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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday

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Speaker 1: Vault episode time. This one originally aired on February four.

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Speaker 1: It is Brain and Head Theft, Part two, picking up

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Speaker 1: from Part one, which ran last Saturday. So stick around

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Speaker 1: and enjoy Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production

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Speaker 1: of My Heart Radio. Hey you, welcome to Stuff to

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Speaker 1: Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm

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Speaker 1: Joe McCormick, and we're back with part two of our

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Speaker 1: discussion of stolen heads and stolen brains. That's right, If

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Speaker 1: you didn't listen to part one, go back listen to

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Speaker 1: part one, because that's where we initially get into it,

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Speaker 1: and we talked about like some ancient ideas about what

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Speaker 1: the brain did and uh. Then we get into some

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Speaker 1: examples of of brains that have been preserved uh consensually,

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Speaker 1: and then get a little bit into the theft. And

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Speaker 1: we're gonna get more into the theft here in this episode,

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Speaker 1: and then towards the end, we're gonna get into some

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Speaker 1: of the mythology and folklore of disembodied heads. That's right.

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Speaker 1: So at the end of the last episode, we were

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Speaker 1: talking about the theft of the skull of the Austrian

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Speaker 1: classical composer Franz Joseph Haydn, which was stolen by phrenologists

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Speaker 1: who clung to the mistaken belief that Haydn's musical genius

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Speaker 1: would somehow be inscribed in the bone of his cranium.

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Speaker 1: But Hayden isn't the only figure like this. There there

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Speaker 1: are other figures in history with some kind of reputation

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Speaker 1: for genius of one kind or another, who have had

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Speaker 1: their heads or their brains stolen in the hope that

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Speaker 1: these remnants would somehow explain to science what made them

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Speaker 1: so smart. And of course, in the case of phrenology,

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Speaker 1: this was an utterly hopeless endeavor, just because phrenology is

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Speaker 1: total quack pseudoscience. It's end to end. But this has

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Speaker 1: also happened even in ages of more legitimate neuroscience, and

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Speaker 1: still maybe doesn't tell us as much as the people

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Speaker 1: who stole these brains hoped that it would. So I

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Speaker 1: want to talk about another famous stolen head that is

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Speaker 1: not even for any pretense of neuroscience or any other

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Speaker 1: type of research. I want to talk about the head

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Speaker 1: of Jeremy Bentham. Uh, so you might know Jeremy Bentham

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Speaker 1: best for I don't know what do people know him

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Speaker 1: best for these days? Maybe for the for the idea

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Speaker 1: of the panopticon, which he was a promoter of. That

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Speaker 1: would be where our listeners might have heard his name

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Speaker 1: on this show before. Yeah, Jeremy Bentham was a highly

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Speaker 1: influential eighteenth and nineteenth century philosopher and social reformer from England,

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Speaker 1: and he's usually thought of as one of the founders

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Speaker 1: of liberalism and one of the modern founders of the

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Speaker 1: utilitarian theory of ethics. So, in other words, right and

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Speaker 1: wrong would be determined not by what the King says,

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Speaker 1: or what the Bible says, or not by any deontological duty,

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Speaker 1: but by what course of action would provide the greatest

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Speaker 1: happiness to the greatest number of people. And Bentham is

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Speaker 1: kind of interesting because if you read through a collection

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Speaker 1: of his opinions and arguments today, it is this strange

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Speaker 1: mixture of things that for the time were extremely radical,

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Speaker 1: progressive and by our modern ethics admirable, but also things

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Speaker 1: that are bizarrely horrifying. So so, for example, you know,

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Speaker 1: he was in favor of total political equality, for women

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Speaker 1: and the decriminalization of homosexuality. But he also did not

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Speaker 1: like the idea of privacy. He thought that was a

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Speaker 1: bad concept. And of course this is exemplified in the

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Speaker 1: idea of the panopticon, in which prisoners have no privacy

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Speaker 1: or and and do not know if the the gaze

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Speaker 1: of the like the the lone observation tower, if they

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Speaker 1: are looking at them in any given moment, you know. Right,

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Speaker 1: So he would dig where we are now in some respects. Right,

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Speaker 1: Oh my god, Jeremy Bentham. I would love to know

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Speaker 1: Jeremy Bentham's thoughts on the modern digital landscape. But anyway,

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Speaker 1: that the relevant part of the Jeremy Bentham story today

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Speaker 1: is that his head still exists today above ground in

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Speaker 1: a grotesque, incompetently mummified form, and and it keeps getting stolen.

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Speaker 1: I was reading a piece about this that was a

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Speaker 1: transcript of a CBC radio piece which featured an interview

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Speaker 1: with the Subadra Doss, who is a curator of collections

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Speaker 1: at University College London. The interviewer was named Carol Off

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Speaker 1: and this CBC piece includes some excellent biographical tidbits right

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Speaker 1: at the top about Bentham's weird and interesting personality apart

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Speaker 1: from his politics and his public work. For example, it

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Speaker 1: says that Bentham had a walking stick that he called Dapple,

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Speaker 1: he had a teapot that he referred to as Dicky,

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Speaker 1: and he had an elderly cat that was named the

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Speaker 1: Reverend Sir John Langborne. Oh that's that's I don't know

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Speaker 1: if that's a good cat name. That's a bit too human.

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Speaker 1: I think it's funny when a dog has a very

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Speaker 1: human name. I don't I haven't made my mind up

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Speaker 1: about cats yet, I think, I guess I assume that's funny.

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Speaker 1: I find it cats work best when they have food names,

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Speaker 1: you know, okay, yeah, like biscuit or mochy or pound

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Speaker 1: cake or um yeah, really anything rabby oli. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you can go go crazy with it, but generally speaking, yes,

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Speaker 1: it's something kind of cute and foods. He works well

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Speaker 1: with cats. I find I'm glad that we've all learned

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Speaker 1: that one day you plan to eat a cat. Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean it would really if that were the case,

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Speaker 1: and it's not, then we with the feeling would be

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Speaker 1: mutual between me and the cats, So I think the

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Speaker 1: cat would respect it. Oh yeah, if we were appreciating game.

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Speaker 1: Is that what they say? Yeah, totally if we were

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Speaker 1: small enough our cats what heat does yeah? Um, But anyway,

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Speaker 1: I thought that was a pretty good window into his personality.

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Speaker 1: And uh. And so Bentham a cently had express wishes

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Speaker 1: for what would be done to his remains in the

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Speaker 1: event of his death, and they fall along some similar

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Speaker 1: lines of sensibility. So Bentham died in eighteen thirty two,

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Speaker 1: and when that happened, he wanted his dead body to

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Speaker 1: be preserved in a way that would allow him to

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Speaker 1: be wheeled out and presented to friends at parties in

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Speaker 1: case anybody missed seeing him. Take rob, I want you

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Speaker 1: to take what I just said and compare that to

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Speaker 1: the picture of his preserved head above. Well, you know,

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Speaker 1: it certainly would be a conversation starter or stopper at

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Speaker 1: any party. Uh. I mean it's pretty impressive looking. It

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Speaker 1: is identifiable as a head, even his head. Uh, it

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Speaker 1: kind of looks it has a very leathery consistency to it. Um.

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Speaker 1: The skin is you had kind of darkened and kind

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Speaker 1: of looks like a slim gem with these sling Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's hair on it, which I'm guessing as perhaps his

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Speaker 1: original hair. Real hair. Yep. The eyes clearly are not

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Speaker 1: his original eyes appears to be a pair of glass

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Speaker 1: eyeballs that have been inserted into it, which you give

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Speaker 1: it this extra uncanny appearance because it looks like, you know,

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Speaker 1: the living dead. It looks like the eyes of a

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Speaker 1: of of a litch sing at you. But the look

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Speaker 1: on his face is also not terrifying. It's more serene.

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Speaker 1: It looks like he's patiently listening to you while you're

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Speaker 1: sharing a tidbit. Oh, I don't know how serene it.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I guess I kind of see what you're saying.

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Speaker 1: But he looks to me very like startled and appalled.

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Speaker 1: He looks like a a butler who has accidentally opened

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Speaker 1: a door to a room in which something obscene is

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Speaker 1: taking place. Oh, I get more of a like he's

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Speaker 1: patiently listening to you while you tell him something that

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Speaker 1: he personally finds boring. But okay, he's a good listener. Nonetheless. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so what was the deal with his head? Like? Why

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Speaker 1: is his head off of his dead body but they're

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Speaker 1: both preserved. Why does it look like that? Uh? To

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Speaker 1: quote from Doss in this interview, she says Bentham had

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Speaker 1: made a special request that his head be preserved in

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Speaker 1: the style of the Maori, the native New Zealanders. But

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Speaker 1: his friend Dr southwood Smith, who was tasked with creating

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Speaker 1: the auto icon, wasn't necessarily as practiced with that as

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Speaker 1: he probably would have liked to have been. And Dast

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Speaker 1: goes on, and so the result was a head that

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Speaker 1: southwood Smith said was not suitable for display, which is

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Speaker 1: why he had a wax model commissioned. That's the one

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Speaker 1: on display with the auto icon, which is the skeleton

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Speaker 1: in Bentham's own clothes. So so, according to Daston, the

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Speaker 1: head was desiccated here with sulfuric acid, and sometimes his

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Speaker 1: hair still falls out. But the situation is that there

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Speaker 1: are two separate necro icons of this utilitarian philosopher that

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Speaker 1: are both made out of his real body. There's his

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Speaker 1: body containing his bones and his clothes, topped with a

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Speaker 1: fake wax head, and that's on display at University College London,

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Speaker 1: and Rob, I've got an image for you to look

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Speaker 1: at down below. Oh here, and then you also have

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Speaker 1: his severed head, poorly preserved that we just described, sometimes

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Speaker 1: kept separately, sometimes shown at the feet of the auto icon.

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Speaker 1: Of the rest of the body, because it's just this disgusting,

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Speaker 1: rotten looking beef jerky head. And then of course there's

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Speaker 1: the horrible body with a wax head that has these

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Speaker 1: gloves on it that look really just this is awful. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the picture you shared that shows the the wax headed

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Speaker 1: figure with an actual skeleton inside of it, uh seated

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Speaker 1: and then there it at its feet indeed is the

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Speaker 1: original head. And um, yeah, this looks fairly terrifying but

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Speaker 1: also symbolically potent. Maybe it's just because of the some

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Speaker 1: of the examples that I was looking at from say

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Speaker 1: Hindu iconography that we'll get into later. Like there, I

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Speaker 1: feel like this image is trying to tell me something

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Speaker 1: about about death. Yeah, it seems almost in the style

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Speaker 1: of the the Cephaloforce sing, you know, like the Saints

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Speaker 1: like San Denis in Paris, the Saints who carry their

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Speaker 1: own heads in their hands because of the legends where

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Speaker 1: they were decapitated but then just picked up their heads

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Speaker 1: and walked around did some miracles or something. Yeah, except

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Speaker 1: he's like saying, yeah, it's like, look, there's my head

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Speaker 1: down there. It's rotten, but I'm I'm one look at

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Speaker 1: this gorgeous wax head I'm boasting. So the story gets

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Speaker 1: weirder because we've got to get to the actual theft.

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Speaker 1: This was all according to Bentham's wishes, though the mummification

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Speaker 1: or preservation of the head got screwed up. Southwood Smith

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Speaker 1: did not do a good job with that, or at

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Speaker 1: least not to his own liking. And I don't know,

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Speaker 1: the results don't look great. But then the theft comes in,

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Speaker 1: because apparently Jeremy Bentham's actual preserved head has been repeatedly

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Speaker 1: stolen or kidnapped as a result of student pranks like

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Speaker 1: Doss points out that sometime in the nineteen nineties, Bentham's

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Speaker 1: head was quote kidnapped by uc l's rival university, King's

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Speaker 1: College in London. So I assume it was stolen by

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Speaker 1: some kind of English version of Jim Magiluski from the Brain,

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Speaker 1: you know, a prank boy. And in fact, it seems

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Speaker 1: the head was stolen multiple times in its history. I

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Speaker 1: was reading a piece about this from Smith Journal that says,

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Speaker 1: quote once it was returned upon the making of a

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Speaker 1: charitable donation. On another occasion, it was recovered from a

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Speaker 1: luggage locker in Aberdeen. A man as clever as Bentham

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Speaker 1: should have been able to foresee the inevitable consequences of

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Speaker 1: spending eternity among students. Now, at some point the head

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Speaker 1: was recovered from what happened in the nineties these mischievous students,

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Speaker 1: and it was put back on display at least at

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Speaker 1: one point for an exhibit called what does it Mean

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Speaker 1: to be Human? Curating Heads at u c L. So

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Speaker 1: this is a head that apparently keeps getting stolen. Don't

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Speaker 1: know if it will ever be stolen again. I think

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Speaker 1: they are taking extreme measures to prevent that, but who

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Speaker 1: knows what's going to happen. But we should still say that,

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Speaker 1: at least in Bentham's case, this is consensual preservation in

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Speaker 1: a museum, despite a few uh en cephalocleptics over the years.

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Speaker 1: There are also lots of disturbing cases where someone's head

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Speaker 1: or brain ends up in a museum against their own wishes,

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Speaker 1: whether it's by the supposed forces of science and preservation

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Speaker 1: or some other forces that are doing the stealing. It

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Speaker 1: has happened plenty of times that heads, skulls, brains get

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Speaker 1: taken from somebody's body, whether they wanted that or not,

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Speaker 1: and end up in a museum. And and this brings

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Speaker 1: me to the next thing I wanted to talk about

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Speaker 1: to follow up on some of the uh, some of

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Speaker 1: the phrenology discussion from the last episode, because I feel

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Speaker 1: like I want to be a bit self critical here,

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Speaker 1: because I have to note that I feel a baseline

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Speaker 1: sympathy for the classic Indiana Jones line about the Cross

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Speaker 1: of Coronado in the Last Crusade when he says it

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Speaker 1: belongs in a museum. You know, I I really enjoy museums,

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Speaker 1: and I am instinctually drawn to the idea that it's

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Speaker 1: good to have artifacts preserved in play. Is like museums

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Speaker 1: places where you know, artifacts from history should be the

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Speaker 1: you know, the common heritage of all humankind to observe

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Speaker 1: and learn from. And so it's good that you get

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Speaker 1: to go see them in a museum in a place

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Speaker 1: where they will be preserved as well as possible across time.

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Speaker 1: And this sounds good, but of course it can in

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Speaker 1: reality be an extremely fraught concept and just one of

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Speaker 1: the million complications We explore some of this in our

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Speaker 1: Invention episode on the First Museum is the question of

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Speaker 1: physical location. Like I think it is actually good that

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Speaker 1: artifacts from ancient history or even more recent history could

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Speaker 1: in some way be the common heritage of all human

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Speaker 1: kind to learn from. But they've got to physically be somewhere,

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Speaker 1: And it turns out that is often in like wealthy

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Speaker 1: European nations or in the United States, so like not

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Speaker 1: everybody actually has the same access to these artifacts. You know,

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Speaker 1: you've got to physically go to London or to Washington

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Speaker 1: or something to see them. Yeah, you have this this

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Speaker 1: um this this severe imbalance where say school children in

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Speaker 1: the United States can go to their local museum in

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Speaker 1: a major city and see artifacts of ancient Egypt, but

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Speaker 1: those same artifacts are not on display at the local

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Speaker 1: museum for actual Egyptian children to see. They would have

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Speaker 1: to look at a reproduction or a picture in a

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Speaker 1: book or on the internet. Right. And of course another

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Speaker 1: big problem here is just the question of, like, how

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Speaker 1: do you source these artifacts when you're you're bringing them

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Speaker 1: into museum collections. A lot of times it's hard to

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Speaker 1: make a convincing argument that that what's happening in the

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Speaker 1: collection of these artifacts is not just stealing, is just

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Speaker 1: stealing from dead people. And so I think that there

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Speaker 1: are real dilemmas here. I say this as as a

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Speaker 1: lover of museums. Uh. And of course it's true even

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Speaker 1: of inanimate artifacts that are produced by people who are

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Speaker 1: long gone, but it's obviously even more fraught when you're

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Speaker 1: talking about things like the remains of human beings, especially

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Speaker 1: human beings who lived relatively recently. Uh. And so this

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Speaker 1: brings me back to what we were talking about in

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Speaker 1: the Haydn segment of part one. We were talking about

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Speaker 1: the development of the pseudoscience of phrenology, which quick refresher.

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Speaker 1: This was a now completely debunked pseudoscience that was popular,

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Speaker 1: especially in like the first half of the nineteenth century,

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Speaker 1: popular throughout Europe, in the United States, and it was

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Speaker 1: the belief that you could infer mental characteristics of people

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Speaker 1: by measuring bumps and contours on their skulls. And this

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Speaker 1: is one of the this was one of the motivations

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Speaker 1: for the stealing of the of Franz Joseph Haydn's skull. Now,

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Speaker 1: there are some strains of phrenology that a person could

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Speaker 1: see as extremely wrong and pseudo scientific, but not super harmful,

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Speaker 1: or at least not more harmful than a belief in

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Speaker 1: like palm reading or something. You know, I'm just feeling

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Speaker 1: around on your head and doing a doing a little

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Speaker 1: personality test for you. Right, it's not accurate, there's no

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Speaker 1: science to it, but it's ultimately I guess harmless, right right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, I guess all pseudoscience in a

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Speaker 1: way is potentially harmful, but it's not It's not as

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Speaker 1: harmful as the other stuff we're about to talk to,

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Speaker 1: because there are these other strains and incarnations of phrenology

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Speaker 1: and other types of pseudoscience that are that are just

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Speaker 1: a straight up nightmare. Sometimes forms of racist pseudoscience aimed

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Speaker 1: at like proving that people with different skin colors were

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Speaker 1: a result of separate acts of divine creations, so they're

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Speaker 1: not even really all the same kind of human. Also

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Speaker 1: weird ideas of crackpot cranial criminology. Um, that didn't mean

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Speaker 1: to be so illiterated there, but in in the nineteenth

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Speaker 1: century especially, it was very common for proponents of phrenology

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Speaker 1: and other types of craniometry. So craniometry would be a

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Speaker 1: any kind of a belief system based on the measurements

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Speaker 1: of the skull, not necessarily like bumps, like phrenology. But

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Speaker 1: there were other people who just tried to collect a

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Speaker 1: bunch of skulls and measure them and draw in friendss. Uh. So,

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Speaker 1: so there were these things going on, and they would

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Speaker 1: cause people to gather these huge collections of human skulls,

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Speaker 1: supposedly to form the raw materials for their research. But

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Speaker 1: I was reading about this in that same book I

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Speaker 1: mentioned in the previous episode, the one by Francis Larson

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Speaker 1: called Severed, which this whole chapter is really, uh, really

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Speaker 1: horrifying and fascinating. Uh. It would lead these people to

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Speaker 1: gather these big collections of skulls that in practice, it

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Speaker 1: seems to me these collections were often just as much

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Speaker 1: as sort of personal museum exhibit or a morbid curio

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Speaker 1: collection to impress guests and wealthy benefactors as they were

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Speaker 1: even a failed attempt to actually gather data. And unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: it seems like most of these skulls collected for supposed

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Speaker 1: craniometric research in the eighteen hundreds were not donated consensually.

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Speaker 1: You can probably imagine where a lot of them came from.

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Speaker 1: A lot of them were stolen from graveyards and battlefields.

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Speaker 1: Some came from prisons and morgues, spittals, workhouses, burial grounds

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Speaker 1: without the consultation of the owner or their family, and

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Speaker 1: often without even knowing who the person had actually been.

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Speaker 1: And as you might guess, the less wealth and power

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Speaker 1: the person had, the more likely that their skull might

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Speaker 1: be stolen after their death. Many came from cemeteries of

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Speaker 1: enslaved people in America. There are horrific details about the

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Speaker 1: harvesting of skulls from Native American people's during the wars

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Speaker 1: of expansion of the U. S Frontier into tribal lands,

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Speaker 1: and many came from just from poor people, from workhouses

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Speaker 1: and potter's fields. Larson as a whole chapter about this

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Speaker 1: horrible episode in history and her book Severed Um. But

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Speaker 1: a couple of these notorious skull collectors she mentions are

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Speaker 1: the English doctor Joseph Barnard Davis and the American physician

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Speaker 1: Samuel George Morton. Both were mainly working in the early

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Speaker 1: to mid nineteenth century, and she tells one anecdote about

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Speaker 1: Barnard Davis that I wanted to read here, so she

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Speaker 1: says quote as a physician, Barnard Davis showed few qualms

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Speaker 1: when it came to head collecting. John Betto, a fellow doctor,

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Speaker 1: remembered that he looked on heads simply as potential skulls.

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Speaker 1: Betto recounted introducing Barnard Davis during his rounds at the

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Speaker 1: hospital to one of his patients, a sailor from Dubrovnik

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Speaker 1: who had nearly drowned. It was being cared for at

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Speaker 1: the Bristol Royal Infirmary. Betto was treating the man for

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Speaker 1: gang green on the lung. Barnard Davis's curiosity was immediately piqued. Now,

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Speaker 1: he said to Betto, you know that man can't recover,

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Speaker 1: Do take care to secure his head for me when

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Speaker 1: he dies, for I have no cranium from that neighborhood.

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Speaker 1: I guess he was talking about the neighborhood of Dubrovnik.

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Speaker 1: And Uh. Then Larsen goes on. Luckily for the sailor,

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Speaker 1: Barnard Davis had been too enthusiastic in his diagnosis. The

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Speaker 1: patient made a full recovery, and Tibetto's amused relief, he

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Speaker 1: carried his head on his own shoulders back to hertzegovernor uh.

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Speaker 1: And so she says, like this is the is the

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Speaker 1: reality of what's often going on in skull collecting. It's

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Speaker 1: like basically totally ignoring the humanity of human beings. And

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Speaker 1: just being like, how am I going to get that skull?

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Speaker 1: It's like a like a cartoon where one cartoon character

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Speaker 1: looks at the other and just sees like food as

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Speaker 1: a cannibalistic frenzy takes every except yeah, the Looney Tunes

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Speaker 1: where like they're in the lifeboat and like Donald Duck

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Speaker 1: looks at somebody and just imagines their body is like

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Speaker 1: a like a drumstick or something. Yeah, it also reminds

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Speaker 1: me of that line and t s Eliott's Whispers of Immortality.

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Speaker 1: Webster was much possessed by death and saw the skull

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Speaker 1: and eat the skin. Now, it's also worth pointing out

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Speaker 1: that the findings of these early craniometrists have not really

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Speaker 1: held up to scientific scrutiny. Larson talks about this as well,

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Speaker 1: all of the problems with their supposed research. Uh, they

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Speaker 1: a lot of them were trying to make generalizations about

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Speaker 1: the mental qualities of large groups of people. Oh, you know,

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Speaker 1: you can see because of this trend in the skulls

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Speaker 1: of people from this part of the world that they

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Speaker 1: have these mental characteristics. And this was all based on

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Speaker 1: these skull measurements. But their research was plagued by poor methodology,

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Speaker 1: inconsistency and samples, inconsistency and measurements, fudging the data when

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Speaker 1: it didn't fit, etcetera. Larcent as a whole discussion on this,

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Speaker 1: it seems like once again we're we're dealing with something

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Speaker 1: that ultimately just amounted to bunk. Though I wanted also

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Speaker 1: to discuss a couple of points that she makes which

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Speaker 1: I thought were very useful and interpreting what was going

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Speaker 1: on here. Historically, one interesting issue was if people are

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Speaker 1: looking into, you know, these various questions, trying to understand

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Speaker 1: the human mind, trying to understand culture, trying to understand

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Speaker 1: mental processes, why the particular emphasis on skulls, like why

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Speaker 1: the phrenology and craniometry craze as a very bone focused

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Speaker 1: thing to begin with. Well, she talks about how the

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Speaker 1: physical characteristics of skulls just happened to lend themselves quite

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Speaker 1: well to the practical applications and interests of the people

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Speaker 1: who were in these fields. So she writes, quote one

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Speaker 1: Victorian physician James eight Ken MiGs noted that skulls are

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Speaker 1: easily prepared and preserved, maybe conveniently handled and surveyed. Considered

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Speaker 1: in various points of view and compared to each other.

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Speaker 1: Skulls are favorable specimens because they're small, hard, and robust.

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Speaker 1: They're more compact than whole skeletons, which means that they

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Speaker 1: can be relatively easily transported, and they're more durable than

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Speaker 1: the messy tissues they contain, surviving for centuries on a

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Speaker 1: museum shelf. They're surprisingly resistant to pressure, partly because of

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Speaker 1: their shape, but also because the skull, unlike longbones, has

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Speaker 1: no marrow, and skulls were thought to be the most

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Speaker 1: characteristic part of the human body because there were so

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Speaker 1: many ways in which one could be different from another.

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Speaker 1: Full of nooks and crannies and holes and lumps, they

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Speaker 1: were a statistician's dream. So this seems like one of

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Speaker 1: those cases of people who thought they were doing science

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Speaker 1: tific research but may well have been letting their theories

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Speaker 1: be overdetermined by attraction to the specific practical and esthetic

400
00:23:09,160 --> 00:23:13,080
Speaker 1: aspects of objects that they just wanted to study. Maybe

401
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Speaker 1: because it was kind of attractive to have a collection

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Speaker 1: of these in your house that you could show off

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Speaker 1: to people. Maybe because they were easy to move around

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Speaker 1: from place to place and store, and much more so,

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Speaker 1: of course than actual brains themselves, which would quickly wrought

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Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, I mean, skulls

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Speaker 1: are really cool. I mean there's no denying it. Um

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Speaker 1: that their neat. Uh. You know, it's fun to draw skulls.

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Speaker 1: It's fun to look at pictures and photos and illustrations

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Speaker 1: of skulls, skull iconography, and just pretty much every culture

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Speaker 1: on Earth is instantly captivating. Uh. And then yeah, you

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Speaker 1: can see where someone might be like, all right, let's

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna lean into this. Skulls are my thing. I

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Speaker 1: want to study the skull. What what kind of information

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Speaker 1: can I glean from the skull? Yeah, you almost get

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Speaker 1: the sense that this was, um, it was very cart

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Speaker 1: before the horse. It was kind of like, uh, skull

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Speaker 1: collecting first, science second, and it turned out that the

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Speaker 1: science was not even good science. Yeah, I mean, it

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Speaker 1: just inevitably it brings us back to the you know,

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Speaker 1: at the end of the scene from Hamlet where he's

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Speaker 1: holding the skull and contemplating mortality and impermanence and so forth.

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Speaker 1: You know, I mean, it's just that that's what the

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Speaker 1: skull is. It is such a a potent symbol of

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Speaker 1: these just all these different ideas and concerns and anxieties

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00:24:30,880 --> 00:24:35,399
Speaker 1: we have about impermanence. Yeah, now, when it comes to

427
00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:39,320
Speaker 1: brains specifically, I also want to talk about one tragic

428
00:24:39,359 --> 00:24:43,040
Speaker 1: case in history of of brains being preserved for supposed

429
00:24:43,080 --> 00:24:47,159
Speaker 1: scientific uses or by museums without the consent of the

430
00:24:47,200 --> 00:24:50,000
Speaker 1: person and so. And of course this is something to

431
00:24:50,080 --> 00:24:52,959
Speaker 1: consider in contrast to something like Bentham or or like

432
00:24:53,119 --> 00:24:56,080
Speaker 1: you know, where somebody intentionally grants their head to a

433
00:24:56,160 --> 00:24:59,000
Speaker 1: museum or something. Uh. This is the story of a

434
00:24:59,040 --> 00:25:02,880
Speaker 1: man known to his story as ish Now, as told

435
00:25:02,920 --> 00:25:07,280
Speaker 1: by Larson is. She was a Native American man who

436
00:25:07,600 --> 00:25:11,240
Speaker 1: was captured while foraging near a slaughter house in northern

437
00:25:11,280 --> 00:25:15,439
Speaker 1: California in the year nineteen eleven. He was about fifty

438
00:25:15,520 --> 00:25:19,160
Speaker 1: years old. He did not speak English, and he apparently

439
00:25:19,200 --> 00:25:22,400
Speaker 1: at least had no living friends or relatives, And so

440
00:25:22,440 --> 00:25:26,440
Speaker 1: he was taken to anthropologists at the University of California, Berkeley,

441
00:25:26,480 --> 00:25:30,159
Speaker 1: who identified him as a member of the Yahi people,

442
00:25:30,680 --> 00:25:33,119
Speaker 1: many of whom had been victims of genocide by the

443
00:25:33,119 --> 00:25:37,040
Speaker 1: white settlers in northern California. And uh, she was not

444
00:25:37,119 --> 00:25:40,040
Speaker 1: even really the man's name is she was an identifier

445
00:25:40,160 --> 00:25:43,520
Speaker 1: given to him by the anthropologist which apparently meant man

446
00:25:43,760 --> 00:25:47,720
Speaker 1: in the Yana language, that's the overarching language to which

447
00:25:47,800 --> 00:25:51,879
Speaker 1: the Yahi people belonged. But the man known as She

448
00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:54,679
Speaker 1: never revealed his real name, do apparently to it to

449
00:25:54,720 --> 00:25:58,040
Speaker 1: accustom within his culture of not revealing your name to

450
00:25:58,119 --> 00:26:00,920
Speaker 1: someone unless you are introduced by a member of your

451
00:26:00,920 --> 00:26:04,080
Speaker 1: own people. So after he after he was captured, he

452
00:26:04,200 --> 00:26:07,879
Speaker 1: was taken to the University of California Museum of Anthropology,

453
00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:10,800
Speaker 1: where he lived for some time. He worked as a janitor,

454
00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:15,320
Speaker 1: and anthropologists did some research with him. They made recordings

455
00:26:15,359 --> 00:26:18,440
Speaker 1: of him speaking and singing in his language. Uh. They

456
00:26:18,800 --> 00:26:21,639
Speaker 1: they studied his language, studied him in other ways. And

457
00:26:21,760 --> 00:26:24,960
Speaker 1: he passed away in nineteen sixteen. And then when I

458
00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:28,080
Speaker 1: want to pick up, quoting from Larsen here, quote she

459
00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:31,800
Speaker 1: had expressly asked that his body not be subject to

460
00:26:31,840 --> 00:26:35,200
Speaker 1: a post mortem. One curator wrote in the days before

461
00:26:35,240 --> 00:26:38,480
Speaker 1: is She's death quote science can go to hell. We

462
00:26:38,600 --> 00:26:42,560
Speaker 1: propose to stand by our friends. He added, Besides, I

463
00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:46,320
Speaker 1: cannot believe that any scientific value is materially involved. The

464
00:26:46,400 --> 00:26:49,080
Speaker 1: prime interest in his case would be of a morbid

465
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:54,080
Speaker 1: romantic nature. But his letter arrived too late. Staff at

466
00:26:54,119 --> 00:26:58,159
Speaker 1: the museum, who declared themselves. Is She's friends made quote

467
00:26:58,240 --> 00:27:02,520
Speaker 1: a compromise between science and sentiment and performed an autopsy

468
00:27:02,560 --> 00:27:05,679
Speaker 1: against his wishes. They removed his brain and sent it

469
00:27:05,720 --> 00:27:09,960
Speaker 1: to the Smithsonian. Those who undertook the autopsy comforted themselves

470
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:13,040
Speaker 1: that it had been minimally invasive and certainly not as

471
00:27:13,080 --> 00:27:17,080
Speaker 1: disrespectful as a dissection. His brain, after all, was preserved

472
00:27:17,240 --> 00:27:20,280
Speaker 1: rather than destroyed. The rest of Ish's body, which was

473
00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:24,080
Speaker 1: kept whole, was cremated in a California cemetery. Thus the

474
00:27:24,119 --> 00:27:26,959
Speaker 1: autopsy was seen as a compromise, despite the fact that

475
00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:31,120
Speaker 1: it went against the dead man's wishes. And Larsen goes

476
00:27:31,119 --> 00:27:34,040
Speaker 1: on to say that is She's body was divided after death,

477
00:27:34,119 --> 00:27:36,399
Speaker 1: just as his identity had been in life. He was

478
00:27:36,480 --> 00:27:40,280
Speaker 1: both a man and a scientific specimen. Like so many others.

479
00:27:40,320 --> 00:27:43,320
Speaker 1: He had supposedly been quote the last of his tribe

480
00:27:43,640 --> 00:27:46,760
Speaker 1: and was apparently without living relatives, and was considered to

481
00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:50,679
Speaker 1: quote valuable to lose in death. And I feel like

482
00:27:50,680 --> 00:27:54,000
Speaker 1: this story is such an important reminder that even if

483
00:27:54,040 --> 00:27:56,560
Speaker 1: what you're doing is real science and not for anology

484
00:27:56,640 --> 00:28:00,560
Speaker 1: or something, you can't ever let yourself start thinking about

485
00:28:00,720 --> 00:28:04,840
Speaker 1: human beings as information first I mean the situation she's

486
00:28:04,880 --> 00:28:07,520
Speaker 1: describing here is that there were scientists who are saying, like, oh,

487
00:28:07,600 --> 00:28:10,760
Speaker 1: but it's just it would just be too valuable, uh,

488
00:28:10,760 --> 00:28:13,560
Speaker 1: to to study his brain. There's too much we can

489
00:28:13,680 --> 00:28:16,639
Speaker 1: learn from it. But I mean, he didn't want this

490
00:28:16,680 --> 00:28:19,120
Speaker 1: to happen, And so you've got to remember to think

491
00:28:19,119 --> 00:28:22,359
Speaker 1: of people as people first, and only once they say Okay,

492
00:28:22,359 --> 00:28:26,080
Speaker 1: I am willing to have my my body somehow translated

493
00:28:26,119 --> 00:28:29,400
Speaker 1: into information for science, that you can proceed down that road.

494
00:28:29,720 --> 00:28:32,440
Speaker 1: It's the basis of the concept of informed consent, which

495
00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:36,280
Speaker 1: is so important and scientific research today. Plus, I feel like,

496
00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:40,800
Speaker 1: you know, certainly from our perspective, the case was not

497
00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:44,800
Speaker 1: very strong for we must preserve this brain, we must

498
00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:47,640
Speaker 1: study this brain. I know, as as one of the

499
00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:49,880
Speaker 1: people who worked with you. She said, you know that

500
00:28:50,040 --> 00:28:53,400
Speaker 1: it's probably more a case of motivation by mere morbid

501
00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:58,000
Speaker 1: curiosity with also i'm sure, quite racist undertones. Yeah, it's

502
00:28:58,040 --> 00:28:59,760
Speaker 1: not it's not like they were trying to solve a crime.

503
00:28:59,800 --> 00:29:02,280
Speaker 1: It's not like they were trying to understand the ravages

504
00:29:02,320 --> 00:29:07,040
Speaker 1: of a particular disease, etcetera. Yeah, it seemed based almost

505
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:11,280
Speaker 1: entirely in just morbid interest. Fortunately, there is a better

506
00:29:11,320 --> 00:29:13,840
Speaker 1: conclusion to this story. So I was reading a San

507
00:29:13,840 --> 00:29:17,520
Speaker 1: Francisco Chronicle article by Kevin Fagan from the year two

508
00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:23,760
Speaker 1: thousand that was about the reunification of of E's remains.

509
00:29:23,880 --> 00:29:26,880
Speaker 1: So Fagan here writes, quote, sometime today, a jet is

510
00:29:26,880 --> 00:29:30,960
Speaker 1: scheduled to land in California carrying a band of Ishi's descendants,

511
00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:33,560
Speaker 1: and with them will be the long lost final piece

512
00:29:33,560 --> 00:29:38,160
Speaker 1: of their ancestor, Ishi's brain. Leaders of the Reading Rancheria

513
00:29:38,320 --> 00:29:41,160
Speaker 1: and Pitt River tribes, which trace their bloodlines to iss

514
00:29:41,200 --> 00:29:44,600
Speaker 1: She's extinct Yahe nation through the Yana tribe, promised to

515
00:29:44,680 --> 00:29:47,720
Speaker 1: never reveal where they buried him. They're not saying when

516
00:29:47,760 --> 00:29:49,800
Speaker 1: they will do it either, just that they're landing in

517
00:29:49,840 --> 00:29:52,320
Speaker 1: California today and that they want to be left alone

518
00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:55,880
Speaker 1: to shepherd their departed elder spirit away in peace. So

519
00:29:55,920 --> 00:29:57,920
Speaker 1: obviously it's good to hear that that happened, But it

520
00:29:57,960 --> 00:30:00,480
Speaker 1: only follows you know what had already happened and could

521
00:30:00,480 --> 00:30:03,720
Speaker 1: not be undone, And it makes you, I mean again,

522
00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:06,320
Speaker 1: it brings me back to this question about like, um,

523
00:30:06,360 --> 00:30:08,360
Speaker 1: how do you how do you manage the sort of

524
00:30:08,360 --> 00:30:12,120
Speaker 1: scientific and preservation impulse that it belongs in a museum

525
00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:15,719
Speaker 1: impulse against questions where maybe it's not as clear, like

526
00:30:15,760 --> 00:30:19,280
Speaker 1: it's clear that this should not that that's brain should

527
00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:21,320
Speaker 1: not have been removed because he was alive. You got

528
00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:24,040
Speaker 1: to hear him say no, I don't want this. Um.

529
00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:27,120
Speaker 1: I guess the tougher question is in cases of like

530
00:30:27,840 --> 00:30:30,240
Speaker 1: what what about the remains of people who have been

531
00:30:30,320 --> 00:30:32,640
Speaker 1: dead for a longer time and you know, could not

532
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:35,200
Speaker 1: be consulted on the question of whether they would be

533
00:30:35,240 --> 00:30:38,400
Speaker 1: interested in being the subject of scientific research or not.

534
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:41,720
Speaker 1: And I genuinely don't know the answer there. Yeah, I

535
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:45,400
Speaker 1: do like how the story ended with the brain being

536
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:49,600
Speaker 1: returned into tribal privacy, you know, like and I feel

537
00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:52,560
Speaker 1: like that detail you know of itself, that that lines

538
00:30:52,680 --> 00:30:55,000
Speaker 1: up with a lot of different you know, things for

539
00:30:55,080 --> 00:30:59,880
Speaker 1: seeing regarding not only like actual artifacts, but also just

540
00:31:00,160 --> 00:31:04,800
Speaker 1: like traditions and information. Um. I did a I did

541
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:09,400
Speaker 1: an article last year for Housetuff Works about the skin Walker.

542
00:31:09,440 --> 00:31:12,400
Speaker 1: They wanted an article about the Navajo tradition of the

543
00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:14,600
Speaker 1: skin walker, and like that was one of the things

544
00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:17,920
Speaker 1: I really was driven home for me in researching that

545
00:31:18,040 --> 00:31:21,880
Speaker 1: is like that there there are certain you know, aspects

546
00:31:21,920 --> 00:31:27,520
Speaker 1: of of of living tradition that you know, it's it's

547
00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:30,760
Speaker 1: it's disrespectful to to to you know, to act on

548
00:31:30,760 --> 00:31:33,600
Speaker 1: this desire to collect it all and to and to

549
00:31:33,760 --> 00:31:35,720
Speaker 1: keep it all and to codify it and to put

550
00:31:35,720 --> 00:31:38,440
Speaker 1: it on a shelf. Uh that some things, you know,

551
00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:42,560
Speaker 1: still belong to the people who created them, and you

552
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:44,719
Speaker 1: know they can share them if they want to, you know.

553
00:31:45,880 --> 00:31:47,880
Speaker 1: Uh So yeah, I can't help but be reminded of

554
00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 1: that with this the story of of this this piece

555
00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:55,640
Speaker 1: of this individual finally being returned uh to his people,

556
00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:59,400
Speaker 1: and in doing so it kind of passes out of

557
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:02,360
Speaker 1: of the broad order like media view, right that you're

558
00:32:02,360 --> 00:32:04,560
Speaker 1: not going to be like taking TV cameras to his

559
00:32:04,600 --> 00:32:07,680
Speaker 1: grave site or that kind of thing, because that would

560
00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:10,200
Speaker 1: just be a continuation of the same sort of energy

561
00:32:10,320 --> 00:32:20,400
Speaker 1: that he seemed very outspoken against. Well, now that we've

562
00:32:20,400 --> 00:32:22,720
Speaker 1: talked a good bit about the foibles and horrors of

563
00:32:22,760 --> 00:32:26,760
Speaker 1: relatively recent skull head and brain theft, Uh, what do

564
00:32:26,760 --> 00:32:29,479
Speaker 1: you say we go back into some some more deeper

565
00:32:29,560 --> 00:32:33,880
Speaker 1: history and mythology. Yeah, yeah, because again you know, the skull,

566
00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:38,560
Speaker 1: the head, Uh. You know, these are certainly longstanding icons,

567
00:32:38,640 --> 00:32:43,240
Speaker 1: so they've been focal points for myth making and dreaming

568
00:32:43,280 --> 00:32:47,479
Speaker 1: and anxiety, you know, throughout all the human existence, and

569
00:32:47,520 --> 00:32:49,720
Speaker 1: it's it's it's only relatively recently we've been able to

570
00:32:49,720 --> 00:32:53,360
Speaker 1: focus more on the brain as an icon. You know. Um,

571
00:32:53,400 --> 00:32:57,080
Speaker 1: you know, like if you ever encounter a ghost movie

572
00:32:57,160 --> 00:32:59,480
Speaker 1: that has like a brain based ghost, it's a little

573
00:32:59,480 --> 00:33:01,600
Speaker 1: off off putting, right, because it doesn't seem like the

574
00:33:01,600 --> 00:33:05,040
Speaker 1: ghost should be associated with the brain. The brain seems

575
00:33:05,040 --> 00:33:07,440
Speaker 1: more of a science fiction quality as opposed to something

576
00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:11,360
Speaker 1: that is more supernatural in nature. Uh So, yeah, I

577
00:33:11,360 --> 00:33:13,120
Speaker 1: guess to begin with, we should point out that folks

578
00:33:13,120 --> 00:33:15,280
Speaker 1: have been taken heads for longer than they have had

579
00:33:15,320 --> 00:33:18,760
Speaker 1: any any certainly any understanding of the brains rattling around

580
00:33:18,760 --> 00:33:20,800
Speaker 1: inside them. Uh And we don't even have to get

581
00:33:20,840 --> 00:33:22,680
Speaker 1: into all the gory details because you know, the sort

582
00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:24,560
Speaker 1: of things we're talking about, you know, heads hewn off

583
00:33:24,600 --> 00:33:27,560
Speaker 1: in battles, heads mounted on poles and pikes, lobbed with

584
00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:32,240
Speaker 1: a catapult, skulls lined up on the on shelves in catacombs,

585
00:33:32,240 --> 00:33:35,480
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. And we're also never in some cases,

586
00:33:35,480 --> 00:33:38,600
Speaker 1: we're not sure, you know, when we're dealing with something

587
00:33:38,600 --> 00:33:40,480
Speaker 1: where it's okay, is this head a trophy. Is this

588
00:33:40,600 --> 00:33:42,080
Speaker 1: some sort or of this some some sort of like

589
00:33:42,160 --> 00:33:45,360
Speaker 1: sacred funerary tradition or something in between a lot of

590
00:33:45,360 --> 00:33:47,320
Speaker 1: times we have to sort of piece together what it

591
00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:51,080
Speaker 1: actually meant. So one example, I was looking at from

592
00:33:51,080 --> 00:33:53,200
Speaker 1: the ancient world and this is this is not so

593
00:33:53,280 --> 00:33:55,680
Speaker 1: much myth here, this is actual, like you know, actual

594
00:33:55,840 --> 00:34:01,200
Speaker 1: um archaeological evidence. Uh. I was reading ritual use of

595
00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:05,400
Speaker 1: trophy heads in ancient um Nasca society and this was

596
00:34:05,480 --> 00:34:09,720
Speaker 1: by Donald A. Prue, published in Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient

597
00:34:09,760 --> 00:34:12,680
Speaker 1: Peru in two thousand and one. So the taking of

598
00:34:12,719 --> 00:34:15,840
Speaker 1: heads for ritual use has a long history in the

599
00:34:15,880 --> 00:34:20,680
Speaker 1: Central Andes from the pre Ceramic period prior to about

600
00:34:20,800 --> 00:34:24,839
Speaker 1: eighteen hundred BC and continuing through Inca times and with

601
00:34:24,920 --> 00:34:28,239
Speaker 1: the Nasca, the craftspeople uh you know, responsible for the

602
00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:31,360
Speaker 1: Nasca lines, these were created between five hundred BC and

603
00:34:31,400 --> 00:34:34,760
Speaker 1: five d C. With the Nasca, uh, they also engaged

604
00:34:34,840 --> 00:34:37,480
Speaker 1: in the taking of heads, and we see it represented

605
00:34:37,520 --> 00:34:42,120
Speaker 1: in their rich textile art, depicting warriors, shamans, mythical beings

606
00:34:42,120 --> 00:34:46,160
Speaker 1: in some cases with human heads, often on their cloaks

607
00:34:46,320 --> 00:34:49,799
Speaker 1: or in their hands. And according to Prue, over one

608
00:34:49,880 --> 00:34:53,120
Speaker 1: hundred examples remain of the Nasca mummified heads, which were

609
00:34:53,120 --> 00:34:55,360
Speaker 1: the which were first removed from the body, apparently with

610
00:34:55,400 --> 00:34:58,200
Speaker 1: an obsidian knife, and then a hole would have been

611
00:34:58,239 --> 00:35:01,280
Speaker 1: punched through the base of the skull using a club

612
00:35:01,440 --> 00:35:04,000
Speaker 1: or some sort of a tool, and then the brain

613
00:35:04,120 --> 00:35:08,120
Speaker 1: and the eyes were moved through that opening. But then

614
00:35:08,160 --> 00:35:11,680
Speaker 1: another hole, smaller hole was punched or drilled through the

615
00:35:11,760 --> 00:35:15,200
Speaker 1: forehead and this was uh apparently in order to allow

616
00:35:15,680 --> 00:35:19,360
Speaker 1: a carrying rope to be secured. The lips were pinned

617
00:35:19,360 --> 00:35:22,560
Speaker 1: with thorns and cloth was stuffed into the skull, and

618
00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:24,719
Speaker 1: so you have a preserved skull at this point. So

619
00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:27,480
Speaker 1: you said these were believed to be for ritual use.

620
00:35:27,640 --> 00:35:30,400
Speaker 1: It was the thought that they would be like displayed somewhere,

621
00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:33,319
Speaker 1: or that they would be like carried in a ceremony.

622
00:35:33,760 --> 00:35:36,239
Speaker 1: This is where it all gets really interesting, and this

623
00:35:36,280 --> 00:35:39,080
Speaker 1: is where that where a lot of authors have and

624
00:35:39,120 --> 00:35:41,560
Speaker 1: a lot of scientists have have really chimed in with

625
00:35:41,600 --> 00:35:44,360
Speaker 1: different views. But you know, it looks it's easy to

626
00:35:44,400 --> 00:35:46,360
Speaker 1: look at something like this and think of it just

627
00:35:46,400 --> 00:35:49,680
Speaker 1: as trophy taking, right, like the just the trophy taking

628
00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:51,560
Speaker 1: of a war like people. And indeed war was an

629
00:35:51,560 --> 00:35:55,319
Speaker 1: important part of their culture, but the reality seems to

630
00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:59,719
Speaker 1: have been ultimately far more complicated substitute head jars where

631
00:35:59,760 --> 00:36:02,160
Speaker 1: something times were found to be buried with the bodies,

632
00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:06,000
Speaker 1: and the actual heads were not merely symbols of victory,

633
00:36:06,080 --> 00:36:11,439
Speaker 1: but they were used in shamatic rituals, perhaps entailing hallucinogenics

634
00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:14,359
Speaker 1: as a means of communing with the spirit realm and

635
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:19,240
Speaker 1: according to pro quote, propagating and controlling the forces of nature,

636
00:36:19,600 --> 00:36:23,640
Speaker 1: especially so far as natural resources are concerned. Now, apparently

637
00:36:23,680 --> 00:36:26,360
Speaker 1: some have argued that these were not trophy heads but

638
00:36:26,360 --> 00:36:29,120
Speaker 1: the heads of honored ancestors, but pro dis disputes this.

639
00:36:29,239 --> 00:36:32,920
Speaker 1: He he defines them instead as quote trophies of warfare

640
00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:36,680
Speaker 1: collected for ritual purposes. So that that's that's interesting because

641
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:40,319
Speaker 1: it seems to I think to a lot of modern minds,

642
00:36:40,120 --> 00:36:42,160
Speaker 1: it seems to be it seems sounds like a mashup

643
00:36:42,160 --> 00:36:44,839
Speaker 1: of two different ideas, like you're taking the head of

644
00:36:44,920 --> 00:36:48,040
Speaker 1: your your enemy off of their dead body, but isn't

645
00:36:48,160 --> 00:36:50,160
Speaker 1: but you're probably doing that as like a trophy or

646
00:36:50,160 --> 00:36:52,680
Speaker 1: a sign of disrespect. You know. We often think of that,

647
00:36:53,200 --> 00:36:56,240
Speaker 1: um I think of the key and peel skit, where

648
00:36:56,840 --> 00:37:01,439
Speaker 1: one like uh, barbarian beheads and other and then goes

649
00:37:01,440 --> 00:37:03,960
Speaker 1: through all these various sort of comedic acts with the

650
00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:06,520
Speaker 1: head to see what How the rest of the tribe responds,

651
00:37:06,760 --> 00:37:09,000
Speaker 1: I know, that's what does he do? He uh, he

652
00:37:09,160 --> 00:37:12,759
Speaker 1: like puts little shoes under it and makes it walk. Yeah,

653
00:37:12,880 --> 00:37:15,760
Speaker 1: and like that's that's a big hit. But he also

654
00:37:15,880 --> 00:37:17,719
Speaker 1: like does things like pretend to give birth to the

655
00:37:17,719 --> 00:37:24,759
Speaker 1: head and like that just doesn't don't want to like it. Yeah,

656
00:37:24,840 --> 00:37:26,360
Speaker 1: But it's the kind of thing where like when we

657
00:37:26,400 --> 00:37:28,640
Speaker 1: think about head taking, we think of stuff like that.

658
00:37:28,719 --> 00:37:32,759
Speaker 1: We think of like something barbaric and trophy oriented. But

659
00:37:32,880 --> 00:37:35,920
Speaker 1: in this case it seems like it wasn't bad or

660
00:37:35,920 --> 00:37:38,000
Speaker 1: it wasn't purely that it was. It was also this

661
00:37:38,080 --> 00:37:41,400
Speaker 1: idea of what you need this head, This head is

662
00:37:41,440 --> 00:37:46,880
Speaker 1: necessary for various religious purposes, a way of a means

663
00:37:46,920 --> 00:37:50,239
Speaker 1: of communing with the spirit realm um. Now, as for

664
00:37:50,280 --> 00:37:52,640
Speaker 1: the brain, it seems like the brain was was discarded.

665
00:37:52,680 --> 00:37:54,359
Speaker 1: That would have been again, that would have been part

666
00:37:54,400 --> 00:37:56,960
Speaker 1: of like that first act of punching through the back

667
00:37:56,960 --> 00:37:59,800
Speaker 1: of the skull to remove the eyes and the brain. Uh.

668
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:01,920
Speaker 1: Probably going back to the reality we talked about before,

669
00:38:01,920 --> 00:38:05,799
Speaker 1: where the brain uh rots rather rather quickly, and that's

670
00:38:05,800 --> 00:38:07,239
Speaker 1: going to be one of the first things you're gonna

671
00:38:07,239 --> 00:38:10,360
Speaker 1: want to remove now. This also reminds me of the

672
00:38:10,400 --> 00:38:14,399
Speaker 1: mummified heads of the Kocoum dynasty of the Maya, which

673
00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:16,880
Speaker 1: were kept and preserved because they were said to contain

674
00:38:16,920 --> 00:38:21,040
Speaker 1: the voices of their ancestors, again a means of communicating

675
00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:24,319
Speaker 1: with spirits and or the dead. This is interesting to

676
00:38:24,400 --> 00:38:27,279
Speaker 1: compare to remember what we talked about in the first

677
00:38:27,280 --> 00:38:32,520
Speaker 1: episode about the plastered heads of Chattelhyuk in southern Turkey,

678
00:38:32,640 --> 00:38:35,520
Speaker 1: which you know from this Stone Age settlement, there were

679
00:38:35,560 --> 00:38:39,120
Speaker 1: often heads of ancestors that were kept in some kind

680
00:38:39,120 --> 00:38:43,200
Speaker 1: of preserved form, apparently within the home. Yeah, and during

681
00:38:43,239 --> 00:38:46,080
Speaker 1: the mid first millennium BC there were there were various

682
00:38:46,080 --> 00:38:48,799
Speaker 1: accounts of the use of human heads in acts of

683
00:38:48,800 --> 00:38:54,600
Speaker 1: of of communion, necromancy, divination across the Mediterranean. We see

684
00:38:54,600 --> 00:38:58,239
Speaker 1: it mentioned in the accounts of Herodotus. In Aristotle, um

685
00:38:58,840 --> 00:39:01,520
Speaker 1: uh Cleomnis of the first of Sparta is said to

686
00:39:01,600 --> 00:39:04,719
Speaker 1: have consulted with the head of his friend our quantities

687
00:39:05,040 --> 00:39:11,040
Speaker 1: on all major decisions ahead, which he kept preserved in honey, honey, Yeah,

688
00:39:11,239 --> 00:39:13,800
Speaker 1: that's good, and so you know. Of course, when we

689
00:39:14,080 --> 00:39:16,799
Speaker 1: deal with accounts like this, we're we're beginning to at

690
00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:20,160
Speaker 1: least beginning to transfer into the realm of myth and

691
00:39:20,280 --> 00:39:25,000
Speaker 1: lore and legend, where we we become less sure about

692
00:39:25,080 --> 00:39:28,640
Speaker 1: what is actually going on, because then there is this

693
00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:34,520
Speaker 1: broader realm of just stories about disembodied heads that still

694
00:39:34,600 --> 00:39:37,160
Speaker 1: have life in them, that can speak, that can fly,

695
00:39:37,520 --> 00:39:42,120
Speaker 1: that can terrorize, that can give you know, important advice

696
00:39:42,200 --> 00:39:45,680
Speaker 1: to the living, etcetera. I think one of the coolest

697
00:39:45,719 --> 00:39:48,120
Speaker 1: of these that uh, that folks may have heard of

698
00:39:48,640 --> 00:39:53,319
Speaker 1: is is the myth of of Memir uh in Norse mythology.

699
00:39:54,360 --> 00:39:57,040
Speaker 1: Uh So, this Memir was one of the Jiltons in

700
00:39:57,120 --> 00:39:59,719
Speaker 1: Norse mythology, one of the frost giants, and he was

701
00:39:59,719 --> 00:40:03,440
Speaker 1: the ardian of the well of inspiration and wisdom at

702
00:40:03,480 --> 00:40:06,879
Speaker 1: the roots of the world tree, and Odin would come

703
00:40:06,920 --> 00:40:09,239
Speaker 1: to to drink from the well, and member would make

704
00:40:09,280 --> 00:40:12,440
Speaker 1: him leave an eye and payment. And then Memor was

705
00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:16,320
Speaker 1: held hostage in in battle by the Vanier during the

706
00:40:16,320 --> 00:40:19,960
Speaker 1: the Aser Vanier War, and they beheaded him, but Odin,

707
00:40:20,320 --> 00:40:22,399
Speaker 1: since he liked the guy, you know, retrieved his head

708
00:40:22,440 --> 00:40:25,000
Speaker 1: and kept it alive with magic herbs so that the

709
00:40:25,040 --> 00:40:27,640
Speaker 1: head could continue to give counsel to the King of

710
00:40:27,680 --> 00:40:32,680
Speaker 1: the gods. And so you'll see uh, some wonderful illustrations

711
00:40:32,680 --> 00:40:35,759
Speaker 1: of this, both old and then recent, where there's like

712
00:40:35,840 --> 00:40:38,560
Speaker 1: this of some cases, is like a zombie head that

713
00:40:38,680 --> 00:40:42,640
Speaker 1: Odin is is holding that he is, uh, that is

714
00:40:42,680 --> 00:40:46,760
Speaker 1: his advisor. Yeah, you've attached one here where Odin is

715
00:40:46,760 --> 00:40:49,719
Speaker 1: is leaning his head over on the severed head like

716
00:40:49,760 --> 00:40:52,760
Speaker 1: he's almost kind of snuggling with it. Of course Odin

717
00:40:52,920 --> 00:40:55,720
Speaker 1: is missing one eye as usual, and uh, and there's

718
00:40:55,760 --> 00:40:57,800
Speaker 1: just fire coming out of the thing's mouth or I

719
00:40:57,800 --> 00:40:59,400
Speaker 1: don't know, it looks like he's got like a star

720
00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:03,759
Speaker 1: in at the back of his throat. Yes. Um. In

721
00:41:03,880 --> 00:41:07,280
Speaker 1: terms of heads that give advice like this, there's also

722
00:41:07,520 --> 00:41:11,880
Speaker 1: an Arabian Nights story of of King Yunnan and the

723
00:41:11,960 --> 00:41:14,880
Speaker 1: Duban and Duban the sage and the stage in question.

724
00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:17,400
Speaker 1: At least in some variations of this tale, continues to

725
00:41:17,440 --> 00:41:20,480
Speaker 1: speak after it has been removed from its body. Now

726
00:41:20,520 --> 00:41:24,359
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get into some other examples. Uh here, Uh,

727
00:41:24,400 --> 00:41:29,239
Speaker 1: you know of of of disembodied heads of decapitation in

728
00:41:29,440 --> 00:41:32,600
Speaker 1: mythology that are that are pretty interesting. One that I

729
00:41:32,640 --> 00:41:37,960
Speaker 1: found really fascinating is the self decapitating nude goddess of Hinduism. Uh.

730
00:41:38,000 --> 00:41:42,440
Speaker 1: That is that is known as China Masta, and that

731
00:41:42,520 --> 00:41:46,279
Speaker 1: just means she's she whose head is severed, and she's

732
00:41:46,280 --> 00:41:49,839
Speaker 1: typically depicted red fleshed and holding a scimitar in one

733
00:41:49,920 --> 00:41:53,160
Speaker 1: hand and her own head in the other as blood

734
00:41:53,280 --> 00:41:56,319
Speaker 1: fountains from the stump of her neck, which and in

735
00:41:56,360 --> 00:42:00,560
Speaker 1: some cases is then consumed by her thirsty skeletal tendance.

736
00:42:01,080 --> 00:42:04,440
Speaker 1: And then she is usually stand depicted standing on top

737
00:42:04,520 --> 00:42:08,680
Speaker 1: of a copulating human couple. Uh. So it's it's an

738
00:42:08,800 --> 00:42:12,960
Speaker 1: instantly um captivating image. She's one of the tin goddesses

739
00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:15,720
Speaker 1: of the esoteric tradition of Tantra, and she's a slayer

740
00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:19,959
Speaker 1: of demons. So she's a highly uh symbolic deity. There's

741
00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:22,759
Speaker 1: the sense of the transcendence of the body free of

742
00:42:22,800 --> 00:42:24,920
Speaker 1: the mind, you know, the body, the mind has clearly

743
00:42:24,960 --> 00:42:28,760
Speaker 1: literally been removed from the physical form. She's a symbol

744
00:42:28,760 --> 00:42:33,200
Speaker 1: of sacrifice and ferocity. Yeah, this image rey is amazing. Yeah,

745
00:42:33,239 --> 00:42:36,759
Speaker 1: it probably goes without saying, but this in particular, though,

746
00:42:36,800 --> 00:42:39,120
Speaker 1: this goes for a lot of Hindu iconography. This is

747
00:42:39,160 --> 00:42:41,560
Speaker 1: an image that's caught the interest of various Westerns, so

748
00:42:41,600 --> 00:42:44,640
Speaker 1: you'll sometimes see it depicted by Western artists or adopted

749
00:42:44,680 --> 00:42:49,280
Speaker 1: by death metal bands, etcetera. Right, man, the death metal bands,

750
00:42:49,280 --> 00:42:52,439
Speaker 1: they just they just snatch up everything. Cool. Yeah. Yeah.

751
00:42:52,520 --> 00:42:55,600
Speaker 1: If it's you know, it hits a certain vibe for them,

752
00:42:55,640 --> 00:42:58,600
Speaker 1: they'll they'll, they'll take it. Uh. So they're at least

753
00:42:58,600 --> 00:43:02,080
Speaker 1: a couple of speaking as associated with tellings and retellings

754
00:43:02,080 --> 00:43:05,840
Speaker 1: of the Mahabarata, the Hindu epic heads placed on polls

755
00:43:05,880 --> 00:43:09,120
Speaker 1: after being sacrificed or having their body sacrifice in order

756
00:43:09,160 --> 00:43:11,919
Speaker 1: to watch the battle. And I was reading a little

757
00:43:11,920 --> 00:43:15,880
Speaker 1: bit about this from author and mythologist dev Dute uh

758
00:43:16,320 --> 00:43:19,360
Speaker 1: pan Nick, who has a whole page about these tales

759
00:43:19,480 --> 00:43:22,680
Speaker 1: at his mythology website uh devdut dot com. It's d

760
00:43:22,760 --> 00:43:26,440
Speaker 1: e V d u t t dot com. Uh. He

761
00:43:26,480 --> 00:43:29,880
Speaker 1: writes that these tales are often about perspective. Quote. The

762
00:43:29,960 --> 00:43:33,080
Speaker 1: talking head is thus a symbol for a less confined,

763
00:43:33,239 --> 00:43:36,040
Speaker 1: more global perspective on things. All of us see the

764
00:43:36,080 --> 00:43:39,200
Speaker 1: world from our individual point of view, limited by our prejudices,

765
00:43:39,400 --> 00:43:43,440
Speaker 1: our expectations, and our experiences. The talking head sees it

766
00:43:43,480 --> 00:43:47,280
Speaker 1: from an alternative angle and when he voices his opinions,

767
00:43:47,320 --> 00:43:49,960
Speaker 1: we see the world quite differently. When he speaks, we

768
00:43:50,000 --> 00:43:54,400
Speaker 1: realize the Pandavas and the Kavas are are tiny elements

769
00:43:54,400 --> 00:43:57,840
Speaker 1: of God's greater canvas. The Mahabarata is not just about

770
00:43:57,840 --> 00:44:02,480
Speaker 1: one kingdom. It is about cosmic order. Now that's not

771
00:44:02,560 --> 00:44:07,120
Speaker 1: to say there aren't just monster heads too in Hindu iconography. Uh,

772
00:44:07,160 --> 00:44:11,359
Speaker 1: there's a really cool example, uh named Kurta Muka, or

773
00:44:11,440 --> 00:44:14,400
Speaker 1: the head of Glory as it's often referred to. And

774
00:44:14,440 --> 00:44:17,600
Speaker 1: this is a monstrous flying head in Hindu mythology that

775
00:44:17,640 --> 00:44:21,000
Speaker 1: seems to be similar in many ways to the Gorgonian

776
00:44:21,080 --> 00:44:23,279
Speaker 1: head of the Greek tradition that we discussed in our

777
00:44:23,320 --> 00:44:28,800
Speaker 1: Medusa episodes. So, according to Carol Rose, the folklore is

778
00:44:29,520 --> 00:44:33,680
Speaker 1: when Shiva was told that he was unworthy of marrying Parvati.

779
00:44:34,080 --> 00:44:37,759
Speaker 1: In his rage, his experiences such rage that a monstrous

780
00:44:37,840 --> 00:44:41,799
Speaker 1: lion springs from his head and then it attacks Shiva,

781
00:44:41,920 --> 00:44:44,640
Speaker 1: and he commands that, no, we're not doing that, uh,

782
00:44:44,800 --> 00:44:49,080
Speaker 1: eat yourself instead, And so this monster consumes its own body,

783
00:44:49,200 --> 00:44:52,960
Speaker 1: leaving only its entrails, which then turned to pearls, and

784
00:44:53,000 --> 00:44:56,200
Speaker 1: so that leaves only the head. So Shiva then commands

785
00:44:56,760 --> 00:44:59,840
Speaker 1: uh Kurta Muka to serve as the guardian of entrance.

786
00:45:00,080 --> 00:45:03,000
Speaker 1: And so you see this head, this head of glory

787
00:45:03,480 --> 00:45:06,520
Speaker 1: uh in um, you know, above the door or around

788
00:45:06,520 --> 00:45:10,720
Speaker 1: the door of in in many different examples of Hindu

789
00:45:10,840 --> 00:45:15,279
Speaker 1: architecture from India and from other countries. You know, this

790
00:45:15,360 --> 00:45:17,960
Speaker 1: is interesting because you brought it up and I somehow

791
00:45:18,080 --> 00:45:20,759
Speaker 1: did not think about it. But from Greek mythology, you know,

792
00:45:20,800 --> 00:45:24,680
Speaker 1: we did the episode last year about about Medusa. That's

793
00:45:24,680 --> 00:45:27,920
Speaker 1: of course the case of a stolen head in mythology,

794
00:45:28,000 --> 00:45:30,680
Speaker 1: or the head is severed like he takes it and

795
00:45:30,800 --> 00:45:34,920
Speaker 1: uses it as a tool. Yeah, it becomes a weapon,

796
00:45:35,280 --> 00:45:38,240
Speaker 1: not so much a means of communicating with anything, but

797
00:45:38,239 --> 00:45:41,480
Speaker 1: but this this weapon, this symbol, and and here we

798
00:45:41,480 --> 00:45:44,360
Speaker 1: see another tradition. Now I've not read anything that that

799
00:45:44,520 --> 00:45:47,319
Speaker 1: links the two in any respect. You know, let's just

800
00:45:47,360 --> 00:45:49,800
Speaker 1: say that like one inspired the other anything of that nature.

801
00:45:49,800 --> 00:45:52,960
Speaker 1: But clearly they're getting it similar ideas. The idea of

802
00:45:53,000 --> 00:45:57,799
Speaker 1: this um, this terrifying head uh and or face that

803
00:45:58,000 --> 00:46:00,719
Speaker 1: stares out from a work as a as a way

804
00:46:00,719 --> 00:46:04,640
Speaker 1: of warning those who would who would trespass. Now I

805
00:46:04,680 --> 00:46:07,680
Speaker 1: should know that looking around though sometimes it appears to

806
00:46:07,680 --> 00:46:09,800
Speaker 1: have arms, so I don't know if that it gains

807
00:46:09,920 --> 00:46:12,440
Speaker 1: arms later or arms just end up popping back up

808
00:46:12,480 --> 00:46:17,000
Speaker 1: in the iconography. But there you go. Another entity we've

809
00:46:17,000 --> 00:46:19,759
Speaker 1: talked about before in the show is Rahu in hin Hinduism,

810
00:46:19,800 --> 00:46:23,000
Speaker 1: the eclipse entity. Uh you know this is the you

811
00:46:23,000 --> 00:46:25,440
Speaker 1: know once was a proud oshera demi god of immense

812
00:46:25,480 --> 00:46:29,480
Speaker 1: power and hunger and seeking immortality. It drinks the divine nectar,

813
00:46:30,040 --> 00:46:33,400
Speaker 1: but before this drop can pass his throat, he's swallowing

814
00:46:33,440 --> 00:46:39,080
Speaker 1: it mid swallow. Vishnu decapitates him for his transgression and yeah,

815
00:46:39,080 --> 00:46:43,160
Speaker 1: and this ends up translating into this um this eclipse

816
00:46:43,200 --> 00:46:46,520
Speaker 1: mythology where the head of Rajo attempts to consume the

817
00:46:46,560 --> 00:46:49,240
Speaker 1: sun or does consume the sun, but then it passes

818
00:46:49,239 --> 00:46:51,160
Speaker 1: out of the next stump. I think we talked about

819
00:46:51,200 --> 00:46:52,920
Speaker 1: this in one of the first episodes of Stuff to

820
00:46:52,960 --> 00:46:56,080
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind. I ever did the one on the eclipse. Yeah, yeah,

821
00:46:56,120 --> 00:46:59,920
Speaker 1: I think so. Another example is uh Braun the Blessed

822
00:47:00,040 --> 00:47:03,040
Speaker 1: in Welsh mythology. The giant king who mortally wounded in

823
00:47:03,080 --> 00:47:05,480
Speaker 1: battle had his followers cut off his head so that

824
00:47:05,480 --> 00:47:08,200
Speaker 1: it could be returned to Britain. One day and for

825
00:47:08,239 --> 00:47:11,320
Speaker 1: a long time this head was said to speak before

826
00:47:11,360 --> 00:47:14,160
Speaker 1: it grew silent, and the story goes that the silent

827
00:47:14,200 --> 00:47:17,160
Speaker 1: head was finally taken to White Hill. Uh. This is

828
00:47:17,200 --> 00:47:19,399
Speaker 1: where the Tower of London, they say would one day

829
00:47:19,400 --> 00:47:22,600
Speaker 1: be built, and they buried it there facing France to

830
00:47:22,719 --> 00:47:27,400
Speaker 1: ward off the enemy. And this supposedly ties into the UH.

831
00:47:27,600 --> 00:47:30,880
Speaker 1: The The Celtic cult of of the head also reflected

832
00:47:30,920 --> 00:47:33,560
Speaker 1: in the Tale of the Green Knight. Uh. We're in

833
00:47:33,680 --> 00:47:36,480
Speaker 1: in the Green Night. The Green Knight comes into Arthur's

834
00:47:36,520 --> 00:47:38,920
Speaker 1: court and challenges someone to cut off his head. But

835
00:47:38,960 --> 00:47:40,600
Speaker 1: then when they do, he just picks it up and

836
00:47:40,600 --> 00:47:42,239
Speaker 1: he's like, no, I'm fine now I get to cut

837
00:47:42,280 --> 00:47:45,000
Speaker 1: off your head, but I'll do it a year from now. Yeah.

838
00:47:45,080 --> 00:47:48,960
Speaker 1: The the decapitation battle is another motif or contest. You

839
00:47:49,000 --> 00:47:51,480
Speaker 1: see that, uh in a lot of legends from this

840
00:47:51,520 --> 00:47:54,480
Speaker 1: part of the world, and it's interesting, you know. Um.

841
00:47:54,920 --> 00:47:58,360
Speaker 1: Terry Jones of Monty Python, of course, was very steeped

842
00:47:58,440 --> 00:48:01,319
Speaker 1: in UH in this sort of lore, and he was

843
00:48:01,360 --> 00:48:03,640
Speaker 1: one of the author one of the writers for the

844
00:48:03,680 --> 00:48:09,040
Speaker 1: screenplay for Labyrinth, and Labyrinth features those wonderful fiery red

845
00:48:09,120 --> 00:48:14,200
Speaker 1: creatures that attempt to engage in a decapitation contest with

846
00:48:14,440 --> 00:48:18,200
Speaker 1: our our heroine Sarah. Do you remember them where they're

847
00:48:18,239 --> 00:48:20,680
Speaker 1: like where they get mad at her because you're only

848
00:48:20,680 --> 00:48:23,040
Speaker 1: You're not supposed to take someone else's head. No one's

849
00:48:23,040 --> 00:48:26,040
Speaker 1: supposed to take your own head off this this reminds

850
00:48:26,080 --> 00:48:28,680
Speaker 1: me of of the head swapping scene and teams in

851
00:48:28,719 --> 00:48:31,560
Speaker 1: the universe. Oh yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean this sort

852
00:48:31,560 --> 00:48:35,359
Speaker 1: of thing, head swapping, decapitated heads living on You see

853
00:48:35,360 --> 00:48:39,440
Speaker 1: it just everywhere. Um for instance, here, here's some other examples.

854
00:48:39,680 --> 00:48:43,320
Speaker 1: In Maya mythology, you have head Appo who was tripped

855
00:48:43,360 --> 00:48:46,919
Speaker 1: by the lords of the underworld, and his decapitated head

856
00:48:47,000 --> 00:48:49,359
Speaker 1: was that hung as a trophy from a giant tree.

857
00:48:49,840 --> 00:48:52,600
Speaker 1: But then this head later spits into a woman's hand

858
00:48:53,000 --> 00:48:56,680
Speaker 1: and in doing so, impregnates her with the Maya hero twins,

859
00:48:56,680 --> 00:49:00,000
Speaker 1: who would go on to have various adventures. We've already

860
00:49:00,040 --> 00:49:03,160
Speaker 1: touched on in the previous episode. We've touched on Orpheus

861
00:49:03,239 --> 00:49:06,000
Speaker 1: is Singing Head and Greek mythology. Oh yeah, and the

862
00:49:06,040 --> 00:49:09,200
Speaker 1: possible symbolic connection to the box made for Hyde and

863
00:49:09,320 --> 00:49:13,000
Speaker 1: Skull with the liar Yeah uh. In the Trial of

864
00:49:13,040 --> 00:49:15,759
Speaker 1: the Knights, Templars One of the charges was that they

865
00:49:15,760 --> 00:49:19,400
Speaker 1: worshiped an entity called Bahammet that was sometimes described as

866
00:49:19,440 --> 00:49:22,280
Speaker 1: a severed head. And then oh, you have some wonderful

867
00:49:22,320 --> 00:49:26,320
Speaker 1: monsters as well. Um, there's the Kara Sioux in the

868
00:49:26,640 --> 00:49:29,120
Speaker 1: Southeast day. It's the Southeast Asian spirit that takes the

869
00:49:29,160 --> 00:49:32,360
Speaker 1: form of a beautiful woman's head with her organs dangling

870
00:49:32,400 --> 00:49:35,400
Speaker 1: below her neck so it floats it close and it

871
00:49:35,440 --> 00:49:38,400
Speaker 1: seems to essentially be another variation of the willow the

872
00:49:38,400 --> 00:49:41,759
Speaker 1: Whisp tradition. Uh that is held around the world and

873
00:49:41,760 --> 00:49:44,800
Speaker 1: that we devoted a big episode two in the past.

874
00:49:45,640 --> 00:49:48,160
Speaker 1: So she cannot what she like, glows and leads people

875
00:49:48,160 --> 00:49:51,840
Speaker 1: off the path. I believe, so yes, um, and there's that.

876
00:49:51,880 --> 00:49:55,960
Speaker 1: There's actually a Indonesian horror movie titled Mystics in Bali

877
00:49:56,080 --> 00:49:59,200
Speaker 1: that looks pretty interesting because it features the Kara su

878
00:49:59,360 --> 00:50:01,400
Speaker 1: I included a screenshot here for you, Joe and for

879
00:50:01,640 --> 00:50:04,000
Speaker 1: a movie trailer for you to check out later. Oh yeah,

880
00:50:04,040 --> 00:50:06,520
Speaker 1: I gotta I gotta see that. That looks great now.

881
00:50:06,560 --> 00:50:10,439
Speaker 1: The melee version of this is the the Panteonic, which

882
00:50:10,480 --> 00:50:14,080
Speaker 1: functions like a vampire, only it prays exclusively on babies

883
00:50:14,120 --> 00:50:18,040
Speaker 1: and infants. Then there's also the Japanese uh nuki kubi,

884
00:50:18,160 --> 00:50:20,560
Speaker 1: which is a type of yokai and Japanese traditions. It's

885
00:50:20,600 --> 00:50:23,480
Speaker 1: humanoid in form, but it can separate its head from

886
00:50:23,480 --> 00:50:26,360
Speaker 1: its body and this can float free to work mischief.

887
00:50:26,360 --> 00:50:29,400
Speaker 1: It's just one of one of various examples of disembodied

888
00:50:29,440 --> 00:50:32,880
Speaker 1: heads that you'll find in Japanese lore, and then in

889
00:50:33,080 --> 00:50:36,319
Speaker 1: um uh the native peoples of the Americas, you find

890
00:50:36,360 --> 00:50:40,120
Speaker 1: some other interesting traditions as well. Uh. The flying head

891
00:50:40,160 --> 00:50:44,480
Speaker 1: of the Iroquois and the one dot mythology. This is

892
00:50:44,600 --> 00:50:47,160
Speaker 1: a great flying head sometimes with bat wings on each

893
00:50:47,239 --> 00:50:50,320
Speaker 1: side of its head, with long hair and terrible eyes.

894
00:50:51,360 --> 00:50:55,799
Speaker 1: Carol Rose writes about these in her book on Monsters. Uh.

895
00:50:56,080 --> 00:50:58,440
Speaker 1: She said that this was an entire class of monsters

896
00:50:58,440 --> 00:51:01,480
Speaker 1: in the folklore of the Iroquois, huge ugly heads with

897
00:51:01,560 --> 00:51:05,680
Speaker 1: eyes of fire, dripping fangs, and huge wings instead of ears.

898
00:51:06,040 --> 00:51:09,560
Speaker 1: They fly through storm winds with wild hair, uh, you know,

899
00:51:09,600 --> 00:51:11,960
Speaker 1: helping to keep them afloat and kind of floating around them.

900
00:51:12,160 --> 00:51:15,360
Speaker 1: They prey on villagers and animals alike, and their teeth

901
00:51:15,360 --> 00:51:18,400
Speaker 1: they're like it sounds like they were kind of like

902
00:51:18,400 --> 00:51:20,719
Speaker 1: like a cage if their if their teeth or their

903
00:51:20,800 --> 00:51:24,560
Speaker 1: jaws close over you. There's no escape. But there's a

904
00:51:24,600 --> 00:51:27,360
Speaker 1: tail apparently of an old woman who is roasting some

905
00:51:27,440 --> 00:51:31,040
Speaker 1: chestnuts over the fire, and then she brings a fiery

906
00:51:31,080 --> 00:51:34,160
Speaker 1: coal back from the fire with her to keep her warm,

907
00:51:34,239 --> 00:51:37,960
Speaker 1: and then here comes the flying head and it it

908
00:51:38,080 --> 00:51:41,359
Speaker 1: gobbles her up, chestnuts and all, but then it has

909
00:51:41,400 --> 00:51:43,920
Speaker 1: to spit her out because of the fiery coal, and

910
00:51:43,960 --> 00:51:47,480
Speaker 1: then that coal burns the monster up from the inside out. Oh.

911
00:51:47,600 --> 00:51:49,879
Speaker 1: I love when the story is a trick like that. Yeah,

912
00:51:50,000 --> 00:51:52,680
Speaker 1: especially when it's like an old lady who gets gets

913
00:51:52,680 --> 00:51:56,400
Speaker 1: the wind over the monster. That's always nice, not not

914
00:51:56,520 --> 00:52:01,080
Speaker 1: your traditional young, dashing male slayer. Yeah. So so that's

915
00:52:01,080 --> 00:52:05,120
Speaker 1: just an example of some of the myths and legends

916
00:52:05,200 --> 00:52:08,840
Speaker 1: and folklore tales you'll find just throughout the world. I

917
00:52:09,120 --> 00:52:10,960
Speaker 1: know there's some wonderful ones that I didn't touch on,

918
00:52:11,000 --> 00:52:12,920
Speaker 1: and certainly i'd love to hear from anyone out there

919
00:52:12,920 --> 00:52:14,279
Speaker 1: if you have a really good one, if you have

920
00:52:14,320 --> 00:52:16,960
Speaker 1: a favorite, uh, we would love to to hear it

921
00:52:17,080 --> 00:52:19,640
Speaker 1: and then potentially share it back with everybody else in

922
00:52:19,640 --> 00:52:22,320
Speaker 1: a listener mail episode. But I think just this selection

923
00:52:22,600 --> 00:52:25,600
Speaker 1: gives you a certain taste of what out what's out there?

924
00:52:25,680 --> 00:52:30,280
Speaker 1: You know, these various imaginative contemplations on like what happens

925
00:52:30,280 --> 00:52:33,160
Speaker 1: if the head lives and the body dies, what happens

926
00:52:33,160 --> 00:52:36,239
Speaker 1: if the body decapitates itself. Like, there's just it's just

927
00:52:36,320 --> 00:52:42,480
Speaker 1: such rich grounds for contemplation regarding identity and mortality and

928
00:52:42,560 --> 00:52:44,880
Speaker 1: just so much. It seems like a lot of times

929
00:52:44,920 --> 00:52:48,359
Speaker 1: disembodied heads are angry. Yeah, well, you know a lot

930
00:52:48,400 --> 00:52:50,200
Speaker 1: of times I guess they do have something to be

931
00:52:50,280 --> 00:52:53,680
Speaker 1: angry about. But but then sometimes their jovial um. You know,

932
00:52:53,719 --> 00:52:56,600
Speaker 1: there's some of those examples from the from tellings of

933
00:52:56,600 --> 00:52:59,399
Speaker 1: the Mahabarata I was reading, like they're laughing, like their laughing,

934
00:52:59,480 --> 00:53:04,359
Speaker 1: there's one I think their laughterre distracts Archina during the battle, um,

935
00:53:04,400 --> 00:53:06,719
Speaker 1: you know, and there's a sense of like being free

936
00:53:06,760 --> 00:53:11,600
Speaker 1: from the body. Um. I'm also reminded of the heads

937
00:53:11,600 --> 00:53:15,000
Speaker 1: that show up in Miyazaki Spirited Away, the three heads

938
00:53:15,000 --> 00:53:17,279
Speaker 1: that kind of roll around and bumble, and they don't

939
00:53:17,440 --> 00:53:20,480
Speaker 1: have much personality to them, and I don't really know

940
00:53:20,520 --> 00:53:22,160
Speaker 1: what they're doing and what they're there for, but they

941
00:53:22,160 --> 00:53:26,319
Speaker 1: don't seem distressed. They say, maybe perpetually alarmed, but uh,

942
00:53:26,360 --> 00:53:29,719
Speaker 1: that's about it. That's good stuff. All right. Well, we're

943
00:53:29,719 --> 00:53:33,000
Speaker 1: gonna go ahead and uh close this episode out, but yeah,

944
00:53:33,040 --> 00:53:35,040
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from everybody out there. Any any

945
00:53:35,040 --> 00:53:41,040
Speaker 1: other examples of flying heads and self decapitating spirits, other

946
00:53:41,080 --> 00:53:44,720
Speaker 1: examples of brain and head preservation. Have you been taken

947
00:53:44,719 --> 00:53:48,160
Speaker 1: by a particular specimen of brain or head at a museum?

948
00:53:48,239 --> 00:53:50,560
Speaker 1: We would love to hear from you all about it.

949
00:53:50,920 --> 00:53:52,359
Speaker 1: In the meantime, if you want to check out other

950
00:53:52,360 --> 00:53:53,960
Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, you can find

951
00:53:54,000 --> 00:53:56,520
Speaker 1: us wherever you get your podcasts, uh and wherever that

952
00:53:56,560 --> 00:53:58,880
Speaker 1: happens to be. We just asked that you rate, review,

953
00:53:59,000 --> 00:54:02,200
Speaker 1: and subscribe. Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio

954
00:54:02,239 --> 00:54:04,640
Speaker 1: producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get

955
00:54:04,680 --> 00:54:06,800
Speaker 1: in touch with us with feedback on this episode or

956
00:54:06,800 --> 00:54:08,960
Speaker 1: any other, to suggest a topic for the future, just

957
00:54:09,040 --> 00:54:11,799
Speaker 1: to say hello, you can email us at contact at

958
00:54:11,840 --> 00:54:21,719
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind, pot Com. Stuff to Blow

959
00:54:21,760 --> 00:54:24,800
Speaker 1: Your Mind's production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts

960
00:54:24,840 --> 00:54:26,919
Speaker 1: for my Heart Radio with the I Heart Radio app,

961
00:54:27,080 --> 00:54:38,520
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.