WEBVTT - Brain and Head Theft, Part 2 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to stot to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:14.600 Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:18.040 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:20.600 we're back with part two of our discussion of stolen 0:00:20.680 --> 0:00:24.600 heads and stolen brains. That's right. If you didn't listen 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:27.840 to part one, go back listen to part one, because 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:30.120 that's where we initially get into it, and we talked 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:33.320 about like some ancient ideas about what the brain did 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:36.600 and uh, then we get into some examples of of 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:41.800 brains that have been preserved, uh, consensually, and then get 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:44.159 a little bit into the theft. And we're gonna get 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:46.080 more into the theft here in this episode, and then 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:47.760 towards the end we're gonna get into some of the 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:53.479 mythology and folklore of disembodied heads. That's right. So at 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:55.480 the end of the last episode, we were talking about 0:00:55.480 --> 0:00:59.080 the theft of the skull of the Austrian classical composer 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:03.800 Franz Joseph Haydn, which was stolen by phrenologists who clung 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:08.319 to the mistaken belief that Haydn's musical genius would somehow 0:01:08.400 --> 0:01:12.319 be inscribed in the bone of his cranium. But Hayden 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:14.760 isn't the only figure like this. There there are other 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:18.960 figures in history with some kind of reputation for genius 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:21.600 of one kind or another, who have had their heads 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:24.759 or their brains stolen in the hope that these remnants 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:28.639 would somehow explain to science what made them so smart. 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:31.600 And of course, in the case of phrenology, this was 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:36.479 an utterly hopeless endeavor, just because phrenology is total quack 0:01:36.520 --> 0:01:39.960 pseudoscience end to end. But this has also happened even 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:44.760 in ages of more legitimate neuroscience, and still maybe doesn't 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:47.160 tell us as much as the people who stole these 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:49.880 brains hoped that it would. So I want to talk 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:53.160 about another famous stolen head that is not even for 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:56.200 any pretense of neuroscience or any other type of research. 0:01:56.320 --> 0:01:58.400 I want to talk about the head of Jeremy Bentham. 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:01.920 H So you know Jeremy Bentham best for I don't 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:03.880 know what do people know him best for these days? 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:06.800 Maybe for the for the idea of the Panopticon, which 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:09.639 he was a promoter of. That would be where our 0:02:09.639 --> 0:02:12.320 listeners might have heard his name on this show before. Yeah, 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:16.240 Jeremy Bentham was a highly influential eighteenth and nineteenth century 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:20.600 philosopher and social reformer from England, and he's usually thought 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:24.320 of as one of the founders of liberalism and one 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:28.480 of the modern founders of the utilitarian theory of ethics. So, 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:31.320 in other words, right and wrong would be determined not 0:02:31.440 --> 0:02:33.880 by what the king says, or what the Bible says, 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:38.239 or not by any deontological duty, but by what course 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:41.280 of action would provide the greatest happiness to the greatest 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:44.880 number of people. And Bentham is kind of interesting because 0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:47.440 if you read through a collection of his opinions and 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:51.720 arguments today, it is this strange mixture of things that 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:55.639 for the time were extremely radical, progressive and by our 0:02:56.200 --> 0:03:00.880 modern ethics admirable, but also things that are bizarrely horrifying. 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:04.440 So so, for example, you know, he was in favor 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:09.560 of total political equality for women and the decriminalization of homosexuality. 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:13.000 But he also did not like the idea of privacy. 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:16.040 He thought that was a bad concept, and of course 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:19.720 this is exemplified in the idea of the panopticon, in 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:24.680 which prisoners have no privacy or and and do not 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:27.960 know if if the gaze of the like the the 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:32.080 lone observation tower if they are looking at them in 0:03:32.120 --> 0:03:35.160 any given moment, you know, right, So he would dig 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:39.320 where we are now in some respects. Oh my god, 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:42.680 Jeremy Bentham. I would love to know Jeremy Bentham's thoughts 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:47.560 on the modern digital landscape. But anyway, that the relevant 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:50.560 part of the Jeremy Bentham story today is that his 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:56.360 head still exists today above ground in a grotesque, incompetently 0:03:56.440 --> 0:04:01.400 mummified form, and and it keeps getting stolen. I was 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:04.320 reading a piece about this that was a transcript of 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:08.720 a CBC radio piece which featured an interview with the 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:12.400 Subadra Dos, who was a curator of collections at University 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:16.520 College London. The interviewer was named Carol Off and this 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:20.880 CBC piece includes some excellent biographical tidbits right at the 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:24.440 top about Bentham's weird and interesting personality apart from his 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:27.039 politics and his public work. For example, it says that 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:31.120 Bentham had a walking stick that he called Dapple, he 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:34.479 had a teapot that he referred to as Dicky, and 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:37.680 he had an elderly cat that was named the Reverend 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:42.159 Sir John Langborne. Oh that's that's I don't know if 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:45.160 that's a good cat name. That's too human. I think 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:47.560 it's funny when a dog has a very human name. 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:49.520 And I haven't made my mind up about cats yet. 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:51.880 I think, I guess I assume that's funny. I find 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:56.279 it cats work best when they have food names, you know, Oh, okay, yeah, 0:04:56.760 --> 0:05:02.080 biscuit or mochi or pound cake or um yeah, really 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:05.200 anything rabby oli. I mean, you can go go crazy 0:05:05.240 --> 0:05:08.480 with it, but generally speaking, yes, something kind of cute 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:10.840 and foods. He works well with cats. I find I'm 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:13.000 glad that we've all learned that one day you plan 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:17.239 to eat a cat. Well, I mean it would really 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:19.840 if that were the case, and it's not, then we 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:22.200 would the feeling would be mutual between me and the cats. 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:24.719 So I think the cat would respect it. Oh yeah, 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:27.960 if we were appreciating game, is that what they say? Yeah, totally, 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:31.000 if we were small enough our cats what heat does? Yeah? Um. 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:32.960 But anyway, I thought that was a pretty good window 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:37.520 into his personality. And uh. And so Bentham apparently had 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:40.839 express wishes for what would be done to his remains 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:43.080 in the event of his death, and they fall along 0:05:43.160 --> 0:05:46.839 some similar lines of sensibility. So Bentham died in eighteen 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:50.280 thirty two, and when that happened, he wanted his dead 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:52.880 body to be preserved in a way that would allow 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:55.800 him to be wheeled out and presented to friends at 0:05:55.839 --> 0:06:00.440 parties in case anybody missed seeing him. Take I want 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:02.680 you to take what I just said and compare that 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:07.240 to the picture of his preserved head above. Well, you know, 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:11.960 it certainly would be a conversation starter or stopper at 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:15.080 any party. Uh. I mean, it's pretty impressive looking. It 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:19.880 is identifiable as a head, even his head. Uh, it 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:23.880 kind of looks it has a very leathery consistency to it. Um. 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:29.280 The skin is kind of darkened and kind of looks 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:34.960 like a slim gem. There's hair on it, which I'm 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:39.480 guessing is perhaps his original hair, real hair. The eyes 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:42.880 clearly are not his original eyes. Appears to be a 0:06:42.880 --> 0:06:45.640 pair of glass eyeballs that have been inserted into it, 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:48.920 which you give it this extra uncanny appearance because it 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:51.240 looks like, you know, the living dead. It looks like 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:54.960 the eyes of a of a litch staring at you. 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:57.960 But the look on his face is also not terrifying. 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:01.239 It's more serene. It looks like he's pay anciently listening 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:03.479 to you while you're sharing a tidnet. Oh, I don't 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:05.520 know how, Serene, And I mean, I guess I kind 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:07.200 of see what you're saying. But he looks to me 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:10.800 very like startled and appalled. He looks like a a 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:14.160 butler who has accidentally opened a door to a room 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:18.080 in which something obscene is taking place. Oh, I get 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:20.920 more of a like he's patiently listening to you while 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:24.200 you tell him something that he personally finds boring by Okay, 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:27.840 he's a good listener, nonetheless, Okay, So what was the 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:29.960 deal with his head? Like? Why is his head off 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:33.240 of his dead body but they're both preserved. Why does 0:07:33.280 --> 0:07:36.440 it look like that? To quote from Doss in this interview, 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:39.520 she says Bentham had made a special request that his 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:42.400 head be preserved in the style of the Maori, the 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:46.800 native New Zealanders, But his friend Dr southwood Smith, who 0:07:46.880 --> 0:07:50.600 was tasked with creating the auto icon, wasn't necessarily as 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:53.080 practiced with that as he probably would have liked to 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:57.480 have been. And Dost goes on, and so the result 0:07:57.560 --> 0:08:01.400 was ahead that southwood Smith said was not suitable for display, 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:04.720 which is why he had a wax model commissioned. That's 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:07.640 the one on display with the auto icon, which is 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:12.200 the skeleton in Bentham Zone clothes. So so, according to Das, 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:15.960 the head was desiccated here with sulfuric acid and sometimes 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:19.520 his hair still falls out. But the situation is that 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:24.640 there are two separate necro icons of this utilitarian philosopher 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:27.160 that are both made out of his real body. There's 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:30.840 his body containing his bones and his clothes, topped with 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:34.199 a fake wax head and that's on display at University 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:36.240 College London, and Rob I've got an image for you 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:39.840 to look at down below here, and then you also 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:43.719 have his severed head poorly preserved that we just described, 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:46.800 sometimes kept separately, sometimes shown at the feet of the 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:49.360 auto icon of the rest of the body because it's 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:54.679 just this disgusting, rotten looking beef jerky head. And then 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:57.040 of course there's the horrible body with a wax head 0:08:57.080 --> 0:08:59.720 that has these gloves on it that look really just 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:03.960 this is awful. Yeah, the picture you shared that shows 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:08.000 the the wax headed figure with an actual skeleton inside 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:10.600 of it, uh seated and then there it at its 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:14.800 feet indeed is the original head and um, yeah, this 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:20.640 looks fairly terrifying but also symbolically potent. Maybe it's just 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:23.840 because of the some of the examples that I was 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:27.160 looking at from say Hindu iconography that we'll get into later. 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:29.120 Like there, I feel like this image is trying to 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:33.960 tell me something about about death. Yeah, it seems almost 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:37.560 in the style of the the cephalophor sat you know, 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:40.640 like the Saints like San Denis in Paris, the Saints 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:42.760 who carry their own heads in their hands because of 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:45.360 the legends where they were decapitated but then just picked 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:48.920 up their heads and walked around, did some miracles or something. Yeah, 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:51.320 except he's like saying, yeah, it's like, look, there's my 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:55.520 head down there. It's rotten, but I'm I'm one. Look 0:09:55.520 --> 0:09:59.440 at this gorgeous wax head. I'm boasting. So the story 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:01.720 gets weird because we got to get to the actual theft. 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:04.920 This was all according to two Bentham's wishes, though the 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:08.360 mummification or preservation of the head got screwed up. Southwood 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:11.000 Smith did not do a good job with that, or 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:13.840 at least not to his own liking, and I don't know, 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:16.920 the results don't look great. But then the theft comes 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:21.200 in because apparently Jeremy Bentham's actual preserved head has been 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:25.480 repeatedly stolen or kidnapped as a result of student pranks 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:29.040 like Doss points out that sometime in the nineteen nineties, 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:33.240 Bentham's head was quote kidnapped by uc l's rival University 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:36.880 King's College in London. So I assume it was stolen 0:10:36.920 --> 0:10:39.960 by some kind of English version of Jim Magilowski from 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:43.920 the Brain, you know, a prank boy. And in fact 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:46.800 it seems the head was stolen multiple times in its history. 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:49.920 I was reading a piece about this from Smith Journal 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:52.880 that says, quote once it was returned upon the making 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:55.880 of a charitable donation. On another occasion it was recovered 0:10:55.920 --> 0:10:59.120 from a luggage locker in Aberdeen. A man as clever 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:01.640 as Bentham should have been able to foresee the inevitable 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:07.160 consequences of spending eternity among students. Now, at some point 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:10.480 the head was recovered from what happened in the nineties 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:13.600 these mischievous students, and it was put back on display 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:16.200 at least at one point for an exhibit called what 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:18.960 does it Mean to be Human? Curating Heads at u 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:22.320 c L. So this is a head that apparently keeps 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:24.760 getting stolen. Don't know if it will ever be stolen again. 0:11:24.800 --> 0:11:27.560 I think they are taking extreme measures to prevent that, 0:11:27.640 --> 0:11:30.000 but who knows what's going to happen. But we should 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:33.320 still say that, at least in Bentham's case, this is 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:39.120 consensual preservation in a museum. Despite a few uh encephaloclepts 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:43.880 over the years, there are also lots of disturbing cases 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:47.720 where someone's head or brain ends up in a museum 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:52.439 against their own wishes, whether it's by the supposed forces 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:55.679 of science and preservation or some other forces that are 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:59.120 doing the stealing. It has happened plenty of times that heads, 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:03.199 skulls and get taken from somebody's body, whether they wanted 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:06.600 that or not, and end up in a museum. And 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:08.480 and this brings me to the next thing I wanted 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:10.479 to talk about, to follow up on some of the 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:14.040 UH some of the phrenology discussion from the last episode, 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:16.719 because I feel like I want to be a bit 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:18.800 self critical here, because I have to note that I 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:23.400 feel a baseline sympathy for the classic Indiana Jones line 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:26.040 about the Cross of Coronado in the Last Crusade when 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:29.120 he says it belongs in a museum. You know, I 0:12:29.120 --> 0:12:32.960 I really enjoy museums, and I am instinctually drawn to 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:36.840 the idea that it's good to have artifacts preserved in 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:40.800 places like museums, places where you know, artifacts from history 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:43.040 should be the you know, the the common heritage of 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:46.080 all humankind to observe and learn from. And so it's 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:47.640 good that you get to go see them in a 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:49.959 museum in a place where they will be preserved as 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:53.240 well as possible across time. And this sounds good, but 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:56.360 of course it can in reality be an extremely fraught 0:12:56.400 --> 0:12:59.880 concept and just one of the million complications. We expl 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:01.880 or some of this in our Invention episode on the 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:05.560 First Museum is the question of physical location. Like, I 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:08.360 think it is actually good that artifacts from ancient history 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:10.920 or even more recent history could in some way be 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:13.679 the common heritage of all humankind to learn from. But 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:15.959 they've got to physically be somewhere, and it turns out 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:19.520 that is often in like wealthy European nations or in 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:23.120 the United States, so like not everybody actually has the 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:26.040 same access to these artifacts. You know, you've got to 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:28.880 physically go to London or to Washington or something to 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:32.320 see them. Yeah, you have this this um, this this 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:37.120 severe imbalance where say school children in the United States 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:40.559 can go to their local museum in a major city 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:44.680 and see artifacts of ancient Egypt. But those same artifacts 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:47.880 are not on display at the local museum for actual 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:50.320 Egyptian children to see if they would have to look 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:53.160 at a reproduction or a picture in a book or 0:13:53.200 --> 0:13:56.800 on the internet. Right. And of course, another big problem 0:13:56.880 --> 0:13:59.000 here is just the question of, like, how do you 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:01.840 source these are the facts when you're you're bringing them 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:04.760 into museum collections, A lot of times it's hard to 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:08.000 make a convincing argument that that what's happening in the 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:10.840 collection of these artifacts is not just stealing, is just 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:14.040 stealing from dead people. And so I think that there 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:16.040 are real dilemmas here. I say this as as a 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:19.200 lover of museums, uh. And of course it's true even 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:21.920 of inanimate artifacts that are produced by people who are 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:25.040 long gone, But it's obviously even more fraught when you're 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:29.120 talking about things like the remains of human beings, especially 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:38.360 human beings who lived relatively recently, thank thank uh. And 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:40.040 so this brings me back to what we were talking 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:42.520 about in the heidn segment of part one. We were 0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:47.280 talking about the development of the pseudoscience of phrenology, which 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:51.840 quick refresher. This was a a now completely debunked pseudoscience 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:54.480 that was popular, especially in like the first half of 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:58.280 the nineteenth century, popular throughout Europe in the United States, 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:01.560 and it was the belief that you could infer mental 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:07.080 characteristics of people by measuring bumps and contours on their skulls. 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:09.320 And this is one of the this was one of 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:12.760 the motivations for the stealing of the of Franz Joseph 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:16.920 Hydn's skull. Now, there are some strains of phrenology that 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:21.680 a person could see as extremely wrong and pseudo scientific, 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:25.400 but not super harmful, or at least not more harmful 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:27.920 than a belief in like palm reading or something. You know, 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:30.600 I'm just feeling around on your head and doing a 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:34.520 doing a little personality test for you. Right, It's not accurate, 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:40.280 there's no science to it, but it's it's ultimately, I guess, harmless, right, right, 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:42.560 I mean, I mean, I guess all pseudoscience in a 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:45.720 way is potentially harmful, but it's not It's not as 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:47.640 harmful as the other stuff we're about to talk to. 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:51.840 Because there are these other strains and incarnations of phrenology 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:55.840 and other types of pseudoscience that are that are just 0:15:55.920 --> 0:16:00.280 a straight up nightmare. Sometimes forms of racist pseudoscience aimed 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:04.560 at like proving that people with different skin colors were 0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:07.560 a result of separate acts of divine creation, so they're 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:10.880 not even really all the same kind of human. Also 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:15.440 weird ideas of crackpot cranial criminology. Um that didn't mean 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:19.040 to be so illiterated there, but in the nineteenth century especially, 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:22.160 it was very common for proponents of phrenology and other 0:16:22.240 --> 0:16:26.480 types of craniometry. So craniometry would be a any kind 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:29.240 of a belief system based on the measurements of the skull, 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:33.480 not necessarily like bumps like phrenology. But there were other 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:35.680 people who just tried to collect a bunch of skulls 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:38.960 and measure them and draw inferences. Uh So, so there 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:41.200 were these things going on, and they would cause people 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:45.720 to gather these huge collections of human skulls, supposedly to 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:49.040 form the raw materials for their research. But I was 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:51.080 reading about this in that same book I mentioned in 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:54.040 the previous episode, the one by Francis Larson called Severed, 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:58.200 which this whole chapter is really, uh really horrifying and 0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:01.560 fascinating uh, it would lead these people to gather these 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:04.480 big collections of skulls that in practice, it seems to 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:07.760 me these collections were often just as much as sort 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:11.879 of personal museum exhibit or a morbid curio collection to 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:16.119 impress guests and wealthy benefactors as they were even a 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:20.320 failed attempt to actually gather data. And unfortunately, it seems 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:24.560 like most of these skulls collected for supposed craniometric research 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:28.840 in the eighteen hundreds were not donated consensually. You can 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:31.040 probably imagine where a lot of them came from. A 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:34.439 lot of them were stolen from graveyards and battlefields. Some 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:40.600 came from prisons and morgues, hospitals, workhouses, burial grounds, without 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:44.159 the consultation of the owner or their family, and often 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:47.679 without even knowing who the person had actually been. And 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:50.399 as you might guess, the less wealth and power the 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:53.119 person had, the more likely that their skull might be 0:17:53.200 --> 0:17:57.200 stolen after their death. Many came from cemeteries of enslaved 0:17:57.200 --> 0:18:00.680 people in America. There are horrific details of the harvesting 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:03.639 of skulls from Native American people's during the wars of 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:06.919 expansion of the U. S Frontier into tribal lands, and 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:10.639 many came from just from poor people, from workhouses and 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:14.280 potter's fields. Larson as a whole chapter about this horrible 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:18.159 episode in history and her book severed Um. But a 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:22.000 couple of these notorious skull collectors she mentions are the 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:27.080 English doctor Joseph Barnard Davis and the American physician Samuel 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:30.359 George Morton. Both were mainly working in the early to 0:18:30.400 --> 0:18:34.680 mid nineteenth century, and she tells one anecdote about Barnard 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:37.400 Davis that I wanted to read here, so she says 0:18:37.480 --> 0:18:41.200 quote as a physician, Barnard Davis showed few qualms when 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:44.639 it came to head collecting. John Betto, a fellow doctor, 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:49.320 remembered that he looked on heads simply as potential skulls. 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:53.240 Beddo recounted introducing Barnard Davis during his rounds at the 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:56.800 hospital to one of his patients, a sailor from Dubrovnik 0:18:57.000 --> 0:18:59.520 who had nearly drowned. It was being cared for at 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:02.680 the brisk A Royal Infirmary. Betto was treating the man 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:06.280 for gang green on the lung. Barnard Davis's curiosity was 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:09.840 immediately piqued. Now, he said to Betto, you know that 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:12.680 man can't recover, do take care to secure his head 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:14.919 for me when he dies? For I have no cranium 0:19:14.960 --> 0:19:17.840 from that neighborhood. I guess he was talking about the 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:22.880 neighborhood of Dubrovnik. And Uh. Then Larsen goes on. Luckily 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:25.840 for the sailor Bernard Davis had been too enthusiastic in 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:29.720 his diagnosis. The patient made a full recovery, and Tibetto's 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:33.200 amused relief he carried his head on his own shoulders 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:36.600 back to Herzegovina. Uh. And so she says, like, this 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:38.959 is this is the reality of what's often going on 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:44.080 in skull collecting. It's like basically totally ignoring the humanity 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:46.000 of human beings and just being like, how am I 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:48.239 going to get that skull? It's like a like a 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:51.520 cartoon where one cartoon character looks at the other and 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:55.320 just sees like food as a cannibalistic frenzy takes every 0:19:55.320 --> 0:19:58.679 except yeah, the Loony Tunes where like they're in the 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:01.439 lifeboat and like Donald Doc looks at somebody and just 0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:05.000 imagines their body is like a like a drumstick or something. Yeah. 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:07.359 It also reminds me of that line and T. S. 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:11.640 Eliot's Whispers of Immortality. Webster was much possessed by death 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:15.080 and saw the skull and eat the skin. Now, it's 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:17.399 also worth pointing out that the findings of these early 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:21.679 craniometrists have not really held up to scientific scrutiny. Larson 0:20:21.760 --> 0:20:23.840 talks about this as well, all of the problems with 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:26.960 their supposed research. Uh, they a lot of them were 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:30.600 trying to make generalizations about the mental qualities of large 0:20:30.600 --> 0:20:32.840 groups of people. Oh, you know, you can see because 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:36.200 of this trend in the skulls of people from this 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:39.400 part of the world that they have these mental characteristics. 0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:42.800 And this was all based on the skull measurements. But 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:48.159 their research was plagued by poor methodology, inconsistency and samples 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:52.480 inconsistency and measurements, fudging the data when it didn't fit, etcetera. 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:54.879 Larson as a whole discussion on this, it seems like 0:20:54.960 --> 0:20:57.920 once again we're dealing with something that ultimately just amounted 0:20:57.960 --> 0:21:01.480 to bunk. Though I it also to discuss a couple 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:03.639 of points that she makes, which I thought were very 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:07.800 useful and interpreting what was going on here. Historically. One 0:21:07.840 --> 0:21:11.280 interesting issue was if people are looking into, you know, 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:15.720 these various questions, trying to understand the human mind, trying 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:20.639 to understand culture, trying to understand mental processes. Why the 0:21:20.960 --> 0:21:25.720 particular emphasis on skulls, like why the phrenology and craniometry 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:30.000 craze as a very bone focused thing to begin with. Well, 0:21:30.040 --> 0:21:33.239 she talks about how the physical characteristics of skulls just 0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:37.960 happened to lend themselves quite well to the practical applications 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:40.760 and interests of the people who were in these fields. 0:21:41.400 --> 0:21:45.880 So she writes quote one Victorian physician, James Aitken MiGs 0:21:46.359 --> 0:21:50.640 noted that skulls are easily prepared and preserved, maybe conveniently 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:54.560 handled and surveyed, Considered in various points of view, and 0:21:54.640 --> 0:21:59.000 compared to each other. Skulls are favorable specimens because they're small, 0:21:59.200 --> 0:22:02.840 hard and robut dust. They're more compact than whole skeletons, 0:22:02.880 --> 0:22:06.119 which means that they can be relatively easily transported, and 0:22:06.160 --> 0:22:09.960 they're more durable than the messy tissues they contain, surviving 0:22:10.000 --> 0:22:14.400 for centuries on a museum shelf. They're surprisingly resistant to pressure, 0:22:14.600 --> 0:22:17.240 partly because of their shape, but also because the skull, 0:22:17.440 --> 0:22:21.359 unlike longbones, has no marrow and skulls were thought to 0:22:21.400 --> 0:22:25.040 be the most characteristic part of the human body because 0:22:25.040 --> 0:22:26.760 there were so many ways in which one could be 0:22:26.760 --> 0:22:29.880 different from another, full of nooks and crannies and holes 0:22:29.880 --> 0:22:33.919 and lumps. They were a statistician's dream. So this seems 0:22:33.920 --> 0:22:36.359 like one of those cases of people who thought they 0:22:36.359 --> 0:22:39.439 were doing scientific research but may well have been letting 0:22:39.480 --> 0:22:44.919 their theories be overdetermined by attraction to the specific practical 0:22:45.240 --> 0:22:49.520 and esthetic aspects of objects that they just wanted to study. 0:22:49.880 --> 0:22:52.119 Maybe because it was kind of attractive to have a 0:22:52.119 --> 0:22:54.280 collection of these in your house that you could show 0:22:54.280 --> 0:22:56.840 off to people. Maybe because they were easy to move 0:22:56.880 --> 0:23:00.400 around from place to place and store, and much more so, 0:23:00.480 --> 0:23:03.600 of course than actual brains themselves, which would quickly wrought 0:23:03.640 --> 0:23:06.760 and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, I mean, skulls 0:23:06.800 --> 0:23:09.560 are really cool. I mean there's no denying it, um 0:23:09.840 --> 0:23:13.840 that their neat. Uh. You know, it's fun to draw skulls, 0:23:13.880 --> 0:23:17.480 it's fun to look at pictures and photos and illustrations 0:23:17.480 --> 0:23:21.320 of skulls, skull iconography, and just pretty much every culture 0:23:21.320 --> 0:23:25.800 on earth is instantly captivating. Uh. And then yeah, you 0:23:25.840 --> 0:23:27.760 can see where someone might be like, all right, let's 0:23:27.840 --> 0:23:30.240 I'm gonna lean into this. Skulls are my thing. I 0:23:30.280 --> 0:23:32.720 want to study the skull. What what kind of information 0:23:32.760 --> 0:23:35.160 can I glean from the skull? Yeah, you almost get 0:23:35.160 --> 0:23:37.639 the sense that this was, um, it was a very 0:23:37.720 --> 0:23:40.440 cart before the horse. It was kind of like, uh, 0:23:40.640 --> 0:23:44.280 skull collecting first science second, and it turned out that 0:23:44.320 --> 0:23:47.640 the science was not even good science. Yeah, I mean 0:23:47.680 --> 0:23:51.320 it just inevitably it brings us back to the you know, 0:23:51.640 --> 0:23:53.600 the end of the scene from Hamlet where he's holding 0:23:53.640 --> 0:23:58.280 the skull and contemplating mortality and impermanence and so forth. 0:23:58.359 --> 0:23:59.720 You know, I mean, it's just that that's what the 0:23:59.760 --> 0:24:03.560 skull is. It is such a a potent symbol of 0:24:03.600 --> 0:24:07.920 these just all these different ideas and concerns and anxieties 0:24:07.960 --> 0:24:12.520 we have about impermanence. Yeah. Now, when it comes to 0:24:12.720 --> 0:24:16.400 brains specifically, I also want to talk about one tragic 0:24:16.440 --> 0:24:20.159 case in history of of brains being preserved for supposed 0:24:20.200 --> 0:24:24.240 scientific uses or by museums without the consent of the 0:24:24.280 --> 0:24:27.119 person and so. And of course this is something to 0:24:27.200 --> 0:24:30.359 consider in contrast to something like Bentham or like you know, 0:24:30.560 --> 0:24:35.000 where somebody intentionally grants their head to a museum or something. Uh, 0:24:35.040 --> 0:24:37.400 this is the story of a man known to history 0:24:37.520 --> 0:24:41.639 as is She now, as told by Larson is She 0:24:42.040 --> 0:24:46.720 was a Native American man who was captured while foraging 0:24:46.800 --> 0:24:49.520 near a slaughter house in northern California in the year 0:24:49.600 --> 0:24:54.040 nineteen eleven. He was about fifty years old. He did 0:24:54.040 --> 0:24:56.960 not speak English, and he apparently at least had no 0:24:57.160 --> 0:25:00.439 living friends or relatives, and so he was say into 0:25:00.480 --> 0:25:05.240 anthropologists at the University of California, Berkeley, who identified him 0:25:05.280 --> 0:25:08.360 as a member of the Yahi people, many of whom 0:25:08.440 --> 0:25:11.040 had been victims of genocide by the white settlers in 0:25:11.080 --> 0:25:15.600 northern California. And Uhhi was not even really the man's name. 0:25:15.720 --> 0:25:19.080 Is She was an identifier given to him by the anthropologist, 0:25:19.160 --> 0:25:22.920 which apparently meant man in the Yana language, that's the 0:25:23.000 --> 0:25:28.119 overarching language to which the Yahi people belonged. But the 0:25:28.119 --> 0:25:30.840 man known as She never revealed his real name, do 0:25:31.000 --> 0:25:34.640 apparently to to accustom within his culture of not revealing 0:25:34.680 --> 0:25:37.359 your name to someone unless you are introduced by a 0:25:37.400 --> 0:25:40.399 member of your own people. So after he after he 0:25:40.480 --> 0:25:43.639 was captured, he was taken to the University of California 0:25:43.760 --> 0:25:46.879 Museum of Anthropology, where he lived for some time. He 0:25:46.960 --> 0:25:51.400 worked as a janitor, and anthropologists did some research with him. 0:25:51.440 --> 0:25:55.199 They made recordings of him speaking and singing in his language. Uh. 0:25:55.400 --> 0:25:58.159 They they studied his language, studied him in other ways, 0:25:58.640 --> 0:26:02.040 and he passed away nineteen sixteen. And then when I 0:26:02.080 --> 0:26:05.040 want to pick up, quoting from Larsen here quote is 0:26:05.119 --> 0:26:08.800 She had expressly asked that his body not be subject 0:26:08.840 --> 0:26:12.000 to a post mortem. One curator wrote in the days 0:26:12.040 --> 0:26:15.120 before is She's death, quote science can go to hell. 0:26:15.520 --> 0:26:19.440 We propose to stand by our friends. He added, Besides, 0:26:19.520 --> 0:26:23.160 I cannot believe that any scientific value is materially involved. 0:26:23.359 --> 0:26:25.639 The prime interest in his case would be of a 0:26:25.760 --> 0:26:31.040 morbid romantic nature. But his letter arrived too late. Staff 0:26:31.080 --> 0:26:34.760 at the museum, who declared themselves is She's friends made 0:26:34.880 --> 0:26:39.040 quote a compromise between science and sentiment, and performed an 0:26:39.040 --> 0:26:42.600 autopsy against his wishes. They removed his brain and sent 0:26:42.680 --> 0:26:46.480 it to the Smithsonian. Those who undertook the autopsy comforted 0:26:46.520 --> 0:26:49.840 themselves that it had been minimally invasive and certainly not 0:26:49.960 --> 0:26:53.480 as disrespectful as a dissection. His brain, after all, was 0:26:53.560 --> 0:26:57.280 preserved rather than destroyed. The rest of Ishi's body, which 0:26:57.320 --> 0:27:00.840 was kept whole, was cremated in a California, sim Terry. 0:27:00.880 --> 0:27:03.639 Thus the autopsy was seen as a compromise, despite the 0:27:03.680 --> 0:27:07.399 fact that it went against the dead man's wishes, and 0:27:07.680 --> 0:27:10.520 Larson goes on to say that she's body was divided 0:27:10.560 --> 0:27:13.240 after death, just as his identity had been in life. 0:27:13.240 --> 0:27:16.560 He was both a man and a scientific specimen. Like 0:27:16.640 --> 0:27:19.600 so many others. He had supposedly been quote the last 0:27:19.640 --> 0:27:23.000 of his tribe, and was apparently without living relatives, and 0:27:23.119 --> 0:27:27.320 was considered to quote valuable to lose in death. And 0:27:27.359 --> 0:27:29.879 I feel like this story is such an important reminder 0:27:30.000 --> 0:27:32.679 that even if what you're doing is real science and 0:27:32.720 --> 0:27:36.560 not for anology or something, you can't ever let yourself 0:27:36.640 --> 0:27:40.120 start thinking about human beings as information first. I mean, 0:27:40.600 --> 0:27:43.480 the situation she's describing here is that there were scientists 0:27:43.520 --> 0:27:45.800 who were saying, like, oh, but it's just it would 0:27:45.800 --> 0:27:49.440 just be too valuable, uh, to to study his brain. 0:27:49.480 --> 0:27:52.760 There's too much we can learn from it. But I mean, 0:27:52.840 --> 0:27:55.480 he didn't want this to happen. And so you've got 0:27:55.480 --> 0:27:57.959 to remember to think of people as people first, and 0:27:58.080 --> 0:28:00.520 only once they say Okay, I am willing to have 0:28:00.800 --> 0:28:04.960 my my body somehow translated into information for science, that 0:28:05.040 --> 0:28:07.680 you can proceed down that road. It's the basis of 0:28:07.720 --> 0:28:10.280 the concept of informed consent, which is so important and 0:28:10.320 --> 0:28:14.200 scientific research today. Plus, I feel like, you know, certainly 0:28:14.480 --> 0:28:19.159 from our perspective, the case was not very strong, for 0:28:19.720 --> 0:28:22.720 we must preserve this brain, we must study this brain. 0:28:22.760 --> 0:28:25.480 I know, as as one of the people who worked 0:28:25.480 --> 0:28:28.400 with you. She said, you know that it's probably more 0:28:28.440 --> 0:28:32.359 a case of motivation by mere morbid curiosity, with also 0:28:32.359 --> 0:28:35.480 I'm sure quite racist undertones. Yeah, yeah, it's not. It's 0:28:35.480 --> 0:28:37.080 not like they were trying to solve a crime. It's 0:28:37.119 --> 0:28:39.480 not like they were trying to understand the ravages of 0:28:39.480 --> 0:28:44.680 a particular disease, etcetera. Yeah, it seemed based almost entirely 0:28:44.680 --> 0:28:48.960 in just morbid interest. Fortunately, there is a better conclusion 0:28:48.960 --> 0:28:51.520 to this story. So I was reading a San Francisco 0:28:51.600 --> 0:28:55.120 Chronicle article by Kevin Fagan from the year two thousand 0:28:55.680 --> 0:29:01.080 that was about the reunification of of She's remains. So 0:29:01.160 --> 0:29:04.480 Fagin here writes quote, sometime today, a jet is scheduled 0:29:04.480 --> 0:29:08.080 to land in California carrying a band of Ish's descendants, 0:29:08.120 --> 0:29:10.640 and with them will be the long lost final piece 0:29:10.680 --> 0:29:15.240 of their ancestor, Ish's brain. Leaders of the reading Rancheria 0:29:15.400 --> 0:29:18.160 and Pitt River tribes, which trace their bloodlines to is 0:29:18.280 --> 0:29:21.720 She's extinct Yahe nation through the Yana tribe promised to 0:29:21.760 --> 0:29:24.800 never reveal where they buried him. They're not saying when 0:29:24.840 --> 0:29:26.920 they will do it either, just that they're landing in 0:29:26.960 --> 0:29:29.440 California today and that they want to be left alone 0:29:29.440 --> 0:29:32.960 to shepherd their departed elder spirit away in peace. So 0:29:33.040 --> 0:29:35.040 obviously it's good to hear that that happened, but it 0:29:35.080 --> 0:29:37.560 only follows, you know, what had already happened and could 0:29:37.560 --> 0:29:40.800 not be undone, and it makes you, I mean again, 0:29:40.840 --> 0:29:43.440 it brings me back to this question about like, um, 0:29:43.480 --> 0:29:45.440 how do you how do you manage the sort of 0:29:45.480 --> 0:29:49.800 scientific and preservation impulse that belongs in a museum impulse 0:29:50.240 --> 0:29:53.280 against questions where maybe it's not as clear, like it's 0:29:53.360 --> 0:29:56.480 clear that this should not that that's brain should not 0:29:56.520 --> 0:29:58.480 have been removed because he was alive. You got to 0:29:58.520 --> 0:30:01.680 hear him say no, I don't want this. Um. I 0:30:01.680 --> 0:30:05.240 guess the tougher question is in cases of like what 0:30:05.240 --> 0:30:07.680 what about the remains of people who have been dead 0:30:07.760 --> 0:30:09.920 for a longer time and you know, could not be 0:30:10.040 --> 0:30:12.800 consulted on the question of whether they would be interested 0:30:12.840 --> 0:30:15.960 in being the subject of scientific research or not. And 0:30:16.040 --> 0:30:19.080 I genuinely don't know the answer there. Yeah, I do 0:30:19.280 --> 0:30:23.160 like how the story ended with the brain being returned 0:30:23.240 --> 0:30:26.800 into tribal privacy, you know, like and I feel like 0:30:26.840 --> 0:30:29.880 that detail you know of itself, that that lines up 0:30:29.920 --> 0:30:32.480 with a lot of different you know, things for seeing 0:30:32.480 --> 0:30:37.320 regarding not only like actual artifacts, but also just like 0:30:37.400 --> 0:30:42.800 traditions and information. Um. I did a I did an 0:30:42.920 --> 0:30:46.520 article last year for House to Works about the skin Walker. 0:30:46.560 --> 0:30:49.480 They wanted an article about the Navajo tradition of the 0:30:49.520 --> 0:30:51.720 skin walker, and like that was one of the things 0:30:51.760 --> 0:30:55.000 I really was driven home from me in researching that 0:30:55.160 --> 0:30:59.000 is like that there there are certain you know, aspects 0:30:59.040 --> 0:31:04.840 of of living tradition that you know, it's it's it's 0:31:04.880 --> 0:31:07.960 disrespectful to to to you know, to act on this 0:31:08.040 --> 0:31:11.040 desire to collect it all and to and to keep 0:31:11.080 --> 0:31:12.920 it all and to codify it and to put it 0:31:12.960 --> 0:31:16.240 on a shelf. That some things you know, still belong 0:31:16.360 --> 0:31:20.000 to the people who created them, and you know they 0:31:20.040 --> 0:31:23.560 can share them if they want to, you know. Uh So, Yeah, 0:31:23.560 --> 0:31:25.680 I can't help but be reminded of that with this 0:31:25.960 --> 0:31:29.440 the story of of this this piece of this individual 0:31:29.760 --> 0:31:34.040 finally being returned to his people, and in doing so 0:31:34.120 --> 0:31:37.640 it kind of passes out of of the broader like 0:31:37.840 --> 0:31:40.040 media view, right that you're not going to be like 0:31:40.080 --> 0:31:43.520 taking TV cameras to his grave site or yeah, that 0:31:43.600 --> 0:31:45.800 kind of thing, because that would just be a continuation 0:31:45.920 --> 0:31:48.840 of the same sort of energy that he seemed very 0:31:48.840 --> 0:31:58.120 outspoken against. Well, now that we've talked a good bit 0:31:58.120 --> 0:32:01.840 about the foibles and horrors of relatively recent skull head 0:32:01.880 --> 0:32:04.360 and brain theft, uh, what do you say we go 0:32:04.440 --> 0:32:09.120 back into some some more deeper history and mythology. Yeah, yeah, 0:32:09.120 --> 0:32:12.520 because again, you know, the skull, the head, Uh, you know, 0:32:12.560 --> 0:32:17.600 these are certainly long standing icons. So they've been focal 0:32:17.640 --> 0:32:21.959 points for myth making and dreaming and anxiety, you know, 0:32:22.000 --> 0:32:25.280 throughout all the human existence. And it's it's it's only 0:32:25.280 --> 0:32:27.480 relatively recently we've been able to focus more on the 0:32:27.560 --> 0:32:30.840 brain as an icon. You know. Um, you know, like 0:32:30.880 --> 0:32:34.720 if you ever encounter a ghost movie that has like 0:32:34.760 --> 0:32:37.520 a brain based ghost, it's a little off off putting, 0:32:37.600 --> 0:32:39.640 right because it doesn't seem like the ghost should be 0:32:39.680 --> 0:32:42.440 associated with the brain. The brain seems more of a 0:32:42.440 --> 0:32:45.000 science fiction quality as opposed to something that is more 0:32:45.040 --> 0:32:49.120 supernatural in nature. So yeah, I guess to begin with, 0:32:49.160 --> 0:32:51.080 we should point out that folks have been taken heads 0:32:51.120 --> 0:32:53.480 for longer than they have had any any certainly any 0:32:53.520 --> 0:32:56.960 understanding of the brains rattling around inside them. Uh. And 0:32:57.000 --> 0:32:58.959 we don't even have to get into all the gory details, 0:32:59.000 --> 0:33:00.760 because you know the sort of things we're talking about, 0:33:00.760 --> 0:33:03.200 you know, heads hewn off in battles, heads mounted on 0:33:03.280 --> 0:33:06.560 poles and pikes, lobbed with a catapult, skulls lined up 0:33:06.560 --> 0:33:10.120 on the on shelves in catacombs, that sort of thing. 0:33:10.520 --> 0:33:13.800 And we're also never in some cases we're not sure, 0:33:14.160 --> 0:33:16.400 you know, when we're dealing with something where it's okay, 0:33:16.440 --> 0:33:18.120 is this head a trophy? Is this some sort or 0:33:18.120 --> 0:33:20.800 of this some some sort of like sacred funerary tradition 0:33:21.200 --> 0:33:22.840 or something in between a lot of times we have 0:33:22.840 --> 0:33:26.080 to sort of piece together what it actually meant. So 0:33:26.360 --> 0:33:28.920 one example, I was looking at from the ancient world, 0:33:28.920 --> 0:33:31.120 and this is this is not so much myth here, 0:33:31.160 --> 0:33:35.600 this is actual, like you know, actual um archaeological evidence. Uh. 0:33:35.640 --> 0:33:40.200 I was reading ritual use of trophy heads in Ancient 0:33:40.960 --> 0:33:45.040 Nascar society and this was by Donald A. Prue, published 0:33:45.080 --> 0:33:48.320 in Ritual Sacrifice in ancient Peru in two thousand and one. 0:33:48.880 --> 0:33:51.720 So the taking of heads for ritual use has a 0:33:51.840 --> 0:33:56.480 long history in the Central Andes, from the pre Ceramic 0:33:56.560 --> 0:34:00.280 period prior to about eighteen hundred BC and continuing through 0:34:00.320 --> 0:34:04.560 Inca times and with the Nasca, the craftspeople Uh you know, 0:34:04.600 --> 0:34:07.640 responsible for the Nasca lines. These were created between five 0:34:08.000 --> 0:34:11.880 BC and five With the Nasca Uh they also engaged 0:34:11.920 --> 0:34:14.560 in the taking of heads, and we see it represented 0:34:14.600 --> 0:34:19.200 in their rich textile art, depicting warriors, shamans, mythical beings 0:34:19.239 --> 0:34:22.960 in some cases with human heads, often on their cloaks 0:34:23.400 --> 0:34:26.879 or in their hands, and according to Prue, over one 0:34:26.960 --> 0:34:30.239 hundred examples remain of the Nasca mummified heads which were 0:34:30.239 --> 0:34:32.480 the which were first removed from the body, apparently with 0:34:32.520 --> 0:34:35.279 an obsidian knife, and then a hole would have been 0:34:35.320 --> 0:34:38.400 punched through the base of the skull using a club 0:34:38.520 --> 0:34:41.120 or some sort of a tool, and then the brain 0:34:41.239 --> 0:34:45.239 and the eyes were removed through that opening. But then 0:34:45.239 --> 0:34:49.400 another hole, smaller hole was punched or drilled through the forehead, 0:34:49.719 --> 0:34:53.400 and this was apparently in order to allow a carrying 0:34:53.520 --> 0:34:57.239 rope to be secured. The lips were pinned with thorns 0:34:57.239 --> 0:34:59.880 and cloth was stuffed into the skull, and so you 0:35:00.000 --> 0:35:02.160 have a preserved skull at this point. So you said 0:35:02.160 --> 0:35:05.040 that these were believed to be for ritual use. Was 0:35:05.120 --> 0:35:07.680 the thought that they would be like displayed somewhere, or 0:35:07.719 --> 0:35:11.000 that they would be like carried in a ceremony. This 0:35:11.040 --> 0:35:13.440 is where it all gets really interesting, And this is 0:35:13.440 --> 0:35:16.279 where that where a lot of authors of and a 0:35:16.280 --> 0:35:19.400 lot of scientists have have really chimed in with different views. 0:35:19.400 --> 0:35:22.319 But it looks it's easy to look at something like 0:35:22.360 --> 0:35:24.719 this and think of it just as trophy taking, right 0:35:24.960 --> 0:35:27.680 like the just the trophy taking of a war like people, 0:35:27.680 --> 0:35:29.920 and indeed war was an important part of their culture. 0:35:30.360 --> 0:35:34.520 But the reality seems to have been ultimately far more complicated. 0:35:34.920 --> 0:35:38.360 Substitute head jars where sometimes we're found to be buried 0:35:38.480 --> 0:35:41.920 with the bodies and the actual heads were not merely 0:35:42.080 --> 0:35:45.880 symbols of victory, but they were used in shamatic rituals, 0:35:46.000 --> 0:35:50.040 perhaps entailing hallucinogenics as a means of communing with the 0:35:50.120 --> 0:35:55.120 spirit realm and according to pro quote, propagating and controlling 0:35:55.160 --> 0:35:58.960 the forces of nature, especially so far as natural resources 0:35:58.960 --> 0:36:02.400 are concerned. Now, apparently some have argued that these were 0:36:02.480 --> 0:36:05.000 not trophy heads, but the heads of honored ancestors. But 0:36:05.040 --> 0:36:08.440 pro dis disputes this. He he defines them instead as quote, 0:36:08.560 --> 0:36:12.759 trophies of warfare collected for ritual purposes. So that that's 0:36:12.800 --> 0:36:15.520 that's interesting because it seems to I think to a 0:36:15.520 --> 0:36:18.440 lot of modern minds, it seems to be it seems 0:36:18.440 --> 0:36:21.160 sounds like a mashup of two twoferent ideas, like you're 0:36:21.200 --> 0:36:23.879 taking the head of your your enemy off of their 0:36:23.880 --> 0:36:26.400 dead body, but isn't. But you're probably doing that as 0:36:26.440 --> 0:36:28.640 like a trophy or a sign of disrespect. You know, 0:36:28.719 --> 0:36:32.040 we often think of that. Um, I think of the 0:36:32.120 --> 0:36:37.000 key and peel skit where one like Barbarian the heads 0:36:37.000 --> 0:36:40.080 another and then goes through all these various sort of 0:36:40.080 --> 0:36:42.400 comedic acts with the head to see what how the 0:36:42.440 --> 0:36:45.160 rest of the tribe responds. I know that what does 0:36:45.200 --> 0:36:48.399 he do? He? Uh, he like puts little shoes under 0:36:48.440 --> 0:36:50.839 it and makes it walk, Yeah, and like that's that's 0:36:50.960 --> 0:36:53.680 a big hit. But he also like does things like 0:36:53.719 --> 0:36:55.640 pretend to give birth to the head, and like that 0:36:55.800 --> 0:37:02.040 just doesn't they don't like it. That's funny, Yeah, But 0:37:02.080 --> 0:37:03.640 it's the kind of thing where like when we think 0:37:03.680 --> 0:37:05.880 about head taking, we think of stuff like that. We 0:37:05.920 --> 0:37:10.120 think of like something barbaric and trophy oriented. But in 0:37:10.120 --> 0:37:13.120 this case it seems like it wasn't bad or it 0:37:13.160 --> 0:37:15.560 wasn't purely that it was. It was also this idea 0:37:15.600 --> 0:37:19.160 of what you need this head. This head is necessary 0:37:19.280 --> 0:37:24.120 for various religious purposes, a way of a means of 0:37:24.160 --> 0:37:27.760 communing with the spirit realm um. Now, as for the brain, 0:37:27.840 --> 0:37:30.040 it seems like the brain was was discarded. That would 0:37:30.040 --> 0:37:31.680 have been again, that would have been part of like 0:37:31.719 --> 0:37:34.160 that first act of of punching through the back of 0:37:34.160 --> 0:37:36.840 the skull to remove the eyes and the brain. Uh. 0:37:36.960 --> 0:37:39.000 Probably going back to the reality we talked about before 0:37:39.040 --> 0:37:42.879 where the brain uh rots rather rather quickly, and that's 0:37:42.880 --> 0:37:44.319 going to be one of the first things you're gonna 0:37:44.360 --> 0:37:47.440 want to remove. Now. This also reminds me of the 0:37:47.520 --> 0:37:51.480 mummified heads of the Kocoum dynasty of the Maya, which 0:37:51.520 --> 0:37:53.960 were kept and preserved because they were said to contain 0:37:54.040 --> 0:37:58.120 the voices of their ancestors, again a means of communicating 0:37:58.160 --> 0:38:01.400 with spirits and or the dead. This is interesting to 0:38:01.480 --> 0:38:04.359 compare to remember what we talked about in the first 0:38:04.400 --> 0:38:09.640 episode about the plastered heads of Chattelhyuk in in southern Turkey, 0:38:09.760 --> 0:38:12.640 which you know from this Stone Age settlement, there were 0:38:12.640 --> 0:38:16.239 often heads of ancestors that were kept in some kind 0:38:16.239 --> 0:38:20.320 of preserved form, apparently within the home. Yeah, and during 0:38:20.360 --> 0:38:23.200 the mid first millennium BC, there were there were various 0:38:23.200 --> 0:38:25.920 accounts of the use of human heads in acts of 0:38:25.920 --> 0:38:31.680 of of communion, necromancy, divination across the Mediterranean. We see 0:38:31.719 --> 0:38:35.719 it mentioned in the accounts of rodotas in Aristotle, um 0:38:35.920 --> 0:38:38.520 uh Cleo Manis of the first of Sparta is said 0:38:38.560 --> 0:38:41.200 to have consulted with the head of his friend our 0:38:41.280 --> 0:38:45.120 quantities on all major decisions ahead, which he kept preserved 0:38:45.200 --> 0:38:49.759 in honey, whoa in honey, Yeah, that's good. And so 0:38:50.120 --> 0:38:52.279 you know, of course, when we deal with accounts like this, 0:38:52.360 --> 0:38:55.959 we're we're beginning to at least beginning to transfer into 0:38:55.960 --> 0:39:00.800 the realm of myth and lore and legend, where we 0:39:00.800 --> 0:39:03.359 we become less sure about what is actually going on, 0:39:04.280 --> 0:39:07.839 because then there is this broader realm of just stories 0:39:08.239 --> 0:39:12.680 about disembodied heads that still have life in them, that 0:39:12.760 --> 0:39:16.839 can speak, that can fly, that can terrorize, that can 0:39:16.880 --> 0:39:21.400 give you know, important advice to the living, etcetera. I 0:39:21.400 --> 0:39:24.239 think one of the coolest of these that uh, that 0:39:24.280 --> 0:39:27.440 folks may have heard of is is the myth of 0:39:27.440 --> 0:39:32.680 of Memir uh in Norse mythology. Uh So this Memir 0:39:32.800 --> 0:39:35.239 was one of the Jiltons in Norse mythology, one of 0:39:35.280 --> 0:39:37.680 the frost giants, and he was the guardian of the 0:39:37.719 --> 0:39:41.600 well of inspiration and wisdom at the roots of the 0:39:41.640 --> 0:39:44.879 world tree. And Odin would come to to drink from 0:39:44.880 --> 0:39:47.200 the well and Memory would make him leave an eye 0:39:47.239 --> 0:39:51.080 and payment. And then member was held hostage in in 0:39:51.160 --> 0:39:54.560 battle by the Vanier during the the Aser Vanier War, 0:39:54.880 --> 0:39:58.279 and they beheaded him, but Odin, since he liked the guy, 0:39:58.360 --> 0:40:00.920 you know, retrieved his head and kept alive with magic 0:40:00.960 --> 0:40:03.960 herbs so that the head could continue to give counsel 0:40:04.080 --> 0:40:07.880 to the King of the gods. And so you'll see uh, 0:40:08.000 --> 0:40:11.360 some wonderful illustrations of this, both old and then recent, 0:40:11.760 --> 0:40:14.279 where there's like this some of some cases is like 0:40:14.320 --> 0:40:18.400 a zombie head that Odin is is holding that he is, 0:40:18.520 --> 0:40:22.439 uh that that is his advisor. Yeah, you've attached one 0:40:22.480 --> 0:40:25.759 here where Odin is is leaning his head over on 0:40:25.840 --> 0:40:28.640 the severed head like he's almost kind of snuggling with it. 0:40:28.960 --> 0:40:32.360 Of course, Odin is missing one eye as usual, and uh, 0:40:32.440 --> 0:40:34.680 and there's just fire coming out of the thing's mouth 0:40:34.760 --> 0:40:36.000 or I don't know, it looks like he's got like 0:40:36.040 --> 0:40:40.560 a star inside the back of his throat. Yes. Um. 0:40:40.760 --> 0:40:44.040 In terms of heads that give advice like this, there's 0:40:44.080 --> 0:40:48.439 also an Arabian Nights story of of King Yu Nan 0:40:48.760 --> 0:40:51.440 and the Duban and Duban the sage and the stage 0:40:51.440 --> 0:40:53.760 in question. At least in some variations of this tale, 0:40:53.880 --> 0:40:56.800 continues to speak after it has been removed from its body. 0:40:57.239 --> 0:41:00.680 Now I'm gonna get into some other examples. Uh here, 0:41:01.239 --> 0:41:06.360 Uh you know of of disembodied heads of decapitation in 0:41:06.560 --> 0:41:09.680 mythology that are that are pretty interesting. One that I 0:41:09.760 --> 0:41:15.040 found really fascinating is the self decapitating nude goddess of Hinduism. Uh. 0:41:15.080 --> 0:41:19.560 That is that is known as China Masta, and that 0:41:19.640 --> 0:41:23.359 just means she's she whose head is severed, and she's 0:41:23.400 --> 0:41:26.959 typically depicted red fleshed and holding a scimitar in one 0:41:27.000 --> 0:41:30.280 hand and her own head in the other as blood 0:41:30.400 --> 0:41:33.440 fountains from the stump of her neck, which and in 0:41:33.480 --> 0:41:37.640 some cases is then consumed by her thirsty skeletal attendants. 0:41:38.160 --> 0:41:41.520 And then she is usually stand depicted standing on top 0:41:41.600 --> 0:41:45.799 of a copulating human couple. Uh So, it's it's an 0:41:45.920 --> 0:41:50.080 instantly um captivating image. She's one of the ten goddesses 0:41:50.080 --> 0:41:52.840 of the esoteric tradition of Tantra, and she's a slayer 0:41:52.840 --> 0:41:57.040 of demons. So she's a highly uh symbolic deity. There's 0:41:57.080 --> 0:41:59.840 the sense of the transcendence of the body free of 0:41:59.840 --> 0:42:02.040 the mind. You know, the body, the mind has clearly 0:42:02.080 --> 0:42:05.840 literally been removed from the physical form. She's a symbol 0:42:05.880 --> 0:42:10.319 of sacrifice and ferocity. Yeah, this image, rey is amazing. Yeah, 0:42:10.320 --> 0:42:13.839 it probably goes without saying, but this in particular, though, 0:42:13.920 --> 0:42:16.239 this goes for a lot of Hindu iconography. This is 0:42:16.280 --> 0:42:18.680 an image that's caught the interest of various Westerners, so 0:42:18.680 --> 0:42:21.760 you'll sometimes see it depicted by Western artists or adopted 0:42:21.760 --> 0:42:26.360 by death metal bands, etcetera. Right, man, the death metal bands, 0:42:26.400 --> 0:42:29.560 they just they just snatch up everything. Cool. Yeah, Yeah, 0:42:29.640 --> 0:42:32.719 if it's you know, it hits a certain vibe for them, 0:42:32.719 --> 0:42:35.680 they'll they'll they'll take it. Uh So, they're at least 0:42:35.680 --> 0:42:39.160 a couple of speaking heads associated with tellings and retellings 0:42:39.160 --> 0:42:42.920 of the Mahabarata, the Hindu epic heads placed on poles 0:42:42.960 --> 0:42:46.239 after being sacrificed or having their body sacrifice in order 0:42:46.280 --> 0:42:49.000 to watch the battle. And I was reading a little 0:42:49.040 --> 0:42:53.920 bit about this from author and mythologist dev Dute Panna Nick, 0:42:54.160 --> 0:42:56.840 who has a whole page about these tales at his 0:42:56.880 --> 0:43:00.360 mythology website dev Dute dot com. It's d V d 0:43:00.560 --> 0:43:04.200 U t T dot com. Uh. He writes that these 0:43:04.200 --> 0:43:07.880 tales are often about perspective. Quote. The talking head is 0:43:07.920 --> 0:43:11.560 thus a symbol for a less confined, more global perspective 0:43:11.600 --> 0:43:13.759 on things. All of us see the world from our 0:43:13.800 --> 0:43:17.520 individual point of view, limited by our prejudices, our expectations, 0:43:17.520 --> 0:43:20.839 and our experiences. The talking head sees it from an 0:43:20.880 --> 0:43:24.839 alternative angle, and when he voices his opinions, we see 0:43:24.880 --> 0:43:27.960 the world quite differently. When he speaks, we realize the 0:43:28.000 --> 0:43:31.960 Pandavas and the caravas are are tiny elements of God's 0:43:32.000 --> 0:43:35.959 greater canvas. The Mahabarata is not just about one kingdom. 0:43:36.000 --> 0:43:39.960 It is about cosmic order. Now that's not to say 0:43:39.960 --> 0:43:44.239 there aren't just monster heads too in Hindu iconography. Uh. 0:43:44.280 --> 0:43:48.480 There's a really cool example, uh named Kurta Muka, or 0:43:48.520 --> 0:43:51.520 the head of Glory as it's often referred to. And 0:43:51.520 --> 0:43:54.719 this is a monstrous flying head in Hindu mythology that 0:43:54.760 --> 0:43:58.120 seems to be similar in many ways to the Gorgonian 0:43:58.200 --> 0:44:00.359 head of the Greek tradition that we discus in our 0:44:00.400 --> 0:44:05.920 Medusa episodes. So, according to Carol Rose, the folklore is 0:44:06.600 --> 0:44:10.799 when Shiva was told that he was unworthy of marrying Parvati. 0:44:11.200 --> 0:44:14.840 In his rage, his experiences such rage that a monstrous 0:44:14.920 --> 0:44:18.720 lion springs from his head and then it attacks Shiva, 0:44:19.040 --> 0:44:21.719 and he commands that, no, we're not doing that, uh 0:44:21.880 --> 0:44:26.200 eat yourself instead, and so this monster consumes its own body, 0:44:26.280 --> 0:44:29.719 leaving only its in trails, which then turned to pearls, 0:44:29.960 --> 0:44:32.640 and so that leaves only the head. So Shiva then 0:44:32.719 --> 0:44:37.120 commands uh Kota Muka to serve as the guardian of entrances. 0:44:37.160 --> 0:44:40.120 And so you see this head, this head of glory 0:44:40.560 --> 0:44:43.560 uh in um, you know, above the door or around 0:44:43.640 --> 0:44:47.440 the door of in in many different examples of of 0:44:47.520 --> 0:44:52.160 Hindu architecture from India and from other countries. You know, 0:44:52.239 --> 0:44:54.319 this is interesting because you brought it up and I 0:44:54.600 --> 0:44:57.680 somehow did not think about it. But from Greek mythology. 0:44:57.719 --> 0:45:00.920 You know, we did the episode last year about about Medusa. 0:45:01.600 --> 0:45:05.040 That's of course the case of a stolen head in mythology, 0:45:05.120 --> 0:45:07.600 or the head is severed and like he takes it 0:45:07.640 --> 0:45:12.000 and uses it as a tool. Yeah, it becomes a weapon, 0:45:12.400 --> 0:45:15.360 not so much a means of communicating with anything, but 0:45:15.360 --> 0:45:18.560 but this this weapon, this symbol, and and here we 0:45:18.600 --> 0:45:21.520 see another tradition. Now I've not read anything that that 0:45:21.600 --> 0:45:24.400 links the two in any respect. You know, let's just 0:45:24.440 --> 0:45:26.880 say that like one inspired the other anything of that nature. 0:45:26.920 --> 0:45:30.040 But clearly they're getting it similar ideas. The idea of 0:45:30.080 --> 0:45:34.880 this um, this terrifying head, uh, and or face that 0:45:35.120 --> 0:45:37.799 stares out from a work as a as a way 0:45:37.840 --> 0:45:41.759 of warning those who would who would trespass. Now I 0:45:41.760 --> 0:45:44.680 should know that that looking around though sometimes it appears 0:45:44.680 --> 0:45:46.480 to have arms, So I don't know if it it 0:45:46.600 --> 0:45:49.319 gains arms later or arms just end up popping back 0:45:49.400 --> 0:45:53.920 up in the iconography. But there you go. Another entity 0:45:53.960 --> 0:45:56.879 we've talked about before in the show is Rahu in Hinduism, 0:45:56.920 --> 0:46:00.120 the eclipse entity. Uh. You know, this is the you 0:46:00.160 --> 0:46:02.520 know once was a proud oshera demi god of immense 0:46:02.560 --> 0:46:06.560 power and hunger and seeking immortality. It drinks the divine nectar, 0:46:07.160 --> 0:46:10.520 but before this drop can pass his throat, he's swallowing 0:46:10.520 --> 0:46:16.200 it mid swallow, Vishnu decapitates him for his transgression and yeah, 0:46:16.200 --> 0:46:20.240 and this ends up translating into this um this eclipse 0:46:20.280 --> 0:46:23.600 mythology where the head of Rajo attempts to consume the 0:46:23.680 --> 0:46:26.360 sun or does consume the sun, but then it passes 0:46:26.360 --> 0:46:28.239 out of the next dump. I think we talked about 0:46:28.280 --> 0:46:30.080 this in one of the first episodes of Stuff to 0:46:30.080 --> 0:46:33.200 Blow Your Mind. I ever did the one on the eclipse? Yeah, yeah, 0:46:33.200 --> 0:46:37.040 I think so. Another example is uh Braun the Blessed. 0:46:37.120 --> 0:46:40.520 In Welsh mythology, the giant king who mortally wounded in battle, 0:46:40.719 --> 0:46:42.640 had his followers cut off his head so that it 0:46:42.680 --> 0:46:45.440 could be returned to Britain one day. And for a 0:46:45.440 --> 0:46:48.520 long time this head was said to speak before it 0:46:48.600 --> 0:46:51.520 grew silent, and the story goes that the silent head 0:46:51.560 --> 0:46:54.480 was finally taken to White Hill. Uh. This is where 0:46:54.480 --> 0:46:57.000 the Tower of London, they say would one day be built, 0:46:57.120 --> 0:47:00.480 and they buried it there facing France to word off 0:47:00.520 --> 0:47:04.759 the enemy. And this supposedly ties into the uh the 0:47:05.080 --> 0:47:08.080 The Celtic cult of of the head also reflected in 0:47:08.320 --> 0:47:10.880 the Tale of the Green Knight. Uh. We're in In 0:47:10.880 --> 0:47:13.879 the Green Night, the Green Knight comes into Arthur's court 0:47:13.960 --> 0:47:16.200 and challenges someone to cut off his head. But then 0:47:16.239 --> 0:47:18.080 when they do, he just picks it up and he's like, no, 0:47:18.200 --> 0:47:19.959 I'm fine. Now I get to cut off your head, 0:47:20.000 --> 0:47:22.359 but I'll do it a year from now. Yeah. The 0:47:22.360 --> 0:47:26.480 the decapitation battle is another motif or contest. You see that, 0:47:26.920 --> 0:47:28.880 uh in a lot of legends from this part of 0:47:28.880 --> 0:47:32.680 the world, and it's interesting, you know. Um. Terry Jones 0:47:32.800 --> 0:47:36.200 of Money Python, of course, was very steeped in uh 0:47:36.239 --> 0:47:38.680 in this sort of lore, and he was one of 0:47:38.719 --> 0:47:42.120 the author one of the writers for the screenplay for Labyrinth, 0:47:42.600 --> 0:47:48.040 and Labyrinth features those wonderful fiery red creatures that attempt 0:47:48.080 --> 0:47:53.880 to engage in a decapitation contest with our our heroine, Sarah. 0:47:54.200 --> 0:47:56.560 Do you remember them where they're like? Where did they 0:47:56.600 --> 0:47:58.360 get mad at her? Because you're only you're not supposed 0:47:58.400 --> 0:48:00.880 to take someone else's head, only supposed to take your 0:48:00.880 --> 0:48:04.120 own head. Off of this, this reminds me of of 0:48:04.280 --> 0:48:07.840 the head swapping scene and teams in the universe. Oh yeah, yeah, exactly. 0:48:07.880 --> 0:48:11.640 I mean this sort of thing, head swapping, decapitated heads 0:48:11.680 --> 0:48:15.439 living on You see it just everywhere. Um. For instance. Here, 0:48:15.440 --> 0:48:18.799 here's some other examples in in Maya mythology, you have 0:48:18.880 --> 0:48:21.359 head app Woo who was tripped by the lords of 0:48:21.400 --> 0:48:24.920 the underworld and his decapitated head was didn't hung as 0:48:24.960 --> 0:48:27.680 a trophy from a giant tree. But then this head 0:48:27.800 --> 0:48:30.759 later spits into a woman's hand and in doing so 0:48:30.880 --> 0:48:34.239 impregnates her with the Maya hero twins, who would go 0:48:34.239 --> 0:48:37.960 on to have various adventures. We've already touched on in 0:48:38.000 --> 0:48:41.080 the previous episode. We've touched on Orpheus is singing head 0:48:41.160 --> 0:48:44.520 and Greek mythology. Oh yeah, and the possible symbolic connection 0:48:44.600 --> 0:48:47.160 to the box made for Hyde and Skull with the 0:48:47.239 --> 0:48:51.360 liar Yeah. Uh. In the trial of the Knights Templars, 0:48:51.400 --> 0:48:53.840 one of the charges was that they worshiped an entity 0:48:53.920 --> 0:48:57.360 called Bahammet that was sometimes described as a severed head. 0:48:57.760 --> 0:49:01.080 And then oh, you have some wonderful monsters as well. Um, 0:49:01.120 --> 0:49:04.520 there's the Kara Sioux in the Southeast day. It's a 0:49:04.560 --> 0:49:07.120 Southeast Asian spirit that takes the form of a beautiful 0:49:07.120 --> 0:49:10.719 woman's head with her organs dangling below her neck so 0:49:10.800 --> 0:49:13.799 it floats it close and it seems to essentially be 0:49:13.880 --> 0:49:17.319 another variation of the willow the whisp tradition. Uh. That 0:49:17.520 --> 0:49:19.680 is held around the world and that we devoted a 0:49:20.239 --> 0:49:23.520 big episode two in the past, so she can't what 0:49:23.680 --> 0:49:26.760 she like glows and leads people off the path. I believe, 0:49:26.800 --> 0:49:31.640 so yes. Um. And there's there's actually Indonesian horror movie 0:49:31.640 --> 0:49:34.520 titled Mystics in Bali that looks pretty interesting because it 0:49:34.560 --> 0:49:38.279 features the kara su I included a screenshot here for you, Joe, 0:49:38.280 --> 0:49:40.359 and for a movie trailer for you to check out later. 0:49:40.520 --> 0:49:42.680 Oh yeah, I gotta, I gotta see that. That looks 0:49:42.719 --> 0:49:47.040 great now. The melee version of this is the pontionic, 0:49:47.320 --> 0:49:50.680 which functions like a vampire, only it prays exclusively on 0:49:50.760 --> 0:49:55.120 babies and infants. Then there's also the Japanese uh Nuki kubi, 0:49:55.280 --> 0:49:57.640 which is a type of yokai and Japanese traditions. It's 0:49:57.719 --> 0:50:00.600 humanoid in form, but it can separate its head from 0:50:00.600 --> 0:50:03.480 its body and this can float free to work mischief. 0:50:03.480 --> 0:50:06.520 It's just one of one of various examples of disembodied 0:50:06.520 --> 0:50:10.000 heads that you'll find in Japanese lore. And then in 0:50:10.200 --> 0:50:13.439 um Uh, the Native people's of the Americas, you find 0:50:13.480 --> 0:50:17.200 some other interesting traditions as well. Uh the flying head 0:50:17.280 --> 0:50:21.560 of the Iroquois and the one doctor mythology, this is 0:50:21.680 --> 0:50:24.279 a great flying head, sometimes with bat wings on each 0:50:24.320 --> 0:50:27.440 side of its head, with long hair and terrible eyes. 0:50:28.440 --> 0:50:32.879 Carol Rose writes about these in her book on Monsters. Uh. 0:50:33.200 --> 0:50:35.560 She said that this was an entire class of monsters 0:50:35.560 --> 0:50:38.520 in the folklore of the Iroquois, huge ugly heads with 0:50:38.680 --> 0:50:42.760 eyes of fire, dripping fangs, and huge wings instead of ears. 0:50:43.160 --> 0:50:46.680 They fly through storm winds with wild hair, uh, you know, 0:50:46.680 --> 0:50:49.080 helping to keep them afloat and kind of floating around them. 0:50:49.239 --> 0:50:52.440 They prey on villagers and animals alike. And their teeth 0:50:52.480 --> 0:50:55.480 they're like it sounds like they were kind of like 0:50:55.480 --> 0:50:57.799 like a cage. If their if their teeth or their 0:50:57.880 --> 0:51:01.560 jaws close over you, there's no escape ape. But there's 0:51:01.600 --> 0:51:04.320 a tail apparently of an old woman who is roasting 0:51:04.360 --> 0:51:07.560 some chestnuts over the fire, and then she brings a 0:51:07.680 --> 0:51:10.319 fiery coal back from the fire with her to keep 0:51:10.320 --> 0:51:14.360 her warm. And then here comes the flying head and 0:51:14.440 --> 0:51:18.120 it it gobbles her up chestnuts and all, but then 0:51:18.160 --> 0:51:20.640 it has to spit her out because of the fiery coal, 0:51:20.960 --> 0:51:23.360 and then that coal burns the monster up from the 0:51:23.400 --> 0:51:25.640 inside out. Oh. I love when the story is a 0:51:25.680 --> 0:51:28.160 trick like that. Yeah, especially when it's like an old 0:51:28.239 --> 0:51:31.680 lady who gets gets the wind over the monster. That's 0:51:31.719 --> 0:51:37.759 always nice, not not your traditional young, dashing male slayer. Yeah. So, 0:51:37.800 --> 0:51:41.440 so that's just an example of some of the myths 0:51:41.520 --> 0:51:45.600 and legends and folklore tales you'll find just throughout the world. 0:51:45.880 --> 0:51:48.040 I know there's some wonderful ones that I didn't touch on, 0:51:48.120 --> 0:51:50.000 and certainly I'd love to hear from anyone out there 0:51:50.040 --> 0:51:51.400 if you have a really good one, if you have 0:51:51.440 --> 0:51:54.080 a favorite, uh, we would love to to hear it 0:51:54.160 --> 0:51:56.719 and then potentially share it back with everybody else in 0:51:56.719 --> 0:51:59.400 a listener Maile episode. But I think just this selection 0:51:59.640 --> 0:52:02.759 gives you a certain taste of what out what's out there, 0:52:02.800 --> 0:52:07.400 you know, these various imaginative contemplations on like what happens 0:52:07.400 --> 0:52:10.280 if the head lives and the body dies, what happens 0:52:10.280 --> 0:52:13.359 if the body decapitates itself, Like there's just it's just 0:52:13.400 --> 0:52:19.600 such rich grounds for contemplation regarding identity and mortality and 0:52:19.680 --> 0:52:22.000 just so much. It seems like a lot of times 0:52:22.040 --> 0:52:25.480 disembodied heads are angry. Yeah, well, you know a lot 0:52:25.480 --> 0:52:27.319 of times, I guess they do have something to be 0:52:27.360 --> 0:52:30.759 angry about. But but then sometimes their jovial. Um. You know, 0:52:30.800 --> 0:52:33.680 there's some of those examples from the from tellings of 0:52:33.680 --> 0:52:36.200 the Mahabarata. I was reading like they're laughing, like their 0:52:36.280 --> 0:52:38.640 laugh there's one where I think their laughs there distracts 0:52:38.680 --> 0:52:42.319 are Anna during the battle, um, you know, and there's 0:52:42.360 --> 0:52:46.600 a sense of like being free from the body. UM. 0:52:46.640 --> 0:52:49.200 I'm also reminded of the heads that show up in 0:52:49.239 --> 0:52:52.719 Miyazaki Spirited Away, the three heads that kind of roll 0:52:52.840 --> 0:52:56.040 around and bumble, and they don't have much personality to them, 0:52:56.040 --> 0:52:58.360 and I don't really know what they're doing and what 0:52:58.400 --> 0:53:00.919 they're there for, but they don't seem to stressed. They say, 0:53:00.960 --> 0:53:05.280 maybe perpetually alarmed. But uh, that's about it. That's good stuff. 0:53:05.840 --> 0:53:08.960 All right. Well, we're gonna go ahead and close this 0:53:09.000 --> 0:53:11.200 episode out, but yeah, we'd love to hear from everybody 0:53:11.200 --> 0:53:15.440 out there. Any any other examples of flying heads and 0:53:15.719 --> 0:53:20.200 self decapitating spirits, other examples of brain and head preservation. 0:53:20.280 --> 0:53:23.680 Have you been taken by a particular specimen of brain 0:53:23.800 --> 0:53:26.399 or head at a museum. We would love to hear 0:53:26.440 --> 0:53:28.759 from you all about it. In the meantime, if you 0:53:28.760 --> 0:53:30.359 want to check out other episodes of stuff to blow 0:53:30.400 --> 0:53:31.920 your mind, you can find us wherever you get your 0:53:31.920 --> 0:53:34.640 podcasts uh and wherever that happens to be. We just 0:53:34.840 --> 0:53:38.040 asked that you rate, review, and subscribe Huge things as 0:53:38.040 --> 0:53:41.120 always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If 0:53:41.160 --> 0:53:42.520 you would like to get in touch with us with 0:53:42.640 --> 0:53:44.960 feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a 0:53:45.000 --> 0:53:47.000 topic for the future, just to say hello, you can 0:53:47.080 --> 0:53:50.000 email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind 0:53:50.160 --> 0:54:00.120 dot com. Stop to Blow your Mind, It's production I 0:54:00.200 --> 0:54:02.920 Heart Radio for more podcasts for my heart radio. This 0:54:03.000 --> 0:54:05.520 is the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever 0:54:05.560 --> 0:54:06.920 you're listening to your favorite shows.