Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full
Speaker 1: of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Art is an ever evolving concept. From ancient
Speaker 1: cave paintings to Egyptian hier glyphs and all the way
Speaker 1: through Impressionism, Cubism and campbell soup cans. The art world
Speaker 1: never stands still, but beyond the images themselves, how they're
Speaker 1: made has also changed. Those cave paintings were done using
Speaker 1: ground up minerals like ochre and charcoal. Artists like Rembrandt
Speaker 1: and van Gogh worked in paints made of linseed oil
Speaker 1: and pigments to achieve their signature looks. But in the
Speaker 1: fifteenth and sixteenth centuries a different material was introduced to
Speaker 1: the process, and by today's standards, its origin was highly
Speaker 1: unusual and controversial. It all started with the ancient Greeks
Speaker 1: and their use of a thing called bitumin. It was
Speaker 1: a black, viscous substance that was utilized in various applications,
Speaker 1: from construction to curing the common toothache. We also used
Speaker 1: bitumen today, but mainly for paving roads and filling in potholes,
Speaker 1: as bitumin is commonly known as asphalt to the Greeks, though,
Speaker 1: it was a miracle substance typically found seeping from the
Speaker 1: ground throughout Persia. One twelfth century physician, though, wrote a
Speaker 1: lot about ancient Egypt and a substance that he mistakenly
Speaker 1: believed was also bitumen. You see, he had seen the
Speaker 1: blackened nature of the embalmed bodies there, and he thought
Speaker 1: that they had been coated in it. In the event
Speaker 1: the natural supply, ever grew scarce, he claimed the viable
Speaker 1: substitute for bitumen could be harvested from these ancient Egyptian corpses.
Speaker 1: In reality, that black substance on them was just the
Speaker 1: embalming materials that had darkened over time, giving them their
Speaker 1: unique coloring. Persians had their own word for bitumen, which
Speaker 1: they called mum or mamma. This word was also found
Speaker 1: in Arabic, and if it sounds familiar, that's because the
Speaker 1: words specifically applied to the kind of bitumen that came
Speaker 1: from Egyptian bodies. Eventually, mamma became the term we know
Speaker 1: today mummy due to the widely held belief that bitumen
Speaker 1: had medicinal properties. Though an extensive mummy trade was established
Speaker 1: between Egypt and Europe, it grew quite big during the
Speaker 1: sixteenth century, with imported mummies being ground up into powders
Speaker 1: for various tinctures and the lixers. The use of mummies
Speaker 1: in medicine all but died out in the late seventeen hundreds,
Speaker 1: but many were still in circulation across Europe. Some were
Speaker 1: collected by the wealthy, while others were desecrated for entertainment purposes.
Speaker 1: Unwrapping parties even became popular, where mummified remains had their
Speaker 1: shrouds and wrappings removed so that the bodies inside could
Speaker 1: be examined by the gathered audience. But it was the
Speaker 1: art world that found a new way to use an
Speaker 1: old material, the ground up mummy. A powder that had
Speaker 1: been used in various medical applications was now being mixed
Speaker 1: in with oils and water colors to create a new
Speaker 1: pigment known as mummy brown. And while mummy brown did
Speaker 1: first appear during the sixteenth century, it really hit it big.
Speaker 1: A few hundred years later, artists like Edward Burne Jones
Speaker 1: and Martin Drolling used it in their paintings. Those who
Speaker 1: preferred it enjoyed how it behaved against the canvas, but
Speaker 1: as times changed, so did attitudes around the mummy trade.
Speaker 1: For one, other artists and critics found the pigments origins
Speaker 1: to be off putting. After all, trafficking in mummies was
Speaker 1: a vulgar act that disrespected the dead. Burns Jones had
Speaker 1: believed that the name was simply a descriptor and not
Speaker 1: an indication of the contents within the tube. What a
Speaker 1: fellow artist and member of his emily confirmed it was true,
Speaker 1: and the realization offended Edwards so much he went and
Speaker 1: buried his tube of mummy brown in his garden. Among
Speaker 1: those who helped with the burial was his nephew, who
Speaker 1: was visiting him for Christmas. Though he was a young
Speaker 1: man at the time, he would go on to great
Speaker 1: acclaim as a prominent writer in the nineteen and twenty
Speaker 1: centuries that young man Rudyard Kipling. In addition to the
Speaker 1: colors providence, the quality of the paint could also not
Speaker 1: be guaranteed. Not all mummies were created equally, it seems,
Speaker 1: and so while one tube of brown paint might be perfect,
Speaker 1: another might be rendered unusable. By the twentieth century, mummy
Speaker 1: brown was over, but mummy brown still exists today. The
Speaker 1: only difference now is that it's made from different minerals
Speaker 1: easily found in nature and not graves. Proof that sometimes
Speaker 1: a curious history can also be a little bit colorful.
Speaker 1: We don't realize it as it's happening, but our children
Speaker 1: grow up right before our eyes. One moment their babies
Speaker 1: depending on us for every diaper change and bottle feeding,
Speaker 1: and the next moment they're getting married and starting families
Speaker 1: of their own. And somewhere in between they grow, they
Speaker 1: develop personalities and pick up things like mannerisms and beliefs
Speaker 1: from the people around them, parents, teachers, siblings, friends. Everyone
Speaker 1: contributes something to who they become. Like Madaline. She was
Speaker 1: born Marie Madeleine Gera in seventy eight in a suburb
Speaker 1: of Montreal, Canada. Her father, Francois, was a soldier who
Speaker 1: arrived in town in sixteen sixty five to fight in
Speaker 1: the Beaver Wars against the Iroquois people. Four years later,
Speaker 1: he married Marie Perrault, and then moved to a plot
Speaker 1: of land along the St. Lawrence River, and the couple
Speaker 1: did well for themselves, with Francois becoming quite the landholder,
Speaker 1: while Marie raised a dozen children, of which Madeleine was
Speaker 1: the fourth oldest. Now, the Beaver Wars carried on in
Speaker 1: some capacity for about a hundred years, with new battles
Speaker 1: cropping up every now and then. The Iroquois fur trade
Speaker 1: had been destroyed by the Algonquins and their French backers,
Speaker 1: sparking a lengthy fight between the two sides. On one occasion,
Speaker 1: Madeleine's mother even helped stave off an attack on the
Speaker 1: fort where they lived, thanks to the help of four
Speaker 1: other soldiers. But in six two, when she was only
Speaker 1: fourteen years old, Madeleine was forced to step up to
Speaker 1: the front lines. Both her mother and her father had
Speaker 1: left town to attend to business and gather supplies. While
Speaker 1: they were gone, the children stayed back at the fort
Speaker 1: with several others. Meanwhile, the Iroquois had arrived in town,
Speaker 1: looting and setting fire to people's homes. Despite the threat,
Speaker 1: a few of the people from the fort set out
Speaker 1: into the fields to do some work, and eight soldiers
Speaker 1: followed for protection. Madeleine stayed close by, tending to the
Speaker 1: cabbage garden, and that's when the Iroquois act, capturing the
Speaker 1: men in the fields before heading toward the fort. Madeleine
Speaker 1: ran back, chased by one of the Iroquois who got
Speaker 1: close enough to grab the scarf around her shoulders. Thinking fast,
Speaker 1: she untied it and darted inside the fourth shouting to
Speaker 1: arms to arms. The small garrison inside wouldn't be enough
Speaker 1: to fend off the incoming forces, but Madaline wasn't about
Speaker 1: to give up. She picked up a musket and fired
Speaker 1: shots from different points around the fort and told others
Speaker 1: to do the same, and then she shot off a cannon,
Speaker 1: a signal to other forts that they were under attack
Speaker 1: and in need of reinforcements. Her goal was to make
Speaker 1: as much noise as possible to fool the Iroquois into
Speaker 1: thinking the fort was fully armed with soldiers at the ready,
Speaker 1: and they bought it. They hid on the outskirts of
Speaker 1: the trees and bushes, along with the settlers they had
Speaker 1: taken prisoner. Not long after, a canoe was seen drifting
Speaker 1: down the river toward them. On board was a family
Speaker 1: by the last name of Fontaine. Someone had to go
Speaker 1: and retrieve them before they too were taken captive, but
Speaker 1: none of the soldiers were willing to leave the fort,
Speaker 1: so fourteen year old Madeleine volunteered. She snuck out and
Speaker 1: helped the family get back to safety. She and her
Speaker 1: siblings and the others inside literally held down the fort
Speaker 1: over the next eight days, and then on the ninth day,
Speaker 1: Madeleine was greeted by a welcome sight. A group of
Speaker 1: forty frenchmen had arrived from Montreal to help defend them.
Speaker 1: She ordered the gate open and rushed out to greet them.
Speaker 1: To their leader, Monsieur de la Monteree. She said, Sir,
Speaker 1: I surrender my arms to you, and allowed him to
Speaker 1: take command of the fort. They managed to run off
Speaker 1: the attacking Iroquois as well as rescue the captured settlers,
Speaker 1: just as her parents were returning home. For her service,
Speaker 1: Madeleine received a pension for the rest of her life
Speaker 1: bestowed upon her by none other than the King of
Speaker 1: France himself, and a statue was erected in her honor
Speaker 1: along the river bank where she risked her life to
Speaker 1: help save the lives of others, lasting proof that heroes
Speaker 1: come in all shapes and sizes, and I'll ages too.
Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership
Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
Speaker 1: World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.