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Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

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Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

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Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A

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Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,

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Speaker 2: my name is Noel.

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Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our

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Speaker 3: guest producer Max the freight Train Williams. Most importantly, you

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Speaker 3: are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff

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Speaker 3: they don't want you to know. Guys, we're recording on

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Speaker 3: January fifth, twenty twenty six. And it's weird to say it,

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Speaker 3: but what a year already.

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Speaker 4: It's not weird at all. I mean, it's true, it's

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Speaker 4: not a weird year, that's for sure.

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Speaker 2: Noel. For the break, Ben and I had a conversation

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Speaker 2: about the National Endowment for Democracy, and in that episode

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Speaker 2: we had a bit of a discussion about Venezuela and

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Speaker 2: some stuff's been happening.

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Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I've heard rumblings.

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Speaker 2: We recorded on December nineteenth, and then you wake up,

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Speaker 2: you know, just after Christmas, just as the New Year's

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Speaker 2: were ringing in, you know, Head of State gets abducted.

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Speaker 4: It's cool, before a lot of Saddami type era stuff.

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Speaker 3: Uh huh, Yeah, I remember sending that text to the

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Speaker 3: group chat saying, sorry, we all have to wake up

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Speaker 3: to this because you remember.

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Speaker 4: What I of doom and the text thread.

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Speaker 2: The alerts come through at the worst times for us.

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Speaker 2: You're just like, oh no, Google, I can't right now.

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Speaker 4: Sorry, No, that's why I turn all alerts off. I

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Speaker 4: just like to, you know, find it on my own time.

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Speaker 3: Well, we hope that everybody joining us today, friends and neighbors,

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Speaker 3: fellow conspiracy realists. We hope that you had a good

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Speaker 3: end of the year, and we hope that twenty twenty

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Speaker 3: six is treating you right so far. I got to

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Speaker 3: tell you, guys, just peek behind the curtain. It's very

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Speaker 3: unusual for us to go so long without hanging out

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Speaker 3: with each other and without recording. So I missed you guys.

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Speaker 4: How do I even do this? I missed you too, Ben,

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Speaker 4: I missed all of you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I missed this thing we get to do

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Speaker 2: where we sit and talk about weird subjects. It was

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Speaker 2: like two weeks without it, and I'm really glad that

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Speaker 2: we're here.

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Speaker 4: It was an amazing reset, though, I got to say,

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Speaker 4: especially considering what's transpired in the interim. Sometimes it's good

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Speaker 4: to just do a little you know, check out, And

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Speaker 4: now we're back and we're doing this video stuff, which

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Speaker 4: is like a whole new thing for us. So I'm

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Speaker 4: frankly pretty excited about the new year, all things considered.

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Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, let's give it a chance. Let's take twenty

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Speaker 3: twenty six a chance. Yeah, oh well, we'll give pieces

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Speaker 3: of a chance. So geez, we're gearing up for twenty

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Speaker 3: twenty six, all the wonders and terrors that might hold,

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Speaker 3: and folks, we wanted to want to dive into something

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Speaker 3: that has always fascinated and confused us. As kids who

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Speaker 3: grew up reading all sorts of weird stuff, we're all

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Speaker 3: familiar with a curious, seemingly ghoulish cultural practice. It's captivated

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Speaker 3: Westerners for centuries, with all sorts of misunderstandings along the way.

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Speaker 3: We're finally doing it. This is one of those episodes

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Speaker 3: that we can't believe we haven't done earlier. The story

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Speaker 3: the story of sanses or shrunken heads.

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Speaker 4: I think maybe this is true for a lot of

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Speaker 4: folks in our age bracket, but my first exposure to

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Speaker 4: shrunken heads was that incredible scene in the movie Beetlejuice

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Speaker 4: where dude, yeah gets are not a dude, Beetlejuice himself

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Speaker 4: gets his head shrunk because he's like being a pill

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Speaker 4: in a waiting room.

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Speaker 3: He's talking trash.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, nineteen eighty eight. You know, I was to come

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Speaker 2: to you guys with my first one that I remembered,

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Speaker 2: and it was a blip on a screen one time

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Speaker 2: when I watched Pee Wee's Big Adventure and.

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Speaker 4: If that makes sense with Tim Burton, yeah, adjacent, There's

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Speaker 4: definitely was something in the air in those days.

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Speaker 2: Dude, he goes to a magic shop and the owner

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Speaker 2: of the magic shop is just going through a bunch

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Speaker 2: of gag things and he pulls out a shrunken head.

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Speaker 2: Then he goes through a normal head, giant head and

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Speaker 2: all that. But that's it was just that moment where

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Speaker 2: it pops into your your psyche, maybe as a child

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Speaker 2: watching something well, and that humor or.

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Speaker 4: It is like a big part of how we experienced it.

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Speaker 4: It was this flippant almost gag thing, right.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, well, hearkening back by the way to the

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Speaker 3: exoticism and the other ring of Western civilizations. My first

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Speaker 3: experience you guys. I remember being in what we call

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Speaker 3: a curio shop and seeing some like behind glass there

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Speaker 3: was a thing that was a shrunken head, sansa and

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Speaker 3: it was probably fake, which we'll get into in a second.

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Speaker 3: This was going to be an episode that we uh,

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Speaker 3: we were going to play on our sisters show, Ridiculous History,

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Speaker 3: but we found that there are indeed conspiracies about shrunken heads.

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Speaker 3: This is also, by the way, a spiritual compliment to

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Speaker 3: our earlier episode on the Great US Brain Drain weird Out.

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Speaker 4: There's there's interesting crossovers, and I'm excited to get to y'all.

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Speaker 4: Are you picturing too when you think of your earliest

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Speaker 4: memory of a shrunk head, just a little puckered coconut

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Speaker 4: of a thing that maybe has a tuft of hair

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Speaker 4: at the top, like a troll doll, three stitches on

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Speaker 4: the lips, right yeah, yeah, very very dark tone to

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Speaker 4: it as well, and sometimes like behind the leathery right

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Speaker 4: very much. So, well, let's you know what, we we've

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Speaker 4: talked about it.

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Speaker 3: Let's get into it. After word from our sponsors, heck.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and we've returned. Uh, just want to jump into

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Speaker 2: a couple more examples of shrunken heads in popular culture,

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Speaker 2: because I think a few of these might hit home

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Speaker 2: with with some people listening right now. One that I

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Speaker 2: recalled was The Nightmare Before Christmas. Of course, you remember

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Speaker 2: there's a little boy and Jack Skellington gives him a gift.

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Speaker 4: Third Tim Burton property. By the way, Holy crap, yo.

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Speaker 2: I didn't realize that.

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Speaker 4: He was super down with the shrunken heads.

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Speaker 2: Well that was that was another thing pulls.

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Speaker 4: Out of a box, right, doesn't isn't that? It's like

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Speaker 4: a gift in that Christmas bit where like Jack Skellington

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Speaker 4: has taken over Christmas and little you know, human boy

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Speaker 4: is opening up a gift and there's like a shrunken

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Speaker 4: head in it, and he just sort of looks bewildered,

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Speaker 4: but not necessarily terrified. He like sort of pulls it

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Speaker 4: out very matter of factly.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, he shows it to his parents and they break

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Speaker 2: out very upsetting things. Another one that I wondered if

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Speaker 2: you guys remembered was the Super Mario Brothers, the original

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Speaker 2: motion picture from nineteen ninety.

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Speaker 4: Five or something with them.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I wonder if you do you guys think

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Speaker 2: the goombas are a represent of sonzas in some way

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Speaker 2: or were.

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Speaker 4: Lizard people coded to me, but I hadn't seen it

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Speaker 4: in a long time. I'm kind of picturing them as

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Speaker 4: being weird, little squat lizard type dudes.

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Speaker 3: Here are the facts, right, what is a shrunken head?

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Speaker 3: I agree the Gooba thing was going for at least

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Speaker 3: some sort of zeitgeisty callback to a shrunken head.

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Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, they're little lizardy, but they definitely have like

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Speaker 4: a like a grin like a shrunken head. But if

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Speaker 4: you look at them, they really are kind of scaly.

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Speaker 2: Well, there's certainly lizards right there. They're supposed to be

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Speaker 2: lizards went through some machine that sends them back through revolution.

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Speaker 4: Dan, you remember a lot about the plot of the original.

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Speaker 2: Why do you? It was a big deal for me.

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Speaker 4: Okay, Dennis Hopper was my first exposure to Dennis Hopper,

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Speaker 4: that's for sure.

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Speaker 2: Well yeah, yeah, but you know, I just want to

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Speaker 2: in my mind there are representations of shrunken heads that

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Speaker 2: aren't outwardly said, hey, these are shrunken heads, I think

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Speaker 2: in other places. But then you also have something like

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Speaker 2: that Harry Potter universe has it has a shrunken head

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Speaker 2: on a bus at some point called dre head.

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Speaker 4: Right, He's like the rear view mirror danglely guy who

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Speaker 4: is in charge of the bus that picks up what

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Speaker 4: wizards in distress. I don't know if I told you

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Speaker 4: I've gotten into the Harry Potter universe recently in my forties.

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Speaker 2: I did not know that, but I guess just to

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Speaker 2: put out there, Ben, as you're talking about the exoticism

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Speaker 2: that occurred in the past, and all of a sudden

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Speaker 2: for some reason in the mid eighties to like the

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Speaker 2: early two thousands, there's this version of a shrunken head

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Speaker 2: that is just I don't know what word I would

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Speaker 2: put here. It's a fun thing to put in your movie.

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Speaker 2: That's like a fun nod to something, but it's not

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Speaker 2: It doesn't represent maybe the same things that an actual

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Speaker 2: shrunken head represents well.

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Speaker 4: The Harry Potter version, though, I is also representative of

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Speaker 4: like perhaps this type of magic is part of the

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Speaker 4: extended wizarding world, you know, because that little dude is

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Speaker 4: definitely wielding some kind of magic and that has a

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Speaker 4: bit of a problematic cultural represent if I'm remembering correctly,

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Speaker 4: It definitely has a heavy kind of almost like Jamaican

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Speaker 4: type accent, like it's a little odd, but yeah, I

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Speaker 4: think that's the idea.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so, I mean, I think we're onto something with

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Speaker 3: the idea of pop culture references in a kitchy way,

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Speaker 3: kind of teeky culture sort of stuff. That's that's that's

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Speaker 3: what we're that's what we're seeing a lot of times,

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Speaker 3: especially in the halcyon days of eighties pop entertainment. But

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Speaker 3: the human obsession with heads is surprisingly universal. Headhunting, true story,

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Speaker 3: was not always a corporate term. In fact, historians believe

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Speaker 3: the practice of haunting and hunting human murdering them and

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Speaker 3: they collecting their severed heads dates back into antiquity, across time,

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Speaker 3: across cultures, and yes, of course we got to say it.

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Speaker 3: Some cultures did prize other body parts, your scalps, your ears,

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Speaker 3: your noses, and you know, dogs, your bits, privates, your dongles,

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Speaker 3: your Australia's they were after that too. A lot of

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Speaker 3: European cultures would later go on to look at these

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Speaker 3: other cultural practices and say, hey, this means these people

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Speaker 3: that we don't like are savages. But they said this hypocritically,

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Speaker 3: because whether you're talking about the Europeans the ancient Romans

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Speaker 3: or the ancient Greeks, whatever, whenever they were criticizing people

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Speaker 3: they didn't care for, they were also doing their fair

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Speaker 3: share of hainus brutal stuff. At the same time. Shout

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Speaker 3: out to King Leopold.

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Speaker 4: Phil Oh, gosh, not a good dude. And forgive me.

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Speaker 4: If this is something that's been debunked, I don't I

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Speaker 4: think it is true. Weren't what wasn't there a practice

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Speaker 4: like in Vietnam of American soldiers taking trophies and things

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Speaker 4: like this, And I thought that, yeah, so I mean,

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Speaker 4: and that's a perfect example of like what you point

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Speaker 4: out in a second here on the outline ben of

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Speaker 4: our morality drives this type of stuff. We are superior. Therefore,

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Speaker 4: like the way we look at this, it's somehow above

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Speaker 4: the savage ways that we criticize and use to other.

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Speaker 4: Because we are the moral authority.

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Speaker 3: Our brutality makes sense. Our stuff is enlightened, it's sacro saked.

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Speaker 3: And let's point out, also, by the way, on the

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Speaker 3: note of literal headhunting, several modern countries still allow beheading

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Speaker 3: decapitation as a state approved means of execution. And we'll

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Speaker 3: leave you to guess which ones have fun on the internet.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, could it be the United States? Hopefully not yet,

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Speaker 2: hopefully not currently.

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Speaker 4: I guess they get the obsession though, because it is

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Speaker 4: kind of just the bit that pops off and is

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Speaker 4: easy desert of associate with, like, this is where the

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Speaker 4: soul lies, you know, this is the representation of the

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Speaker 4: whole human creature.

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Speaker 2: Well yeah, it's a depiction of the personality of your enemy. Yes, right, right,

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Speaker 2: So that's why the heads on spikes thing was so popular.

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Speaker 2: As we're talking about here, there's a really interesting depiction

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Speaker 2: of that in the Fallout show on I.

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Speaker 4: Think it's on Prime. I think it's it's on Prime.

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Speaker 4: It's very good, y'all. Even if you're not into the games,

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Speaker 4: it's worth the watch. But if you're into the games,

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Speaker 4: you will be very pleased, I think with the way

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Speaker 4: they handle it. And there's a in the most recent episode,

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Speaker 4: I think there's some serious decapitation activity and heads on pikes.

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Speaker 3: It's an old thing. I mean, not for nothing did

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Speaker 3: Shakespeare have that guy hold up a skull in one

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Speaker 3: of history's most famous plays, Egion.

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Speaker 4: It's the Romans, the the whatever, the sect of folks,

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Speaker 4: Caesar worshippers, or what do they call him? Kaisar just

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Speaker 4: because they don't have a good pronunciation.

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Speaker 3: Guy.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, But the point of me even bringing that up, guys,

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Speaker 2: is because they are factions existing in a world after civilization,

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Speaker 2: attempting to regrow civilization. But one of the things they

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Speaker 2: still all agree is that heads of your enemies should

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Speaker 2: probably be displayed somehow.

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Speaker 3: You gotta you know what I mean, you put the

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Speaker 3: work in. Why aren't you going to have the certificate

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Speaker 3: of completion hanging, you know, on your wall or outside

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Speaker 3: of your outside of your compound.

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Speaker 4: It's weird to mention. It's a surefire way of letting

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Speaker 4: your enemies know who you've.

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Speaker 3: Got there, right, get Yeah. It's also awarding to the

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Speaker 3: people you're currently controlling. This is why headhunting is relatively

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Speaker 3: common throughout history, but head shrinking is way more specialized.

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Speaker 3: This is when you take your average severed head and

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Speaker 3: you say, hey, let me get a little fancy with it.

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Speaker 3: You know, I'm gonna remove the skull. I'm going to

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Speaker 3: use a specialized ritualistic process to shrink it way down,

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Speaker 3: and then I might have what some people see as

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Speaker 3: a trophy. I might have an artifact for further rituals.

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Speaker 3: I might have something to trade.

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Speaker 4: Key chain perhaps, or a hood ornament.

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Speaker 3: Or a mirrordically basically a coupon for a firearm a

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Speaker 3: couple of times in history.

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Speaker 4: So I had to go through a lot of trial

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Speaker 4: and error to figure this out out.

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Speaker 3: I think about that too. It's like the mushroom quandary.

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Speaker 3: It's like who figured out opium. It's also if we

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Speaker 3: get past the gore and the ethical concerns, it's honestly

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Speaker 3: this riveting marriage of science and spirituality, and forget everything

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Speaker 3: the cool adventure films told us folks. Actual headshrinking very rare,

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Speaker 3: extremely rare. It's an endangered ritual, and it's always been.

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Speaker 3: It's always been in a very small part of the Amazon,

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Speaker 3: at least where it's documented. It's in this little patch

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Speaker 3: of the northwestern region around Ecuador, Peru. You'll hear the

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Speaker 3: peoples who are known for practicing headshrinking. You'll hear them

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Speaker 3: called the Ivaruan or the shar s Hua r And

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Speaker 3: we'll probably use shar for most of this conversation. You

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Speaker 3: find other people rocking, shrunken heads, rock and sansa. But

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Speaker 3: the sure are the folks who are most well known

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Speaker 3: to ritualistically create them. They call them sansa and just

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Speaker 3: because you folks are so cool, will tell you how

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Speaker 3: they're made. But we cannot overemphasize you should not try

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Speaker 3: this at home.

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Speaker 4: Definitely not.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, good thing or bad thing that headshrinking is endangered.

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Speaker 2: Let us know in the comments before we get.

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Speaker 4: Into the procedural aspect of it. I just wanted to

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Speaker 4: make a tiny bit of space to talk about the

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Speaker 4: term headshrinking as a kind of term for psychology, maybe

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Speaker 4: a bit of a dismissive term that's sort of maybe

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Speaker 4: outdated at this point. I was reading up on Reddit

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Speaker 4: about it, and I think a lot of folks in

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Speaker 4: the profession do not appreciate being referred to as shrinks.

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Speaker 3: No, not at all. Yes, and we want to give

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Speaker 3: a huge shout out to all our friends who work

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Speaker 3: in mental health and wellness. Uh, we don't think you're

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Speaker 3: shrinking it.

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Speaker 4: Well no, I mean the idea I guess on the

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Speaker 4: one hand is it's deflating people's over inflated egos. But

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Speaker 4: also the dismissive and othering aspect of it is like

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Speaker 4: it's like voodoo. There's nothing to it. It's a you know,

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Speaker 4: a junk science.

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Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, it's like that old internet joke men will

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Speaker 3: do anything except go to therapy. Uh, there's there's a

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Speaker 3: real complex relationship there in the I guess that figurative

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Speaker 3: pejorative use of the term shrink, but when we're talking

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Speaker 3: about literal headshrinking, we're also seeing something pretty complex. Guys,

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Speaker 3: I propose we do this like a cookbook or one

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Speaker 3: of those ridiculous online recipe skrill skill. Here's how to

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Speaker 3: make a pound cake.

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Speaker 4: Still, mama, you know so many personal anecdotes you pointed

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Speaker 4: out Ben in the outline. It's all just to make

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Speaker 4: room for ads. But everyone knows the trick. Now, just

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Speaker 4: scroll scrosscroll, scroll, scroll until you see the bullet points

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Speaker 4: of the ingredients. Yes, and then you get to the

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Speaker 4: one through.

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Speaker 3: And thanks to all of our online chefs who helpfully

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Speaker 3: put the link that says get to the recipe.

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Speaker 4: That's right.

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Speaker 3: You're the real heroes, folks.

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Speaker 4: You know these people, they gotta make the money, they

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Speaker 4: got to make you.

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Speaker 3: And the recipes are great, the stories are great.

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Speaker 4: Not usually I don't know.

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Speaker 3: I'm a sucker for a weird anecdote. And here's here's

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Speaker 3: the recipe. As we understand it again. We cannot overemphasize this.

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Speaker 3: Do not try this at home.

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Speaker 4: Hit in a lab under proper supervision.

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Speaker 3: Maybe maybe you know, maybe you're filming a BBC or

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Speaker 3: PBS special and you're watching someone do it. That's fine,

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Speaker 3: but okay, all right, so here we are. Who do

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Speaker 3: we pick on today? Let's pick on our guest producer, Max.

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Speaker 3: So your Max the freight training Williams. You might have

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Speaker 3: murdered somebody, or you might have found someone whoa yeah,

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Speaker 3: or some cadaver either.

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Speaker 4: Went from freight train to murder lickety split.

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Speaker 2: Generally, you've murdered a warrior from a warring tribe.

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Speaker 4: This a neighboring warring rival tribe.

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Speaker 3: Before it became an industry.

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Speaker 4: You have.

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Speaker 3: You have murdered someone, and the corpse has to be

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Speaker 3: relatively fresh, So recipe voice. Don't go for frozen here,

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Speaker 3: ask your local igu butcher for help. If you're in

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Speaker 3: a pickle.

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Speaker 4: Fresh never frozen warrior head.

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Speaker 3: Okay, you got to remove the skull from the neck,

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Speaker 3: easily done, messy job.

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Speaker 4: Ailing right largely, that would be a way. I've never

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Speaker 4: really thought about it until twenty eight years later. So

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Speaker 4: excellent depictions of this very process, at least the removing

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Speaker 4: the flesh from the skull bits. It's a lot of

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Speaker 4: a lot of boiling in the sort of scraping.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you cut from the back of the human ear

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Speaker 3: and you remove all the skin and flesh from the cranium.

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Speaker 3: And then it is interesting because we talked about the

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Speaker 3: visage right of asa on. So you've got to keep

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Speaker 3: the facial expression if you can. So you put these

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Speaker 3: seeds in the nostrils to keep the nostrils from collapsing

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Speaker 3: too much, and then you sew or pin the lips shut.

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Speaker 3: This prevents it's kind of gross, but it prevents the

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Speaker 3: mouth orifice from expanding across the flesh as you work.

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Speaker 4: So I'm trying to understand, you are leaving the flesh

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Speaker 4: on the face. You're just removing the flesh from the

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Speaker 4: top and back and.

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Speaker 2: Side from your skull entirely.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a skull.

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Speaker 4: You're dealing with a skull.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, you start with the skull. You can get

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Speaker 3: the flesh off of the skull because it doesn't look

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Speaker 3: like a skull. It looks like a little shrinkydink heads.

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Speaker 3: I'm just obviously we're gonna get there yeah at the end, right,

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Speaker 3: and you again, we cannot overemphasize this. You gotta get

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Speaker 3: something in the nostrils. You gotta sow the mouth shut

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Speaker 3: so it doesn't expand that I'll give you a bad head,

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Speaker 3: and no one likes bad head, am I? Right? Folks,

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Speaker 3: you also want to okay, thanks, No, you also want

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Speaker 3: to keep your enemies face recognizable to you? Right, but noil,

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Speaker 3: you asked a good question. How does how does it

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Speaker 3: work to keep a spherical shape when you've removed you know,

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Speaker 3: the hard inner core you is a face.

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Speaker 4: Like and not skull like?

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Speaker 3: Right? Yeah, it's because you, uh, you put a wooden

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Speaker 3: sphere under the flesh bag that the skinned face that

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Speaker 3: helped this helps it maintain form. And a small handball

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Speaker 3: will do in a pinch, and then you got your

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Speaker 3: secret sauce.

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Speaker 4: Okay, okay, I'm sorry to keep ask your clarification. So

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Speaker 4: you're removing, you're not just scraping the flesh off and

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Speaker 4: discarding it. You're like trying to remove it as cleanly

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Speaker 4: as possible from the skull. And then you have this

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Speaker 4: like you know, for lack of a better way of

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Speaker 4: describing it, mask of a face with nothing inside and

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Speaker 4: then that's what you're dealing with. You how do you

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Speaker 4: remove it without tearing it to shreds. That seems like

390
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Speaker 4: real tricky business.

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Speaker 3: That's why you start behind the eard. Well.

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Speaker 2: See, according to a lot of these, you start at

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Speaker 2: the top of like right at the back of the head,

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Speaker 2: and you go straight down to the neck. And then

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Speaker 2: that is the thing that gets pulled out, including the

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Speaker 2: ears and all of that stuff.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, not boiling it all specific You boil it. You

398
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Speaker 4: boil it to loosen perhas but not so much that

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Speaker 4: it like absolutely melts things.

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Speaker 3: No more than an hour or two Okay, cool?

401
00:21:41,240 --> 00:21:43,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, according to the one I was looking at, you

402
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Speaker 2: you do that process. You tear the skin off, then

403
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Speaker 2: you boil it with herbs, and you get it to

404
00:21:48,400 --> 00:21:50,919
Speaker 2: whatever size you want it. And that's when you just

405
00:21:51,080 --> 00:21:54,000
Speaker 2: you put it it, said this one said, you didn't

406
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Speaker 2: put anything in it. You just basically attached the incision

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Speaker 2: again and it creates this shape a face.

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Speaker 3: And the herb, the secret spice mixture that you use

409
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Speaker 3: has to be heavy with tannins. That's that's part of

410
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Speaker 3: the chemistry there. And after you boil it again no

411
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Speaker 3: more than two hours, the head will be around a

412
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Speaker 3: third of its original size, it'll be darker in color,

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Speaker 3: and the skin will be kind of rubbery. This is

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Speaker 3: where we go to the drying and tanning process. This

415
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Speaker 3: is where you you take the take the flesh in,

416
00:22:29,440 --> 00:22:32,760
Speaker 3: you flip it inside out, and you start scraping away

417
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Speaker 3: the remaining interior gunk, that's the scientific word, the gunk.

418
00:22:39,640 --> 00:22:42,720
Speaker 3: And then you start molding it actively, which is which

419
00:22:42,760 --> 00:22:45,840
Speaker 3: is pretty fascinating. You use hot rocks and sand and

420
00:22:46,000 --> 00:22:49,800
Speaker 3: your whole thing while you're molding. This is to retain

421
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Speaker 3: those facial features as much as possible. Towards the end,

422
00:22:56,000 --> 00:23:00,399
Speaker 3: you'll properly coat the skin in a you'll flip it

423
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Speaker 3: back out and you'll coat the skin in ash from charcoal.

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Speaker 3: And that's part of why the sansa the native term

425
00:23:09,040 --> 00:23:12,200
Speaker 3: for the for the shrunken head. That's why it almost

426
00:23:12,240 --> 00:23:15,040
Speaker 3: always is going to have darker skin tones. Do all

427
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Speaker 3: that successfully, voila viola. Assuming you've done it right, you've

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Speaker 3: got a genuine shrunken head.

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Speaker 4: I certainly haven't seen a lot of like legitimate shrunken

430
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Speaker 4: heads in my life, but the image I have of them,

431
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Speaker 4: they are a sort of uniform. They don't really have

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Speaker 4: much personality, Like it's hard to try, as you might

433
00:23:33,400 --> 00:23:35,400
Speaker 4: with the molding, You're not going to get a shrunken

434
00:23:35,440 --> 00:23:38,280
Speaker 4: head that, like one to one resembles the owner.

435
00:23:38,600 --> 00:23:40,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're not going to have like some guy making

436
00:23:40,760 --> 00:23:44,520
Speaker 3: a wink and a nod face, you know, or somebody

437
00:23:44,720 --> 00:23:45,600
Speaker 3: going uh oh.

438
00:23:47,640 --> 00:23:47,840
Speaker 2: Right.

439
00:23:48,480 --> 00:23:52,560
Speaker 3: But you will have to note in these recipes that

440
00:23:52,840 --> 00:23:56,520
Speaker 3: what we told you now does not contain the appropriate

441
00:23:56,960 --> 00:24:01,399
Speaker 3: ritualistic incantations. You'll also have a lot of cleaning to do.

442
00:24:01,720 --> 00:24:06,280
Speaker 3: And sorry, Max, if the law gets wind of your enterprise,

443
00:24:06,560 --> 00:24:09,480
Speaker 3: you'll have some explaining to do as well.

444
00:24:09,720 --> 00:24:10,720
Speaker 4: Yeah, quite a bit.

445
00:24:11,000 --> 00:24:13,840
Speaker 2: And you know, according to the schwar people, some of

446
00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:15,840
Speaker 2: those some of the things we're talking about where you're

447
00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:18,600
Speaker 2: you're sewing up the mouth and the eyes and the

448
00:24:18,640 --> 00:24:21,120
Speaker 2: back of the head. Again, to put this whole thing

449
00:24:21,200 --> 00:24:26,160
Speaker 2: together as one piece is to prevent, at least according

450
00:24:26,200 --> 00:24:30,760
Speaker 2: to more modern members of the peoples, that it was

451
00:24:30,800 --> 00:24:34,320
Speaker 2: to prevent the soul from being released from this thing

452
00:24:34,400 --> 00:24:37,639
Speaker 2: you have created and causing harm, like further harm.

453
00:24:37,840 --> 00:24:39,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm glad you're saying that, Max, because that's

454
00:24:39,840 --> 00:24:46,159
Speaker 3: excellent foreshadowing to a big part of tonight's expiration. I mean, Okay,

455
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:50,240
Speaker 3: As Nola was saying earlier, it's impressive that someone took

456
00:24:50,280 --> 00:24:53,199
Speaker 3: the time to figure this out, But it's also terrifying that,

457
00:24:53,280 --> 00:24:56,320
Speaker 3: you know, somebody took the time to figure this out.

458
00:24:56,960 --> 00:24:59,840
Speaker 4: Right, they had to come up with a solution to

459
00:24:59,880 --> 00:25:03,400
Speaker 4: the a very specific and niche problem, and boy did

460
00:25:03,400 --> 00:25:04,080
Speaker 4: they ever do it.

461
00:25:04,280 --> 00:25:07,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's a question. The next question is logically,

462
00:25:07,720 --> 00:25:11,159
Speaker 3: why would you do this? As far as grizzly artifacts go,

463
00:25:11,480 --> 00:25:14,960
Speaker 3: this one is a lot of work, especially knowing you

464
00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:17,639
Speaker 3: could just boil the gunk off the head of a

465
00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:21,959
Speaker 3: defeated enemy and just keep their skull. Classic Yorck stuff

466
00:25:22,119 --> 00:25:25,640
Speaker 3: right from Shakespeare. This is way less messy. But if

467
00:25:25,640 --> 00:25:29,720
Speaker 3: we answer that question why, it takes us deep into

468
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:33,480
Speaker 3: the realm of spirituality and souls in the afterlife, And

469
00:25:33,520 --> 00:25:36,760
Speaker 3: that leads us to another question. If this is such

470
00:25:36,800 --> 00:25:40,520
Speaker 3: a rare phenomenon in the real world, then how did

471
00:25:40,520 --> 00:25:45,560
Speaker 3: it become so well known and so morbidly popular in

472
00:25:45,640 --> 00:25:52,720
Speaker 3: the West. We'll tell you after word from our sponsors.

473
00:25:55,000 --> 00:25:59,480
Speaker 3: Here's where it gets great. The story of shrunken heads

474
00:25:59,520 --> 00:26:05,200
Speaker 3: cultural popularity does come down to a conspiracy, Friends and neighbors.

475
00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:08,879
Speaker 3: That conspiracy is capitalism.

476
00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:11,480
Speaker 4: The biggest one of all, the ultimate conspiracy.

477
00:26:11,680 --> 00:26:11,920
Speaker 3: Yeah.

478
00:26:12,160 --> 00:26:17,199
Speaker 2: Yeah, So you if you take yourself back to anytime

479
00:26:17,359 --> 00:26:21,200
Speaker 2: before the eighteen hundreds, when the Schwar people are living

480
00:26:21,240 --> 00:26:24,200
Speaker 2: and carrying out this practice, and several other tribes in

481
00:26:24,240 --> 00:26:27,359
Speaker 2: that area are carrying out this practice, you were doing

482
00:26:27,359 --> 00:26:29,720
Speaker 2: it for these spiritual reasons. You were doing it for,

483
00:26:29,960 --> 00:26:33,639
Speaker 2: you know, the war reasons, all of these reasons that

484
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:36,160
Speaker 2: have nothing to do with the currency, right, have nothing

485
00:26:36,160 --> 00:26:38,959
Speaker 2: to do with trade, have nothing to do with valuing

486
00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:41,040
Speaker 2: this thing outside of what it is meant to be

487
00:26:41,640 --> 00:26:43,480
Speaker 2: for your tribe.

488
00:26:43,480 --> 00:26:47,399
Speaker 4: Spiritual talisman, some way of wielding power over your enemy,

489
00:26:47,520 --> 00:26:51,240
Speaker 4: or at the very least, you know, intimidating, you know

490
00:26:51,320 --> 00:26:52,959
Speaker 4: those warning the warning aspect them.

491
00:26:53,040 --> 00:26:54,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's religion at this.

492
00:26:54,480 --> 00:26:57,400
Speaker 2: Point exactly, because we're talking about a days long process

493
00:26:57,480 --> 00:27:00,440
Speaker 2: to do this whole thing. It's not easy work, right,

494
00:27:00,800 --> 00:27:04,280
Speaker 2: and I mean it's to the point where younger members

495
00:27:04,359 --> 00:27:07,080
Speaker 2: of the tribe are going out and practicing on animals,

496
00:27:07,200 --> 00:27:10,320
Speaker 2: so practicing on a sloth or another animal that they

497
00:27:10,320 --> 00:27:13,160
Speaker 2: would come to contact with and see if they can

498
00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:15,120
Speaker 2: figure out how to do it right. And they're taught

499
00:27:15,119 --> 00:27:15,720
Speaker 2: how to do it.

500
00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:17,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, in these.

501
00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:21,840
Speaker 2: Ways So what happens when other people interact with your

502
00:27:21,880 --> 00:27:24,960
Speaker 2: tribe and they see these things, and for one reason

503
00:27:25,040 --> 00:27:27,719
Speaker 2: or another, they're a desired object.

504
00:27:27,800 --> 00:27:28,399
Speaker 3: Gotta have it.

505
00:27:28,600 --> 00:27:29,879
Speaker 4: Let's want one of those.

506
00:27:30,160 --> 00:27:33,359
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the it's the lububu of its time, as

507
00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:36,040
Speaker 3: gross as that is to those are a little shrunk

508
00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:36,440
Speaker 3: and heads.

509
00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:38,680
Speaker 4: Yeah with that, Rick Descrin.

510
00:27:39,080 --> 00:27:43,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the West first makes contact with the schwar

511
00:27:43,359 --> 00:27:46,880
Speaker 3: in particular in the fifteen hundreds. At this time, these

512
00:27:46,920 --> 00:27:50,679
Speaker 3: people are semi nomadic, moving through their area of the

513
00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:55,960
Speaker 3: rainforest with large autonomy right held together by only the

514
00:27:56,080 --> 00:28:03,119
Speaker 3: loosest minds of kinship or political agreement. And colonialism absolutely

515
00:28:03,280 --> 00:28:06,800
Speaker 3: wrecked the native lands of the Amazon. People lost their

516
00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:11,480
Speaker 3: existing culture, fighting disease and famine and slavery and Europeans

517
00:28:11,480 --> 00:28:17,320
Speaker 3: and then also each other. But the Europeans were mystified

518
00:28:17,400 --> 00:28:20,160
Speaker 3: by the practice of head shrinking. And if you fast

519
00:28:20,200 --> 00:28:24,000
Speaker 3: forward to the eighteen hundreds, as we're alluding to, you'll

520
00:28:24,040 --> 00:28:31,080
Speaker 3: see that this interest really explodes around the time collecting

521
00:28:31,240 --> 00:28:36,840
Speaker 3: Egyptian mummies and indeed consuming Egyptian mummies was in vogue.

522
00:28:36,880 --> 00:28:39,200
Speaker 4: I was thinking, too, this isn't that like megafar off

523
00:28:39,200 --> 00:28:42,040
Speaker 4: from the type of practices that the Egyptians would do

524
00:28:42,120 --> 00:28:46,160
Speaker 4: with mummification. You know, it's got taxidermy vibes to it

525
00:28:46,240 --> 00:28:46,640
Speaker 4: for sure.

526
00:28:47,160 --> 00:28:51,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, it's a good new Yeah. It is weird

527
00:28:51,880 --> 00:28:55,080
Speaker 2: to know that there was a pretty healthy trade going

528
00:28:55,080 --> 00:28:57,600
Speaker 2: on between Western cultures that were rolling through in the

529
00:28:57,600 --> 00:29:00,440
Speaker 2: shwar people. But it was stuff. They're trading, stuff that

530
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:05,600
Speaker 2: you would imagine would be traded for, right like animals, skins.

531
00:29:05,840 --> 00:29:09,280
Speaker 3: Exact manufactured goods are huge. This is okay, Yeah, this

532
00:29:09,480 --> 00:29:12,600
Speaker 3: is the wild specialty item. This is why we're saying

533
00:29:12,600 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 3: capitalism is conspiracy. So the Europeans and the Americans of

534
00:29:17,120 --> 00:29:20,760
Speaker 3: this time, in this milieu, they learn about the sansa,

535
00:29:21,320 --> 00:29:25,640
Speaker 3: the shrunken head via these breathless travelogues and these wild

536
00:29:25,760 --> 00:29:29,320
Speaker 3: claims of adventurers. And those folks are not in the

537
00:29:29,360 --> 00:29:34,440
Speaker 3: business of ethnography nor anthropology. They're more into telling wild

538
00:29:34,560 --> 00:29:37,920
Speaker 3: stories and selling stuff. So they would take this real

539
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:42,680
Speaker 3: practice shrinking heads, making sansa, and they embellished the heck

540
00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:45,840
Speaker 3: out of it. They never fact checked. This became this

541
00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:50,960
Speaker 3: huge tool in othering local populations and then being used

542
00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:55,280
Speaker 3: to rationalize all sorts of evil stuff against them. It

543
00:29:56,240 --> 00:30:00,360
Speaker 3: also created a boom economy because outsiders start showing up

544
00:30:00,560 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 3: and they're buying heads, and they're bartering valuable manufactured goods,

545
00:30:05,640 --> 00:30:09,400
Speaker 3: fine fabrics, tools, knives, firearms.

546
00:30:09,920 --> 00:30:13,880
Speaker 4: When picture these imperialist like colonel types, you know, in

547
00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:17,480
Speaker 4: the hierarchy of a military invading force, and wanting to

548
00:30:17,480 --> 00:30:19,040
Speaker 4: have a few of these things on the wall of

549
00:30:19,040 --> 00:30:21,680
Speaker 4: their rumpus room back home, you know, to like along

550
00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:24,320
Speaker 4: with like a allion's head or something, to show that

551
00:30:24,400 --> 00:30:28,880
Speaker 4: they had braved these inhospitable places. And they you know,

552
00:30:28,880 --> 00:30:31,480
Speaker 4: it was a sign of their bravery in their kind

553
00:30:31,560 --> 00:30:34,640
Speaker 4: of ADVENTURESM.

554
00:30:33,360 --> 00:30:34,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, exactly.

555
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:37,840
Speaker 2: You know, some cabinets of curiosity were really invoke.

556
00:30:37,960 --> 00:30:42,120
Speaker 3: Right, something to tell the boys at the Gentleman's Club, right, and.

557
00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:43,760
Speaker 4: The Christmas Adventurers Club.

558
00:30:43,840 --> 00:30:48,800
Speaker 3: Me, yes, right. This was a game changing economic incentive.

559
00:30:49,120 --> 00:30:53,880
Speaker 3: But unlike some other economic fads tulips or what have you,

560
00:30:53,920 --> 00:30:59,600
Speaker 3: this trade was directly dependent upon death and dismemberment. Right.

561
00:30:59,760 --> 00:31:01,800
Speaker 3: You can't just play at the head in the ground

562
00:31:01,920 --> 00:31:05,920
Speaker 3: and grow more heads. People have tried, and I love that.

563
00:31:06,600 --> 00:31:09,640
Speaker 2: Isn't it weird to know that? I think? At least

564
00:31:09,640 --> 00:31:13,280
Speaker 2: according to Kata Koth, who wrote for Science dot Org,

565
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:16,000
Speaker 2: a lot of this had to do with Jesuit missionaries

566
00:31:16,040 --> 00:31:19,680
Speaker 2: and the introduction of cattle. Yeah, so they would bring

567
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:24,720
Speaker 2: cattle into the areas where a lot of the Western

568
00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:28,680
Speaker 2: other folks were living, you know, near where these tribes

569
00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:31,480
Speaker 2: were living, and they would bring cattle. So then they

570
00:31:31,520 --> 00:31:33,840
Speaker 2: no longer needed to trade that with the Shwar people.

571
00:31:34,160 --> 00:31:36,520
Speaker 2: They didn't need that from the Shwar people, right, So

572
00:31:36,640 --> 00:31:40,240
Speaker 2: basically the thing they're left with are these shrunken heads.

573
00:31:40,640 --> 00:31:43,000
Speaker 2: And it's so crazy, as you're saying, Ben, how do

574
00:31:43,040 --> 00:31:46,680
Speaker 2: you say, all right, guys, we need more shrunken heads.

575
00:31:47,120 --> 00:31:51,160
Speaker 3: That's the yeah, by hook or by crook, right.

576
00:31:51,040 --> 00:31:53,479
Speaker 4: You don't have to say it, you know, the what

577
00:31:53,560 --> 00:31:56,400
Speaker 4: is it? Supply and demand creates the situation that all

578
00:31:56,400 --> 00:31:57,920
Speaker 4: of a sudden they got to figure out where to

579
00:31:57,920 --> 00:31:58,960
Speaker 4: get more of these heads.

580
00:31:59,040 --> 00:32:02,560
Speaker 3: Picture, picture of the Jesuits, picture of the Europeans. Like

581
00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:07,600
Speaker 3: that Matthew McConaughey line in that old movie you got

582
00:32:07,640 --> 00:32:08,920
Speaker 3: any shrunken heads?

583
00:32:09,320 --> 00:32:12,880
Speaker 4: Yon still did, what is that?

584
00:32:14,040 --> 00:32:15,240
Speaker 2: What's that? I want to watch?

585
00:32:15,280 --> 00:32:17,480
Speaker 3: That be a lot cooler if you did. That's what

586
00:32:17,520 --> 00:32:21,239
Speaker 3: they said to the shore. And this meant I'll find that,

587
00:32:21,640 --> 00:32:24,320
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, I'm blanking on the film all right, all right,

588
00:32:24,360 --> 00:32:26,680
Speaker 3: all right, all right, is it fast fast time?

589
00:32:26,720 --> 00:32:29,280
Speaker 4: That was always days days and confused and fast times.

590
00:32:29,280 --> 00:32:31,080
Speaker 4: It's the one where he's like the they just get

591
00:32:31,120 --> 00:32:33,480
Speaker 4: getting older and I stay the same age. The other

592
00:32:33,520 --> 00:32:34,600
Speaker 4: way around, other way around.

593
00:32:35,120 --> 00:32:37,400
Speaker 3: We'll fight, we'll fight it, we'll fix it a post

594
00:32:37,680 --> 00:32:40,680
Speaker 3: or not. But this meant that the sar had to

595
00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:44,760
Speaker 3: by hook or by crook find more heads. And remember

596
00:32:44,800 --> 00:32:48,600
Speaker 3: our recipe blog from earlier, these heads gotta be fresh baked.

597
00:32:48,880 --> 00:32:53,480
Speaker 3: So there's this huge increase in local warfare between various

598
00:32:53,520 --> 00:32:57,440
Speaker 3: groups of community and region, and it's being powered by

599
00:32:58,040 --> 00:33:03,000
Speaker 3: the more big curiosity of the Europeans, which itself is

600
00:33:03,160 --> 00:33:07,160
Speaker 3: powered by religious ideology. So we're seeing a clash of

601
00:33:07,240 --> 00:33:11,000
Speaker 3: two different religions attempting to commodify each other, and the

602
00:33:11,480 --> 00:33:17,200
Speaker 3: schwar have this deep inner social kinship. It's the oral

603
00:33:17,240 --> 00:33:22,440
Speaker 3: and lived history of all imaginable alley ship or slights

604
00:33:22,520 --> 00:33:27,400
Speaker 3: from the shared past. Now it's weaponized against them. European

605
00:33:27,480 --> 00:33:32,360
Speaker 3: fascination half worldweight created a killing spree.

606
00:33:32,760 --> 00:33:35,920
Speaker 4: Not much different from things like diamonds and obsession with

607
00:33:36,040 --> 00:33:38,800
Speaker 4: you know, gold and precious gems that all of a

608
00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:41,440
Speaker 4: sudden when you've got these indigenous folks that have those

609
00:33:41,560 --> 00:33:43,960
Speaker 4: or have access to those. It throws all of that

610
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:48,040
Speaker 4: into disarray because now there's this demand for it and

611
00:33:48,080 --> 00:33:50,600
Speaker 4: I don't know, money and tools and wanting to be

612
00:33:51,040 --> 00:33:53,200
Speaker 4: the tribe that has the guns or that has the

613
00:33:53,640 --> 00:33:57,480
Speaker 4: you know, metal tools. That's a pretty powerful influence to

614
00:33:57,600 --> 00:33:59,960
Speaker 4: do some pretty wacky inhumane stuff.

615
00:34:00,280 --> 00:34:03,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a feedback loop. It's or burros because now

616
00:34:03,480 --> 00:34:06,120
Speaker 3: even if you originally don't want to go into the trade,

617
00:34:06,520 --> 00:34:12,120
Speaker 3: the next guy over has gone in now has a gun, yes,

618
00:34:12,200 --> 00:34:15,120
Speaker 3: and remembers that you are mean to his cousin twelve

619
00:34:15,200 --> 00:34:15,680
Speaker 3: years ago.

620
00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:18,600
Speaker 4: Direct threat to you and your people. Now unless you

621
00:34:18,640 --> 00:34:20,560
Speaker 4: get in on the hustle as well.

622
00:34:20,640 --> 00:34:26,600
Speaker 2: That's an intense thing because where do you get those skulls?

623
00:34:26,719 --> 00:34:27,000
Speaker 3: Right?

624
00:34:27,120 --> 00:34:30,719
Speaker 2: You know, you need skulls to make this thing that

625
00:34:30,880 --> 00:34:35,640
Speaker 2: is modernizing your group, that is making life better for everybody.

626
00:34:35,960 --> 00:34:39,279
Speaker 2: So you just got to go find enemies now, Yeah,

627
00:34:39,320 --> 00:34:39,600
Speaker 2: as it.

628
00:34:39,600 --> 00:34:43,120
Speaker 4: Could be anybody though, I mean, do you search outside

629
00:34:43,120 --> 00:34:45,200
Speaker 4: of your try Obviously you're inside of your tribe, but

630
00:34:45,239 --> 00:34:47,400
Speaker 4: you have to It seems like there's a finite amount

631
00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:49,680
Speaker 4: of available fresh heads.

632
00:34:49,880 --> 00:34:55,120
Speaker 3: Nailed it. Yeah, it's difficult because now you have to

633
00:34:55,239 --> 00:34:58,720
Speaker 3: further rationalize actions that you may not have ordinarily taken.

634
00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:03,360
Speaker 3: Let's think about it it in a more westernized example.

635
00:35:03,640 --> 00:35:06,720
Speaker 3: Let's say you are a regular at a coffee shop.

636
00:35:06,920 --> 00:35:10,480
Speaker 3: There is another regular that you don't care for because, again,

637
00:35:10,600 --> 00:35:13,560
Speaker 3: twelve years ago, this guy was rude to your cousin.

638
00:35:14,120 --> 00:35:18,280
Speaker 3: In most societies, with all things being equal, you would

639
00:35:18,320 --> 00:35:21,879
Speaker 3: let this slide right. You'd sit down, you'd get your

640
00:35:21,920 --> 00:35:24,200
Speaker 3: coffee or whatever, and then you would see the dude

641
00:35:24,200 --> 00:35:28,360
Speaker 3: and you'd think, ah, that jerks back again. But you

642
00:35:28,360 --> 00:35:32,280
Speaker 3: wouldn't do anything past that unless there was no real

643
00:35:32,320 --> 00:35:36,120
Speaker 3: consequence for killing him. And further, what if there was

644
00:35:36,280 --> 00:35:39,800
Speaker 3: in this coffee shop no real consequence for committing murder,

645
00:35:40,200 --> 00:35:43,799
Speaker 3: and the new guy from the fancy I'll say it,

646
00:35:43,960 --> 00:35:46,880
Speaker 3: Jesuit coffee shop a few blocks up is going to

647
00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:50,680
Speaker 3: give you the equivalent of two thousand dollars if only

648
00:35:50,719 --> 00:35:55,640
Speaker 3: you kill this guy the right way. Further, you know

649
00:35:55,960 --> 00:36:00,640
Speaker 3: everyone else at your regular coffee shop is already doing this,

650
00:36:01,160 --> 00:36:04,160
Speaker 3: and every time they do it, they get some more tools,

651
00:36:04,360 --> 00:36:07,400
Speaker 3: they get some more prosperity. That other guy in the

652
00:36:07,440 --> 00:36:10,920
Speaker 3: coffee shop, what if he is already looking at you

653
00:36:11,239 --> 00:36:15,440
Speaker 3: across the cafe, and he's thinking, Man, I hate that

654
00:36:15,520 --> 00:36:18,879
Speaker 3: guy's cousin from twelve years ago, and I could sell

655
00:36:18,920 --> 00:36:20,240
Speaker 3: his head right now.

656
00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:24,040
Speaker 4: It's made me chuckle, Ben, And jeez, you know it's

657
00:36:24,040 --> 00:36:27,400
Speaker 4: funny though, I mean, surely sure in this example, if

658
00:36:27,440 --> 00:36:30,240
Speaker 4: we're gonna you know, come back to the tribal example,

659
00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:34,359
Speaker 4: there's no rule of law necessarily a consequence, but you're

660
00:36:34,400 --> 00:36:38,919
Speaker 4: also creating just like an unlimited amount of blood mendettas

661
00:36:39,239 --> 00:36:44,040
Speaker 4: between warring tribes that is then creating more war and

662
00:36:44,239 --> 00:36:47,440
Speaker 4: this you know, further feedback loop that is just causing

663
00:36:47,680 --> 00:36:51,400
Speaker 4: absolute devastation because there's you know, you're always mad at

664
00:36:51,440 --> 00:36:56,000
Speaker 4: somebody for like shrinking your cousin's head, Yeah, and.

665
00:36:55,880 --> 00:36:57,919
Speaker 3: Then you're mad at them for doing that, and they're

666
00:36:57,960 --> 00:37:02,760
Speaker 3: mad at you for retaliating. The feedback loop is real,

667
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:08,360
Speaker 3: and take it ahead and creating SANSO would bring immediate

668
00:37:08,520 --> 00:37:11,960
Speaker 3: benefit to your kinship network, but it also puts a

669
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:16,120
Speaker 3: target on your back. And eventually, because like that excellent

670
00:37:16,160 --> 00:37:19,560
Speaker 3: point you raised, eventually, because there was a finite amount

671
00:37:19,640 --> 00:37:24,239
Speaker 3: of heads that could be traditionally taken your enemies, homeboys

672
00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:27,040
Speaker 3: were not a big enough supply for the demand, so

673
00:37:27,080 --> 00:37:31,319
Speaker 3: folks began hunting women and children as well. And European

674
00:37:31,719 --> 00:37:35,920
Speaker 3: curio collectors who are looking for their cabinet contents, they

675
00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:39,680
Speaker 3: applaud all of this. They might publicly decry the practice,

676
00:37:40,160 --> 00:37:43,960
Speaker 3: but in private, at those gentlemen clubs we mentioned, they

677
00:37:44,120 --> 00:37:46,480
Speaker 3: crowed over these grisly momentums.

678
00:37:46,960 --> 00:37:50,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, that profit modive thing is hard to shake once

679
00:37:50,640 --> 00:37:51,839
Speaker 2: it takes all day.

680
00:37:52,400 --> 00:37:54,560
Speaker 4: It's just wild how corrupting it is.

681
00:37:54,760 --> 00:37:57,360
Speaker 2: Well, you also got people who don't know the rituals

682
00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:01,399
Speaker 2: who are creating these sons us. Right, So you've got

683
00:38:01,400 --> 00:38:04,799
Speaker 2: people who don't like they don't they aren't doing any

684
00:38:04,800 --> 00:38:06,560
Speaker 2: of the ceremony. They aren't. It's a tourist.

685
00:38:06,280 --> 00:38:09,080
Speaker 4: Attraction at this point, y'all. I mean, it's like lost connection,

686
00:38:09,160 --> 00:38:12,040
Speaker 4: maybe even to its original religious purpose.

687
00:38:12,320 --> 00:38:13,520
Speaker 3: Ye for the West.

688
00:38:13,560 --> 00:38:17,719
Speaker 2: At least you can go through this absolute trove of

689
00:38:18,400 --> 00:38:21,799
Speaker 2: shrunken heads that were made specifically for trade and just

690
00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:24,239
Speaker 2: see that the cuts aren't right and none of the

691
00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:26,879
Speaker 2: stuff is correct or done by the way the schwar

692
00:38:26,920 --> 00:38:29,839
Speaker 2: people would do it ceremonially. Yeah, and these things are

693
00:38:29,920 --> 00:38:32,320
Speaker 2: just literal. They're all over the planet.

694
00:38:32,520 --> 00:38:36,200
Speaker 3: And I hate, I hate to say it, but ethics aside,

695
00:38:36,640 --> 00:38:40,720
Speaker 3: the quality goes down over time quickly.

696
00:38:40,760 --> 00:38:43,360
Speaker 4: Whatever happened to the craftsmanship with shrunken heads, you know,

697
00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:46,080
Speaker 4: it's it's a thing like.

698
00:38:46,080 --> 00:38:50,920
Speaker 3: These save Europeans are blaming this shwar the entire time

699
00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:56,279
Speaker 3: for being naturally savage or roots, but they're ignoring the

700
00:38:56,360 --> 00:39:00,440
Speaker 3: fact that they created the situation in the first place.

701
00:39:01,080 --> 00:39:02,920
Speaker 4: And then as so familiar, ben.

702
00:39:02,920 --> 00:39:06,399
Speaker 3: Right, Cobra affected anybody, well just.

703
00:39:06,320 --> 00:39:09,120
Speaker 4: In general, like I mean, as you know, any invading

704
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:13,000
Speaker 4: force tends to create the problem that they then blame

705
00:39:13,080 --> 00:39:15,480
Speaker 4: back on the people they invaded in the first place

706
00:39:15,880 --> 00:39:18,319
Speaker 4: and sell them a solution, you know.

707
00:39:19,320 --> 00:39:22,640
Speaker 3: My throat, Oh it's venezuela, dude.

708
00:39:23,040 --> 00:39:26,000
Speaker 2: Well, and well, just think about what happens next to

709
00:39:26,040 --> 00:39:28,319
Speaker 2: the Schwar people, because what we're in the eighteen mid

710
00:39:28,360 --> 00:39:29,160
Speaker 2: eighteen hundreds.

711
00:39:29,239 --> 00:39:30,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, now we're in the eighteen hundreds.

712
00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:36,000
Speaker 2: So now we're getting towards, uh, this era where the

713
00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:38,960
Speaker 2: Schwar people experience the things that a lot of indigenous

714
00:39:38,960 --> 00:39:43,560
Speaker 2: peoples across the world experienced, where certain churches, especially powerful

715
00:39:43,560 --> 00:39:46,799
Speaker 2: ones like the Catholic Church, rolls through and what do

716
00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:48,040
Speaker 2: they do, guys.

717
00:39:49,040 --> 00:39:53,879
Speaker 4: Oh, the most assimilate them or attempt to strip them

718
00:39:53,920 --> 00:39:55,960
Speaker 4: of their cultural identity.

719
00:39:55,840 --> 00:40:02,839
Speaker 3: Right to create a classic economy religiously motivated with the

720
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:08,040
Speaker 3: people being vassals following the resource extraction demands. Tale as

721
00:40:08,040 --> 00:40:10,560
Speaker 3: old as time, sawing as old as rhyme.

722
00:40:10,719 --> 00:40:15,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, and removing the beast yeah, and removing the you know,

723
00:40:15,840 --> 00:40:18,600
Speaker 2: the language of a people, which, as we've learned in

724
00:40:18,640 --> 00:40:22,560
Speaker 2: previous episodes, is one of the worst things you can do,

725
00:40:23,280 --> 00:40:26,760
Speaker 2: remove a language from a human people's.

726
00:40:26,480 --> 00:40:30,600
Speaker 3: Because you're removing an original technology. One of the first

727
00:40:30,640 --> 00:40:34,759
Speaker 3: technologies is language. You're also removing history, right, which means

728
00:40:34,800 --> 00:40:37,200
Speaker 3: you gave them to relate, a way for them to

729
00:40:37,280 --> 00:40:40,040
Speaker 3: be connected truly, you know, in a fundamental way, and

730
00:40:40,080 --> 00:40:41,960
Speaker 3: then you're just throwing them to the wolves.

731
00:40:42,200 --> 00:40:43,880
Speaker 4: You are the wolves in this scenario.

732
00:40:43,880 --> 00:40:47,239
Speaker 3: I guess, yeah, right, why do you keep making me

733
00:40:47,360 --> 00:40:50,720
Speaker 3: hit you, et cetera. I mean, additionally, because of these

734
00:40:50,840 --> 00:40:56,120
Speaker 3: high incentives, there is a boom in forgeries to meet

735
00:40:56,160 --> 00:41:00,040
Speaker 3: this insatiable demand, this boom economy. In fact, it's not

736
00:41:00,200 --> 00:41:04,920
Speaker 3: until the nineteen thirties that buying sansa, buying genuine shrunken

737
00:41:04,960 --> 00:41:08,960
Speaker 3: heads is finally outlawed in South America. So if you

738
00:41:09,080 --> 00:41:13,160
Speaker 3: attempt to buy us sansa now, please be aware you're

739
00:41:13,200 --> 00:41:17,120
Speaker 3: not only being kind of a dick, you're also probably

740
00:41:17,200 --> 00:41:22,360
Speaker 3: purchasing a forgery and violating the law. And at the time,

741
00:41:22,880 --> 00:41:27,000
Speaker 3: even now, these European markets also ignored the real reason

742
00:41:27,200 --> 00:41:30,880
Speaker 3: for creating sans in the first place. Let's what about this.

743
00:41:31,280 --> 00:41:34,239
Speaker 3: Let's take a break for a word from our sponsors

744
00:41:34,360 --> 00:41:39,080
Speaker 3: and then get into the spiritual aspects, the real reason

745
00:41:39,440 --> 00:41:48,120
Speaker 3: shrunken heads exist. No, we must, and we're back. Let's

746
00:41:48,120 --> 00:41:50,960
Speaker 3: talk about the religious aspects. You guys, it's weird that

747
00:41:52,200 --> 00:41:59,080
Speaker 3: the Europeans ignored basically everything the schwar told them about

748
00:41:59,080 --> 00:42:02,880
Speaker 3: Sansra's shrunken heads, and the whole time these people are saying,

749
00:42:03,400 --> 00:42:08,719
Speaker 3: these are not really trophies. These are containers for the

750
00:42:08,760 --> 00:42:12,200
Speaker 3: soul or the moist SoC of the victim m ui

751
00:42:12,600 --> 00:42:17,360
Speaker 3: sa k. So we're trapping the spirit of the enemy

752
00:42:17,560 --> 00:42:22,680
Speaker 3: inside the head as a defensive move to yes, acquire

753
00:42:24,200 --> 00:42:28,320
Speaker 3: acquire some stuff that we believe works, but also mainly

754
00:42:28,440 --> 00:42:30,800
Speaker 3: to prevent vengeance from beyond the greed.

755
00:42:31,080 --> 00:42:33,920
Speaker 4: What a flex too. Wouldn't that deprive them of whatever

756
00:42:33,960 --> 00:42:37,040
Speaker 4: afterlife they believe in. They're like holding them in limbo

757
00:42:37,280 --> 00:42:41,560
Speaker 4: inside this vessel that you possess. It seems like an

758
00:42:41,560 --> 00:42:43,400
Speaker 4: aggressive tactic in and of itself.

759
00:42:43,880 --> 00:42:46,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, that's a great point in little because

760
00:42:47,560 --> 00:42:52,600
Speaker 3: essentially these folks were and are like every other human being.

761
00:42:53,040 --> 00:42:56,520
Speaker 3: They would rather not kill each other. So creating a

762
00:42:56,600 --> 00:42:59,880
Speaker 3: shrunken head is a way to prevent punishment for that

763
00:43:00,080 --> 00:43:04,960
Speaker 3: great transgression, that murder. There was this practical economic belief

764
00:43:04,960 --> 00:43:08,799
Speaker 3: that we have to get into as well, which is fascinating.

765
00:43:09,160 --> 00:43:15,280
Speaker 3: So the schwar society, especially at this time, the males

766
00:43:15,360 --> 00:43:19,960
Speaker 3: believe that acquiring these souls allows them power not just

767
00:43:20,040 --> 00:43:24,760
Speaker 3: for themselves, but for their wives and for their daughters

768
00:43:25,120 --> 00:43:28,720
Speaker 3: because the sansa, the power of the sansa can aid

769
00:43:28,840 --> 00:43:30,840
Speaker 3: women in their daily labor.

770
00:43:32,000 --> 00:43:34,960
Speaker 4: Wait, so by creating the shrunken head, they were in

771
00:43:35,040 --> 00:43:39,719
Speaker 4: some way absolving themselves from answering for answering for their crime.

772
00:43:40,000 --> 00:43:47,920
Speaker 3: Kind of like taking insurance like insurance against divine retribution

773
00:43:48,200 --> 00:43:53,239
Speaker 3: or ghostly retribution, and also aiding in day to day

774
00:43:53,320 --> 00:43:57,160
Speaker 3: life because the again we said, they're semi nomadic. Right

775
00:43:57,239 --> 00:43:59,719
Speaker 3: at this time, at the top, the women in the

776
00:43:59,719 --> 00:44:05,680
Speaker 3: civilization were cultivating valuable crops, and they were cultivating one

777
00:44:05,719 --> 00:44:08,600
Speaker 3: of the crops that provided most of the calories for

778
00:44:08,680 --> 00:44:12,800
Speaker 3: the average person's diet. So as a result, female labor

779
00:44:12,880 --> 00:44:16,840
Speaker 3: is mission critical. Anything that could be seen as helping

780
00:44:16,960 --> 00:44:21,200
Speaker 3: out with that became a top priority. So these folks

781
00:44:21,200 --> 00:44:25,359
Speaker 3: were not forget everything the Europeans say, and the travelogs

782
00:44:25,400 --> 00:44:29,400
Speaker 3: forget everything from the action films. These are not bloodthirsty monsters.

783
00:44:29,440 --> 00:44:33,080
Speaker 3: There are no way on intelligent savages. They've got a

784
00:44:33,200 --> 00:44:38,520
Speaker 3: consistent internal logic for a sacred ritualistic practice, and then

785
00:44:38,560 --> 00:44:42,040
Speaker 3: that practice got commodified via conspiracy.

786
00:44:42,400 --> 00:44:46,319
Speaker 4: But they're wielding these things in a way to have

787
00:44:46,360 --> 00:44:49,359
Speaker 4: a boon for their people, right, so they can use

788
00:44:49,400 --> 00:44:53,480
Speaker 4: this object of power to increase their abilities to be productive.

789
00:44:54,080 --> 00:44:58,360
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, just one note on that crop, the cassava

790
00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:02,480
Speaker 2: root or yuka. Yeah, the tastiest thing yump fry up

791
00:45:02,760 --> 00:45:06,080
Speaker 2: or mixed with some uh you know, some moho.

792
00:45:06,960 --> 00:45:07,800
Speaker 4: And a French fry.

793
00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:11,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can do anything with cassava. You know, I'm

794
00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:14,120
Speaker 3: not gonna bubb a gumpus here, but you can fry it,

795
00:45:14,320 --> 00:45:17,000
Speaker 3: you can boil it, you can just oh my gosh,

796
00:45:17,080 --> 00:45:17,960
Speaker 3: bake it. It's great.

797
00:45:18,000 --> 00:45:18,400
Speaker 4: Dice it.

798
00:45:19,200 --> 00:45:20,320
Speaker 2: Just don't eat it raw.

799
00:45:20,719 --> 00:45:25,680
Speaker 3: Don't eat it raw. Brought to you by cassava there's

800
00:45:25,719 --> 00:45:30,000
Speaker 3: also you know, we we took pains to look into

801
00:45:30,080 --> 00:45:35,160
Speaker 3: the academic anthropological perspectives of this, and there's one there's

802
00:45:35,200 --> 00:45:39,839
Speaker 3: one piece we have to recommend circulation, accumulation and the

803
00:45:39,880 --> 00:45:43,760
Speaker 3: power of Schwarz shrunken heads by a guy named Stephen

804
00:45:43,960 --> 00:45:47,920
Speaker 3: Lee Rubinstein out of the University of Liverpool.

805
00:45:48,560 --> 00:45:51,200
Speaker 4: Right, And in his work he traces the long term

806
00:45:51,239 --> 00:45:55,920
Speaker 4: consequences of this form of othering and its place in

807
00:45:56,040 --> 00:45:59,360
Speaker 4: this new capitalist system that was more or less thrust

808
00:45:59,440 --> 00:46:03,200
Speaker 4: upon these people and created a whole, you know, new

809
00:46:03,920 --> 00:46:08,840
Speaker 4: way of framing this ritualistic thing and honestly increased its

810
00:46:08,880 --> 00:46:12,520
Speaker 4: prevalence and bastardized it in a way you know that

811
00:46:12,719 --> 00:46:15,319
Speaker 4: took away from the religious aspects of entirely. And I

812
00:46:15,360 --> 00:46:18,000
Speaker 4: was maybe pointing out earlier that there's no version of

813
00:46:18,040 --> 00:46:22,160
Speaker 4: this that doesn't also kind of remove the sacred aspects

814
00:46:22,160 --> 00:46:25,160
Speaker 4: of it from the people themselves. When you do something

815
00:46:25,200 --> 00:46:28,160
Speaker 4: purely commercially for so long, it almost stops to have

816
00:46:28,239 --> 00:46:29,680
Speaker 4: its original meaning.

817
00:46:30,120 --> 00:46:34,480
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, very well, put Rubenstein says. Quote. By the

818
00:46:34,480 --> 00:46:37,880
Speaker 3: time Ecuadorian authorities put an end to the warfare in

819
00:46:37,920 --> 00:46:41,440
Speaker 3: the nineteen fifties, this shwar had exchanged all of their

820
00:46:41,520 --> 00:46:46,040
Speaker 3: songces with European and euro American collectors in return for

821
00:46:46,120 --> 00:46:49,799
Speaker 3: those trade goods. So the people again are losing their

822
00:46:49,920 --> 00:46:54,280
Speaker 3: history and culture. And now we've got it, as we said,

823
00:46:54,320 --> 00:46:58,320
Speaker 3: commodified into pop culture in the West, and people forgot

824
00:46:58,360 --> 00:47:02,759
Speaker 3: about the schwar entire as well as forgetting the ritual importance.

825
00:47:03,040 --> 00:47:07,120
Speaker 3: They were placed in private collections, you know, cabinets of

826
00:47:07,160 --> 00:47:12,799
Speaker 3: wonder curios, curiro shops, museums, and they were exhibited as

827
00:47:12,960 --> 00:47:18,720
Speaker 3: evidence of the benighted violence from these uncivilized natives. Oh

828
00:47:18,760 --> 00:47:23,239
Speaker 3: thank god someone came in and saved them and took

829
00:47:23,280 --> 00:47:28,000
Speaker 3: all their stuff and sold it to each other. There

830
00:47:28,080 --> 00:47:32,919
Speaker 3: is good news though, in that the Schwarp people, thank

831
00:47:32,960 --> 00:47:36,200
Speaker 3: you to all the activists involved, are able to get

832
00:47:36,239 --> 00:47:39,719
Speaker 3: some of the Sansa repatriated. And this is something we

833
00:47:39,800 --> 00:47:44,319
Speaker 3: talked about previously, Guys. I was attempting to remember when

834
00:47:45,080 --> 00:47:49,120
Speaker 3: we spoke about the great debate of museums and who

835
00:47:49,160 --> 00:47:53,160
Speaker 3: gets to keep what feels like it pops up every year.

836
00:47:53,800 --> 00:47:55,920
Speaker 2: We talked about a while ago, and I think we

837
00:47:56,000 --> 00:47:58,360
Speaker 2: brought up the sans Of project, which is something that

838
00:47:58,440 --> 00:48:02,840
Speaker 2: started in twenty seventeen and ended its first I guess

839
00:48:02,880 --> 00:48:06,120
Speaker 2: phase in twenty nineteen and they were able to repatriate

840
00:48:06,160 --> 00:48:08,919
Speaker 2: a bunch of the Sanzas, but then in twenty twenty one.

841
00:48:09,400 --> 00:48:12,120
Speaker 2: In the past couple of years, even this past year

842
00:48:12,160 --> 00:48:15,040
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five, a lot of work was done to

843
00:48:15,080 --> 00:48:18,080
Speaker 2: get these sances out of these museums and back to

844
00:48:18,120 --> 00:48:21,240
Speaker 2: the indigenous tribes that own them. There is some weird

845
00:48:21,280 --> 00:48:25,760
Speaker 2: stuff though, because in the case of the Shwar people,

846
00:48:25,760 --> 00:48:29,640
Speaker 2: there's the Ashwar people who were the tribe that were

847
00:48:29,719 --> 00:48:34,920
Speaker 2: often attacked and turned into these shrunken heads. So there's

848
00:48:35,000 --> 00:48:38,239
Speaker 2: this kind of problem, Well, who does that head then

849
00:48:38,320 --> 00:48:40,000
Speaker 2: belong to the tribe?

850
00:48:40,160 --> 00:48:44,759
Speaker 3: Not a monolithic group, absolutely bunch of different people, but

851
00:48:44,920 --> 00:48:46,080
Speaker 3: do always get along?

852
00:48:46,239 --> 00:48:48,520
Speaker 2: Well yeah, but that's ahead of an individual that was

853
00:48:48,520 --> 00:48:50,719
Speaker 2: a part of one group, right, and it was that

854
00:48:50,800 --> 00:48:54,400
Speaker 2: person was killed by another group, and that group, the

855
00:48:54,440 --> 00:48:57,200
Speaker 2: one that killed him, is claiming ownership over it. But

856
00:48:57,239 --> 00:48:59,839
Speaker 2: then does it actually belong to the other group. There's

857
00:49:00,080 --> 00:49:03,359
Speaker 2: the sans of project is really interesting because again it's

858
00:49:03,440 --> 00:49:07,439
Speaker 2: people navigating the law as well as you know, these

859
00:49:07,680 --> 00:49:12,239
Speaker 2: relationships with museums and countries that control those museums. I

860
00:49:12,480 --> 00:49:17,000
Speaker 2: would highly recommend people check out something titled Reflections on

861
00:49:17,040 --> 00:49:21,920
Speaker 2: the Sansas Project. Rethinking schwer Object Collections Nationally and Internationally

862
00:49:22,360 --> 00:49:27,960
Speaker 2: by Maria Patricia Ordonez Alvarez. Very interesting read, just about

863
00:49:28,120 --> 00:49:33,399
Speaker 2: the specific the specifics of finding these things and then

864
00:49:33,440 --> 00:49:34,680
Speaker 2: putting them back where they should be.

865
00:49:35,280 --> 00:49:39,319
Speaker 3: I love that. While you're online, folks, please check out

866
00:49:39,440 --> 00:49:44,360
Speaker 3: as well The Authentication and Repatriation of a ceremonial sanset

867
00:49:44,480 --> 00:49:48,120
Speaker 3: to its country of origin, Ecuador. The lead author of

868
00:49:48,120 --> 00:49:53,600
Speaker 3: that when Craig D. Byron explores the story of authenticating

869
00:49:53,760 --> 00:49:57,600
Speaker 3: a sansa and returning it to its home. But again,

870
00:49:57,640 --> 00:50:01,960
Speaker 3: that's a tricky question because where does go Imagine, you know,

871
00:50:02,080 --> 00:50:07,080
Speaker 3: our coffee shop example earlier, imagine one hundred plus years

872
00:50:07,120 --> 00:50:12,720
Speaker 3: have passed, right, and your great grandfather, your great uncle

873
00:50:13,200 --> 00:50:15,279
Speaker 3: was one of those people who got killed at the

874
00:50:15,320 --> 00:50:21,960
Speaker 3: coffee shop. Right, does that piece of their body go

875
00:50:22,120 --> 00:50:26,600
Speaker 3: back to you? Or do the authorities just say it

876
00:50:26,760 --> 00:50:29,680
Speaker 3: happened in the United States, So well, just give it

877
00:50:29,719 --> 00:50:31,440
Speaker 3: to the Spithsodian shoot.

878
00:50:31,480 --> 00:50:33,640
Speaker 4: And I mean and the as we've mentioned too, the

879
00:50:33,719 --> 00:50:36,799
Speaker 4: traditions in the oral history and written history. Even if

880
00:50:36,800 --> 00:50:39,920
Speaker 4: a lot of these tribes were wiped out by Colin I,

881
00:50:40,280 --> 00:50:43,320
Speaker 4: so there might not even be enough breadcrumbs to follow

882
00:50:43,320 --> 00:50:45,480
Speaker 4: it even figure out who to return it to in

883
00:50:45,520 --> 00:50:46,440
Speaker 4: the first place.

884
00:50:46,360 --> 00:50:46,759
Speaker 3: Very much.

885
00:50:46,760 --> 00:50:50,200
Speaker 2: So you've not just got two tribes. Also, it's often

886
00:50:50,239 --> 00:50:52,600
Speaker 2: written about as just these two tribes, but there are

887
00:50:52,640 --> 00:50:56,640
Speaker 2: several that Cramledon mentioned several that we didn't talk about today,

888
00:50:57,080 --> 00:50:59,120
Speaker 2: and so it's just it is not just a single

889
00:50:59,120 --> 00:51:01,640
Speaker 2: problem happening in Ecuador.

890
00:51:01,840 --> 00:51:05,640
Speaker 3: Right right, because this is also a That's why we

891
00:51:05,719 --> 00:51:09,320
Speaker 3: took pains to say the are the most well documented

892
00:51:10,520 --> 00:51:15,480
Speaker 3: people's practicing the creation of sciences, but by no means,

893
00:51:17,080 --> 00:51:21,040
Speaker 3: by no means unique in the area. And because of

894
00:51:21,080 --> 00:51:24,080
Speaker 3: all the warfare, and because of the conspiracy of capitalism,

895
00:51:24,120 --> 00:51:27,560
Speaker 3: and because of that economic boom, it becomes very very

896
00:51:27,560 --> 00:51:35,120
Speaker 3: difficult to honestly give justice and repatriate these things the

897
00:51:35,280 --> 00:51:39,440
Speaker 3: right way, these artifacts, because they were living people, and

898
00:51:39,480 --> 00:51:42,960
Speaker 3: depending upon what you believe, there may still be a

899
00:51:43,000 --> 00:51:47,360
Speaker 3: soul inside them. You know. That's the thing that even

900
00:51:47,400 --> 00:51:52,880
Speaker 3: as a secular skeptical entity, that's the thing that bothers

901
00:51:52,920 --> 00:51:56,319
Speaker 3: me the most, you know what I mean, your soul

902
00:51:56,800 --> 00:51:57,560
Speaker 3: just remains.

903
00:51:58,160 --> 00:52:02,279
Speaker 4: You know, They're very very important to religious beliefs, you know,

904
00:52:02,560 --> 00:52:06,160
Speaker 4: no matter what the religious background might be. Yeah, I

905
00:52:06,200 --> 00:52:08,240
Speaker 4: was just doing a little googling and I came across

906
00:52:08,320 --> 00:52:12,600
Speaker 4: a popular nineteen seventies Milton Bradley product called Shrunken Heads,

907
00:52:12,920 --> 00:52:16,560
Speaker 4: and it was a craft kit that was pitched or

908
00:52:16,640 --> 00:52:21,279
Speaker 4: I guess advertised promoted by Vincent Price where you would

909
00:52:21,280 --> 00:52:24,520
Speaker 4: take an apple and it was like this heated cone thing.

910
00:52:24,560 --> 00:52:26,000
Speaker 4: You'd hollow it out and stick it on the cone

911
00:52:26,000 --> 00:52:27,960
Speaker 4: and it would shrink the apple and then you decorate

912
00:52:28,040 --> 00:52:29,960
Speaker 4: it and put hair on it and make it into

913
00:52:30,000 --> 00:52:32,840
Speaker 4: a little bobble and it's horrific.

914
00:52:34,080 --> 00:52:37,680
Speaker 3: I'm sure it aged very well, oh very much so, Yice.

915
00:52:38,440 --> 00:52:41,239
Speaker 3: We also, I guess we should say this too as

916
00:52:41,280 --> 00:52:46,719
Speaker 3: we're wrapping up. We love museums. Longtime listeners, you know this.

917
00:52:46,800 --> 00:52:50,359
Speaker 3: We hope you love museums as well. Anytime we were

918
00:52:50,360 --> 00:52:53,240
Speaker 3: on the road, which is often, we try to visit

919
00:52:53,600 --> 00:52:57,480
Speaker 3: a local museum and as such we applaud the efforts

920
00:52:57,480 --> 00:53:01,480
Speaker 3: of the activists, the curators, the academic the researchers who

921
00:53:01,520 --> 00:53:06,440
Speaker 3: are across the planet right now seeking justice and dignity

922
00:53:06,600 --> 00:53:11,759
Speaker 3: for exploited peoples. Often, to be fair, a museum might

923
00:53:11,840 --> 00:53:15,200
Speaker 3: not know what they have in storage, so it is

924
00:53:15,280 --> 00:53:19,760
Speaker 3: not as if they are conspiring to actively rob people

925
00:53:19,800 --> 00:53:23,160
Speaker 3: of their own history. This is a huge debate in

926
00:53:23,200 --> 00:53:27,000
Speaker 3: the world of museums, like does the British National Museum

927
00:53:27,760 --> 00:53:30,400
Speaker 3: really know everything in their collection?

928
00:53:30,680 --> 00:53:33,600
Speaker 4: Oh, surely not, And especially when some of these organizations

929
00:53:33,640 --> 00:53:36,759
Speaker 4: are so underfunded these days. So you have to have

930
00:53:37,239 --> 00:53:39,520
Speaker 4: human people to sift through all of this stuff and

931
00:53:39,560 --> 00:53:42,200
Speaker 4: catalog it and then you know, follow those breadcrumbs, and

932
00:53:42,200 --> 00:53:43,840
Speaker 4: that can often take a really long time and be

933
00:53:43,920 --> 00:53:44,560
Speaker 4: very difficult.

934
00:53:44,680 --> 00:53:48,560
Speaker 2: Well, you've also got individuals at these organizations like the

935
00:53:48,680 --> 00:53:51,759
Speaker 2: University of Oxford and the pitt Rivers Museum is taking

936
00:53:51,760 --> 00:53:54,279
Speaker 2: great pains to return these sances to the right hold

937
00:53:54,280 --> 00:53:58,439
Speaker 2: owners through the Proecto sanso I think that's what it's called.

938
00:53:58,440 --> 00:54:00,840
Speaker 2: That's what they call it there, the pitt Rivers. And

939
00:54:01,480 --> 00:54:03,319
Speaker 2: it is good just to see that there is kind

940
00:54:03,320 --> 00:54:06,280
Speaker 2: of an agreeance, at least not fully across the board,

941
00:54:06,800 --> 00:54:10,680
Speaker 2: but to large, to the large extent, that this kind

942
00:54:10,680 --> 00:54:13,719
Speaker 2: of thing is worth this kind of work is worth doing,

943
00:54:13,840 --> 00:54:16,279
Speaker 2: going through the backlogs, going in and seeing what you

944
00:54:16,360 --> 00:54:17,640
Speaker 2: got and returning that stuff.

945
00:54:17,960 --> 00:54:22,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, looking through the looking through the back room or

946
00:54:22,520 --> 00:54:26,080
Speaker 3: the basement, blowing the dust off one of those containers,

947
00:54:26,760 --> 00:54:33,040
Speaker 3: and saying, oh crap, we should give this back. This

948
00:54:33,160 --> 00:54:36,240
Speaker 3: is how it happens. The debate continues, and please, folks,

949
00:54:36,520 --> 00:54:40,440
Speaker 3: we hope you enjoyed this episode. Remember every time you

950
00:54:40,680 --> 00:54:45,360
Speaker 3: encounter a lurid tail, savages or cannibal tribes or anything

951
00:54:45,440 --> 00:54:48,799
Speaker 3: like that, there is something more to the story. And

952
00:54:48,920 --> 00:54:52,160
Speaker 3: for Europeans in the eighteen hundreds, that was indeed the

953
00:54:52,280 --> 00:54:56,759
Speaker 3: stuff they don't want you to know. We had a

954
00:54:56,800 --> 00:54:58,880
Speaker 3: lot of fun with this one. Can you guys believe

955
00:54:58,920 --> 00:55:00,000
Speaker 3: we're on Netflix now?

956
00:55:00,200 --> 00:55:01,360
Speaker 2: It's crazy. It's also it is.

957
00:55:01,360 --> 00:55:04,480
Speaker 4: Good to be back, y'all. I missed you and we

958
00:55:04,560 --> 00:55:08,279
Speaker 4: missed you out there in conspiracy realist land. But it

959
00:55:08,360 --> 00:55:10,759
Speaker 4: is crazy, it's cool, it's fun to do a new

960
00:55:10,760 --> 00:55:12,280
Speaker 4: thing video wise.

961
00:55:13,080 --> 00:55:14,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, back to our roots.

962
00:55:14,920 --> 00:55:18,239
Speaker 2: Well, if you're just finding us on this platform, maybe

963
00:55:18,239 --> 00:55:22,560
Speaker 2: you've missed our nineteen one hundred episodes. I think now

964
00:55:22,640 --> 00:55:25,520
Speaker 2: that exists on all the all the places where you

965
00:55:25,560 --> 00:55:27,239
Speaker 2: can listen to podcasts.

966
00:55:26,880 --> 00:55:27,960
Speaker 4: From the before times.

967
00:55:28,239 --> 00:55:29,960
Speaker 2: Yes, we'll definitely check those out.

968
00:55:30,000 --> 00:55:30,759
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, please do.

969
00:55:31,000 --> 00:55:34,439
Speaker 3: All our videos. That's how we started and that's why

970
00:55:34,480 --> 00:55:38,879
Speaker 3: we're excited to be returning in twenty twenty six. You

971
00:55:39,080 --> 00:55:43,560
Speaker 3: are our favorite part of the show. Fellow conspiracy Realist.

972
00:55:43,800 --> 00:55:47,040
Speaker 3: We're so glad you joined us. As we say, you

973
00:55:47,120 --> 00:55:50,279
Speaker 3: can catch us wherever you find your favorite shows on

974
00:55:50,440 --> 00:55:53,080
Speaker 3: the lines. You can call us on the phone. You

975
00:55:53,120 --> 00:55:56,160
Speaker 3: can always send us an email. No riddle me this.

976
00:55:57,239 --> 00:56:01,239
Speaker 3: What do people do? Should they sip the Social needs right?

977
00:56:01,320 --> 00:56:04,360
Speaker 4: Should you have a taste for blood aka social needs?

978
00:56:04,400 --> 00:56:06,640
Speaker 4: You can find us at the handle Conspiracy Stuff Show

979
00:56:06,680 --> 00:56:10,000
Speaker 4: on x FKA, Twitter, on Facebook with our Facebook group

980
00:56:10,040 --> 00:56:12,239
Speaker 4: Here's where it gets crazy, and on YouTube where we

981
00:56:12,280 --> 00:56:15,520
Speaker 4: have tons of videos for you to enjoy. On Instagram

982
00:56:15,520 --> 00:56:18,160
Speaker 4: and TikTok. However, we're Conspiracy Stuff Show, and I think

983
00:56:18,200 --> 00:56:20,560
Speaker 4: there's like there's one one more way, two more ways?

984
00:56:20,719 --> 00:56:21,399
Speaker 4: What you got, Matt?

985
00:56:21,600 --> 00:56:23,839
Speaker 2: This is kind of weird. Look, I'm gonna we're gonna

986
00:56:23,840 --> 00:56:26,600
Speaker 2: ask you to get out your phone. Okay, type into

987
00:56:26,640 --> 00:56:31,800
Speaker 2: that phone the following one eight, three three st d WYTK.

988
00:56:32,400 --> 00:56:34,479
Speaker 2: That's the part of your phone that you can dial

989
00:56:34,560 --> 00:56:37,520
Speaker 2: numbers in there, and then you can call numbers like

990
00:56:37,960 --> 00:56:41,719
Speaker 2: with a phone. Do that. That's our voicemail line. When

991
00:56:41,760 --> 00:56:43,840
Speaker 2: you get in, you got three minutes, give yourself a

992
00:56:43,880 --> 00:56:46,239
Speaker 2: cool nickname. Let us know, you know, if we can

993
00:56:46,320 --> 00:56:48,240
Speaker 2: use your name and message on one of our listener

994
00:56:48,280 --> 00:56:51,840
Speaker 2: mail episodes that appear in the audio form of this show,

995
00:56:52,320 --> 00:56:55,640
Speaker 2: and uh, hey, have fun. We can't wait to hear

996
00:56:55,640 --> 00:56:57,239
Speaker 2: from you. What do you think? Do you have an

997
00:56:57,239 --> 00:56:59,960
Speaker 2: idea for a new episode? Tell us anything and everything.

998
00:57:00,120 --> 00:57:02,680
Speaker 2: We are listening. If you want to send us an email,

999
00:57:02,719 --> 00:57:03,480
Speaker 2: you can do that too.

1000
00:57:03,600 --> 00:57:07,840
Speaker 3: We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence

1001
00:57:07,920 --> 00:57:11,200
Speaker 3: we receive. Be well aware of leaning into the camera.

1002
00:57:11,440 --> 00:57:14,799
Speaker 3: Be well aware the void writes back. There is no

1003
00:57:14,960 --> 00:57:17,800
Speaker 3: limit on what you can say. Send us the links,

1004
00:57:18,200 --> 00:57:20,320
Speaker 3: send us the leads, take us to the edge of

1005
00:57:20,360 --> 00:57:23,320
Speaker 3: the rabbit hole, and will do the rest. Bonus point.

1006
00:57:24,040 --> 00:57:28,200
Speaker 3: If you would like a random fact unrelated to anything

1007
00:57:28,360 --> 00:57:32,480
Speaker 3: we've discussed, hit us up in an email and tell

1008
00:57:32,560 --> 00:57:35,520
Speaker 3: us if the random fact is interesting. We'll see you

1009
00:57:35,520 --> 00:57:57,800
Speaker 3: out here in the darch Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.

1010
00:57:58,000 --> 00:58:00,120
Speaker 2: Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production

1011
00:58:00,200 --> 00:58:04,680
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1012
00:58:04,800 --> 00:58:07,640
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.