WEBVTT - The Very Dust, Part 4: Mythology in Dust 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:07.120 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:13.080 --> 0:00:15.720 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name is. 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:18.760 Robert Mayam and I am Joe McCormick, and we are 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:22.720 back with our fourth episode in the series on dust. 0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:25.680 So we've covered a lot of ground already. If you 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:27.960 have not heard the earlier episodes, you should probably go 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:31.400 back and check those out first, but for a brief review. 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:34.240 In part one of the series, we talked about how 0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:38.440 to define and classify dust according to particle size, and 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:41.440 how easily it is borne aloft in the air, and 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:46.320 so forth. We also talked about our domestic companions, the wonderful, beautiful, 0:00:46.400 --> 0:00:50.519 horrible pyroglyphid dust mites. We also talked about some of 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:55.400 the complicated interactions between atmospheric dust and climate and weather. 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:59.200 In Part two, we talked about dust bunnies both inside 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.279 the home and potent in outer space, as well as 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:05.640 some historical attitudes about dust and how those attitudes relate 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:09.560 to things like interior design and horror literature. And then 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:12.119 in part three, we talked about the role of dust 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:16.040 in urban Victorian London and in nineteenth century literature again 0:01:16.520 --> 0:01:19.480 and also got into dust as an illustration of the 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:23.840 philosophical puzzle known as the Sororiety's paradox or the paradox 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:26.800 of the heap. And now we're back today to talk 0:01:26.880 --> 0:01:28.880 more about dust. I think we're going to focus today 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:33.440 primarily on dust, the role of dust in religion and mythology. 0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:37.520 That's right. So at this point, I think we've cleanly 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:40.880 established the ubiquitous nature of dust. You know, it precedes us, 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:44.160 it follows us, and it steadily covers all the details 0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:48.000 of our lives. So on one level, dust is mundane 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:52.040 and perhaps not all that worthy of careful consideration or 0:01:52.120 --> 0:01:56.400 dreaming or myth making. But as we've also established, dust 0:01:56.560 --> 0:02:00.000 can also be quite beautiful. It can haunt us with it. 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:05.160 It's minuscule scale, it's almost invisible accumulation, and it takes 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:08.840 on additional meanings in the light then of both mythological 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:12.359 and scientific explanation. So it's something that, yeah, it's everywhere, 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:15.200 it's every day, but it also works in such a 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:18.959 subtle way and can be quite beautiful that it does 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:21.960 seem to attract this kind of dream making attention. 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:24.280 You know. One thing I brought up in the first 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:27.840 episode of the series was about a mismatch in the 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:30.440 different ways we think about dust, because on one hand, 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:35.080 dust as a symbol is most often used to symbolize 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:38.680 kind of nothingness or worthlessness. You know, dust just means 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:42.480 like it's it's sort of the opposite of meaningful, useful matter. 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:47.440 It's just something that's everywhere and is worth nothing. At 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:49.800 the same time, I sort of like what you're talking about, 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:54.480 rob with dust being both mundane and all around us, 0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:59.840 but also seemingly sort of magical. Sometimes. I think it's 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:03.840 an interesting that dust has, even in its use as 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:08.760 a symbol of meaninglessness or worthlessness, a real potency like 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:12.080 it is, so it is considered so worthless that it 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:14.880 is really captivating image and it matters. 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:18.240 Yeah. Yeah. And also we'll get into this a little 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:20.960 bit too. There can also be I think, a disconnect 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:24.399 between the way we think about dust and related substances 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:28.520 such as dirt and mud versus the way that people 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:33.120 would have thought about it in the past, but more 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:37.640 centrally in times and places where people are more connected 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:39.760 with the earth. So at any rate, we're going to 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:42.320 get into some various examples here, but we do need 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:45.720 to stress that we cannot possibly cover every invocation of 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:49.960 dust and mythic, legendary, folkloric, and religious traditions here. So 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:53.480 we're going to try and cover some cantilagizing examples, but 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:57.600 will inevitably leave some things off, in which case, you know, 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:00.720 that's an opportunity for folks to write into us and 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:03.840 share other examples of dust from mythology, folklore, and so 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:06.800 forth that we might find interesting and we can discuss 0:04:06.840 --> 0:04:08.560 on future listener mail episodes. 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:11.680 Exactly, Please send us your favorite dust myths that we 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:14.839 do not cover. But I wanted to kick things off 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:19.040 today by looking at the role of dust in Mesopotamian 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:22.200 myths because I just recalled off the top of my 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:25.920 head a lot of striking imagery of dust in ancient 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:30.200 Mesopotamian literature and also references in some of the religious 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:32.840 rituals that we've talked about, Like I know, we talked 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:35.560 about some of these last year in one of our 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:38.880 Halloween episodes. But anyway, so I was going to look 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:41.520 up some of the most interesting references to dust in 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:45.680 Mesopotamian literature, and so I ended up searching for references 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:51.080 to dust in the myths from Mesopotamia, Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, 0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:55.080 and others from Oxford University Press, nineteen ninety eight, edited 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:59.159 by Stephanie Dally, And the most interesting one that I 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:02.640 came across is one you might know, the sort of 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:07.040 famous house of Dust passage in the Gilgamesh epic. This 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:11.200 is in tablet seven of the Gilgamesh story and this 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:15.839 imagery comes in when Gilgamesh's friend, the wild Man in 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:20.279 key Dou, is cursed and dying. Basically, he is being 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:24.360 punished by the gods. The gods are getting revenged because 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:26.640 the two of them, both Gilgamesh and in key Dou, 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:28.800 for some reason, only in key Dou gets punished here. 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:33.400 They both attacked the demon Humbaba in the Cedar forest, 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:36.280 and they attacked another god to They've been doing a 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:39.360 lot of damage. They're they're a wild pair. So in 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:41.480 key Dou is cursed by the gods. He's on his 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:47.279 deathbed here and he has a terrifying dream, a truly 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:52.599 revolting and disturbing vision of the underworld, the land of 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:55.480 the dead. And I'm not going to quote the whole 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:57.680 thing here, I'm gonna skip around a bit and pull 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:01.520 out some passages from his description of the dream. And 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:04.480 again this is the translation in that Myths and Misopotamia 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:07.599 I described then in Kidu wept, for he was sick 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:11.200 at heart. He lay down alone. He spoke what was 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:14.240 in his mind to his friend. Listen again, my friend, 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:17.320 I had a dream in the night. The sky called out, 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:20.680 the earth replied. I was standing between them. There was 0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:24.000 a young man whose face was obscured. His face was 0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:26.760 like that of an Anzu bird. He had the paws 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:29.320 of a lion. He had the claws of an eagle. 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:33.240 He seized me by my locks, using great force against me, 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:37.320 like a wild bull. He trampled on me. He squeezed 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:40.520 my whole body. I cried out, save me, my friend, 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:43.680 don't desert me. But you were afraid and did not 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:46.719 help me. He seized me, drove me down to the 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:50.560 dark house dwelling of Rkala's god, to the house where 0:06:50.600 --> 0:06:53.880 those who stay are deprived of light, where dust is 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:57.760 their food and clay their bread. They are clothed like 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:01.640 birds with feathers, and they no light, and they dwell 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:05.839 in darkness. Over the door and the bolt dust has settled. 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:08.640 Oh wow, so some of this does depend on the 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:11.760 English translation. Some of the you know the hauntingness like 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:14.360 you can read different translations of this passage that kind 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:16.440 of hit in slightly different ways. And I will say 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:22.200 that sometimes the word dust here is in some cases 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:25.800 translated as dirt, but most often I've seen it as dust, 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:27.920 and it really makes sense as dust. When you think 0:07:27.960 --> 0:07:31.400 about the idea that, like, to this house of dust, 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:34.080 to this land of darkness over the door and the 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:39.360 bolt the dust has settled, it's a really striking, powerful, 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:42.520 creepy image that you know, it's like there's no coming 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:45.680 and going anyway. And Kido goes on to describe how 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:48.800 great kings of the world have their crowns piled up 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:52.160 in heaps in the underworld, though I did wonder how 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:53.400 many crowns makes a heap? 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:56.400 Ah, yeah, yeah, I love this detail about is. Yeah, 0:07:56.520 --> 0:08:00.680 like the steady accumulation of crowns in my much like 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:02.040 the steady accumulation of. 0:08:02.040 --> 0:08:05.600 Dust, And much like the dust. The crowns are now 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:08.920 worthless in the underworld because the kings cannot wear them 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:11.640 and they are not honored. The kings in the underworld 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:15.680 are made to be servants, cooking meats and baking desserts 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:18.880 and pouring cool water for the gods, but they cannot 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:22.720 share in these delights themselves. For the dead, dust is 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:25.800 their food and clay is their bread. So finally, in 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:28.840 this passage, in key Do does die from the god curse, 0:08:28.920 --> 0:08:32.880 and this vision of death is so awful that it 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:36.360 drives Gilgamesh to go on his epic quest to discover 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:38.920 the secret of immortality. And so he ends up, you know, 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:42.440 searching for like a plant at the bottom of the 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:46.040 ocean that he thinks can save him from death, because 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:49.360 he cannot end up like in key Do in the 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:53.000 house of dust. So it's literature like this that makes 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:57.240 me think. In some cases, the imagery of dust is used, 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:01.560 of course, to signal something about worthlessness, like dust is 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:04.600 not good as food, so it is not worthwhile as food. 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:06.520 You do not want to be forced to eat it 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:09.680 because it does not serve the function food should serve. 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:13.920 But there is also a deeper meaning here. It's like 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:19.040 there's a worthlessness deeper than mere trash or unwanted physical substance. 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:22.560 There is a cosmic horror to this dust that the 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:26.679 eating of the dust it seems to me to symbolize 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:30.079 a fear so deep that it can't even be articulated. 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:33.640 It's the fear of that, which is the opposite of vitality, 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:37.160 the opposite of life, and the opposite of all meaning. 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:40.000 Yeah, yeah, it brings me back once again to that 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:42.800 line from T. S. Eliot. I will show you fear 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:44.280 and a handful of dust. 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:47.520 So it clearly can have something of this kind of significance. 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:50.520 The house of dust is a horrible place that Gilgamesh 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:53.080 does not want to go. You know, it's the end 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:57.160 of everything good. But on the other hand, clearly dust 0:09:57.240 --> 0:10:00.520 doesn't always have this kind of significance in even in 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:02.160 people's magical and religious thinking. 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:05.480 That's right, so I thought we might. We'll come back 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:08.280 to some more fearful examples of dust. But first off, 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:11.920 here's a pretty i think fun one, in a mostly 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:16.560 positive one. This is the idea of the Sandman's dust. 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:19.120 So a lot of you are familiar with the nursery 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:22.040 spirit known as the sandman who visits you each night 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:25.160 to sprinkle sand into your eyes to cause you to sleep. 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:28.800 And if you're like me, you've sort of long half 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:32.079 heard this tale and or seen it in old Disney cartoons. 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:35.600 I think there's one where Pluto the dog is visited 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:38.920 by a canine sandman, and you get to see all 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:42.120 this play out in animated form. But if you're like me, 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:45.520 you probably didn't. Were rarely paused to consider how weird 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:46.839 this is, right, because. 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:48.320 Like it doesn't make any sense. 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:50.680 Sand in your eyes. 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:52.680 Seems like it would make it hard to sleep. 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:54.920 Yeah, like sand in your eyes is a bad thing. 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:58.480 But so I think for the first time in my life, 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:00.600 I was like, all right, well, what's what is So 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:03.679 one of the first places I went was a Brewer's 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:06.040 Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, which is always kind of 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:09.520 a nice sort of first stop with some of these 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:15.560 antiquated English sayings. And the idea here, apparently is that 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:19.360 one becomes sleepy, especially children. And what do you do? 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:22.160 You rub your eyes as if you have sand or 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:25.480 dust in them, And I think this is key too. 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:31.200 Sandman maybe sounds more abrasive dust man, And the idea 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:35.160 of dust in your eyes is ultimately, I think more 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:39.160 where this is based. And indeed the sand man is 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:43.520 also known as the dust man, and Brewers includes examples 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:46.439 of sayings that would have invoked the dust man. So 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:48.959 you might have a situation where I suppose you might 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:53.200 be becoming sleepy, or more likely there are children becoming sleepy, 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:55.560 and you might say something like, oh, the dust man 0:11:55.640 --> 0:11:56.360 has arrived. 0:11:56.720 --> 0:11:59.080 That's so creepy. What child wants to hear that? 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:02.360 Oh, I don't know, I don't It doesn't strike me 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:06.120 as is too nefarious. Here. Carol Rose has an entry 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:09.840 on the entity in her book Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns and Goblins, 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:14.720 which is an excellent encyclopedia of fairies and fair folks, 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:18.520 sorts of creatures, and she describes the dust in question 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:22.719 as magic dust and it ensures not only sleep, but 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:26.840 ultimately pleasant dreams. She mentions that the dust man in 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:31.760 Danish and Swedish lore is known as only luke oui, 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:36.040 which means, and I'm probably mispronouncing that, only close your eyes. 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:40.000 And in this tradition he is a tiny elf or 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:43.680 fairy in a silk jacket that changes color with the light. 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:47.080 Which I like that detail because to me, it makes 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:49.160 me think of what we've been discussing about, you know, 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:51.360 motes of dust being caught in a ray of light 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:55.800 and having this ethereal quality. And so what does he do? 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:58.199 He comes up and he blows magic dust into a 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:02.440 child's eyes and onto their neck. This makes your eyelids 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:05.760 heavy and makes your head heavy. You can't hold your 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:09.120 head up straight anymore. So it's time to go to bed. 0:13:09.520 --> 0:13:12.359 And then once you're in bed, once you're safely a snooze, 0:13:12.960 --> 0:13:15.959 he'll come to your bed and open up a magical 0:13:16.080 --> 0:13:19.880 umbrella over you, and there will be all these wonderful 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:22.920 pictures on the underside of the umbrella that will fill 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:28.920 your dreams with wonderful stories. Now, isn't that delightful? Now 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:32.600 this is not true for naughty kids, however, but it's 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:34.439 not too bad. You know, naughty kids can get it, 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:37.400 can have a pretty hard time in these sorts of tales. 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:41.400 But according to Rose, naughty kids just get a standard umbrella. 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:44.880 So it's not the umbrella we've met with beautiful stories 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:48.280 on the underside of it. It's just an umbrella, So 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:50.720 no special dreams for you. But also you're not like 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:54.559 chased around by you know, some strange demons or anything. 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:57.160 And of course there are other varieties of this sort 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:00.280 of spirit in European tradition, but they don't all use dust, 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:03.040 and they don't certainly don't all use umbrellas. 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:06.040 I had no idea Sandman with this deep I did 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:08.160 not think there was associated. 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:21.440 Lore yeah, it runs pretty deep. Now for the next 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:24.560 few examples are going to get more into this connection 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:29.640 between some sort of magical dust and the dust of 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:32.720 the dead, which does seem to be a common motif 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:35.960 that you find in traditions all over the world. And 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:38.520 it makes sense, you know, it gets down to this basic, 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:43.000 you know, ashes to ashes sort of observation about the 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:48.560 nature of matter in our world. The first one is 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:53.120 something that's generally referred to as goopher or goopher dust. 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:55.800 Sometimes it's spelled g o O f e r and 0:14:55.840 --> 0:14:58.440 other times it's spelled g o O p h e R. 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:01.640 And I was reading a about this in an article 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:04.960 on the low Country Digital History Initiative website. This is 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:09.760 affiliated with South Carolina's College of Charleston, titled Spiritual Practices 0:15:09.840 --> 0:15:14.200 in the low Country discussing African American religious practices in 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:19.200 the Antebellum and post Bellum periods. These are particular traditions 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:22.720 that are sometimes referred to broadly as who do and 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:26.800 the article here discusses conjuring magic of West and West 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:32.120 Central African origin that enslaved people's practiced outside of or 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:37.720 alongside Christian religious traditions. It notes individuals given the title 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:42.960 of goopher doctor. The term seemingly related to the Congo 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:48.000 word kufwa, meaning to die, And I was reading elsewhere 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:50.840 in folk Belief and Custom in the Blues by Mimi 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:54.400 Klarr published in Western Folklore back in nineteen sixty that 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:58.400 describes this goopher dust as a powder to be burned 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:01.840 in a kind of long disay since conjuring of the illness, 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:05.680 and mentions that the powder is generally associated with graves. 0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:08.200 And by long distance, I mean, you know, it doesn't 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:10.920 necessarily need to be cross country, but just like the 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:16.160 target is not maybe physically present at the conjuring. Now, 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:18.880 the next one I want to touch on is a 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:23.480 concept involving a kind of corpse dust in Navajo traditions. 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:26.600 So a while back I was researching a topic related 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:29.880 to rituals and folk beliefs of the Navajo people in 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:32.040 various sources I reached out to pointed me in the 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:35.640 direction of a work by an anthropologist by the name 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:39.440 of Clyde Klockhon who lived nineteen oh five through nineteen sixty, 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:43.960 particularly his book Navajo Witchcraft from nineteen forty four. The 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:47.160 version I have as a publication from nineteen eighty nine, 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:49.520 and I think there were some editions made. I'm not 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:51.360 sure if those editions were made in the eighties or 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:53.920 if they had been made previously in the nineteen sixties. However, 0:16:55.280 --> 0:16:59.080 so Klokhoon's anthropology work was very well regarded. But I 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:01.720 do want to against stress that the timeframe of the 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:05.520 working question here. So he worked among the Navajo people 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:10.120 during the nineteen thirties and the late nineteen twenties, that's 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:13.159 when his field work took place. But you know, he 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:16.359 was an outsider working within those communities, and that this 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:21.960 is not like modern anthropological work, but it's still fascinating. 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:26.000 And he uses Western terms such as witchcraft in discussing 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:30.160 these magical concepts, though he himself wrote that this term 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:35.919 was not completely accurate, as you know, it's more of 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:40.080 a dependence on a broadly comparable Western concept to understand 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:44.919 or discuss what is occurring in Navajo culture, and he 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:48.360 suggested that a more precise description would be quote Navajo 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:53.040 idea and action patterns concerned with the influencing of events 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:57.440 by supernatural techniques that are socially disapproved. So what we're 0:17:57.440 --> 0:18:00.520 talking about here, it's not something you would want to 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:04.000 confuse with other examples of Navajo rituals and beliefs. This 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:06.719 would be like a subset of those in which the 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:10.280 techniques were generally disapproved of, or I would say even 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:11.399 broadly disapproved of. 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:13.919 But also with that caveat, you would want to be 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:17.040 careful not to apply all of the connotations that you 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:21.240 might apply to witchcraft and say the you know, Renaissance 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:22.840 European context or something. 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:26.400 Yeah. In general, the term witch and witchcraft can become 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:30.399 complicated when you start like applying it to actual practices 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:35.840 instead of fantastic practices. You know, imagine fictional practices and 0:18:36.480 --> 0:18:41.080 practices that were dreamed up by men in the persecution 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:48.600 of women and also of indigenous religions and so forth. Anyway, 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:52.199 klok on here concerning witchcraft, he reports on beliefs and 0:18:52.240 --> 0:18:57.080 traditions concerning concerning adente. These would be men and women 0:18:57.640 --> 0:19:01.480 that were thought to pursue a sort of morally descendant 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:06.560 path to magical power, the path of the Adante, the 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:09.919 witchery way, as the author describes it here, is a 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:15.240 path of death, desecration, poison, and beast forms. It also 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:19.480 sometimes involves a special preparation of dust. He describes the 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:23.120 alleged use of a preparation often translated as a poison 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:28.560 ground from corpses and said to look like pollen. Quote. 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:31.280 It may be dropped into a hogan from the smoke hole, 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:34.479 placed in the nose or mouth of a sleeping victim, 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:38.560 or blown from furrowed sticks into the face of someone 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:41.359 in a large crowd. Now, depending on the telling of 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:44.560 the story, there may be immediate symptoms, such as the 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:48.200 blackening of the tongue or lockjaw, but in other other 0:19:48.680 --> 0:19:51.760 tellings there's nothing so obvious. But generally the way it's 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:54.159 supposed to go is that the victim begins to waste 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:58.600 away and ultimately dies the witchery way. He writes pursuit 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:02.879 for various reasons, inclu vengeance the pursuit of riches, and 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:06.719 the riches would primarily be obtained via grave robbing or 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:11.120 something he discusses as fee splitting, in which an audane 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:14.720 would partner with a healer and then split the healer's fee. 0:20:15.240 --> 0:20:18.639 So basically something like an illness scam with a healer 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:20.600 where you're like, I'll cause the illness and you treat 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:22.119 the illness, and you just give me half of what 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:26.080 they pay you. To treat it, but other audente seemingly 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:29.720 pursued a more chaotic evil path, just doing harm for 0:20:29.760 --> 0:20:32.440 the sake of doing harm. Now, I want to note 0:20:32.440 --> 0:20:34.080 here that the clock on himself in the book and 0:20:34.200 --> 0:20:38.639 made no claim that witchcraft and sorcery as cited in 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:43.160 these examples were indeed actually practiced. You know, it's ultimately 0:20:43.440 --> 0:20:46.440 a lot of mystery here. But rather what we can 0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:49.600 focus on are that these were stories and traditions. These 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:53.320 were stories told, These were ideas that were discussed, you know, 0:20:53.359 --> 0:20:59.280 concerning unexplained illness, superstition, suspicion of other individuals. And he 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:02.200 writes a link than the book about the various reasons 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:06.160 for so called witchcraft traditions in a given culture, including 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:10.240 various social functions, the management of anxiety, and more. So, 0:21:11.200 --> 0:21:14.480 you know, his treatment ultimately is not saying like, here's this, 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:17.160 here's this weird story. Look how weird it is. It's 0:21:17.160 --> 0:21:20.400 also not here's this thing that is said people definitely 0:21:20.400 --> 0:21:23.879 did this. It's it's more complicated than that. But I 0:21:23.960 --> 0:21:26.000 mainly wanted to focus on the idea that here is 0:21:26.040 --> 0:21:29.000 another culture where we see some idea of a corpse 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:33.800 derived dust being used in magical rituals of one sort 0:21:33.880 --> 0:21:37.600 or another that are socially disapproved of within the culture 0:21:37.600 --> 0:21:40.280 in which these stories originate. Right in this case, in 0:21:40.280 --> 0:21:43.080 this particular case with the adante, this would be someone 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:48.280 who is doing you know, bad, socially reprehensible magic, and 0:21:48.440 --> 0:21:51.479 therefore the idea that they're using some sort of a 0:21:51.480 --> 0:21:56.240 corpse powder see seems based in that. But there are 0:21:56.320 --> 0:21:59.760 other examples we find around the world where the corpse 0:21:59.800 --> 0:22:04.040 does takes on a different hear And so, continuing this 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:06.640 theme of magical dust connected to the bodies of the dead, 0:22:07.840 --> 0:22:11.760 let's turn to some European traditions that get into this. 0:22:12.440 --> 0:22:16.280 I was looking at a paper titled Dynamic Dirt Medieval 0:22:16.320 --> 0:22:22.359 Holy Dust ritual Erosion and Pilgrimage Eco Poetics. This is 0:22:22.359 --> 0:22:28.200 by Susan Signy Morrison, published in special collection Waste, Disposability, 0:22:28.240 --> 0:22:30.320 Decay and Depletion from twenty nineteen. 0:22:30.840 --> 0:22:33.560 Oh boy, are we about to get into some crumbly saints. 0:22:33.920 --> 0:22:38.200 Yes? Yes, so this is a really really good write up. 0:22:38.480 --> 0:22:40.880 I really enjoyed this. The author stresses first of all 0:22:40.880 --> 0:22:44.000 that the dust and dirt are pretty key to religious pilgrimage, 0:22:44.560 --> 0:22:48.359 in this case focusing on medieval European traditions. Pilgrimage, by 0:22:48.400 --> 0:22:51.320 his very nature, just ends up altering geography. You have 0:22:51.359 --> 0:22:53.919 a bunch of people, you know, trooping along towards some 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:57.360 holy site, you know, trampling the earth. What's going to happen. 0:22:57.400 --> 0:22:59.640 They're going to stir up dust, They're gonna spread dust 0:23:00.040 --> 0:23:03.120 to carry away mud, They're going to erode things. That's 0:23:03.119 --> 0:23:03.920 just how it goes. 0:23:04.720 --> 0:23:07.640 Oh yeah, And in fact, I don't know how far 0:23:07.680 --> 0:23:10.240 back this tradition goes, but I mean you certainly can 0:23:10.359 --> 0:23:13.639 see the idea of like earth from a holy site 0:23:13.720 --> 0:23:17.080 being removed and jarred and taken abroad to I don't know, 0:23:17.160 --> 0:23:19.280 it carries some of that holiness with it. 0:23:19.560 --> 0:23:22.639 Yeah, yeah, And she gets into some of that, and 0:23:22.960 --> 0:23:26.480 to call back to Dracula again, the idea that Dracula 0:23:26.640 --> 0:23:30.760 in Bromstucker's novel must travel with dirt from his homeland. 0:23:30.840 --> 0:23:33.000 You know, there is kind of like the inversion of 0:23:33.040 --> 0:23:34.919 the holy dirt here, the holy dust. 0:23:35.359 --> 0:23:38.119 He's got to take his unholy dust in a coffin 0:23:38.160 --> 0:23:39.479 with him. 0:23:40.080 --> 0:23:43.320 So she gets into this idea that I found really compelling, 0:23:43.320 --> 0:23:44.920 that I hadn't really thought about as much. And that's 0:23:44.960 --> 0:23:50.720