August. 727 00:40:22,520 --> 00:40:25,160 Speaker 1: That's where the dry season transitions into the wet season 728 00:40:25,600 --> 00:40:28,359 Speaker 1: from masculine to feminine. Uh. And you know what would 729 00:40:28,360 --> 00:40:30,600 Speaker 1: happen is dead fish and shrimp in the water would 730 00:40:30,719 --> 00:40:34,040 Speaker 1: ritually tip locals off to the necessity of the right. Yeah, 731 00:40:34,040 --> 00:40:36,400 Speaker 1: they mentioned this. When you start seeing dead fish floating 732 00:40:36,400 --> 00:40:39,399 Speaker 1: in the lagoon, now it's time to have the ritual right. 733 00:40:39,920 --> 00:40:44,040 Speaker 1: And so at that point the king's of masculine surrogate 734 00:40:44,160 --> 00:40:46,720 Speaker 1: is selected. Uh. And then he's joined at the altar 735 00:40:46,760 --> 00:40:51,160 Speaker 1: by two female animals and a ritual bridge is built. Um. 736 00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:53,959 Speaker 1: Really a lot of tedious things go down at this point, 737 00:40:53,960 --> 00:40:57,120 Speaker 1: but eventually the surrogate king retires to a special hut 738 00:40:57,280 --> 00:41:00,320 Speaker 1: where he fasts. He doesn't talk, and the next warning 739 00:41:00,320 --> 00:41:03,000 Speaker 1: priests take the surrogate to the water and they pretend 740 00:41:03,080 --> 00:41:05,520 Speaker 1: to strike a lethal blow to his head, and then 741 00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:09,080 Speaker 1: he pretends to die. And there's a great quote from 742 00:41:09,239 --> 00:41:11,600 Speaker 1: from Hicks piece. He says, quote as a god, the 743 00:41:11,719 --> 00:41:14,200 Speaker 1: king is at this moment the spirit of a culture 744 00:41:14,239 --> 00:41:16,600 Speaker 1: hero who figures in a myth. So it's important to 745 00:41:16,640 --> 00:41:18,880 Speaker 1: keep in mind here. At this point a pig has 746 00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:21,960 Speaker 1: brought out, and this serves as kind of a surrogate 747 00:41:22,040 --> 00:41:25,440 Speaker 1: currocate king because they kill it for real, and then 748 00:41:25,440 --> 00:41:27,799 Speaker 1: the blood drains in the lagoon, and then it's time 749 00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:30,680 Speaker 1: to go fishing, and then there's another ritual sacrifice and 750 00:41:31,120 --> 00:41:35,960 Speaker 1: of the surrogate king, and after this, utilizing a buffalo sacrifice, uh, 751 00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:40,680 Speaker 1: he rejoins humanity after casting the sacrifice to buffalo's uh 752 00:41:41,000 --> 00:41:45,120 Speaker 1: entrails into the lagoon. So essentially, the defined the divine 753 00:41:45,239 --> 00:41:48,319 Speaker 1: king offers up his life to ensure economic future, while 754 00:41:48,360 --> 00:41:52,359 Speaker 1: also uh uniting these two groups as one, these two 755 00:41:52,440 --> 00:41:55,200 Speaker 1: groups that have different languages but shared cultural elements and 756 00:41:55,200 --> 00:41:57,960 Speaker 1: depend on the same lagoon. Yeah, and I want to 757 00:41:57,960 --> 00:42:00,960 Speaker 1: read one quote from Hicks. He says, quote, by sacrificing 758 00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:03,960 Speaker 1: their king, the people of Bimalai not only bring land, 759 00:42:04,080 --> 00:42:09,239 Speaker 1: control over fertility, life, divinity, and kingship into a synthetic unity, 760 00:42:09,320 --> 00:42:12,640 Speaker 1: but make it possible for them to sacrifice themselves as 761 00:42:12,680 --> 00:42:18,680 Speaker 1: a collectivity by transforming king and society into a god who, 762 00:42:18,920 --> 00:42:23,760 Speaker 1: revitalized by the sacrifice, reasserts his power to restore life. 763 00:42:24,040 --> 00:42:27,799 Speaker 1: So there's so much like associative magic going on. The 764 00:42:27,880 --> 00:42:31,799 Speaker 1: society is magically embodied by the king, the king is 765 00:42:31,840 --> 00:42:36,080 Speaker 1: magically embodied by the surrogate. The king magically embodies the myth. 766 00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:39,640 Speaker 1: And there's there's sort of this uh everything that touches 767 00:42:39,760 --> 00:42:45,680 Speaker 1: something becomes the symbolic equivalent of that thing. Yeah, and 768 00:42:45,800 --> 00:42:50,520 Speaker 1: Hicks continues in performing this the ultimate act of self abnegation, 769 00:42:50,560 --> 00:42:55,000 Speaker 1: because the society becomes the king. The king is surrogately 770 00:42:55,120 --> 00:42:59,960 Speaker 1: killed in simulation uh bye, by this ultimate active self abnegation, 771 00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:03,160 Speaker 1: and the collectivity impresses upon its members it's power to 772 00:43:03,280 --> 00:43:08,200 Speaker 1: recreate itself as a divinity and hence restore itself to life. 773 00:43:08,800 --> 00:43:10,960 Speaker 1: In this sense, the king is no more divine than 774 00:43:11,000 --> 00:43:14,200 Speaker 1: the society he represents, but no less divine than the 775 00:43:14,239 --> 00:43:18,759 Speaker 1: god he becomes. That's fascinating, and uh, if we were 776 00:43:18,800 --> 00:43:22,080 Speaker 1: just discussing prior to recording this, you look at this 777 00:43:22,200 --> 00:43:24,560 Speaker 1: ritual and they seemed to be so many layers of 778 00:43:24,840 --> 00:43:28,520 Speaker 1: sanitation going on here. You're pretending to kill a surrogate 779 00:43:28,560 --> 00:43:30,920 Speaker 1: for the king. You're spilling the blood of animals in 780 00:43:30,960 --> 00:43:33,200 Speaker 1: the place that even the surrogates blood. You can easily 781 00:43:33,200 --> 00:43:37,200 Speaker 1: imagine a scenario where, uh, where there's an older version 782 00:43:37,200 --> 00:43:39,200 Speaker 1: of this in which a king is actually sacrificed and 783 00:43:39,239 --> 00:43:41,360 Speaker 1: one day the king says, hey, how about we just 784 00:43:41,440 --> 00:43:43,640 Speaker 1: use a surrogate instead, and maybe he can die and 785 00:43:43,680 --> 00:43:45,360 Speaker 1: I can just kind of do my thing and continue 786 00:43:45,360 --> 00:43:47,480 Speaker 1: to live, and they go, oh, yeah, we'll do that, 787 00:43:47,520 --> 00:43:49,960 Speaker 1: and then later on the surrogate is saying like, I 788 00:43:50,000 --> 00:43:51,560 Speaker 1: don't know if I want to take this gig. Is 789 00:43:51,600 --> 00:43:53,960 Speaker 1: it possible that I just you just pretend to hit 790 00:43:54,040 --> 00:43:56,720 Speaker 1: me with the with that death hammer, and I pretend 791 00:43:56,760 --> 00:43:59,040 Speaker 1: to die, and maybe if you really need some blood 792 00:43:59,040 --> 00:44:00,920 Speaker 1: and entrails in there, you can just like maybe kill 793 00:44:00,960 --> 00:44:03,560 Speaker 1: a couple of sacred animals. I don't know, Yeah, I mean, 794 00:44:03,840 --> 00:44:06,000 Speaker 1: in cases like this, as we've said, we we don't 795 00:44:06,040 --> 00:44:08,600 Speaker 1: know what happened, but it's quite easy to see if 796 00:44:08,600 --> 00:44:11,200 Speaker 1: we're gonna allow ourselves to speculate how something like that 797 00:44:11,239 --> 00:44:15,520 Speaker 1: could progress, uh, you know, ritual sacrifice, if the person 798 00:44:15,600 --> 00:44:18,920 Speaker 1: being sacrificed has any power to say no, at some point, 799 00:44:18,960 --> 00:44:21,480 Speaker 1: somebody's probably gonna start trying to say no. Yeah. Or 800 00:44:21,520 --> 00:44:23,880 Speaker 1: it's possible that like an interpretation like this, I'm not 801 00:44:23,880 --> 00:44:27,120 Speaker 1: giving them enough credit, and that ultimately the the the 802 00:44:27,160 --> 00:44:31,520 Speaker 1: brutal murder of the king is based in a mythological form, 803 00:44:32,000 --> 00:44:34,160 Speaker 1: and for me to interpret it as having been a 804 00:44:34,239 --> 00:44:38,160 Speaker 1: literal re regicide at any point is not giving their 805 00:44:38,320 --> 00:44:42,919 Speaker 1: mythological rooting enough credit. That's highly possible too. I guess 806 00:44:42,920 --> 00:44:44,799 Speaker 1: we don't know. All right, We're gonna take a quick 807 00:44:44,840 --> 00:44:46,799 Speaker 1: break and when we come back we'll dive right back 808 00:44:46,800 --> 00:44:56,000 Speaker 1: into the topic speaking of surrogates. There's a topic I 809 00:44:56,080 --> 00:44:58,040 Speaker 1: think we should come back to that we've actually talked 810 00:44:58,080 --> 00:45:00,720 Speaker 1: about on the show before. In the very first episode 811 00:45:00,800 --> 00:45:03,280 Speaker 1: I ever did, of stuff toble your mind. You remember that, Robert, 812 00:45:03,320 --> 00:45:05,280 Speaker 1: I was that the first one. I definitely remember the episode. 813 00:45:05,320 --> 00:45:07,160 Speaker 1: The very first one we ever did was the one 814 00:45:07,200 --> 00:45:10,480 Speaker 1: on eclipses, and that one was fun. But and that 815 00:45:10,560 --> 00:45:13,239 Speaker 1: we talked very briefly, just touched on the idea of 816 00:45:13,280 --> 00:45:16,920 Speaker 1: the ancient Mesopotamian eclipse kings. And I think this is 817 00:45:16,960 --> 00:45:20,960 Speaker 1: a really interesting variation on the theme of ritual regicide 818 00:45:21,000 --> 00:45:25,040 Speaker 1: because it uh it involves this surrogate kind of quality 819 00:45:25,160 --> 00:45:28,320 Speaker 1: and also involves the king looking out for his own life. 820 00:45:29,600 --> 00:45:32,120 Speaker 1: So I think we should definitely look at the eclipse 821 00:45:32,200 --> 00:45:37,319 Speaker 1: kings of ancient Mesopotamia in more detail. Are you game, Robert, Yes, 822 00:45:37,400 --> 00:45:40,160 Speaker 1: let's do it, okay. So, in ancient Mesopotamian the first 823 00:45:40,160 --> 00:45:46,000 Speaker 1: millennium BC, royal culture was really concerned with fate and 824 00:45:46,120 --> 00:45:50,879 Speaker 1: the meaning of omens, including astrological omens, so all kinds 825 00:45:50,920 --> 00:45:54,160 Speaker 1: of events could serve as symbolic predictions of the fate 826 00:45:54,160 --> 00:45:56,480 Speaker 1: of the king or the fate of the nation. And 827 00:45:56,560 --> 00:45:59,800 Speaker 1: one example was lunar eclipses now Robert, which is the 828 00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:04,080 Speaker 1: near eclipse. The lunar eclipse is the one involving the moon. Yes, yes, 829 00:46:04,440 --> 00:46:06,640 Speaker 1: good call there. No, it's the one with where you 830 00:46:06,680 --> 00:46:10,200 Speaker 1: see the Earth's shadow falling across the surface of the Moon. 831 00:46:10,640 --> 00:46:12,799 Speaker 1: And you can tell if for for people who didn't 832 00:46:12,880 --> 00:46:16,719 Speaker 1: understand the astronomy involved lunar eclipses, actually any kind of 833 00:46:16,719 --> 00:46:19,520 Speaker 1: eclipse could be quite terrifying. Yeah, and when we explored 834 00:46:19,600 --> 00:46:21,920 Speaker 1: some other modes of this in that episode about eclipse, 835 00:46:22,000 --> 00:46:24,280 Speaker 1: is because you're you're seeing like the moon is eaten 836 00:46:24,400 --> 00:46:29,280 Speaker 1: by this demonic four so some other, some other mythological 837 00:46:29,600 --> 00:46:32,680 Speaker 1: outcome is in play exactly. And so when the lunar eclipse, 838 00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:34,640 Speaker 1: the Earth passes between the Sun and the moon, you 839 00:46:34,680 --> 00:46:37,840 Speaker 1: see the moon starts to turn red. The moon the 840 00:46:37,960 --> 00:46:40,759 Speaker 1: shadow can pass over sort of different quadrants of the moon, 841 00:46:41,520 --> 00:46:44,080 Speaker 1: but essentially the moon is going to glow red and 842 00:46:44,080 --> 00:46:48,720 Speaker 1: and it naturally invites sinister interpretations, and it's certainly less 843 00:46:48,760 --> 00:46:52,480 Speaker 1: apocalyptic compared to the solar eclipse with the Moon passing 844 00:46:52,480 --> 00:46:54,520 Speaker 1: in front of the sign. It's it's it's perhaps and 845 00:46:54,520 --> 00:46:57,319 Speaker 1: that's that's the thing. It's more something's not right here, 846 00:46:57,400 --> 00:47:00,520 Speaker 1: something is is off as opposed to whole we crap 847 00:47:01,560 --> 00:47:04,799 Speaker 1: the light of day is leaving us exactly. But it 848 00:47:04,920 --> 00:47:08,400 Speaker 1: still was enough to signal an ill omen. So the 849 00:47:08,440 --> 00:47:13,000 Speaker 1: astrologers of ancient Mesopotamian empires they could predict lunar eclipses 850 00:47:13,040 --> 00:47:15,880 Speaker 1: with some rough degree of accuracy. They weren't always uh 851 00:47:16,320 --> 00:47:18,799 Speaker 1: fully accurate yet, but they sort of had what what 852 00:47:19,239 --> 00:47:21,560 Speaker 1: some of the scholars I read called rules of thumb. 853 00:47:22,000 --> 00:47:24,439 Speaker 1: You can sort of make a good guess about when 854 00:47:24,440 --> 00:47:27,680 Speaker 1: a lunar eclipse is coming, and in many cases, possibly 855 00:47:27,719 --> 00:47:30,799 Speaker 1: depending on which part of the moon earth shadow falls over. 856 00:47:31,160 --> 00:47:34,080 Speaker 1: The experts concluded that a lunar eclipse brought a very 857 00:47:34,160 --> 00:47:36,920 Speaker 1: bad omen for the king, up to and including the 858 00:47:37,000 --> 00:47:40,279 Speaker 1: king's death. But if you're the king, what are you 859 00:47:40,320 --> 00:47:44,239 Speaker 1: going to do about it? Well, you've got all these 860 00:47:44,239 --> 00:47:47,440 Speaker 1: swords and archers and chariots, and there's absolutely nothing you 861 00:47:47,440 --> 00:47:49,879 Speaker 1: can do to stop the orbital path of the moon. Well, 862 00:47:49,920 --> 00:47:51,640 Speaker 1: I mean, in many cases, if you're a king or 863 00:47:51,640 --> 00:47:56,000 Speaker 1: even a modern tyrant, modern deathpot in some situation, you 864 00:47:56,000 --> 00:47:58,640 Speaker 1: could have some lookalikes right that just to wander around 865 00:47:58,640 --> 00:48:01,120 Speaker 1: out there. Maybe they'll catching us Dassen's bullet instead of you. 866 00:48:01,160 --> 00:48:04,239 Speaker 1: But this isn't a human assassin, this this is this 867 00:48:04,280 --> 00:48:07,160 Speaker 1: is an eclipse. Yeah, how do you dodge that bullet? Well, 868 00:48:07,200 --> 00:48:10,920 Speaker 1: maybe by exactly the same method. Uh so. Yeah. So 869 00:48:10,960 --> 00:48:14,560 Speaker 1: there's plenty of evidence that the ancient Mesopotamian leaders took 870 00:48:14,600 --> 00:48:18,120 Speaker 1: a sort of direct action plan of avoiding fate. And 871 00:48:18,120 --> 00:48:20,279 Speaker 1: I think this is really interesting because it seems to 872 00:48:20,320 --> 00:48:24,080 Speaker 1: say something about what they thought fate was. I'll get 873 00:48:24,120 --> 00:48:27,839 Speaker 1: to that in a minute. Here's one variation. So there's 874 00:48:27,880 --> 00:48:32,400 Speaker 1: an ancient Mesopotamian scholar and nergal A Tear, and he 875 00:48:32,560 --> 00:48:35,640 Speaker 1: predicts the coming of a lunar eclipse in January six 876 00:48:35,760 --> 00:48:39,800 Speaker 1: seventy three b c E. And he gives a suggestion 877 00:48:39,880 --> 00:48:43,480 Speaker 1: to the Assyrian king eser Hatton. He says, quote, in 878 00:48:43,520 --> 00:48:45,839 Speaker 1: the beginning of the year, a flood will come and 879 00:48:45,880 --> 00:48:49,120 Speaker 1: break the dikes. When the moon has made the eclipse, 880 00:48:49,239 --> 00:48:51,960 Speaker 1: the king, my lord should write to me as a 881 00:48:52,040 --> 00:48:55,000 Speaker 1: substitute for the king, I will cut through a dike 882 00:48:55,160 --> 00:48:57,880 Speaker 1: here in Babylonia in the middle of the night. No 883 00:48:57,920 --> 00:49:02,040 Speaker 1: one will hear about it. Oh nergal A Tier plans 884 00:49:02,080 --> 00:49:06,400 Speaker 1: to avert the faded flood by secretly causing a small 885 00:49:06,440 --> 00:49:11,440 Speaker 1: scale flood himself. So you have fate predicted, and then 886 00:49:11,520 --> 00:49:13,400 Speaker 1: you can step in. And if you sort of like 887 00:49:13,560 --> 00:49:16,440 Speaker 1: make the thing happen yourself and hurry it along, you 888 00:49:16,480 --> 00:49:19,560 Speaker 1: can avoid having it happen naturally, perhaps on a much 889 00:49:19,680 --> 00:49:24,239 Speaker 1: larger scale, sort of predisaster yourself, but a disaster that 890 00:49:24,280 --> 00:49:27,239 Speaker 1: you get to micromanage yourself. Yeah, and here's where the 891 00:49:27,360 --> 00:49:31,440 Speaker 1: dictator's body doubles come in. One solution to an eclipse 892 00:49:31,480 --> 00:49:34,000 Speaker 1: pretending the death of a king is to set up 893 00:49:34,000 --> 00:49:38,359 Speaker 1: a decoy. The crown could install a substitute king known 894 00:49:38,360 --> 00:49:42,600 Speaker 1: as a sarpui and substitute queen to take the royal 895 00:49:42,640 --> 00:49:45,920 Speaker 1: mantle during the period that the eclipse was predicted. So 896 00:49:45,960 --> 00:49:48,479 Speaker 1: I've got a couple of sources here that I used 897 00:49:48,480 --> 00:49:53,080 Speaker 1: for this. One is Ullah susann Coke Mesopotamian astro astrology 898 00:49:53,200 --> 00:49:57,319 Speaker 1: and introduction to Babylonian and to Syrian celestial divination, and 899 00:49:57,360 --> 00:49:59,640 Speaker 1: the other is Jack Newton laws in the concept of 900 00:49:59,640 --> 00:50:03,000 Speaker 1: fate in ancient Mesopotamia of the first millennium towards the 901 00:50:03,080 --> 00:50:06,600 Speaker 1: understanding of shem too. So you're the king, you want 902 00:50:06,640 --> 00:50:09,480 Speaker 1: to pick a substitute to absorb your bad omen for 903 00:50:09,640 --> 00:50:13,160 Speaker 1: you so you don't have to die. Who's the substitute? 904 00:50:13,680 --> 00:50:16,080 Speaker 1: Generally they say it's going to be somebody like we 905 00:50:16,120 --> 00:50:19,239 Speaker 1: talked about earlier without power, right, a prisoner of war, 906 00:50:20,120 --> 00:50:23,279 Speaker 1: criminal who has been condemned to death, or a an 907 00:50:23,400 --> 00:50:26,360 Speaker 1: enemy of the king's some kind of political rival. Or 908 00:50:26,840 --> 00:50:30,200 Speaker 1: they also say, or a gardener or a simpleton. Man 909 00:50:31,000 --> 00:50:34,080 Speaker 1: that is not fair. Well, it sucks to be that 910 00:50:34,200 --> 00:50:39,000 Speaker 1: gardener or that quote simpleton. Yeah, that sucks. Dressing the 911 00:50:39,040 --> 00:50:41,000 Speaker 1: simple enough as the king and then sacrifice me. I 912 00:50:41,040 --> 00:50:43,839 Speaker 1: think we can all a grade at that. That's and 913 00:50:43,840 --> 00:50:46,839 Speaker 1: and and in doing so, the king is essentially weaseling 914 00:50:46,880 --> 00:50:50,960 Speaker 1: out of his responsibility to die. Like if you if 915 00:50:50,960 --> 00:50:53,759 Speaker 1: you look back at some of these mythic models of 916 00:50:53,760 --> 00:50:56,440 Speaker 1: of divine rule, it's like, yeah, you get, you get 917 00:50:56,480 --> 00:50:58,680 Speaker 1: to rule, but your job is to die at the end. 918 00:50:59,000 --> 00:51:02,560 Speaker 1: But then inevitably, these powerful individuals figure ways to weasel 919 00:51:02,640 --> 00:51:06,120 Speaker 1: out of that responsibility, right exactly. Uh so, so what 920 00:51:06,160 --> 00:51:09,640 Speaker 1: does the process look like, Well, Lawson writes, quote, the 921 00:51:09,680 --> 00:51:13,760 Speaker 1: man was taken to the royal palace, treated with wine, washed, 922 00:51:13,800 --> 00:51:16,640 Speaker 1: and anointed. I think that would mean like anointed with oil, 923 00:51:17,440 --> 00:51:21,279 Speaker 1: dressed in the king's finery, furnished with the royal insignia, 924 00:51:21,440 --> 00:51:23,919 Speaker 1: and then in throne. So it sounds like he's got 925 00:51:23,960 --> 00:51:25,719 Speaker 1: all the you know, it's not just kind of like 926 00:51:25,760 --> 00:51:29,640 Speaker 1: a quick mock ceremony. They're doing the whole nine yards. Uh. 927 00:51:29,719 --> 00:51:32,400 Speaker 1: And then he writes quote, a young woman or virgin 928 00:51:32,600 --> 00:51:35,560 Speaker 1: was also seated with him as his queen. Oh no 929 00:51:35,719 --> 00:51:41,640 Speaker 1: again that's the yeah yeah uh. And so at this 930 00:51:41,719 --> 00:51:44,319 Speaker 1: point the real king and the substitute king sort of 931 00:51:44,360 --> 00:51:48,000 Speaker 1: formally exchanged roles. So the substitute king is referred to 932 00:51:48,040 --> 00:51:51,959 Speaker 1: as king, and then thereafter the real king he hangs 933 00:51:52,000 --> 00:51:54,879 Speaker 1: out in the palace, but he is therefore addressed by 934 00:51:54,960 --> 00:52:00,920 Speaker 1: his exorcists, scholars, and servants as peasant or farmer. Can 935 00:52:00,920 --> 00:52:03,520 Speaker 1: you imagine that the king's walking around, You have a 936 00:52:03,520 --> 00:52:06,680 Speaker 1: fake king. Everybody is calling king, and when you address 937 00:52:06,800 --> 00:52:09,000 Speaker 1: the real king, who has power of life and death 938 00:52:09,040 --> 00:52:11,839 Speaker 1: over you, you must call him peasant. Then, of course, 939 00:52:11,840 --> 00:52:16,600 Speaker 1: this is a motif that occurs throughout history. And you know, 940 00:52:16,640 --> 00:52:19,920 Speaker 1: the prince and the put in the paper, the the 941 00:52:19,920 --> 00:52:22,880 Speaker 1: man in the iron mask, any of these situations trading 942 00:52:23,120 --> 00:52:26,640 Speaker 1: trading places, right, Yeah, Any situation where the most royal 943 00:52:26,640 --> 00:52:29,440 Speaker 1: individual and the lowliest individual in the culture have to 944 00:52:29,480 --> 00:52:32,919 Speaker 1: swap places. Yeah, and then what happens next, Well, then 945 00:52:33,200 --> 00:52:36,040 Speaker 1: the new king gets the bad news. So the bad 946 00:52:36,080 --> 00:52:39,000 Speaker 1: omens that had previously applied to the real king all 947 00:52:39,040 --> 00:52:42,520 Speaker 1: get written down on a tablet and then read out 948 00:52:42,560 --> 00:52:45,720 Speaker 1: loud to the substitute king and queen, essentially like reading 949 00:52:45,760 --> 00:52:49,080 Speaker 1: the charges against them. You know, these are the magical 950 00:52:49,160 --> 00:52:52,520 Speaker 1: omens you've been condemned to. And the substitute king then 951 00:52:52,560 --> 00:52:56,440 Speaker 1: has to go in front of Shamash, the divine judge, 952 00:52:56,520 --> 00:52:59,480 Speaker 1: the god and recite all of the bad omens that 953 00:52:59,520 --> 00:53:03,160 Speaker 1: have now been transferred to him, and this sort of 954 00:53:03,160 --> 00:53:06,839 Speaker 1: officially magically transfers the omens over to the substitute king. 955 00:53:07,280 --> 00:53:10,680 Speaker 1: Just to make sure the transferral takes place, the document 956 00:53:10,800 --> 00:53:14,919 Speaker 1: listing the bad omens was literally attached to the substitute 957 00:53:15,000 --> 00:53:18,600 Speaker 1: King's clothes, so he's walking around with like a tablet 958 00:53:18,719 --> 00:53:20,759 Speaker 1: saying you're gonna die, You're gonna you know, all this 959 00:53:20,840 --> 00:53:23,680 Speaker 1: bad stuff is gonna happen to you. Am I alone 960 00:53:23,680 --> 00:53:26,160 Speaker 1: in wondering why this wasn't made into like a poly 961 00:53:26,320 --> 00:53:29,120 Speaker 1: shore time travel vehicle in the nineties. You know where 962 00:53:29,120 --> 00:53:32,960 Speaker 1: he travels back to Mesopotamia. Uh, and he becomes this Uh, 963 00:53:33,239 --> 00:53:36,240 Speaker 1: he becomes like the the the he becomes the surrogate 964 00:53:36,320 --> 00:53:38,640 Speaker 1: king for the eclipse and didn't realize it to the 965 00:53:38,680 --> 00:53:41,800 Speaker 1: last minute. I think maybe that was the original script 966 00:53:41,800 --> 00:53:44,480 Speaker 1: of A Night's Tales for youth Ledger and then they 967 00:53:44,600 --> 00:53:48,040 Speaker 1: changed a bunch of stuff around over time. Or are 968 00:53:48,080 --> 00:53:52,120 Speaker 1: you thinking of First Night with Martin Lawrence? I think 969 00:53:52,560 --> 00:53:56,839 Speaker 1: I think maybe I'm thinking of Forever Night. Okay, I'm 970 00:53:56,880 --> 00:53:59,600 Speaker 1: not thinking of any of that. I'm sorry people. Okay. So, 971 00:53:59,640 --> 00:54:02,520 Speaker 1: as we mentioned, they seemed to go out of their 972 00:54:02,560 --> 00:54:06,320 Speaker 1: way to create the illusion that this this king is 973 00:54:06,360 --> 00:54:08,879 Speaker 1: a real king, this fake king. No, no, no, this 974 00:54:08,960 --> 00:54:11,640 Speaker 1: is really the real king now. So they say he 975 00:54:11,680 --> 00:54:14,440 Speaker 1: had a royal entourage about ten percent the size of 976 00:54:14,440 --> 00:54:16,959 Speaker 1: the real king's court. Considering how big the real king's 977 00:54:17,120 --> 00:54:24,720 Speaker 1: entourage is, that's probably pretty big, including uh, laws and rites, musicians, concubines, cooks, confectioners. 978 00:54:24,760 --> 00:54:27,440 Speaker 1: He gets confectioners, yeah, but more to your point, he 979 00:54:27,440 --> 00:54:31,280 Speaker 1: gets the concubines. He's a royal concubines exactly, and and 980 00:54:31,280 --> 00:54:35,040 Speaker 1: and cupcakes presumably. Coke also mentions that he receives a 981 00:54:35,160 --> 00:54:40,719 Speaker 1: large bodyguard, which is intensely ironic. Well, have installed this 982 00:54:40,760 --> 00:54:43,640 Speaker 1: guy to absorb the king's death omen and they give 983 00:54:43,719 --> 00:54:47,720 Speaker 1: him a huge bodyguard, like he's got jaws from James 984 00:54:47,719 --> 00:54:50,200 Speaker 1: Bond standing beside him. Well, that does make me wonder 985 00:54:50,239 --> 00:54:52,759 Speaker 1: what if there was a death threat, What if there 986 00:54:52,800 --> 00:54:55,040 Speaker 1: was a plot against the life of the surrogate king, Like, 987 00:54:55,080 --> 00:54:57,680 Speaker 1: what does that mean? I the surrogate king, the Eclipse 988 00:54:57,800 --> 00:55:01,280 Speaker 1: King is assassinated before he can to fill his duty. 989 00:55:01,840 --> 00:55:06,120 Speaker 1: Maybe that puts the the the the real king in jeopardy. 990 00:55:06,160 --> 00:55:07,840 Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, I don't know that that's a 991 00:55:07,840 --> 00:55:10,600 Speaker 1: good question. But then then okay, so the Eclipse King 992 00:55:10,680 --> 00:55:14,160 Speaker 1: is also treated to banquets known as naptunu. Just think 993 00:55:14,160 --> 00:55:17,480 Speaker 1: how expensive all this must have been. How long did 994 00:55:17,520 --> 00:55:20,439 Speaker 1: the Eclipse King rain? Well? Coke says that he sat 995 00:55:20,520 --> 00:55:23,640 Speaker 1: on the throne for up to a hundred days, often shorter, 996 00:55:24,080 --> 00:55:26,960 Speaker 1: even though the period affected by a lunar eclipse theoretically 997 00:55:27,040 --> 00:55:29,720 Speaker 1: was determined by the watch in which it occurred, measuring 998 00:55:29,800 --> 00:55:33,080 Speaker 1: one hundred, two hundred and three hundred days. So Coke 999 00:55:33,239 --> 00:55:36,680 Speaker 1: saying that, you know, really the omen period is longer, 1000 00:55:36,719 --> 00:55:39,000 Speaker 1: but I guess that they didn't usually go longer than 1001 00:55:39,000 --> 00:55:41,640 Speaker 1: a hundred days. Maybe they were impatient. This is a 1002 00:55:41,719 --> 00:55:45,320 Speaker 1: lengthy charade that they're carrying out here, and it's in 1003 00:55:45,320 --> 00:55:49,120 Speaker 1: involving like not only the ritual ultimate ritual sacrifice of 1004 00:55:49,200 --> 00:55:52,680 Speaker 1: the individual, but all the rituals of of kingship that 1005 00:55:52,760 --> 00:55:57,200 Speaker 1: come along with just occupying that station. Exactly. Eventually, according 1006 00:55:57,239 --> 00:56:00,880 Speaker 1: to the historical records, the the a of the eclipse, 1007 00:56:00,960 --> 00:56:02,680 Speaker 1: king and the queen would come to an end, and 1008 00:56:02,719 --> 00:56:06,879 Speaker 1: according to records, they would die. Uh. The term used 1009 00:56:06,920 --> 00:56:09,359 Speaker 1: in the records, I found this really interesting. The term 1010 00:56:09,440 --> 00:56:13,480 Speaker 1: used in the records in contemporary correspondence is anna simti 1011 00:56:13,600 --> 00:56:17,080 Speaker 1: a la coup, which, according to Lawson, is a metaphor 1012 00:56:17,160 --> 00:56:21,160 Speaker 1: otherwise used to denote a death by natural causes. Right, So, 1013 00:56:21,200 --> 00:56:25,959 Speaker 1: according to the official documentation, they died naturally, so there's 1014 00:56:25,960 --> 00:56:29,480 Speaker 1: not a like ritual beheading or anything of that nature. Right. 1015 00:56:29,560 --> 00:56:32,040 Speaker 1: But that can't be the case, right, because the king 1016 00:56:32,080 --> 00:56:35,200 Speaker 1: and queen needed to die on command just in time 1017 00:56:35,239 --> 00:56:37,600 Speaker 1: for the peasant to come back and become the real 1018 00:56:37,680 --> 00:56:41,320 Speaker 1: king again. So how could they have died of natural causes? 1019 00:56:41,920 --> 00:56:44,239 Speaker 1: It's obvious they were put to death, but we don't 1020 00:56:44,239 --> 00:56:48,160 Speaker 1: know how some scholars have speculated, based on context clues, 1021 00:56:48,200 --> 00:56:50,080 Speaker 1: that they were poisoned at the end of their reign 1022 00:56:50,200 --> 00:56:54,040 Speaker 1: with food or drink containing an overdose of soporific and 1023 00:56:54,120 --> 00:56:58,759 Speaker 1: confections or maybe poison concubines. Yeah, who knows. But but 1024 00:56:58,880 --> 00:57:01,120 Speaker 1: in any case they would die and then they would 1025 00:57:01,160 --> 00:57:03,200 Speaker 1: take the bad omens with them all the way to 1026 00:57:03,239 --> 00:57:06,840 Speaker 1: the grave. And Lawson actually explains how in in his 1027 00:57:06,960 --> 00:57:09,600 Speaker 1: reading the the idea of the natural death made of 1028 00:57:09,840 --> 00:57:13,480 Speaker 1: metaphor kind of makes sense in context. Since the substitute 1029 00:57:13,560 --> 00:57:16,680 Speaker 1: king and queen were absorbing the omen of fate, their 1030 00:57:16,720 --> 00:57:20,520 Speaker 1: death was in some sense fated or in some sense natural, 1031 00:57:20,600 --> 00:57:22,840 Speaker 1: no matter by what means they died. So even if 1032 00:57:22,880 --> 00:57:25,400 Speaker 1: you killed them, the fact that they had absorbed a 1033 00:57:25,480 --> 00:57:28,440 Speaker 1: death omen that's supposed to be a you know, a 1034 00:57:28,520 --> 00:57:32,040 Speaker 1: consequence of fate, means that, yeah, yeah, the the universe 1035 00:57:32,120 --> 00:57:34,200 Speaker 1: killed them, right, The universe was going to launch a 1036 00:57:34,200 --> 00:57:37,280 Speaker 1: bullet at the king. This guy gotten in front of it, 1037 00:57:37,400 --> 00:57:39,480 Speaker 1: and so now everything's good. We can continue on with 1038 00:57:39,520 --> 00:57:42,000 Speaker 1: the reign of the real king, right, And so after 1039 00:57:42,040 --> 00:57:44,720 Speaker 1: the burial of the false king, the real king returns 1040 00:57:45,360 --> 00:57:48,200 Speaker 1: has to undergo ritual cleansing. And then there's there's also 1041 00:57:48,240 --> 00:57:51,880 Speaker 1: this elaborate funeral ritual for the substitute king and queen. 1042 00:57:52,440 --> 00:57:56,000 Speaker 1: They killed the queen too, is but keeping up the 1043 00:57:56,000 --> 00:57:59,080 Speaker 1: appearance of true kingship even after the evil prophecy has 1044 00:57:59,120 --> 00:58:01,840 Speaker 1: been fulfilled. And so anyway, I mentioned that I was 1045 00:58:01,840 --> 00:58:04,600 Speaker 1: going to say something about how what this says about 1046 00:58:04,640 --> 00:58:08,760 Speaker 1: how they believe fate works. I can't imagine a person 1047 00:58:08,800 --> 00:58:11,480 Speaker 1: of any major religion today thinking that you could so 1048 00:58:11,560 --> 00:58:15,840 Speaker 1: easily trick God or the gods or magical forces at 1049 00:58:15,840 --> 00:58:19,200 Speaker 1: work in nature and to avoid their will, you know 1050 00:58:19,240 --> 00:58:21,160 Speaker 1: what I mean? Yeah, And I think and now we 1051 00:58:21,240 --> 00:58:22,960 Speaker 1: have to go. We have to try and put ourselves 1052 00:58:22,960 --> 00:58:26,560 Speaker 1: in that mindset in a in a in a culture 1053 00:58:26,560 --> 00:58:29,880 Speaker 1: where like just the the mythic importance of the individual 1054 00:58:30,000 --> 00:58:33,440 Speaker 1: is so essential, and the cyclical nature of everything in 1055 00:58:33,440 --> 00:58:36,240 Speaker 1: our lives. So it's kind of like we're all we're 1056 00:58:36,240 --> 00:58:40,120 Speaker 1: all cogs in this this in this machine of mythological cycle. 1057 00:58:40,480 --> 00:58:41,840 Speaker 1: And so it's not so much that you're trying to 1058 00:58:41,840 --> 00:58:45,400 Speaker 1: fool the gods or even fool the people, but you're trying. 1059 00:58:45,520 --> 00:58:48,720 Speaker 1: You know that certain mechanisms have to take place, certain 1060 00:58:48,760 --> 00:58:53,160 Speaker 1: movements have to take place in the mythological framework, and 1061 00:58:53,640 --> 00:58:56,760 Speaker 1: they're just tweaking it so that that that gear still shifts, 1062 00:58:57,000 --> 00:59:02,280 Speaker 1: but it doesn't doesn't it crush the king and self? Yeah? Yeah, 1063 00:59:02,640 --> 00:59:04,400 Speaker 1: in a way, it's kind of like finding a legal 1064 00:59:04,880 --> 00:59:08,320 Speaker 1: legal loophole today. Yeah. Yeah. I think some scholars have 1065 00:59:08,360 --> 00:59:11,720 Speaker 1: actually looked at this and said that it indicates that, um, 1066 00:59:12,000 --> 00:59:15,560 Speaker 1: for many of these these ancient Mesopotamian religious leaders and scholars, 1067 00:59:15,600 --> 00:59:18,800 Speaker 1: they looked at the magical aspects of the universe, you know, 1068 00:59:18,880 --> 00:59:22,920 Speaker 1: divine will and fates and the things having magical influence 1069 00:59:22,960 --> 00:59:25,280 Speaker 1: over our lives as a kind of natural law in 1070 00:59:25,320 --> 00:59:27,960 Speaker 1: a way, not so much as like the you know, 1071 00:59:28,040 --> 00:59:31,360 Speaker 1: the the explicit will of an agent, but just sort 1072 00:59:31,360 --> 00:59:35,560 Speaker 1: of like forces that could be understood and manipulated. All right. So, 1073 00:59:36,640 --> 00:59:42,480 Speaker 1: having discussed these specific examples of early ritual regicide, both 1074 00:59:43,400 --> 00:59:47,560 Speaker 1: both symbolic and you know, symbolic and figurative and also 1075 00:59:47,720 --> 00:59:51,480 Speaker 1: very literal in some cases, UM, it's kind of interesting 1076 00:59:51,520 --> 00:59:55,040 Speaker 1: to then bring it back to the president and think 1077 00:59:55,080 --> 00:59:58,640 Speaker 1: about um, human sacrifice as a whole, and not only 1078 00:59:59,560 --> 01:00:02,120 Speaker 1: like lit real human sacrifice, but all of the various 1079 01:00:02,160 --> 01:00:06,200 Speaker 1: symbolic forms of it that have continued even past the 1080 01:00:06,240 --> 01:00:09,680 Speaker 1: point where individual cultures would would never dream of saying 1081 01:00:09,680 --> 01:00:12,400 Speaker 1: that they practiced human sacrifice, right. I mean, if you 1082 01:00:12,440 --> 01:00:14,000 Speaker 1: look at it from the point of view that human 1083 01:00:14,000 --> 01:00:17,160 Speaker 1: sacrifice is sort of scratching some kind of itch that 1084 01:00:17,320 --> 01:00:20,960 Speaker 1: people in general tend to have. Even if we're no 1085 01:00:21,040 --> 01:00:25,040 Speaker 1: longer doing it for explicitly religious or magical ritual reasons, 1086 01:00:25,120 --> 01:00:27,680 Speaker 1: there's probably still a way people are finding to scratch 1087 01:00:27,760 --> 01:00:30,240 Speaker 1: this itch, right, Like we already mentioned that, like the 1088 01:00:30,320 --> 01:00:33,960 Speaker 1: violent downfall of rulers. You know, that's not an inherent 1089 01:00:34,000 --> 01:00:35,640 Speaker 1: part of a system, and maybe it is something that 1090 01:00:35,720 --> 01:00:39,320 Speaker 1: systems do because because the people end up taking the 1091 01:00:39,360 --> 01:00:41,960 Speaker 1: reins of that. Yeah, Well, in the in the James 1092 01:00:41,960 --> 01:00:44,600 Speaker 1: Fraser kind of sense, where when the strength of the 1093 01:00:44,720 --> 01:00:48,080 Speaker 1: king fails, you see the the people step in to 1094 01:00:48,240 --> 01:00:50,920 Speaker 1: kill the king to you know, sort of protect themselves 1095 01:00:51,000 --> 01:00:55,240 Speaker 1: from the symbolic magic of the king's virility failing them 1096 01:00:55,280 --> 01:00:58,640 Speaker 1: and their society. I think you can maybe see that 1097 01:00:58,720 --> 01:01:01,680 Speaker 1: in the ends met by any strongman dictators in the 1098 01:01:01,720 --> 01:01:06,120 Speaker 1: twentieth century, Like uh, you see the violent punishment and 1099 01:01:06,120 --> 01:01:10,320 Speaker 1: and just sort of public mockery and treatment of the dictators. 1100 01:01:10,360 --> 01:01:13,680 Speaker 1: You'd think of like Hitler and uh and Mussolini and stuff. 1101 01:01:13,720 --> 01:01:16,040 Speaker 1: You know, whether they ended up you know, hung on 1102 01:01:16,080 --> 01:01:18,960 Speaker 1: public display or as Eddie Iszard would say, I think 1103 01:01:19,080 --> 01:01:22,840 Speaker 1: it's covered in petrol on fire. Uh. You could look 1104 01:01:22,880 --> 01:01:24,800 Speaker 1: at that as well as just you know, their enemies 1105 01:01:24,840 --> 01:01:26,880 Speaker 1: destroying them and getting revenge on them. And I think 1106 01:01:26,880 --> 01:01:28,320 Speaker 1: that that is a major part of it. But I 1107 01:01:28,360 --> 01:01:31,120 Speaker 1: wonder if there's also part of it where someone who 1108 01:01:31,160 --> 01:01:33,440 Speaker 1: at some point may have been at you know, a 1109 01:01:33,520 --> 01:01:36,000 Speaker 1: supporter of one of these strong men, has seen the 1110 01:01:36,080 --> 01:01:39,760 Speaker 1: strongman fail, and now that they see his strength has 1111 01:01:39,880 --> 01:01:41,840 Speaker 1: left him, they want nothing to do with it. They 1112 01:01:41,880 --> 01:01:46,360 Speaker 1: want to ritually purge that failing bad magic. Yeah, indeed, 1113 01:01:46,400 --> 01:01:50,880 Speaker 1: I mean and not only like the bodily desecration of 1114 01:01:50,920 --> 01:01:54,680 Speaker 1: the individual, but also like the continued desecration of the 1115 01:01:54,720 --> 01:01:59,320 Speaker 1: individual through even uh the fiction and media, like in 1116 01:01:59,360 --> 01:02:02,320 Speaker 1: speaking about Hitler, like we don't have a Guy Fox 1117 01:02:02,440 --> 01:02:05,320 Speaker 1: Day for Hitler, but maybe we should, because we seem 1118 01:02:05,360 --> 01:02:09,320 Speaker 1: that we can't stop re killing Hitler in fictional form, 1119 01:02:09,600 --> 01:02:14,240 Speaker 1: be it you know, Wolfenstein video game or the the 1120 01:02:14,240 --> 01:02:19,440 Speaker 1: the assassination of Hitler in uh, Quentin Tarantinos and glorious bastards, 1121 01:02:19,440 --> 01:02:22,360 Speaker 1: like we keep recreating it or creating it in a 1122 01:02:22,560 --> 01:02:25,520 Speaker 1: in a new way. We the time travel scenario. Everyone's like, oh, 1123 01:02:25,520 --> 01:02:27,200 Speaker 1: would you go back in time and kill Hitler? Like? 1124 01:02:27,240 --> 01:02:29,760 Speaker 1: Why why does that keep coming up? We can't stop 1125 01:02:29,800 --> 01:02:34,120 Speaker 1: fantasizing about about his death. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. I mean, 1126 01:02:34,480 --> 01:02:37,000 Speaker 1: is that just is there a simpler explanation. Isn't just 1127 01:02:37,160 --> 01:02:39,720 Speaker 1: that we well, we recognize him as a bad person 1128 01:02:39,800 --> 01:02:42,040 Speaker 1: and a very obvious enemy, and you want to destroy 1129 01:02:42,040 --> 01:02:45,760 Speaker 1: an enemy? Or is there something more symbolic and magical 1130 01:02:45,840 --> 01:02:49,800 Speaker 1: to it as well? Yeah? And then also various assassinations 1131 01:02:50,560 --> 01:02:54,080 Speaker 1: of of not only the loved leaders, but also you know, 1132 01:02:54,160 --> 01:02:58,440 Speaker 1: hated ones, reviled leaders. You see those as being subjects 1133 01:02:58,440 --> 01:03:00,440 Speaker 1: that we just continue to fascinate about. I mean just 1134 01:03:00,560 --> 01:03:03,440 Speaker 1: JFK for example. Oh yeah, I mean I feel like 1135 01:03:03,480 --> 01:03:05,720 Speaker 1: this is a perfect example of if you wanted to 1136 01:03:05,720 --> 01:03:08,640 Speaker 1: come up with a modern idea of the the the 1137 01:03:08,720 --> 01:03:11,400 Speaker 1: king who's killed before his strength begins to fail. Like 1138 01:03:11,440 --> 01:03:15,120 Speaker 1: what we never saw the post presidency JFK. We never 1139 01:03:15,160 --> 01:03:19,120 Speaker 1: saw JFK have to fight for reelection. We never saw 1140 01:03:19,320 --> 01:03:23,120 Speaker 1: JFK in in his post presidency years growing old. We 1141 01:03:23,160 --> 01:03:27,640 Speaker 1: only have this image of the strong, young powerful, healthy JFK. 1142 01:03:28,320 --> 01:03:30,440 Speaker 1: I mean, despite however, I think he was taking a 1143 01:03:30,440 --> 01:03:32,920 Speaker 1: lot of painkillers and stuff like that, But despite how 1144 01:03:33,440 --> 01:03:39,760 Speaker 1: how however unhealthy he actually was, he looked it seemed powerful, strong, healthy, young, virile, 1145 01:03:40,480 --> 01:03:42,480 Speaker 1: and he died that way. So it kind of again 1146 01:03:42,520 --> 01:03:46,480 Speaker 1: embodies that that Fraser kind of mentality about how keeping 1147 01:03:46,520 --> 01:03:51,280 Speaker 1: the kingship infused with that magical strength. Yeah, and again 1148 01:03:51,280 --> 01:03:55,480 Speaker 1: it's a story we can't stop retelling, both just historical 1149 01:03:55,640 --> 01:03:58,560 Speaker 1: versions of it, fictionalized versions of it, and conspiracy theories 1150 01:03:58,760 --> 01:04:02,040 Speaker 1: surrounding it exact. Now, I do feel like I need 1151 01:04:02,080 --> 01:04:05,440 Speaker 1: to make a note here about public execution and mob violence, 1152 01:04:05,720 --> 01:04:08,920 Speaker 1: because let's not forget that there's there, there's overt human sacrifice, 1153 01:04:08,960 --> 01:04:11,640 Speaker 1: and then there are acts of public murder that certainly 1154 01:04:11,680 --> 01:04:14,960 Speaker 1: fit all the requirements of human sacrifice. For instance, take 1155 01:04:14,960 --> 01:04:17,680 Speaker 1: public execution as a practice. It continues to this day 1156 01:04:17,720 --> 01:04:20,000 Speaker 1: in certain parts of the world, and at the heart 1157 01:04:20,000 --> 01:04:23,120 Speaker 1: of public execution throughout history, you have a clear element 1158 01:04:23,160 --> 01:04:26,200 Speaker 1: of ritual and symbolic power. So the executors are not 1159 01:04:26,280 --> 01:04:30,000 Speaker 1: merely removing the offending individual or even punishing them. They're 1160 01:04:30,080 --> 01:04:33,600 Speaker 1: making a statement, perhaps even a mythic statement, intended for 1161 01:04:33,680 --> 01:04:37,400 Speaker 1: consumption by the attending community. The ritual itself might be 1162 01:04:37,440 --> 01:04:40,600 Speaker 1: situated in a religious right, or elements of military or state, 1163 01:04:41,160 --> 01:04:43,600 Speaker 1: but in the but the in the killing act maybe instantaneous, 1164 01:04:43,600 --> 01:04:47,000 Speaker 1: it might be prolonged, but in more brutal measures, the 1165 01:04:47,120 --> 01:04:49,800 Speaker 1: victim is unmade. He or she is reduced in the 1166 01:04:49,840 --> 01:04:53,080 Speaker 1: eyes of the onlookers, perhaps his masculinity or beauty that 1167 01:04:53,240 --> 01:04:55,680 Speaker 1: robbed of the strength voice. It goes right back to 1168 01:04:55,720 --> 01:04:58,240 Speaker 1: those those pete that peep bog example of the bog 1169 01:04:58,320 --> 01:05:02,080 Speaker 1: people who are the body of the king is dismantled. 1170 01:05:02,280 --> 01:05:06,200 Speaker 1: The power of the king is bodily dismantled. Yeah, yeah, there. 1171 01:05:06,200 --> 01:05:09,120 Speaker 1: I think it is very hard to look at most 1172 01:05:09,160 --> 01:05:12,960 Speaker 1: of the regalia of public execution and not conclude that 1173 01:05:13,000 --> 01:05:17,960 Speaker 1: there is for people, uh, if not an explicitly magical significance, 1174 01:05:18,000 --> 01:05:22,680 Speaker 1: a very strongly symbolic significance. Right. Another area, you can 1175 01:05:22,720 --> 01:05:25,240 Speaker 1: make a very strong case for Southern lynchings in the 1176 01:05:25,280 --> 01:05:29,000 Speaker 1: United States as being acts of human sacrifice. These are, 1177 01:05:29,040 --> 01:05:33,000 Speaker 1: of course, we're acts of racial violence perpetrated by by 1178 01:05:33,040 --> 01:05:37,120 Speaker 1: individuals in the South against against black individuals. Uh. And 1179 01:05:37,880 --> 01:05:40,320 Speaker 1: it's easy to in my experience growing up It's easy 1180 01:05:40,320 --> 01:05:42,800 Speaker 1: to have a very sanitized version of what this consisted of, 1181 01:05:43,400 --> 01:05:46,919 Speaker 1: but the actual incidents where anything. But we're talking about 1182 01:05:47,080 --> 01:05:52,040 Speaker 1: very violent and tortuous deaths of individuals, removal of body parts, burning, 1183 01:05:52,880 --> 01:05:56,000 Speaker 1: the keeping of body parts, the commemorating of the event 1184 01:05:56,080 --> 01:06:00,240 Speaker 1: through a photography in some cases, and uh in various stories, 1185 01:06:00,280 --> 01:06:03,439 Speaker 1: including Donald G. Matthews, He's written about this a lot 1186 01:06:03,560 --> 01:06:06,000 Speaker 1: has pointed out that all the elements of ritual human 1187 01:06:06,000 --> 01:06:10,919 Speaker 1: sacrifice are there, the religious even ritualized unmaking of an 1188 01:06:10,920 --> 01:06:16,240 Speaker 1: individual because of their perceived threat perhaps to do racial purity. Totally, 1189 01:06:16,280 --> 01:06:19,200 Speaker 1: I can see that. I mean, all the elements are there. 1190 01:06:19,200 --> 01:06:24,560 Speaker 1: It's ritualized, it's symbologized, it's uh, it's motivated by strong 1191 01:06:24,600 --> 01:06:29,960 Speaker 1: emotional impulses and feelings of uh social cohesion. Yeah, and 1192 01:06:30,080 --> 01:06:32,280 Speaker 1: uh and beyond that, I think there you can see 1193 01:06:32,280 --> 01:06:35,840 Speaker 1: strong indicators in certain modes of gang or organized crime 1194 01:06:35,920 --> 01:06:39,200 Speaker 1: violence uh throughout history that they fall into the category 1195 01:06:39,240 --> 01:06:42,400 Speaker 1: of human sacrifice. Oh yeah, I mean speaking of ritual regicide. 1196 01:06:42,440 --> 01:06:45,040 Speaker 1: I mean think about um, I think if you just 1197 01:06:45,240 --> 01:06:48,919 Speaker 1: I don't know how real gang mob violence goes down 1198 01:06:48,960 --> 01:06:50,800 Speaker 1: in reality, but I can certainly say if you just 1199 01:06:50,840 --> 01:06:54,160 Speaker 1: think about the Sopranos or something. They have a very 1200 01:06:54,200 --> 01:06:58,800 Speaker 1: almost magical feeling about the role of leaders in the gang, 1201 01:06:58,840 --> 01:07:03,560 Speaker 1: where they they almost accomplish a magical act by killing 1202 01:07:03,600 --> 01:07:06,400 Speaker 1: a leader of a gang. You know, they say like, oh, 1203 01:07:06,480 --> 01:07:09,479 Speaker 1: we gotta kill Tony Soprano, We gotta decapitate and deal 1204 01:07:09,520 --> 01:07:12,760 Speaker 1: with what's left. Why, I mean, what why? Why is 1205 01:07:12,880 --> 01:07:16,800 Speaker 1: what is the magical power and killing this one guy? Yeah? 1206 01:07:16,880 --> 01:07:19,640 Speaker 1: And if the gang is the gang is made of hundreds, yeah, yeah, 1207 01:07:19,840 --> 01:07:22,160 Speaker 1: we end up investing so much in the ruler of 1208 01:07:22,200 --> 01:07:26,360 Speaker 1: this group because ultimately, a divine king, king of a nation, 1209 01:07:26,360 --> 01:07:28,400 Speaker 1: the king of a small cultural group, a cult leader, 1210 01:07:28,560 --> 01:07:31,280 Speaker 1: an organized crime leader, they're all kind of serving the 1211 01:07:31,320 --> 01:07:33,480 Speaker 1: same mode, even though the head of a corporation is 1212 01:07:33,520 --> 01:07:36,560 Speaker 1: kind of, you know, cast from that same mold. You know. 1213 01:07:36,600 --> 01:07:38,640 Speaker 1: I was trying to think of examples of things that 1214 01:07:38,680 --> 01:07:41,040 Speaker 1: go on today in our modern world that you can 1215 01:07:41,080 --> 01:07:43,480 Speaker 1: think of as being not just like human sacrifice, but 1216 01:07:43,560 --> 01:07:46,120 Speaker 1: like ritual regicide, you know, the killing of the king 1217 01:07:46,880 --> 01:07:49,720 Speaker 1: for magical purposes. And I couldn't think of anything that 1218 01:07:49,760 --> 01:07:52,000 Speaker 1: seemed like a perfect fit. But I'm sure there are 1219 01:07:52,040 --> 01:07:53,800 Speaker 1: things out there, and there are things that seem like 1220 01:07:53,840 --> 01:07:57,080 Speaker 1: a kind of sort of fit. One that came to 1221 01:07:57,160 --> 01:08:00,360 Speaker 1: my mind as a celebrity roast which granted it's not 1222 01:08:00,400 --> 01:08:02,480 Speaker 1: a king, but it is a celebrity which has a 1223 01:08:02,520 --> 01:08:05,840 Speaker 1: kind of a divine power in our own civilization. And 1224 01:08:05,880 --> 01:08:10,320 Speaker 1: how do those typically typically go. Generally, Um, a celebrity 1225 01:08:10,400 --> 01:08:12,680 Speaker 1: kind of passed their prime or maybe you know, on 1226 01:08:12,720 --> 01:08:15,440 Speaker 1: the on the you know, on the back end of 1227 01:08:15,480 --> 01:08:19,439 Speaker 1: their fame, unless it's peper. Yeah, they're they're brought before 1228 01:08:19,439 --> 01:08:23,439 Speaker 1: a crowd, they're attended to by by their friends and peers, 1229 01:08:23,960 --> 01:08:27,639 Speaker 1: and then they systematically insult and just take them down, 1230 01:08:28,080 --> 01:08:30,400 Speaker 1: uh you know, not violating their body, but but just 1231 01:08:30,880 --> 01:08:36,679 Speaker 1: systematically tearing their character apart. They die on the stage, 1232 01:08:37,920 --> 01:08:40,519 Speaker 1: uh symbolically. But then at the end, what do they 1233 01:08:40,520 --> 01:08:44,320 Speaker 1: get to do? They generally get to uh then throw 1234 01:08:44,360 --> 01:08:47,120 Speaker 1: out some zingers at the individuals who roasted them, and 1235 01:08:47,120 --> 01:08:48,840 Speaker 1: in a way they get to uh to come back, 1236 01:08:48,840 --> 01:08:52,040 Speaker 1: to rise back, just like our our king of the lagoons. 1237 01:08:53,520 --> 01:08:57,040 Speaker 1: And then of course you have maka regicides that continue 1238 01:08:57,120 --> 01:09:00,200 Speaker 1: in some cultures through the practice of carnival, uh, either 1239 01:09:00,240 --> 01:09:03,240 Speaker 1: through the temporary elevation of a carnival king or a 1240 01:09:03,240 --> 01:09:07,040 Speaker 1: fool king uh or even actual you know, acts of 1241 01:09:07,160 --> 01:09:10,760 Speaker 1: mock regicide of this carnival king. So there's the the 1242 01:09:10,840 --> 01:09:14,479 Speaker 1: Patras Carnival in Greece and it actually culminates in the 1243 01:09:14,640 --> 01:09:17,280 Speaker 1: burning of the carnival king. Not the individual, but like 1244 01:09:17,360 --> 01:09:22,280 Speaker 1: an effigy of the carnival carnival king is burned. I wonder, 1245 01:09:22,439 --> 01:09:26,120 Speaker 1: you know, this sounds kind of dangerous, so I wouldn't 1246 01:09:26,120 --> 01:09:29,000 Speaker 1: really recommend people do this, but I wonder if political 1247 01:09:29,040 --> 01:09:33,719 Speaker 1: tensions could be eased if people just did uh, effigy 1248 01:09:33,760 --> 01:09:37,799 Speaker 1: burnings and stuff. You know, people no matter which parties 1249 01:09:37,840 --> 01:09:40,000 Speaker 1: in office, you know, people hate the president of the 1250 01:09:40,040 --> 01:09:44,519 Speaker 1: opposing party. They're just, oh, he's everything. That's terrible, is it? 1251 01:09:44,720 --> 01:09:46,760 Speaker 1: I don't know if if they were to burn effigies 1252 01:09:46,800 --> 01:09:50,720 Speaker 1: of that president. Would that that sounds very inflammatory and offensive? 1253 01:09:50,840 --> 01:09:54,040 Speaker 1: But would that make things worse with that stoke angers? 1254 01:09:54,040 --> 01:09:57,200 Speaker 1: Would that encourage violence or would it alleviate it? Would 1255 01:09:57,200 --> 01:10:00,200 Speaker 1: it sort of scratch this itch without people actually having 1256 01:10:00,240 --> 01:10:02,519 Speaker 1: to hurt anybody. I think it could scratch the h 1257 01:10:02,600 --> 01:10:05,320 Speaker 1: because the thing is like the idea of it of 1258 01:10:05,640 --> 01:10:08,240 Speaker 1: burning an effigy of say a sitting US president in 1259 01:10:08,240 --> 01:10:11,439 Speaker 1: the streets it's inflammatory, you know, literally, I mean it 1260 01:10:11,640 --> 01:10:14,680 Speaker 1: certainly conjures to mind the fear that like, is this 1261 01:10:14,760 --> 01:10:17,599 Speaker 1: a prelude to real violence? Which you would not want 1262 01:10:17,600 --> 01:10:19,200 Speaker 1: it to be. But but the key here is we 1263 01:10:19,280 --> 01:10:23,759 Speaker 1: do not have a cultural space for it to take place. Um, 1264 01:10:23,800 --> 01:10:25,719 Speaker 1: you know, we don't have a safe spot. We don't 1265 01:10:25,720 --> 01:10:28,439 Speaker 1: have a holiday where it is allowed. Yeah, that's exactly 1266 01:10:28,479 --> 01:10:30,920 Speaker 1: what it is. You need. You need a ritual environment 1267 01:10:31,000 --> 01:10:33,680 Speaker 1: in which it is sanctioned. And in that case, it 1268 01:10:33,720 --> 01:10:36,640 Speaker 1: could be done without people having to wonder like, is 1269 01:10:36,720 --> 01:10:38,920 Speaker 1: this a prelude to real violence? No, it's just part 1270 01:10:38,960 --> 01:10:40,800 Speaker 1: of the ritual. We do it every year. Yeah, so 1271 01:10:40,840 --> 01:10:42,000 Speaker 1: it's it would be kind of like the U. S. 1272 01:10:42,040 --> 01:10:45,400 Speaker 1: President said, you know, ap peering on TV and saying, Hey, normally, 1273 01:10:45,560 --> 01:10:47,360 Speaker 1: if you talk about this kind of thing, we're going 1274 01:10:47,360 --> 01:10:49,680 Speaker 1: to come to your house and the Secret Service is 1275 01:10:49,720 --> 01:10:51,439 Speaker 1: gonna have a chat with you. But this one day 1276 01:10:51,439 --> 01:10:53,920 Speaker 1: of the year, you can burn me in effigy whatever. 1277 01:10:54,360 --> 01:10:57,879 Speaker 1: I'm going to be on vacation, you know, heavily protected. 1278 01:10:57,960 --> 01:11:01,280 Speaker 1: So I'm good. Yeah, I'll be playing golf or working 1279 01:11:01,280 --> 01:11:03,920 Speaker 1: at the ranch. What have you hanging out with my 1280 01:11:03,960 --> 01:11:09,400 Speaker 1: confectioners confectioners and concubines. All right, So there you have it. Um, 1281 01:11:09,600 --> 01:11:11,760 Speaker 1: we we've covered a lot of territory here today, but 1282 01:11:11,920 --> 01:11:14,160 Speaker 1: it really I think it serves to take a real 1283 01:11:14,360 --> 01:11:17,120 Speaker 1: stuff to Blow your Mind approach to the topic of 1284 01:11:17,200 --> 01:11:20,240 Speaker 1: human sacrifice. You know what it means at all levels 1285 01:11:20,280 --> 01:11:22,880 Speaker 1: of society, what it meant in ancient societies, and how 1286 01:11:22,920 --> 01:11:25,080 Speaker 1: the energy of those acts carry on today. Right. And 1287 01:11:25,160 --> 01:11:28,519 Speaker 1: of course today we focus primarily on this ritual regicide example, 1288 01:11:28,520 --> 01:11:30,720 Speaker 1: but there are lots of other aspects of human sacrifice 1289 01:11:30,800 --> 01:11:33,080 Speaker 1: that could probably do with episodes of their own in 1290 01:11:33,080 --> 01:11:34,679 Speaker 1: the future that we don't want to turn this into 1291 01:11:34,680 --> 01:11:37,800 Speaker 1: the human sacrifice show, right, but but certainly if there's 1292 01:11:37,800 --> 01:11:39,840 Speaker 1: an area here where you you think to yourself, I 1293 01:11:39,880 --> 01:11:42,160 Speaker 1: would I would like to hear a podcast episode in 1294 01:11:42,200 --> 01:11:45,360 Speaker 1: the future that dives more into this. Let us know 1295 01:11:45,400 --> 01:11:46,960 Speaker 1: what that is and we'll see what we can do 1296 01:11:47,360 --> 01:11:48,840 Speaker 1: in the meantime. If you want to check out more 1297 01:11:48,840 --> 01:11:50,439 Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, head on over 1298 01:11:50,479 --> 01:11:52,280 Speaker 1: to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's where 1299 01:11:52,280 --> 01:11:55,200 Speaker 1: we'll find all the podcast episodes. You'll find blogs, you'll 1300 01:11:55,240 --> 01:11:57,320 Speaker 1: find videos, you'll find links out to our social media 1301 01:11:57,320 --> 01:12:00,120 Speaker 1: accounts such as uh Facebook and Twitter. We are bow 1302 01:12:00,160 --> 01:12:02,040 Speaker 1: the mind on both of those. I believe we'll blow 1303 01:12:02,080 --> 01:12:04,080 Speaker 1: the mind on Instagram. We're stuff to blow your mind 1304 01:12:04,120 --> 01:12:06,920 Speaker 1: on Tumbler. If any of those those particular social media 1305 01:12:07,320 --> 01:12:10,439 Speaker 1: platforms are your preference, then follow us there. And hey, 1306 01:12:10,439 --> 01:12:12,720 Speaker 1: wherever you listen to this podcast, if there's a way 1307 01:12:12,720 --> 01:12:15,920 Speaker 1: to give us some feedback, some positive feedback, or some 1308 01:12:16,040 --> 01:12:18,880 Speaker 1: stars you know, a nice rating, oh yeah, please do 1309 01:12:18,920 --> 01:12:20,760 Speaker 1: that because it helps us out, It tends to help 1310 01:12:20,760 --> 01:12:23,200 Speaker 1: out the algorithm for the show, and it's a great 1311 01:12:23,240 --> 01:12:25,599 Speaker 1: way to support what we do here. Yeah, and also, 1312 01:12:26,120 --> 01:12:27,840 Speaker 1: as always, if you want to get in touch with 1313 01:12:27,920 --> 01:12:29,960 Speaker 1: us to let us know feedback on this episode or 1314 01:12:30,000 --> 01:12:32,120 Speaker 1: get to give us ideas for future episodes, ask any 1315 01:12:32,200 --> 01:12:34,479 Speaker 1: questions or anything else you want to say to the 1316 01:12:34,520 --> 01:12:36,400 Speaker 1: host of this show, you can email us at blow 1317 01:12:36,479 --> 01:12:48,080 Speaker 1: the Mind at how stuff works dot com for more 1318 01:12:48,120 --> 01:12:50,400 Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Is that how 1319 01:12:50,439 --> 01:13:10,599 Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Blah Blato two part Proper par