WEBVTT - CLASSIC: Who were the Si-Te-Cah? 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:05.760 Tonight's classic is a personal favorite. We set out to 0:00:06.840 --> 0:00:09.760 we set out to do a folklore episode about a 0:00:09.880 --> 0:00:15.040 legendary race of giants in North America, and we don't 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:17.079 always get to say this, but we figured this one out. 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:19.599 I'm convinced we actually found the answer. 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:25.200 Matt poop Oh, Yes, indeed, it's venturea in Nature calls. 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:27.360 Everything we know. 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:30.560 About this came from that film directly. That's not true, Ben, 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:33.720 You've always been such a fan of giants, just in 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:37.720 your writing. It's such a cool thing, especially the idea 0:00:37.800 --> 0:00:39.199 of like a secret race of them. 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:43.640 You know, it's really weird because you know, folklore is 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:48.360 a historical snapshot, right, It's a way to learn about history, 0:00:48.840 --> 0:00:52.720 and a lot of times folklore comes to us through 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:57.880 a long telephone game, and it's often communicated through symbolism 0:00:58.120 --> 0:01:02.320 or metaphor. But these were actually giants, Like, there is 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:06.920 not a metaphor here in the surviving folklore. The people 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:10.240 and communities that we're talking about. The Sete Caw were 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:15.680 very blunt and very emphatically saying, yes, giants are real. 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:18.759 They eat people, and we had to wipe them out, 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:22.160 grind our bones to make their bread. 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:27.560 Here we go from UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. 0:01:27.720 --> 0:01:31.520 History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:34.720 now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:50.800 Hello, and welcome back to the show. My name is Noel, 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:55.600 and our compatriot Matt is on vacation. I think we 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:58.000 could say he's on vacation. Is that where he is? Yeah, 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:01.800 that's I just knew he wasn't here. Yeah, he and 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:04.040 his family have I don't know how much he wants 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:06.240 me to say about this, but they're on a nice 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:09.720 holiday vacation. That's lovely. He deserves it. If anyone deserves 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:13.680 a vacation, it's our boy, Matt. Agreed. Agreed. And in 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:16.080 the meantime they call me Ben. We were joined with 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:19.799 our super producer Paul Mission controlled decadt. Most importantly, you 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:23.680 are you, You are here, and that makes this stuff 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:28.320 they don't want you to know. Now. How familiar were 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:33.400 you growing up with Native American mythology or oral tradition. 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:35.760 Just Native American tradition in general, or. 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:41.000 Specifically folklore, folklore, or the legends of gods and monsters. 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:43.120 You know, I think I probably grew up with more 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:48.320 of a grasp of like Greek mythology than Native American mythology, 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:51.200 for sure. I remember, you know, reading stories about like Hiawatha, 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:53.960 for example, that was a real, real historical figure. 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:57.120 Right, the founder of the Iroquois Confederacy, or a co 0:02:57.200 --> 0:03:02.080 founder rather, it's right. It's interesting because often depending on 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:04.040 where you are in the world or where you are 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:07.440 in the US, you will not learn an extensive amount 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:14.480 of info about Native American folkloric or spiritual or mythological traditions. 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:17.080 But the truth of the matter is that thousands of 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:20.520 years before the first Europeans ever reached the continents that 0:03:20.560 --> 0:03:24.720 would become known as North and South America, native civilizations 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:30.240 rose and fell, creating rich traditions of architecture, agriculture, and 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:34.240 of course cultural beliefs. While each of these spiritual or 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:38.120 historical traditions was unique, their stories shared many of the 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:41.080 same traits that other cultures shared. You know, the lands 0:03:41.080 --> 0:03:44.800 were filled with gods or monsters and spirits, both good 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:50.960 and evil. Animals often represented some certain moral compass or 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:55.000 you know, perspective on life, and there were legendary heroes. 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:58.200 There were sacred days that were of course origin stories 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:02.000 of the people creating the traditions and their enemies and more. 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:06.400 And there were also stories of other tribes or communities 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:11.120 or civilizations. Like one thing that's strange is it doesn't 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:15.880 happen all the time. But in many ancient cultures, the 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:19.799 word that the people used to describe themselves translates directly 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:22.920 to just the people, or the real people or the 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:26.720 true people. Yeah, and everyone else is somehow othered, yes, 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:31.160 exactly othered. And in a lot of cases, these stories 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:35.160 that concern other tribes or communities might be stories explaining 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:38.680 the animosity between a neighboring tribe or how they got 0:04:39.040 --> 0:04:42.159 a weird name, like the fish eater people or something. 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:45.600 Or there might be stories that feature a single member 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:49.120 of a distant tribe a stranger coming to town. But 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:52.600 in some other cases, more cases than they might think, 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:56.600 there were stories of intelligent beings that interacted with us 0:04:56.680 --> 0:05:01.240 that were not gods, but we're not quite human. And 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:05.040 today's episode is about one of these groups. The how 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:09.240 best to say this, the allegedly legendary Sea te Ka. 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:12.800 Oh I like that good alliteration, man, thanks no, thanks no, 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:16.039 so see Teka see Teka. So the story of the 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:19.600 Sea Teka. They have several other names comes from allegedly 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:23.400 the oral history of the Northern Paiute people. They're a 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:27.800 numic tribe that traditionally that happened to live in what 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:33.000 we would now call western California, western Nevada, and southeast Oregon. Yeah, 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:33.400 that's right. 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:38.200 They lived in lands centered on a lake or in wetlands. 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:38.960 Uh. 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:43.520 And they existed and roved in bands who would team 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:48.080 up and have these communal hunts, and members would move 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:52.320 freely between these bands of hunters, and they would share 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:55.839 this super rich and fascinating. 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:58.960 Oral tradition m h. And in this tradition, according to 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:03.040 the story, the Paiute told tales of a nearby ancient 0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:08.360 antagonistic tribe known as the se tech Ka, the Saiduca, 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:12.560 or the Sae. And according to these legends, the sea 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:17.839 Teka were a tribe of cannibalistic giants. It's weird because 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:21.760 the name se Tekka doesn't mean anything. It doesn't signify 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:26.160 anything about gigantism, nor does it signify anything about consuming 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:30.840 human flesh. Instead, the phrase literally means tool eaters t 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:34.799 ul e in the language of the Paiute, and tool 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:38.200 is a fibrous water plant. We'll explain how this comes 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:42.560 into play later. But what's the gist of this legend? 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:44.279 How do they show up in this story? 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:46.160 Well, I'll tell you ben. The gist of this legend 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:50.560 is as follows. After being terrorized by these terrifying, cannibalistic 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:54.480 ten foot tall, redheaded giants, the Paiute had enough and 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:57.599 they went to war. And this battle was incredibly long 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:02.719 and incredibly bloody, but eventually, by pitching in and throwing 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:06.440 their lot in together, the Piute prevailed. The Sea Tecon 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:11.480 attempted to make a getaway very cleverly from the Payute 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:14.880 by living on rafts that seems a little bit misinformed, 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:17.840 just that couldn't swim, But this was also related to 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:20.440 a legend that had they had crossed the ocean to 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:24.480 the Americas on these rafts as well, before ending up 0:07:24.520 --> 0:07:27.200 in the desert area of western Nevada. 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:32.800 Eventually, a coalition of tribes, possibly with communities other than 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:37.680 the Payout bands joining in, trapped the remaining Sea Techa 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:41.440 in a nearby cave, and when these giants refused to 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:46.600 come outside, the Paiute piled brush before the cave mouth 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:51.200 and set it on fire. The entire population of Sea 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:56.000 Techa ended up dying inside. You'll hear people say that 0:07:56.120 --> 0:07:58.200 some of them made a run for it and ran 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:02.280 through the fire, only to be speared or shot with 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:06.120 arrows or murdered by the people waiting outside. And this 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:09.160 is pretty gruesome stuff, right, I mean, according to the story, 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:13.720 the tribes didn't just seal off the cave and bury 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:18.040 these folks alive. They also raised any traces of Setechkas 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:21.440 settlements to the ground, and they wanted to erase them 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:25.000 from history. Right except for this story, right, And ordinarily 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:29.360 this story would just stay that a story, startling, fascinating, 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:34.280 ultimately unprovable. I mean, ten foot cannibals, right, Come on, 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:38.440 I like it. I like it as a story for sure. Yeah. Yeah, 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:41.440 But wouldn't they have left some traces? Where's the proof? 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:46.200 Here's the thing? What if someone else found the cave? 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:50.360 Will answer that question? After a word from our sponsor. 0:08:57.280 --> 0:08:58.959 Here's where it gets crazy. 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:03.960 In nineteen eleven, a few people did think they discovered 0:09:03.960 --> 0:09:08.520 the actual resting place of the see Teka in western Nevada, 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:13.160 on the outskirts of the Humboldt Sink is this small cave. 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:16.800 It's hot and it's dry, and it's isolated. But it 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:19.480 wasn't always that way right. 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:24.280 This was once part of an enormous lake called Lake Lahontan. 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:28.440 It's applies to Senerra Lake that was round maybe thirteen 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:30.840 thousand years ago, and at the time it was one 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:34.360 of the largest lakes on this continent. But it eventually 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:36.920 dried up and it left a number of smaller lakes. 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:41.760 Among these was Humboldt Lake, and this cave was on 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:45.000 the shore or is on the shore of this lake. Today, 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:48.440 as you're listening to this episode, you can reach the 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:51.400 cave yourself. You just drive down a dirt road from 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:55.600 the small town of nearby Lovelock, Nevada. This cave takes 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:58.040 its name from the town, and most people today also 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:00.560 call it Lovelock Cave. It has a couple of other names, 0:10:00.600 --> 0:10:05.360 but Lovelock is its go to moniker. In nineteen eleven, 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:09.320 there was a pair of guano miners from the town 0:10:09.320 --> 0:10:14.360 of Lovelock who were hunting guano deposits, which was quite 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:17.719 a profitable thing to sell at the time. They discovered 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:21.000 that the cave, as a result of being sealed off 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:25.000 to a great extent, had accumulated a huge population of bats, 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:29.000 which leads to over time vast deposits of guano. So 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:32.280 they spent a year digging out this guano and shipping 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:37.080 it to a buyer in San Francisco. And at first 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:39.920 they were thinking, wow, we struck it rich. There's this 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:43.640 huge pile of guano. But as they started to dig 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:49.319 the stuff out, they found more and more ancient artifacts 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:53.760 that were mixed in the batpoop. And eventually, most of 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:55.480 the time when they were doing when they were mining 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:57.920 this stuff, they would just find like a shard of 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:00.920 pottery or a sandal or something, just throw it outside 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:04.880 the cave in a little pile of rubbish. But they 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:08.520 got to the point where there were they were finding 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:12.200 more artifacts than they were finding guano, and it became 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:16.280 less profitable. So in nineteen twelve they said, you know 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:18.480 what are we doing. This is we've gone like a 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:21.760 meter or so down into the ground and there's more 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:26.560 stuff from this unknown ancient civilization. Then there is bat poop. 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:28.920 And let's be honest, dude, we're here for the poop. 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:32.560 So let's get some professional help. And they contacted the 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:38.920 University of California. The university sent an anthropologist named Llewellyn L. Loud. 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:41.320 I thought you'd like that name. I love the name Lluellen. 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:43.240 Did you know that about me? I know a lot 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:44.199 and Loud and. 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:48.120 Just paired that's first of all ticks, all my alliteration boxes. 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:52.040 You've got Llewellen, l Loud, Loud is an amazing last name. Yeah, 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:53.600 Llewellen is a man's name, right. 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:57.480 Wasn't that the name of the dude in the country Davis? 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:00.960 That's Lewin Davis. I think, as was leu Allen, the 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:03.160 main dude in No Country for old Man. I think 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:04.760 his name was Lewellen injury. 0:12:04.840 --> 0:12:06.439 I think you might be right. Yeah, it's been a 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:08.800 while since I saw that, but that's a great, great film. 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:12.439 So they said this guy, this anthropologist, doctor Loud, also 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:15.800 a great nickname. To check it out. And what does 0:12:15.840 --> 0:12:16.720 he ended up finding. 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:19.720 We found a lot of things, about ten thousand individual 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:23.480 artifacts from that rubbish sheep in different parts of the caves. 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:26.520 It was mostly along the walls where miners had kind 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:31.080 of ignored and not cut into. And Loud's workload was 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:34.200 such that it took him like seventeen years before he 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:36.960 was finally able to publish an account of all of 0:12:36.960 --> 0:12:38.280 these findings. 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:42.160 Yeah, and you know, it may sound like it took 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:45.520 him forever. But this was a herculean task. What we 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:48.880 now know is that the earliest evidence of human habitation 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:54.320 in this cave goes back about four thousand years, and 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:58.000 that's according to the radiocarbon dating of the oldest artifacts. 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:02.439 Today's anthropologist call these people whomever they may have been, 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:06.640 the Lovelock Culture, and the time in which they lived 0:13:06.760 --> 0:13:09.640 was referred to as the Lovelock Period. It lasted three 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:13.080 thousand years, during which they left us all these artifacts 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:16.480 that you mentioned, nol. We're talking about baskets crafted with 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:22.240 a pretty impressive degree of sophistication, these ancient duck decoys 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:26.160 made from fibers of that same plant, tool and sagebrush, 0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:30.439 sandals and so on. They think the cave was experiencing 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:36.360 its heydays somewhere between fifteen hundred BCE until four forty, 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:39.840 when a collapse cut off the easiest access to most 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:43.520 of the cave. And by the time that collapse had occurred, 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:47.400 this group we call the Lovelock Culture had been supplanted 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:51.439 by the Paiute, and the Piute's name for these predecessors 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:57.480 was Saidaku, literally translated to tool matt house dwellers. I 0:13:57.480 --> 0:14:01.160 mean they lived in those they lived in huts made 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:04.280 of that stuff. I have a good literal descriptive translation 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:07.720 like that. A lot of the names that they have 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:11.880 for different bands or communities are descriptions of what they eat, 0:14:12.040 --> 0:14:17.040 like the fish eaters. There's the brine fly ears. Really, 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:18.640 I don't know what that is. They sound like they 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:19.880 were living the roughest. 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:21.520 Like yeah, it does sound like a brine flies. 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:29.480 Yeah. So the PIU, once they take over this cave, 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:35.480 they continue using it until eighteen twenty nine when Europeans 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:39.800 and European descended people begin populating the region and they 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:44.080 are all killed off or driven away the PIUT that 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:48.120 is in eighteen thirty three, when an expedition led by 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:50.560 a guy named Joseph Walker explores the area. 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:54.520 So there is a real cave and the civilization or 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:58.360 a civilization existed in the area before the PIU. But 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:01.080 how does the rest of the story a checkout? Like 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:05.000 the whole you know, redheaded cannibalistic giants, sitch. 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:08.240 That's the thing. Yeah, there are a few issues. The 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:11.760 first and the biggest issue is that, according to more 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:15.960 skeptical researchers like Brian Dunning over at Skeptoid, there is 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:20.280 no actual piut story about this group. There are he 0:15:20.400 --> 0:15:23.200 notes stories about lone giants that pop up, but there's 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:28.800 nothing actually about some group of people called the Sea Techca. However, 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:33.360 there is one account from eighteen eighty three by an 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:36.760 author named Sarah Winnemuka Hopkins. She's the daughter of a 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:42.080 Piot chief named Winnemuka, and in her book Life among 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:45.560 the Piot's Wrongs and Claims, she tells the story. We 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:49.040 have an extensive excerpt of this, so I'll just paraphrase 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:53.640 it here. She tells a story of a among the 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:56.160 traditions of our people is one of a small tribe 0:15:56.200 --> 0:15:58.800 of barbarians who used to live along the Humboldt River. 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:01.760 This is many hundred years ago. She says, they used 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:04.160 to waylay my people and kill them and eat them, 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:09.080 and they would even eat their own dead. They would 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:11.360 come and dig up our dead after they were buried, 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:13.560 carry them off and eat them. And now and then 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:15.680 they would come and make war on my people. They 0:16:15.720 --> 0:16:18.040 would fight, and as fast as they killed one another 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:20.960 on either side, the women from their tribe would carry 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:24.520 off the dead to consume them. So at last the 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:27.680 Piot make war on them. There were about twenty six 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:32.200 hundred of these Sea Teca and the war lasted three years. 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:36.640 And then Hopkins goes on to say, we did kill 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:40.040 them in great numbers. We saw that they fled to 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:43.040 the bush. We set the bush on fire. Then they 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:45.840 tried to make boats to live on the lake or 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:50.400 rafts to live on the lake. And her people would 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:54.200 ring around the lake and would kill anyone who came 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:57.800 on land. And then finally they all managed to get 0:16:58.000 --> 0:16:59.760 to land on the east side of the lake. They 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:03.840 went to a cave and then they got cornered and 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:08.119 the payout, according to Hopkins, again came to them and said, look, 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:12.520 will you be cool? Will you not eat people like 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:16.359 coyotes or beast or scavengers? Please righte that'd be super swell. 0:17:16.640 --> 0:17:18.800 And they said no, we're not going to give it up. 0:17:18.920 --> 0:17:19.840 This is what we do. 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:22.320 And then once you get a taste for human meat, ben, 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:24.080 we all know that you can't go back. 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:27.080 Yeah. Always stunning Philadelphia talks about it. That's what the 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:33.119 Weddigo legends about. But apparently they started to gather wood 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:35.720 to fill up the mouth of the cave, and then 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:38.920 they came back to the Seteka and gave them one 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:41.840 more chance they said, will you give up and be 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:46.040 like men and not eat people like beast? Say it quickly, 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:49.440 and we will put out this fire. But they had 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:52.400 either refused to talk to them, or they had gone 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:55.639 too deep in the cavern to hear people talking at 0:17:55.680 --> 0:17:59.959 the entrance. So no answer came, and the fire burned. 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:04.520 And in ten days some people went back to see 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:07.040 if the fire had gone out. They said they must 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:09.760 all be dead. There was a horrible smell. This tribe 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:12.360 was called people eaters. And after that. 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:15.920 Were they what's the thing, the one eyed, three toad 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:17.439 flying purple people eaters. 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:20.960 Yeah, one eyed, one horn, one horn. That's that's it. Yeah, 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:27.120 they called them people eaters. And they say, according to Hopkins, 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:30.480 that the tribe they exterminated had reddish hair. And she 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:33.000 said that she has some of this hair. It's been 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:35.679 passed down from father to son. But she has it 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:38.440 in a dress, a dress that is ringed with red hair, 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:43.440 that was a morning dress. But no, the trail goes 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:46.159 dead there. We don't know. There's no picture of the dress. 0:18:46.600 --> 0:18:48.879 We don't know if anyone's seen it. And that's not 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:51.960 the only issue with the story. No, it's definitely not. 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:53.760 We will get to some more of those holes after 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:55.520 one more quick sponsor break. 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:03.359 So first. 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:06.119 As often happens with stories like this, there are no 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:10.080 actual giant humanoid bones available for viewing today, which I find. 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:11.040 To be a shame. 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:14.639 According to one of the miners, the best specimens were 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:17.520 taken by a local fraternal order Amazons. 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:19.000 Yeah, that's right, who. 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:23.880 Boiled them clean to use in and misonic initiation rituals. 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:31.159 Right right. And according to the reports of what doctor 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:35.320 Loud actually found, there were sixty mummies that were onearthed, 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:38.359 but they were of average height, some of the world's 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:41.399 oldest duck decoys. One of the big things they found 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:45.400 was a sandal that was over fifteen inches long, so 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:51.000 someone with really really big feet, right. They found doughnut 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:54.800 shaped stone with three hundred and sixty five notches carved 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:58.680 along the outside fifty two carved inside. Some people think 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:03.879 that's a calendar. They also found a human femur dating 0:20:03.920 --> 0:20:08.360 back to fourteen fifty BC, human muscle dating to fourteen 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:11.600 twenty BC, and basketry dating back to twelve eighteen. They 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:15.960 found a bunch of stuff, and during the initial excavations 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:19.280 there were these reports of mummified remains being found of 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:23.520 two red haired giants. One they said was a female 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:26.280 skeleton six and a half feet tall, and the other 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:29.960 was a male over eight feet tall. However, not only 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:32.360 is as you said, not only is there no evidence 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:35.159 we can find about this today physical evidence at least, 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:39.520 but no one mentions giants in those original tales or 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:43.280 the original discoveries, or even Hopkins recollection, because again she 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:47.520 tells that story that sounds pretty familiar to us, but 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:52.080 she calls them barbarians and cannibals, not giants. The first 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:55.520 mention of giants doesn't occur until a nineteen thirty one 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:59.359 newspaper article, not some ancient legend, and then there are 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:04.680 some other authors. As you say, it's possible that because 0:21:04.880 --> 0:21:09.440 of the because of the amount of large megafauna fossils 0:21:09.480 --> 0:21:11.639 that could be around that area, they could have just 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:16.719 found the bone of a large or ancient animal and 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:19.240 thought this is the leg of a giant person. 0:21:19.400 --> 0:21:22.840 I mean, a femur bone doesn't look that different between 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:27.040 like say, some sort of giant cat and a human. 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:30.280 Right exactly exactly. But then we get to the question 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:32.800 of the hair, because the red hair thing seems to 0:21:32.840 --> 0:21:38.119 be pretty consistent. Is it a red hairing. It's you 0:21:38.200 --> 0:21:41.520 know what it is, It exactly is, and that's a 0:21:41.520 --> 0:21:46.080 great way to put it. So Naturally, dark hair over 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:51.120 time has a tendency to fade to red in certain conditions, 0:21:51.480 --> 0:21:54.080 and that's part of the reason why you will see 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:57.720 so many stories of red haired mummies being found in 0:21:57.800 --> 0:22:04.040 ancient burial grounds around the world. It's because the amount 0:22:04.080 --> 0:22:09.000 of time that they are interred can affect the rate 0:22:09.040 --> 0:22:11.560 of decay or appearance of the color of their hair. 0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:16.080 So they very well may be red haired now, but 0:22:16.520 --> 0:22:19.400 most of the red haired mummies you hear about originally 0:22:19.440 --> 0:22:20.640 had very dark hair. 0:22:21.080 --> 0:22:24.600 So is it about like getting bleached and discolored by 0:22:24.680 --> 0:22:28.520 exposure to the sun or are there other factors at play? 0:22:28.920 --> 0:22:32.600 Yeah, it appears to be a chemical reaction as the 0:22:32.680 --> 0:22:38.720 hair d natures. This means that exposure to certain temperatures 0:22:39.240 --> 0:22:46.240 or certain chemicals present in soil can change the chemical 0:22:46.359 --> 0:22:49.760 composition of the hair and change the way at which 0:22:49.760 --> 0:22:52.399 it would decay. I see. So it removes some of 0:22:52.440 --> 0:22:56.440 that pigment or it alters it. So it's a fascinating thing. 0:22:56.640 --> 0:22:59.760 But the key element here is that these people don't 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:04.560 art off with red hair, which is relatively rare throughout 0:23:04.560 --> 0:23:06.520 our species, right. I guess you and I both have 0:23:06.600 --> 0:23:08.560 a little bit of red hair. Matt probably has the 0:23:08.560 --> 0:23:09.160 most of us. 0:23:09.280 --> 0:23:11.000 I only have a little bit. It's in my beard 0:23:11.040 --> 0:23:12.520 and in the parts that used to be red are 0:23:12.520 --> 0:23:15.760 now turning gray. So I guess they're becoming denatured themselves 0:23:17.160 --> 0:23:19.520 a different way. I don't know, in a different way, right, 0:23:20.160 --> 0:23:23.400 So there you have it. Today, many of those original 0:23:23.560 --> 0:23:26.919 artifacts found at the Lovelock Cave can be viewed at 0:23:26.960 --> 0:23:31.360 a small natural history museum located in winnim Muca, Nevada. 0:23:31.880 --> 0:23:35.280 And then some of the other objects are at the Smithsonian, 0:23:35.359 --> 0:23:39.119 like there's ancient duck decoys and the basketry and bones, 0:23:39.160 --> 0:23:42.000 or in the Nevada State Museum. One thing you will 0:23:42.000 --> 0:23:45.399 not find in any museum, at least that we have 0:23:45.480 --> 0:23:47.880 been able to as so far as we've been able 0:23:47.880 --> 0:23:52.040 to ascertain, are any trace of giant humans or a 0:23:52.200 --> 0:23:55.080 race of giant humans, a tribe, a species, a community 0:23:55.200 --> 0:23:56.880 or band of giant humans. 0:23:57.440 --> 0:23:59.840 But we do have one more thing. We had to 0:23:59.840 --> 0:24:03.000 save it for last. You see, the myth of the 0:24:03.080 --> 0:24:08.840 se Tekka is not completely busted. Miners and archaeologists did 0:24:08.960 --> 0:24:13.440 find something else in Lovelock Cave, human bones that have 0:24:13.560 --> 0:24:17.920 been split to allow for the extraction of marrow, Human 0:24:18.000 --> 0:24:20.600 bones that have been processed the same way the bones 0:24:20.600 --> 0:24:24.119 of an animal would have been processed. They may not 0:24:24.320 --> 0:24:27.880 have been giants who ever lived here in this Lovelock culture, 0:24:28.240 --> 0:24:32.800 but these people did. It turns out practice cannibalism at 0:24:32.800 --> 0:24:35.920 the very least in times of famine, and who knows 0:24:36.040 --> 0:24:39.560 nol Perhaps it was a situation where at first they 0:24:40.400 --> 0:24:43.320 ate human flesh because they had to, and then later 0:24:43.560 --> 0:24:47.840 they developed a taste for it. Either way, at least 0:24:47.840 --> 0:24:54.840