WEBVTT - External Exam - Memento Mori with Author, Dr. Paul Koudounaris 0:00:04.720 --> 0:00:12.879 Mother Knows Death presents External Exams with Nicole and Jimmy. 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:20.200 Today, I'm interviewing doctor Paul Kutinaris, who is the author 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:24.520 of Memento Mori. Paul is one of my favorite people, 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:28.680 and I'm friends with him. I met Paul years ago. Well, 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:31.400 I actually will let him fill you in of how 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:33.400 we actually met, but I'll tell you how I was 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:37.960 introduced to Paul. At first, I was invited to this 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:41.000 death salon that was being held at the Muder Museum 0:00:41.040 --> 0:00:44.880 in Philadelphia years ago, and I went and I didn't 0:00:44.920 --> 0:00:47.440 really know anybody that was going to be there, but 0:00:47.479 --> 0:00:50.400 I was invited there because I had the Instagram that 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:54.000 was popular with death. And I showed up and just 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:57.080 sat in the audience and watched a lecture by Paul, 0:00:57.160 --> 0:00:59.959 who I never had heard of, and I was kind 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:04.160 kind of mind blown by how intelligent he was, obviously, 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:07.120 but just he was just saying such cool stuff that 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:11.320 resonated with me so much about how death is is 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:13.919 a very He was saying there was a soft line 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:16.040 with death in some cultures and there was a very 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:17.120 hard line with death. 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:19.160 And I think about. 0:01:18.920 --> 0:01:21.880 This photo that was in his lecture with it was 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:24.960 like this guy with a white picket fence outside and 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:27.199 there was a skull and he was like shaking hands 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:30.000 with this, you know, this dead guy. It was really funny. 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:33.480 But how in our culture, or at least in America, 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:37.320 we have a very hard line with death. And I 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:40.480 took like a bunch of notes after his lecture and stuff, 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:44.040 and I thought it was super cool. And I don't 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:49.040 exactly remember, Paul, how I I might have like stalked 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:52.440 you on Instagram or something and how we started talking. 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:56.560 So I don't know if you remember, Well, remember I 0:01:56.640 --> 0:01:57.040 met you. 0:01:57.000 --> 0:01:58.720 Through Adam Wallackott. 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:02.440 Okay, so yeah, so we have a mutual friend Adam 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:07.040 And yeah, that makes sense. So that's and then we 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:09.400 met in person then or something. I'm not sure, but 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:13.520 Adam's the he makes the really cool octopus chandeliers and 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:16.600 he's a really awesome artist in Tier Decorator. 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:20.800 Adam is basically the de facto mayor of Philadelphia. For 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:23.720 those who don't, it's like every every time I stay 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:26.040 in Philadelphia, I stay in Adam's house and there is 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:29.400 no place I can go where at least twenty people 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:32.320 don't know this guy. He is the mayor of Philadelphia. 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:35.760 Yeah, You're totally right about that. He does know everybody. 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:42.000 That's how we met. And first, I guess, Paul the 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:46.760 most hated question of all. Tell us, just tell us 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:51.920 a little bit about yourself with like, who are you, 0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:55.080 how'd you get here? Where where'd you come from? Just 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:57.160 give us a little background about Paul. 0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:00.840 Well, where did I come from? It's probably at complicated, 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:03.400 but the rest of it will do. I have a 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:07.160 PhD in art history and from UCLA. I'm from Los 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:10.080 Angeles originally, and I was always kind of, I guess, 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:12.800 like the fox molder of the art history department, just 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:15.639 studying these weird things that other people didn't like, you know, 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:18.760 while while everyone else was studying Rembrandt, I was out 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:22.480 looking at woodcuts of you know, wareholes and stuff. And eventually, 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:27.320 when I finished my PhD, I was traveling through Europe 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:28.920 and I had gone to a lot of the famous 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:31.680 death related sites, you know, the Paaris Catacombs and all 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:35.240 of these bone places, and eventually I started finding a 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:37.480 lot of them that nobody had heard of, you know, 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:41.240 because there are about four that are big popular sites 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:43.920 like that, like tourist destinations, and then there's about a 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:47.000 Hydrid that nobody's heard of, and nobody cares about me. 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:49.880 You need special access to go into and I became 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:52.520 really fascinated by that. I mean, I had just finished 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:55.920 a PhD in art history with a specialty in Baroque, 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:58.480 and here were all these old Baroque era bone rooms, 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:00.640 and it just seemed like a natural thing for me 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:02.800 to start studying and writing about. You know, it was 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:04.760 right up my alley, and the discovery of all this 0:04:04.800 --> 0:04:08.360 stuff was perfectly timed. So I had traveled around Europe 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:10.760 for a couple of years and documented all these places 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:12.800 and put out a book called The Empire of Death, 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:15.240 which was the history of these bone rooms. In the 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:17.840 process of doing that, I had discovered a bunch of 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:22.000 old Baroque jeweled skeletons that everybody else seemed to have 0:04:22.120 --> 0:04:24.240 forgotten about, and I wrote a book about them called 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:27.240 Heavenly Bodies. But in the process of doing those first 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:30.599 two books, I had also been continually traveling the world, 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:34.760 studying these places in other cultures in Asia and South America, 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:37.320 and that's what led to that book Momentum Wory that 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:39.920 we're talking about today, which was taking what I had 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:44.039 been doing, you know, studying these death related sites on 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:47.359 a microcosmic level, like only within one culture and with 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:50.400 you within one era, and then just kind of expanding 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:52.760 it to the entire world, you know, and taking a 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:56.760 global look at these sites and the way the importance 0:04:56.839 --> 0:04:59.800 these sites have, these you know, bone decorated sites and 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:03.120 with mummies, and the importance that these sites have in 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:05.640 the spiritual lives of people throughout the world. How it's 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:09.159 really a very universal thing. And what you had mentioned 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:11.800 that I had been talking about originally in Philadelphia, you know, 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:15.960 death as a boundary became something that was that was 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:20.360 really important to me in understanding why in some cultures 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:23.320 and in some eras of history this stuff is so 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:26.280 okay and it's okay to interact with the dead and 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:29.440 it's encouraged, and why we live in a culture where 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:32.840 it's really discouraged. You know, it's considered kind of perverse, 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:35.480 you know, to keep your relatives bones around or to 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:38.520 keep your relatives mummy around, and it would be considered 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:42.640 you know, perverse and almost kind of in some way evil, 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:46.040 although no one could really define it as to why 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:48.279 in some cultures. What I came up with, you know, 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:50.520 after years of studying this stuff, I came up with 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:53.080 something that was really simple that should have been obvious, 0:05:53.120 --> 0:05:54.920 but it took me a long time to figure it out. 0:05:55.400 --> 0:06:00.760 That dying is a biological condition. You know, dying is 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:04.400 a biological act, just like being born. But death is 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:08.000 not a biological condition. Death is a border between two 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:08.839 different states. 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:09.039 You know. 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:13.240 Death is a boundary line between the living and the dead. 0:06:13.320 --> 0:06:17.160 So being dead is a biological state. Death has nothing 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:20.000 to do with biological biology. Death has to do with 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:22.840 where we place the border, and we tend to think 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:25.640 of death as being fixed, but it's really not. In 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:29.240 some cultures, you know, this boundary can be in what 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:32.320 I called an open border, and in other cultures it's 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:35.640 a close and in some cultures, in some periods of history, 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:39.200 you know, death is this is this open border that 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:42.320 provides access to those who have passed on, and those 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:46.600 who passed on are invited to continue to have an 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:51.240 important spiritual and social role. And in other places, like 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:54.440 in the United States, now death is this very closed boundaries. 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:58.360 It's like imagineal line, this fortified line where you will 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:01.040 not pass and to try to try sim that order 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:03.400 and to try to understand what's on the other side, 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:05.760 Like I said, it's considered kind of perverse. 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:10.480 I think it's It's one of my favorite things about 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:14.800 you is that the book is not only super informative, 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:17.800 but it's it's so it's beautiful, and I love that 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:22.480 you were interested in this and you not only learned 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:24.480 about all of this, but you went to all of 0:07:24.520 --> 0:07:28.320 these places yourself, and you took all these photographs yourself. 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:32.360 And I'm curious with your experience with that because I 0:07:32.400 --> 0:07:36.200 know that you actually have were able to interview people 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:40.760 that live in these different areas and do these different cultures. 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:45.960 But also if you have one that resonates with you 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:49.640 the most, that's your your favorite kind of death tradition. 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:53.600 Well, yeah, I can answer to that for sure. But 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:55.520 I want to say something about what some of you 0:07:55.520 --> 0:07:59.080 you just mentioned that it is important to me that 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:03.360 the books be both informative and to be attracted. I 0:08:03.400 --> 0:08:06.920 think you know, I'm certainly not the first guy who 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:09.840 went out and studied bone room, or who went to 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:13.760 Indonesia and studied some of these places with skulls and mummies. 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:17.520 You know, a lot of anthropologists have the bore, a 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:20.800 lot of historians have the poor but they tended to 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:25.440 create books that were very academic and not very visual, 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:27.920 you know, And my approach was always this has to 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:31.080 be informative, it has to have legitimate information, but it 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:34.280 also has to have this kind of aspect of like 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:38.319 a high quality art, so it can be tangible for 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:41.160 normal people. Because to do this, you know, when I 0:08:41.320 --> 0:08:43.640 wrote this book about the jeweled skeletons, which are so 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:48.040 visually beautiful, the only people who had covered them before 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:50.679 me were doing them in academic circles. So you have 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:54.679 these books talking about beautiful, broke jeweled skeletons with no 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:57.320 pictures in them at all, you know, So it creates 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:00.839 this closed circuit. So I appreciate saying that that was 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:03.199 important to me. I'm not the first person who studied 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:05.120 some of these things and gone to some of these places, 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:07.439 but I was the first person to want to do it, 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:10.000 to want to present this material in a way that 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:14.240 crossed from from being strictly academic to something that would 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:17.600 be tangible to popular culture. You know, that was extremely 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:19.640 important to me, And I know that for you it's 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:21.560 kind of the same way, because everything you have done, 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:25.680 you've always wanted to take from medical pathology and place 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:28.240 it in a room where it's tangible for normal people 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:33.760 to understand and appreciate. But some of my favorite places, well, 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:36.559 I would say for sure in South America. There's a 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:39.679 festival called the Yesterday Lost Utitas in Bolivia. Then I 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:41.960 went to for like twelve years in a row. It's 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:45.199 every November eighth. I went there every year until the 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:48.760 pandemic kind of shut down travel. But there are these 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:52.280 people who adopt skulls, and they may know who the 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:54.319 people were while they were alive, where they may not. 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:57.120 They may be total strangers, but they'll acquire these skulls 0:09:57.559 --> 0:09:59.920 and they'll become the kind of the guardians or ten 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:03.520 of these skulls. This is This is across the Altaplano 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:05.959 and Bolivia, but it's mostly in the La Pause. It's 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:09.120 an imar thing. Who are you know, the indigenous people 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:12.679 of Bolivia, and they really have a very strong belief 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:15.480 not just in the afterlife, but the ability of those 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:18.920 who have passed on to continue to impact the lives 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:22.440 of the living. And so these people who will acquire 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:26.520 these nutitas. The name means locally, it's kind of a slang. 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:29.040 It means the pugnos once and it refers to the 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:31.760 shape of the skulls, and so they will adopt these skulls, 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:34.080 and they will create shrines for them in their homes, 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:36.599 and they will live with them as family members, you know, 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:41.000 as as friends and family members or business partners or companions. 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:45.319 And some people will acquire tremendous numbers of these skulls. 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:47.280 I've met people who have like a hundred of them, 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:51.360 and their houses are considered locally like shrines. Like if 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:53.439 you're a believer in the power of the skulls and 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:55.240 the power of the dead, and you don't have skulls, 0:10:55.640 --> 0:10:57.680 you might go to someone's house who has a bunch 0:10:57.720 --> 0:11:00.559 of them, and oftentimes they'll be arranged on shells, and 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:03.080 there will be certain skulls that are good for certain things. 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:05.760 So you know, if your kid is failing in school, 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:08.480 there might be one of the skulls that the spirit 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:11.000 is believed to have the ability to help with academia, 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:13.240 and so you know, you'll send your kid and say, yeah, 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:15.160 you go pray in front of that skull, make an 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:16.719 offering in front of that skull, and you're going to 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:19.800 pass that geography test, you know. Or there's another skull 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:22.320 that might be good for marital problems anyway, these people 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:26.480 who will own the skulls. Every November eighth, they'll have 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:29.120 this party at the cemetery and they bring all the 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:32.560 skulls back down to the local cemetery, the cemetery Hiner, 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:35.679 all the big cemetery in Lapawnas and they'll have this 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:40.840 massive part where you know, like ten twenty thousand people 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:43.680 show up at the cemetery with skulls. It's the largest 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:47.480 skull celebration or celebration of death in one place in 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:49.920 the entire world. I mean, I'm seriously talking about like 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:53.200 ten or twenty thousand people showing up carrying skulls and boxes, 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:56.240 carrying them in little sedan chairs. They dress them up, 0:11:56.320 --> 0:11:59.000 they decorate them, and they take over the ground and 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:01.760 you know, bands will come and play music for the skulls, 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:05.160 and people will scroll scroll the grounds and offerings for them. 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:08.800 You know, they'll they'll decorate the skulls with flowers. It's 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:13.920 an incredible, beautiful celebration that is designed to thank the 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:17.120 dead for what they do for the living and at 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:20.600 the same time kind of recharge the energy of the dead, 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:23.679 of those souls so they can continue to function for 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:27.120 the living in the upcoming year. And uh yeah, and visually, 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:30.240 of course, it's very powerful because it completely turns on 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:34.280 and what we're used to with dealing with the dead. 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:37.319 You know, I come from a culture where, you know, 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:40.319 the dead are considered kind of horror film stuff. It's like, 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:42.880 you know, army of darkness or something, and there's some 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:45.719 kind of thread and this is the exact opposite. You know, 0:12:45.840 --> 0:12:49.560 these are skulls and mumiflied heads that are decorated beautifully 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:51.920 and covered with flowers, and people are coming up and 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:54.200 talking to them and think. You know, it's a complete 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:58.000 opposite of the way we have of what we've constructed 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:00.439 with this kind of horror movie version of what happens 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:02.240 when the dead and treat on the lives of the living. 0:13:03.600 --> 0:13:06.720 That's really interesting. So now I just got another question 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:08.280 at what you were just saying. 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:12.839 What So if you're living in Bolivia and you just 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:18.360 decide that you want to start collecting these skulls, where 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:22.280 where do you? Where does one go to? Boy, because 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:24.160 you're saying they might know them or they might not. 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:28.920 Do they do they get donated or they purchase So. 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:33.400 So a couple of questions obviously arise in addition to 0:13:33.480 --> 0:13:35.320 where they get the skulls, Like if they don't know them, 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:37.040 I'm like, you know, why do they have the skull? 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:40.120 And and you know, what is their connection to someone 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:46.840 they didn't know? They know? The Imara a spiritual system 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:50.200 which I think is really wonderful, beautiful, actually it's very 0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:53.040 it's much more sophisticated than ours. I think it makes 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:57.880 our you know, kind of Judeo Christian idea of the 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:00.880 soul look pretty primitive, because for us, it's kind of 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:03.640 a one to one relationship, one soul, one person. 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:03.920 Right. 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:07.360 They believe that there can be up to seven different entities, 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:09.760 and not in a schizophrenic way, you know, just seven 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:13.079 different entities that congeal to make a person. So you know, 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:16.080 within every man there's you know, there is a woman, 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:18.600 then every woman there's a man with then every old 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:20.680 person there's a child. You know what I mean. That 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:25.560 all congeal as the recipe that creates who you are 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:28.800 in different portions, you know. And then when you die, 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:31.320 to believe that one of these spirits, you know, they'll 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:34.360 all kind of disperse, they'll go to Pachamama, they'll go 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:36.200 to the you know, the mother goddess, and one of 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:38.840 them will come back and use the skull as a focus. So, 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:41.760 you know, I might die, but maybe it's a you know, 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:44.200 I might die as an old man, but maybe there's 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:46.600 some child who comes back and inhabits my skull, you 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:49.160 know what I mean. So I like their spiritual system 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:52.880 because it provides for you know, these real subtleties are 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:56.040 going the individuals. But for that reason, it doesn't really 0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:58.480 matter if you knew the person in life, because someone 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:00.920 else might be coming back to the skull in terms 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:04.880 of where they get them. Understand that because and I 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:08.600 think it's largely because of our great phobia with death 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:12.360 skulls in the United States and Europe. Human bones in general, 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:15.800 and human remains are very hard to come by, you know, 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:19.680 they're very regularly. They really don't want you to have 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:24.400 considered somehow disrespect of them, which is which is another 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:27.680 debate we could have. Is it really truly disrespectful to 0:15:27.760 --> 0:15:29.760 have someone's remains, especial if you care. 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:31.960 For them, if they don't even want us to have them? 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:33.360 In medical school? 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:36.040 Yeah, and I know, and I know you get this 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:38.360 a lot for sure, because I get it. Sometimes people 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:40.960 will ask me, Hey, you know, my father died, I 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:43.160 would like to be able to have a skull. How 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:45.480 can I do that? And it's I'm sorry, it's not easy. 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:48.320 You can't just do that, you know. But in those 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:52.880 cultures you can. Where the skulls come from, it depends 0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:56.440 they have a different type of cemetery system than we do. 0:15:56.640 --> 0:15:57.880 First of all, so a lot of them come from 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:00.760 the cemetery. When you die will pause, like if you 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:03.240 walk around that cemetery, you will in the cemetery in 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:08.560 real you will see a lot of graves have little 0:16:08.640 --> 0:16:13.000 white notices paced to them that are actually evictions that 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:16.520 you're renting grave. You don't have it permanently, and so 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:19.160 people have to keep kind of paying the rent on 0:16:19.320 --> 0:16:21.920 the grave. And at some point in time, you can 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:25.320 assume that unless they have created some kind of trust 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:29.120 fund that pays out for their grave and propetuity, everyone's 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:31.520 gonna get evicted from their grave, right because at some 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:35.240 point in time someone's gonna say it's like, whose grave 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:37.520 are we paying it on? I never even meant that, 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:41.840 you know, you know, so at some points everyone's going 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:44.720 to get evicted from their grave. And they have a 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:47.400 kind of massive pit burial area in the back of 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:51.440 the cemetery where they're supposed to put the bones, and 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:54.480 I don't want to tamble too much. But let's say, 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:57.720 you know, you're a cemetery worker. You're not making that 0:16:57.880 --> 0:17:02.080 much money. I'm I mean, I've had skulls offered to me, 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:04.040 and I'm sure it's different now because a lot more 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:06.280 Americans go down there, and a lot of them, you know, 0:17:06.400 --> 0:17:08.520 a lot of them are kind of oddities dealers. 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:09.560 Which is nice to you. 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:13.359 Yeah, it's kind of unfortunate because I don't want these 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:15.480 things to be collected as audities. I want them bus 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:19.520 to affected, right. But I had a guy offer me 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:22.680 four skulls for twenty dollars. Oh wow at one point, 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:24.680 and this was well, this was many years ago, but 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:26.560 I had a guy offered four for twenty bucks. I mean, 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:29.880 it's not that hard to it has traditionally not been 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:35.000 been not that hard to get them. Another place they 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:38.280 can come from is archaeological sites. So you know, I mean, 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:41.240 this is an area with a great ancient history, and 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:44.399 so skulls are often found in archaeological sets. I have 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:48.040 found in the end these plenty of old tombs that 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:49.800 are filled with bones. I mean, I'm not going to 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:52.399 give the location away on this one. But I found 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:55.720 an old burial site that had plenty of elongated skulls in. 0:17:55.760 --> 0:17:58.040 It's several, and those are worth a tremendous amount of 0:17:58.040 --> 0:18:03.360 money to outsiders. You know. Skull bind Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:07.240 up in the Andes and and so, you know, some 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:10.240 of them come from archaeological sites. Again, whether or not 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:12.200 that's ethical or whether they should be going to a 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:14.800 museum is another question. But people will often take them 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:17.600 from archaeological sites, and maybe they have a right to them. Really, 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:20.480 if you're Eyemura and these are your relatives, maybe you 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:22.440 have more of a right to them than than a 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:26.119 museum does. Skulls that come from archaeological sites, because of 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:28.639 their antiquity and that history, are are felt to be 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:33.479 especially spiritually powerful. Another place they will come from are 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:37.720 med schools and dental schools. The dental schools often use 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:41.000 real skulls down there. I have a I remember I 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:43.600 was down there once and a guy had this skull 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:46.760 he was proudly displaying. And this skull had a great 0:18:46.880 --> 0:18:49.600 set of teeth, which is unusual down there because dentistry 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:53.800 is you know, the dentistry is not top notch in 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:56.159 you know, a lot of a lot of Bolivia, and 0:18:56.280 --> 0:18:59.480 this skull had far nicer teeth than I did. I 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:02.600 was like, this skull really has great teeth. And the 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:04.200 guy smiled and said, oh, well, that's because I'm a 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:07.040 dentist and this was my skull in dental school and 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:09.560 he helped me get through school. And so I made 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:11.359 sure that his you know, I made sure to give 0:19:11.440 --> 0:19:13.720 him dental implants and he has the greatest teeth. You know, 0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:18.440 Schill's playback, payback, you know, for helping this guy go 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:20.439 through dental school. So they can come from med schools, 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:23.239 they can come from dental schools. They can even come 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:26.760 from the police. Because the police even have these skulls. 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:29.800 In the homicide department in al Alto, which is the 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:33.280 largest barrio of La Paus, they have had some of 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:36.160 these skulls. Well, they have two in particular, one Eto 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:38.800 and Wanita. They have two skulls Enshrine and the homicide 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:43.040 department that are the longest serving detectives in the pause. 0:19:43.560 --> 0:19:46.840 And when the detectives can't find a clue, they will 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:49.520 go and make offerings to these skulls and they will ask, 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:51.520 you know, it's like, please send us a clue you know, 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:54.040 you're dead. You have this ability to see things we 0:19:54.119 --> 0:19:58.560 don't see, and they will often take they'll often take 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:01.200 suspects in who won't can best and they will make them, 0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:04.240 you know, they'll try to force them to confess before 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:08.000 the skulls. And the questions come from that too. It's like, Okay, 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:11.200 well do they really believe that these skulls have this power? 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:14.760 And I asked the colonel who was in charge of 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:16.840 homicide about that, the colonel who used to be in 0:20:16.920 --> 0:20:18.760 charge of homicide there, and he gave me a great answer. 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:21.680 He's like, I can't really say, you know, we've had 0:20:21.760 --> 0:20:23.600 these skulls that you Juan Itito has been on the 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:25.680 force for one hundred years and people have believed in 0:20:25.800 --> 0:20:28.560 him for a hundred years. I can't really say if 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:32.720 the skulls really send us clues, or if it's a 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:36.480 psychosomatic thing. You know, if if believing in the skulls 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:39.520 allows our detective to work harder and more creatively, you know, 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:43.600 just just just a psychosomatic instance of believing that the 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:46.280 skull is helping them. I can't really say if the 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:48.440 skull is forcing a guy to confess, or if the 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:51.520 guy is so intimidated by seeing this skull that's been 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:53.080 in the police for one hundred years that he breaks 0:20:53.119 --> 0:20:56.360 down and confesses. All I know is that whether it's 0:20:56.480 --> 0:21:00.280 you know, magic or psychology or spirituality, when we use 0:21:00.359 --> 0:21:03.600 the skulls, we solve cases. So we use the skulls. 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:04.639