Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert lamp and I am Christian Sager.
Speaker 1: And in this episode we're discussing something that I really
Speaker 1: was not familiar with until just the last month or two,
Speaker 1: and that's birth calls. Yeah, and it's C A U
Speaker 1: L is how it's phonetically spelled, but I believe it's
Speaker 1: pronounced call like you know, you would make a phone call. Right.
Speaker 1: We'll get into sort of the etymology of it later,
Speaker 1: but yeah, if you're unfamiliar with these, where we'll get
Speaker 1: we'll give you a sort of primer on what a
Speaker 1: birth call is. We'll talk about the etymology of them,
Speaker 1: and we'll also get into the superstitions around them, which
Speaker 1: are interesting for for thousands of years, humans have had
Speaker 1: superstitions about what birth calls do in almost every culture. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you might on the surface of things mistaken
Speaker 1: for like like a cape and cowl and think that
Speaker 1: the child is born batman or something about it. Right.
Speaker 1: In fact, I posted uh an image from a nine
Speaker 1: article that we researched for this for this particular episode,
Speaker 1: and I put it on our Facebook page. And it
Speaker 1: basically looks like like their version of what a birth
Speaker 1: call looks like. It is like a little kid going
Speaker 1: out as a ghost for Halloween. Like they drew like
Speaker 1: a baby with like it looks just like a sheet
Speaker 1: over their head. Yeah, like if you made a ghost
Speaker 1: cough tumb out of you know, embryonic membrane, that's what
Speaker 1: there you go. So, so that was a little bit
Speaker 1: of a peek ahead of what we're gonna get into.
Speaker 1: So so you're you're probably listening and going, alright, guys,
Speaker 1: what is it? Tell me what a birth call is
Speaker 1: if you're unfamiliar with it. Basically, it is when a
Speaker 1: baby is born and a piece of the amniotic sac
Speaker 1: is still attached to the newborn's head or face when
Speaker 1: it's born. Looks kind of like a filmy membrane. In
Speaker 1: some cases, some people have described it as looking like
Speaker 1: a glass helmet. Uh. And Um, Basically, what happens is,
Speaker 1: either during just station or the birthing process, part of
Speaker 1: the amniotics act that we're all born within breaks away
Speaker 1: and is attached to your head. Uh. And so you're wondering,
Speaker 1: why haven't I heard of these before? Well, that's probably
Speaker 1: because one in every eighty thousand babies is born with
Speaker 1: one and they're usually either because of c sections or
Speaker 1: Another thing that I read that I wasn't able to
Speaker 1: back up with any sources was that um mothers who
Speaker 1: give birth in the water tend to have a birth
Speaker 1: call babies or or babies that are born on call,
Speaker 1: which we'll talk about in a little bit. Yeah, I was.
Speaker 1: I was not familiar with this at all, just because
Speaker 1: they don't. I don't think anyone in my immediate family
Speaker 1: has dealt with this. Uh and any and I say,
Speaker 1: dealt with it like it's for the most part, it's
Speaker 1: not a serious issue. It's more of a curiosity of
Speaker 1: all the things that can occur with a birth. The
Speaker 1: birth call is is pretty mundane. Yeah, And in fact,
Speaker 1: there you know, in a lot of cases people talk
Speaker 1: about it as being a very wonderful thing, that it's
Speaker 1: sort of awe inspiring for a baby like born with this.
Speaker 1: When I first went into it, and that there are
Speaker 1: a lot of superstitions, I thought, whether they're all going
Speaker 1: to be weird and kind of dark. It's like most
Speaker 1: of them are kind of beneficial or neither here nor there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it depends they're all interesting on the color of the
Speaker 1: birth call, which we'll get to later. But uh yeah,
Speaker 1: So just to clarify, you know, if you're thinking about
Speaker 1: having kids, or or you're a pregnant woman right now
Speaker 1: listening to the show, you may be worrying about birth
Speaker 1: calls all of a sudden, don't. Uh. The only thing
Speaker 1: that happens with them is that they can potentially interfere
Speaker 1: with an infants respiration when you know, when it's firstborn,
Speaker 1: just because you know, they've got this filmy membrane over
Speaker 1: the face. It's like landing in a parachute, in a
Speaker 1: parachute landing on top of you. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: And so a doctor basically quickly removes this, and you
Speaker 1: know you can keep it. Most modern patients, I don't
Speaker 1: think do, but we'll talk about all the superstitions around
Speaker 1: and keeping it and all the various things you could
Speaker 1: do with it. Um. But yeah, they're they're totally natural,
Speaker 1: but they're rare, these kinds of births. Before we get
Speaker 1: into sort of the biology science behind, I do want
Speaker 1: to add a disclaimer, which is that I am a
Speaker 1: man and I have read about this stuff, but I
Speaker 1: don't have any firsthand experience with it. I've never given
Speaker 1: birth to a baby. My wife has never had a baby,
Speaker 1: and I've never been in the delivery room when a
Speaker 1: baby is born. So talking about amniotic sacks and all
Speaker 1: the things that it does in the fluid within it.
Speaker 1: You know this book learning right here people, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's same here. So and certainly, as always, we would
Speaker 1: love to hear from anyone who has direct experience with this, uh,
Speaker 1: with this topic. If you were born with an un call,
Speaker 1: or if you know anybody who was, or if you
Speaker 1: have a child that was born uh with a call
Speaker 1: over them and then let us know about it. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: I think maybe it was earlier this year there was
Speaker 1: a baby born in California I think that was born
Speaker 1: on call and the photos of it went viral. I
Speaker 1: mean they were all over Facebook and tutter within hours
Speaker 1: of this baby being born. Uh So, Okay, what's an
Speaker 1: amniotic sacksom if you're saying that's what I said, because
Speaker 1: I was like, birth call, Okay, it's an amniotic schact.
Speaker 1: And then I went, wait, I don't really know what
Speaker 1: that is either. Although I spent you know, a good
Speaker 1: part of the origin of my life and one. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's an opaque bubble that covers all babies within a
Speaker 1: womb after conception, and it fills up with a fluid
Speaker 1: as the baby grows within. And this fluid is sort
Speaker 1: of you know, it's amniotic fluid, which we've we've all
Speaker 1: heard of before, but it also includes a little bit
Speaker 1: of the baby's urine. Is what happens is the baby
Speaker 1: sort of drinks in the amniotic fluid, uh and then
Speaker 1: peas it back out into this bag. So it's a
Speaker 1: p bag filled with amniotic fluid as well. It's it's
Speaker 1: a mixture. It's not all p uh, and it's good
Speaker 1: for us though. It has all kinds of benefits for
Speaker 1: us while we're being born. And the first thing that
Speaker 1: made me think of sci fi was, as as we
Speaker 1: tend to do on this show was remember that movie
Speaker 1: The Abyss, Yes, where they had where they had the breathable,
Speaker 1: pink ambionic fluid us to be able to dive at
Speaker 1: hyper exactly. Yeah. And I think there's some line in
Speaker 1: the movie like, well, you breathe this way for the
Speaker 1: first nine months of your life or whatever, so you're
Speaker 1: you know, you're just swimming around in this bag of
Speaker 1: liquid but you're able to breathe within it, and you
Speaker 1: also have the umbilical cord as well. Um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it helps with all kinds of things. It helps develop
Speaker 1: our digestion system, the actual act of drinking it and
Speaker 1: passing it. Uh, there's some help with respiratory track secretions
Speaker 1: that come out. Uh. There's also the idea that amniotic fluid.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's not just like sitting there in
Speaker 1: a bag. It's constantly produced and renewed. So the baby
Speaker 1: swallows it, it passes it back out, and then it
Speaker 1: also emits some of it through the umbilical cord as well.
Speaker 1: So okay, from what I read, uh, there are two
Speaker 1: sections of these amniotic sacks. One is called the fore waters,
Speaker 1: and that's of course the part that's in front of
Speaker 1: the baby's head, and the hind waters are the part
Speaker 1: that's behind the baby's head. Uh. And you know, again
Speaker 1: like there's a lot of benefits to these sacks. The
Speaker 1: fluid helps the lungs to develop. It also provides lubrication.
Speaker 1: So you know, um, whenever we hear the terminology, you know,
Speaker 1: my water broke or breaking water or whatever, what's actually
Speaker 1: breaking is the amniotic sack and the amniotic fluid rushing forth.
Speaker 1: So it provides lubrication for the baby during pregnancy, which
Speaker 1: kind of allows it to move around inside of this thing.
Speaker 1: But it also provides lubrication to facilitate the birth. Okay,
Speaker 1: so it's kind of like a slipping slide and that. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I I don't know why we haven't invented
Speaker 1: like some kind of toy for children that you know,
Speaker 1: brings us all back to that magical time when we're
Speaker 1: inside our mother's sphere. You climb inside off you just
Speaker 1: fill it with olive oil. I don't know, but uh um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, there's a lot of biological reasons for the
Speaker 1: amniotic sacs. So again I want to, you know, encourage
Speaker 1: you all to or rather discourage you from thinking that
Speaker 1: this is a bad thing if it comes out on
Speaker 1: your baby when it's born. It's also a shock absorber.
Speaker 1: So you remember that science project that you did in
Speaker 1: high school. I did this at least, where like you're
Speaker 1: giving an egg and you have to have to drop
Speaker 1: it off the top of a building without it breaking.
Speaker 1: I think that this is sort of nature's version of that, right,
Speaker 1: So the amniotic sack absorbs the shock from just the
Speaker 1: mother's daily movements, so that we're not you know, hurt
Speaker 1: while we're while we're inside. Uh. And there's some talk
Speaker 1: that it might protect against infection as well, though I
Speaker 1: was reading some sources that said that that's not totally verified. Um,
Speaker 1: I'd be curious if anybody else out there has information
Speaker 1: about this, if if there's some hard sources that we
Speaker 1: could look to about how the amniotic sack and amniotic
Speaker 1: fluid may protect us from infection while we're while we're
Speaker 1: still you know, within our mothers during pregnancy. But yeah,
Speaker 1: but like you said that, the rupturing of this sack
Speaker 1: is generally the that's the the start starter pistol for
Speaker 1: the praction, Yeah, exactly. And and another so my understanding
Speaker 1: as well is that if this hasn't happened for a
Speaker 1: woman who is pregnant and is due, then sometimes doctors
Speaker 1: will manually rupture the sack. They actually showed this little device,
Speaker 1: this like prong kind of thing that they used to
Speaker 1: do it, and the ideas that it's supposed to either
Speaker 1: start or speed up labor, you know, begetting the whole
Speaker 1: process going. There's it's referred to as artificial rupture of
Speaker 1: membranes or a r M for short. Arm uh. Some
Speaker 1: of the stuff that we read about for this episode
Speaker 1: about birth calls came from a really interesting site by
Speaker 1: a midwife whose name is Rachel Reid, and she does
Speaker 1: a very thorough examination of birth calls, how they work,
Speaker 1: and sort of the history behind them. She's had experience
Speaker 1: with them. In fact, there's a there's a photo on
Speaker 1: this blog post of her friend, I think her name
Speaker 1: was Holly maybe giving birth to a child in a
Speaker 1: birth call. Okay, and we'll be fue to link to
Speaker 1: that on the landing page for this episode is stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind dot com. Yeah, And the reason
Speaker 1: why I mentioned it is that Rachel Reid recommends that
Speaker 1: women who are pregnant and think that they might want
Speaker 1: an artificial rupture of membranes, that they should be fully
Speaker 1: informed of the risks of this beforehand. And so we're
Speaker 1: talking about birth calls today, we're not talking about artificial
Speaker 1: rupture of membranes, but you know, that's something you might
Speaker 1: want to look into if if it's a concern of yours. So, okay,
Speaker 1: now we know what an amniotic sac is, we know
Speaker 1: what this film is. That's on top of the baby's
Speaker 1: head when they have a birth call and they're born.
Speaker 1: But where these where to name like birth call come from. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when we get into the etymology of it um, we
Speaker 1: see various terms for it um. Some cups called being
Speaker 1: born with a veil, land scanned water cap, lucky cat,
Speaker 1: silly hood, that's my favorite one. Oh wait, no, the
Speaker 1: next one is my favorite one, silly how or lucky cape,
Speaker 1: child's little net virgins shift. And then there's little shirt.
Speaker 1: It's just a little shirt. You're just born with this
Speaker 1: little amniotic shirt. And I think these names tend to
Speaker 1: underlie the you know, the the the the harmless nature
Speaker 1: of the birth call. You would not be calling it
Speaker 1: the silly the silly hood if there was any real
Speaker 1: danger to it um. Apparently on the the the British
Speaker 1: TV show called The Midwife, which takes place in the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties, apparently they referred to them as mermaid babies
Speaker 1: on there, and apparently is a name that was thrown
Speaker 1: around back in the day as well, which ties into
Speaker 1: some of the nautical superstitions that will discuss. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: and one of my favorite expressions, which you could only
Speaker 1: get from Scotland is Uh, a baby with a birth
Speaker 1: call was road in his mother's sark tail. Oh wow,
Speaker 1: I can't even I don't even understand that. Nope, but
Speaker 1: it sounds filthy. I'll take it. Uh. The actual etymology
Speaker 1: is that it comes from the Latin word put jalitium.
Speaker 1: I'm not a Latin scholar, but that's how it looks
Speaker 1: to me, which means head helmet. So again, I'm getting
Speaker 1: back to this idea that it looks kind of like
Speaker 1: a glass helmet, like a little a little motorcycle helmet.
Speaker 1: That's maybe that's what they should call it now, it's
Speaker 1: a lucky lucky motorcycle helmet. There's another idea out there
Speaker 1: that the word itself um is something of a synonym
Speaker 1: for amnion. Okay, so call, in addition, could mean a net,
Speaker 1: the web of a spider, the base of a wig,
Speaker 1: a woman's cap um, in any of several anatomical investing layers.
Speaker 1: So while it's rare, obviously, they've been happening for long
Speaker 1: enough and often enough that we've been able to come
Speaker 1: up with dozens of nicknames for them. This is not
Speaker 1: like an abnormality that you know, is just unheard of.
Speaker 1: And then there's an even more rare and sense of
Speaker 1: this where you know, a birth call is when you're
Speaker 1: born with the with the the part of the sack
Speaker 1: on your head, but you can actually be born what's
Speaker 1: called an uncalled birth, which sounds like I'm saying on
Speaker 1: call as if like you know, you're you're being called
Speaker 1: into the off from the hospital. It's E N C
Speaker 1: A U L birth. Uh. And these are again even
Speaker 1: more rare, but it's when you when a baby emerges
Speaker 1: fully inside of the amnio, comes out once or at
Speaker 1: least it might be piers but it's still more or
Speaker 1: less intact around exactly. Yeah. And the idea here is
Speaker 1: I believe that this happens in premature births a lot
Speaker 1: because again, like because the water itself hasn't broken, the
Speaker 1: baby is born a little early. And uh, there's like
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, there's c sections and and babies that
Speaker 1: are born in the water too, so so the actual
Speaker 1: you know, process of birth thing doesn't have the opportunity
Speaker 1: to rupture that sack. And again, like the birth call,
Speaker 1: it's not dangerous to be born this way. In fact,
Speaker 1: here's a little here's a little fun note for you. Uh,
Speaker 1: celebrity Jessica Alba, her second child was born on call.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh apparently this was something that was talked
Speaker 1: about in celebrity magazines at the time. Uh. She and
Speaker 1: her husband named their daughter Haven because they said she
Speaker 1: was born in her little safe haven. That's I suppose
Speaker 1: it's better than calling her a little shirt. I'm surprised
Speaker 1: we haven't seen any and maybe we have, and people
Speaker 1: can tell us about them. Any fictional characters, fantastic characters
Speaker 1: who are born in on call and remain on call,
Speaker 1: like like impossibly, the call grows with them and they
Speaker 1: remains like a boy in a bubble kind of thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like a cross between boy and a bubble and a
Speaker 1: guild navigator, you know. Yeah, yeah, Well, I'm also I
Speaker 1: thought you were going to go in a different different
Speaker 1: direction with it is that, you know, it seems to be,
Speaker 1: as we're about to get into with the superstitions, it
Speaker 1: seems to be this sort of common trope of the
Speaker 1: chosen One. It seems like would be the perfect thing
Speaker 1: to add to it, right, Like Harry Potter was born
Speaker 1: with a birth call and it was shaped like lightning.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean there are in some accounts some
Speaker 1: accounts say that Julius Caesar was born, you know, in
Speaker 1: addition to of course being born by sincerean section. Charles
Speaker 1: Dickens I was supposedly born little birth call or I
Speaker 1: can't recall it. I can't recall if he was born
Speaker 1: on call or nearly with a birth call. But well,
Speaker 1: the one this is where I first heard about this
Speaker 1: is Alan Moore, who many of you know as a
Speaker 1: famous comic book writer. He's known for writing Watchman, Swamp Thing,
Speaker 1: be for Vendetta, Leave of Extraordinary Gentleman. There's hundreds of
Speaker 1: things that he's written. He's also a novelist. Uh. He
Speaker 1: did a performance art piece I believe it was in
Speaker 1: like the late nineties about birth. It was a piece
Speaker 1: called the Birth Call, and it was about a lot
Speaker 1: of things. But it starts off with his mother dying
Speaker 1: and he finds that she's kept her birth call her
Speaker 1: whole life. Uh. And that's where I first heard about it.
Speaker 1: I had never, you know, known that this was even
Speaker 1: a thing until I heard this Alan Moore piece before.
Speaker 1: And I'll try to provide, Like I believe that they
Speaker 1: recorded it as a c D and it used to
Speaker 1: be available, but I don't think you can buy it anymore,
Speaker 1: but there might be a link out there somewhere. I'll
Speaker 1: try to try to link to so people can hear
Speaker 1: this piece. Uh. And and it was actually adapted into
Speaker 1: a comic book later on as well, which I brought
Speaker 1: in and we can take a look at. But for
Speaker 1: the most part, it doesn't really show birth calls in
Speaker 1: any kind of way. It's just Alan Moore's poetic interpretation
Speaker 1: of the superstitions that we're about to go on. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: hopefully we can we can find something about that and
Speaker 1: link to it on the landing, that would be excellent.
Speaker 1: Uh So, before we get Toto the superstitions, I just
Speaker 1: want to cite this one particular source that was great
Speaker 1: for this, and it's it's old. Uh. It's by this
Speaker 1: guy named T. R. Forbes, and he wrote it in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty three in the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine.
Speaker 1: But me and is it a thorough examination of all
Speaker 1: of the superstitions. This is like pages of just every
Speaker 1: possible superstition about birth calls that he was able to find,
Speaker 1: very well backed up. The article is called the Social
Speaker 1: History of the Call c A U L And Uh
Speaker 1: it's pretty readily available online. I found it, uh I
Speaker 1: believe it was in like a medical database, and I
Speaker 1: downloaded a PDF of it right away, so I think
Speaker 1: anybody can access it. Yeah, and I also found some
Speaker 1: interesting ones in the Encyclopedia of Superstitions, Folklore and the
Speaker 1: Occult Sciences of the World by Coral Land Daniels and
Speaker 1: Sam stevens Now. In both of these, I do have
Speaker 1: to admit that we did not find as many Asian
Speaker 1: and African cultural examples as we would applied. So that's
Speaker 1: another call out to listeners. It's like, if you if
Speaker 1: you know some good takes on the birth call in
Speaker 1: uh in an Asian or African culture or any or
Speaker 1: any culture that we don't cover here, we would love
Speaker 1: to hear about it. Yeah. I have to admit like
Speaker 1: that these sources were fairly eurocentric. I think there's a
Speaker 1: couple that are in South America maybe, but for the
Speaker 1: most part, it's, you know, as would be expected from
Speaker 1: an academic in the nineteen fifties, it's fairly eurocenter. Alright,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take a quick break and when we come back,
Speaker 1: we will dive into some of these superstitions and if
Speaker 1: we have time, we'll do a little listener mail. All right,
Speaker 1: we're back, So let's dive into these superstitions. Okay, Like
Speaker 1: I said, they're often believed to be something special. There's
Speaker 1: a general understanding of it being considered to be something
Speaker 1: that represents good luck when you're born with a call.
Speaker 1: The first you know quote we'll work with here is
Speaker 1: that the beneficent effect of the call was sometimes regarded
Speaker 1: as extending to the offspring of the original owner. But
Speaker 1: according to the superstition of the Middle Ages and later,
Speaker 1: this effect would be lost if the call were in
Speaker 1: a way or sold outside of the family. So in
Speaker 1: this instance, this is sort of along the lines of
Speaker 1: I think what Alan Moore was probably referencing in his
Speaker 1: piece was that people would keep one of these and
Speaker 1: then they would pass it down from generation to generation.
Speaker 1: So like if your grandmother had been born with a call,
Speaker 1: you would at some point inherit the call and subsequently
Speaker 1: inherit the good luck of it. Okay uh. There was
Speaker 1: an idea that Roman midwives used to steal these from
Speaker 1: babies that were born and sell them to lawyers because
Speaker 1: lawyers believed that they had one of these, it would
Speaker 1: help them win a case and generally these who are
Speaker 1: you know, they're not wearing them on their heads, so
Speaker 1: I don't want to know. But there are some I
Speaker 1: don't know, not in that particular example, but there's some
Speaker 1: weird stuff people did with these. So for instance, like, uh,
Speaker 1: some cultures would take them and grind them down in
Speaker 1: a powder that you would consume, and they thought that
Speaker 1: I would cure malaria. Okay, well that's that's believable. You
Speaker 1: do see in in various cultures degrees of cannibalism, cannibalistic
Speaker 1: medicine and yeah, uh, in Croatia, in one region of Croatia, Uh,
Speaker 1: there was a historical superstition of placing a call under
Speaker 1: a dying person's bed because the idea was that it
Speaker 1: would help make their passing go either. Again, it's it's
Speaker 1: a protective element, and it worked for the newborn baby,
Speaker 1: then perhaps it will help the dying individual as well.
Speaker 1: And some people I believe that More talks about this
Speaker 1: in his in his piece. But uh, some people would
Speaker 1: go and bury them in field sort of outside of
Speaker 1: where the baby was born. And the idea was that
Speaker 1: if it was buried in the field that you could
Speaker 1: you know, it would give luck to this person's life
Speaker 1: as they grew up within that area, you know, they're
Speaker 1: it's always close by. There's one note that said that
Speaker 1: coal miners carried them off to carried them with them
Speaker 1: to ward off fires. So there's an interesting thing here,
Speaker 1: the idea that birth calls are sort of elemental in
Speaker 1: their nature, and there's a sort of water or affect
Speaker 1: to them, right, they ward off fires. And as we'll
Speaker 1: we'll get into as well. They they they were also
Speaker 1: believed to make their bearers immune to drowning for the
Speaker 1: rest of their lives. And thus the mermaids hood example, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: and and in fact midwives, you know, when they weren't
Speaker 1: stealing them and selling to the lawyers, other midwives would
Speaker 1: drive them out and sell them to sailors. And the
Speaker 1: idea was that this was a talisman that a sailor
Speaker 1: would keep with them that would, you know, prevent them
Speaker 1: from drowning if they fell off the ship. There's another history,
Speaker 1: at least within Forbes study, that there are many instances
Speaker 1: in many different cultures of birth calls being used in
Speaker 1: so called love potions. Um. In fact, there there's a
Speaker 1: sort of you know, if you've listened to our episode
Speaker 1: on grimoire. There's a historical text called Burton's Anatomy of
Speaker 1: Melancholy That sounds like a great album. Uh, but the
Speaker 1: idea was that, uh, the whole approachan formula was the
Speaker 1: dust of a dove's heart. That's a new one. I've
Speaker 1: never seen that one. It seems like it would be
Speaker 1: difficult to get, but I don't know. Maybe there's a
Speaker 1: particular way to catching doves I'm unfamiliar with. You would
Speaker 1: also need to get the rope from with which a
Speaker 1: man was hanged. Nice use of crossroads death. You can
Speaker 1: see that employed the tongue of a viper. And then
Speaker 1: this is how they referred to a birth call the
Speaker 1: cloak with which infants are wrapped when they are born.
Speaker 1: So I mean, if it's common enough that you know,
Speaker 1: in this medieval grimoire on potion making, it would be
Speaker 1: referenced as such, you know, one and eighty thousand, Maybe
Speaker 1: isn't as small rare of an occasion as well, and
Speaker 1: it's standing out in people's memory and becoming a part
Speaker 1: of the folklore, so it resonates. Then there's one more
Speaker 1: here that I thought was particularly interesting, and I'm just
Speaker 1: going to read a direct quote from Forbes on this
Speaker 1: one to to give you the maximum effect. In Denmark,
Speaker 1: it was thought that if a woman crept under a
Speaker 1: full call stretched on sticks, she would have a painless labor,
Speaker 1: but as a penalty, her sons would become werewolves and
Speaker 1: her daughters would become nighthags. So that's a that's an
Speaker 1: interesting mix of mythology and superstition there um. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that might come up later as well. But
Speaker 1: there's also seems to be like a just an ongoing
Speaker 1: thing about horse birth calls, uh, and like the various
Speaker 1: effects that they have and things that they can be
Speaker 1: used for. Yeah, I do want to point out in
Speaker 1: culinary circles you'll sometimes see call, particularly like pork call used,
Speaker 1: but it's not actual birth call. It's actually part of
Speaker 1: like an intestinal lining or something. Ok Uh. Here's there
Speaker 1: a few others that I ran across. In El Salvador,
Speaker 1: a child born with a call will be the victim
Speaker 1: of restless spirits until the nurse boils the call on
Speaker 1: the ninth day and the child drinks the broth. So
Speaker 1: this is the consumption aspect. Yeah, and also one of
Speaker 1: the rare kind of negative call uh myths. Out there.
Speaker 1: In Guiana, a child's call can be stored away in
Speaker 1: a pantry or closet to bring good luck to the house,
Speaker 1: and then another one from Ghana to up to prevent
Speaker 1: a baby seeing ghosts, tie a red string around its
Speaker 1: neck and hang it to a bag containing the call
Speaker 1: of another baby of the opposite sex. That's great, Uh.
Speaker 1: I like the idea that that that you know, a
Speaker 1: baby seeing goes just so often, and you know that's
Speaker 1: that's what's wrong with the baby. That you've got to
Speaker 1: go fish out one of these bird calls and use
Speaker 1: it tied around its neck. Here a couple of them. Scotland. Uh.
Speaker 1: In Scotland, the call was called the virgin's vest or
Speaker 1: the fortunate hood, and was the object of veneration. If
Speaker 1: you threw it away, sickness or death would come for
Speaker 1: the child and the young mother would be taken away
Speaker 1: by the fairy folk. And the only way to recover
Speaker 1: it is the husband would have to watch the years
Speaker 1: yearly writing uh and if I am, if I'm understanding
Speaker 1: is correctly. This is a Scottish tradition in border towns
Speaker 1: involves running around on horses and throw the wedding gown
Speaker 1: after the woman as her is her wraith rides past. Now,
Speaker 1: well that's what happens when your roade in your mother's
Speaker 1: stark tail. Yes, uh, and I would I would love
Speaker 1: to hear from some Scotts on mult with the folklore.
Speaker 1: Maybe they can clarify some of this. It definitely seemed
Speaker 1: to me and maybe this is why we found the
Speaker 1: research to be so eurocentric that Great Britain in general
Speaker 1: seemed to be where the wealth of superstition and mythology
Speaker 1: surrounding birth calls came from. Yeah, but but again it
Speaker 1: does make me wonder, like how you know, I think
Speaker 1: I probably I'm imagining a lot of the stuff elsewhere
Speaker 1: in the world is gonna be very similar. Probably, but
Speaker 1: there there's there's probably some some wild stuff out there too.
Speaker 1: The Scots also believed that a crisp call meant meant
Speaker 1: good health. But if you were born with a moist,
Speaker 1: flabby one more than that could that could be bad.
Speaker 1: That seems very odd to me because wouldn't use again,
Speaker 1: not a woman I've never given birth, but I would
Speaker 1: assume that they're all moist and then what they do,
Speaker 1: and you know they're filled with fluid. I I would
Speaker 1: think it would be the opposite if you've had a
Speaker 1: crisp call when you're born. So I'm not sure about
Speaker 1: that one. That one sounds a little a little suspect. Well,
Speaker 1: it's interesting, you know, like you said, there aren't a
Speaker 1: whole lot of examples of bad calls or bad luck
Speaker 1: surrounding them, other than you know, like some some of
Speaker 1: the things like if you throw it away or you know,
Speaker 1: you do something wrong with this good luck charm. But
Speaker 1: there there was a a book from fifteen fifty nine
Speaker 1: that was called Day Miraculous Nature a So I'm assuming
Speaker 1: that's The Miracles of Nature, uh, that basically had a
Speaker 1: whole section about different colors of calls and the effects
Speaker 1: that they would have. One passage from this book said
Speaker 1: of the helmets of children newly born, or of the
Speaker 1: thin and soft call, where with the faces covered as
Speaker 1: with a wizard, or covering when they come first into
Speaker 1: the world. So the idea here was that you know
Speaker 1: that they're again talking about the glass helmet, the helmet
Speaker 1: of children kind of thing. But if this helmet was black, uh,
Speaker 1: then it was basically predicting that they would have this
Speaker 1: child would have accidents or misfortune throughout their life they
Speaker 1: might be haunted by evil spirits. And the only way
Speaker 1: that they could get rid of this is again coming
Speaker 1: back to the consumption thing, they had to break the
Speaker 1: call up, put it into a drink, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: essentially then only then that the call would no longer
Speaker 1: be able to hurt the child. Well, I could see
Speaker 1: where if you were born with a dark call, you
Speaker 1: would kind of look like, um, like a baby cobra commander.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, it looked I saw some pictures and
Speaker 1: and it did look a little uh um, like something
Speaker 1: out of a science fiction movie, not something that would
Speaker 1: happen in nature. Uh. There this I did not see
Speaker 1: pictures of, although you know, given the circumstances, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be surprised if it appeared such. But there was an
Speaker 1: idea that if the call was read, or if in
Speaker 1: particular it clings to the crown of the head, so
Speaker 1: it's specifically on the crown, the child would be expected
Speaker 1: to eventually achieve great success. So I'm not sure where
Speaker 1: that comes from, but maybe the the idea is that
Speaker 1: it's like a little baby crown or something. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then there is there was actually a whole kind of
Speaker 1: I guess occult mythology surrounding the practice of foretelling the
Speaker 1: future by looking at a baby's call inspecting it. And
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if I'm going to pronounce this right,
Speaker 1: but I believe it's iineomancy something like that. So one
Speaker 1: of your your less understood manage. Yeah, this is like
Speaker 1: an elective at Hogwarts ieomancy, like you don't have to
Speaker 1: take it to graduate. Uh. And then if it was white,
Speaker 1: which again I'm not quite sure how that would happen,
Speaker 1: that would bring good fortune. Um, but if you are
Speaker 1: born with just like a pure white call, that seems
Speaker 1: suspect as well. All right, so they have at birth calls.
Speaker 1: You know, we're doing pretty uh pretty well on time.
Speaker 1: Right now, let's call the robot over here and do
Speaker 1: a little listener mail. Carney. A lot of people were
Speaker 1: confused last time when we when we let them know
Speaker 1: that that Arnie had become Carney. Yeah, it's I mean,
Speaker 1: it was confusing for Carney. It was confusing for it
Speaker 1: was confusing for me. But you know, it's a new age. Hey.
Speaker 1: We received us some some cool feedback from a number
Speaker 1: of you about our episode on Old Buckminster Fuller, including uh,
Speaker 1: listener Hugh wrote in on Facebook and has sent us
Speaker 1: sent us some photographs that he actually took of Buckminster
Speaker 1: in real life. Those are pretty cool. We also heard
Speaker 1: from listener Beverly. Beverly rode in and said, I just
Speaker 1: finished listening to the Bucky Fuller episode. When he said
Speaker 1: that his lectures were ten hours long, I could believe it.
Speaker 1: He was the speaker at my high school graduation in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one. I can't tell you what he talked about,
Speaker 1: but I can Yeah, my Anian speakers in my graduations
Speaker 1: have been the It's true that it's not really a
Speaker 1: al Gore was a speaker at my undergraduate graduation, and
Speaker 1: that was right when he was running for president. I
Speaker 1: don't remember a thing about it. It's not a time
Speaker 1: when most of us have have patients for oldman talking
Speaker 1: at us. But she continues, says, I can't tell you
Speaker 1: what he talked about, but I can't tell you that
Speaker 1: it was hot, and he talked on and on to
Speaker 1: the point that people in the audience walked out until
Speaker 1: he was done. I don't believe he had any impact
Speaker 1: on the length of his speech. Yeah, that sounds about
Speaker 1: right for him. We also heard from uh Tatiana, Tadiana
Speaker 1: wrote in and said, northern California is lousy with geodesic domes.
Speaker 1: I once had the experience of house sitting for a
Speaker 1: friend who lived in one. After that, I went to
Speaker 1: live in a very well built wooden yurt with walls
Speaker 1: that slanted outward. I noticed the difference in the way
Speaker 1: the two spaces affected me. Both were small structures. The
Speaker 1: dome curved in around me and felt claustrophobic, while the yurt,
Speaker 1: with its outslanting walls and cone shaped stealing, felt like
Speaker 1: the perfect shape for a human habitation. Huh, birth call
Speaker 1: birth call is ark a texture there you synchronicity too,
Speaker 1: widest at arm level, and completely comfortable in that subtle
Speaker 1: sense in which structures affect our psychology. Both types of
Speaker 1: structures impose insurmountable challenges. Where a generic furniture is concerned,
Speaker 1: the only solution is to build custom couverard sinks, bed frames,
Speaker 1: and storage. I build a lemon shaped bed platform into
Speaker 1: the curving parameter of my yurt, and the various angles
Speaker 1: for sitting helped bring versatility to the tiny space. I
Speaker 1: lived there alone for free, and those were some of
Speaker 1: my most creative days, I drew, played sacks and wrote songs.
Speaker 1: I believe that housing is a human right in our
Speaker 1: society needs to embrace innovation and housing solutions. While Bucky
Speaker 1: championed the promise of technological advances, modern pioneers are building beautiful, durable, efficient,
Speaker 1: and low cost structures out of all natural materials, using
Speaker 1: various combinations of clay, dug straight out of the ground, straw, gravel,
Speaker 1: and some would that can usually be locally sourced. Well,
Speaker 1: given what we read about Bucky, I wouldn't be surprised
Speaker 1: if he would agree with you as housing being a
Speaker 1: human right. I mean, I don't think he outright said that,
Speaker 1: but that seemed to be you know, remember, he had
Speaker 1: this goal of changing humanity for the better, and he
Speaker 1: saw it as his purpose to do so by affecting
Speaker 1: basically how we live, like the structures within which we live.
Speaker 1: So it would make sense to me that he would
Speaker 1: sort of lean towards that philosophy as well, especially since
Speaker 1: we found out that so many of those domes were
Speaker 1: theorized to be used for you know, shelters for during
Speaker 1: wartime or natural disasters. Yeah, am I remembering this correctly?
Speaker 1: Or in Napoleon Dynamite the film does uh does a
Speaker 1: Dynamite live in a Judesic Dome? I don't think so.
Speaker 1: It's been a long time since I've seen that. I
Speaker 1: thought he lived in like maybe I'm remembering it wrong,
Speaker 1: but now I'm thinking he lived in like a collection
Speaker 1: of trailers connected together. I don't know, but it definitely
Speaker 1: wasn't like a traditional style home. I might have a
Speaker 1: confused with another another film. All right, well, here's one more.
Speaker 1: This is from listener Andrew. I'm not gonna read the
Speaker 1: whole thing, but basically, we u we were We're curious
Speaker 1: if Dimaxion was copyrighted, and so Andrew looked into it
Speaker 1: and he said during the episode, you wondered whether the
Speaker 1: name Taxon was copyrighted, and also spoke about copyright and
Speaker 1: patents regarding the Judesic Dome and that the first people
Speaker 1: to get the copyright office gets rights. Um. I hate
Speaker 1: to gnetpick, but as someone who teaches intellectual property law,
Speaker 1: I think it's important to use these terms correctly because
Speaker 1: misuse just perpetrates the fairly widespread confusion and misunderstanding about
Speaker 1: the purposes of various forms of intellectual property and how
Speaker 1: they work. First, if there is any exclusive lot right
Speaker 1: to the use of the word dymaxion, it would be
Speaker 1: found under trademark law. Single words and short phrases are
Speaker 1: not protected by copyright or patent law. Additionally, at least
Speaker 1: in the U S, a trademark must be continually in
Speaker 1: continuous use in association with the sale of goods or
Speaker 1: services to maintain trademark rights. If a trademark owner ceases
Speaker 1: to use a trade mark in commerce, he will quickly
Speaker 1: lose any rights to keep others from amusing the mark.
Speaker 1: The Trademark Office at the United States Patent and Trademark
Speaker 1: Office issues trademark registrations. Although registration is not necessarily for protection,
Speaker 1: the first person to use a trademark in association with
Speaker 1: particular goods or services claims the exclusive right to use
Speaker 1: that trademark. Copyright protects creative expressive works, but does not
Speaker 1: protect the ideas contained within those works. Things like books, drawings, photographs, audio,
Speaker 1: and or visual works are protected by copyright in most countries,
Speaker 1: including the US. One receives copyright protection once a work
Speaker 1: is fixed in a tangible medium of expression. Registration is optional,
Speaker 1: but useful for enforcing one's copyright copyright rights. Back when
Speaker 1: Bucky was doing his thing, registration was generally required for protection,
Speaker 1: but copyright has never protected ideas or inventions, whether registered
Speaker 1: or not. All of Bucky's books are still protected by copyright,
Speaker 1: which lasts for as long as the author's life plus
Speaker 1: seventy five years. And of course I believe that in
Speaker 1: this an area where you continue to see varying able
Speaker 1: will push back from major copyright holders. Well, this definitely
Speaker 1: seems like an instance where this is his bread and butter,
Speaker 1: and he's certainly knows it better than we do. I
Speaker 1: would just add, from my experience in the past with
Speaker 1: dealing with issues surrounding copyright and fair use and things
Speaker 1: like that, that I would just say I'm not a lawyer,
Speaker 1: and that that's what I was always taught. I'm not
Speaker 1: a lawyer, So you should consult one if you really
Speaker 1: want to know the answer to these things. It sounds
Speaker 1: like he might be a lawyer. He said he works
Speaker 1: with U copyright and fair use. Well, he he teaches
Speaker 1: intellectual property law. Okay, even better, yeah, yeah, he continues.
Speaker 1: He says, as you noted, Bucky had a number of patents.
Speaker 1: Patents are very different from trademarks and copyrights in a
Speaker 1: number of respects. Patents protect human made inventions, including things
Speaker 1: like machines, compositions of matter, or processes. Whereas trademarks and
Speaker 1: copyrights do not depend on registration status, patent rights are
Speaker 1: completely dependent on registration. One has no patent rights unless
Speaker 1: until one successfully registers one invention with the Patent Office.
Speaker 1: While filing and receiving a patent, registration is necessary for
Speaker 1: patent protection. An invention must be new for it to
Speaker 1: be granted patent protection. In other words, if someone invents
Speaker 1: and sells their invention but doesn't seek a patent for it,
Speaker 1: then another person cannot take that invention and patentent. No
Speaker 1: patent would be granted because it is not new. I
Speaker 1: don't know the details of Buckey's doodesic dome patent or
Speaker 1: what similar technology existed at the time, but it is
Speaker 1: likely that Bucky's invention was different enough from any existing
Speaker 1: technology to warrant a patent. If the guidesic dome is
Speaker 1: described in the patent was not new, then Bucky would
Speaker 1: not have been allowed to get a patent for it
Speaker 1: under the rules at the time. When Bucky filed the patent,
Speaker 1: it would not have mattered if Bucky filed before another inventor.
Speaker 1: If the other inventor invented the guidesic dome as described
Speaker 1: in the patent before Bucky did, then Bucky would have
Speaker 1: been barred from receiving a patent on it, no matter
Speaker 1: when he filed his application. The US now has a
Speaker 1: first file system, but it is still true that an
Speaker 1: invention must be new or novel for the inventor to
Speaker 1: get a patent, with some very limited grace period situations. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if I remember correctly, I believe the person who
Speaker 1: was claiming that they had invented it before him was German.
Speaker 1: Maybe definitely, I think. Finally, Andy adds on another Bucky
Speaker 1: related note. Back in the eighties, I knew someone who
Speaker 1: lived in a geodesic dome. He lived alone, and I
Speaker 1: don't think he had the privacy noise issues that you
Speaker 1: talked about. I also don't remember him complaining about it
Speaker 1: being leaky. Maybe the construction design and or materials had
Speaker 1: improved over the years. I love your podcast, Keep up
Speaker 1: the great work. Yeah, that's certainly possible as well. The
Speaker 1: notes during that episode that we were reading from about
Speaker 1: the leakage within the geodesic dome were from around the
Speaker 1: time when Bucky himself was building them, So I suppose
Speaker 1: it's possible that there's some more modern ones out there
Speaker 1: that are using different textiles or something make them less leaky. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know. Certainly. If anyone else out there has has
Speaker 1: experience with the gudesic domes and life with in a
Speaker 1: judifent dome, we would love to hear from you. And
Speaker 1: thanks for our listeners who wrote in with those varying
Speaker 1: details about domes and Bucky and patents. Yeah. So, if
Speaker 1: you have information about that, or you have some stuff
Speaker 1: for us about birth calls, maybe a superstition from your family,
Speaker 1: or maybe a story about your family member or yourself
Speaker 1: being born with one or born being born in the
Speaker 1: amniotics at itself, let us know about it. You can
Speaker 1: write to us on Facebook or Twitter or tumbler where
Speaker 1: we're Blow the Mind on all of those platforms, Yes,
Speaker 1: and be sure to head on over to steppable your
Speaker 1: mind dot com. That's the mothership. That's where we'll find
Speaker 1: all the blog posts, all the podcast episodes, videos and
Speaker 1: links out of those social media accounts, and you can
Speaker 1: always reach us via email at blow the mind at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com for more on this and
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot
Speaker 1: com