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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Puck What You Whisper on the

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Paranormal UK Radio Network.

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Speaker 2: Everyone, thanks for joining.

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Speaker 3: I'm super excited about tonight's guest. He is a history

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professor that is super knowledgeable about all kinds of visitors

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to New England. So hang tight and I'll be right

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back with Eddie Gumont. Hi, Eddie, thanks for joining me.

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Speaker 4: Oh my pleasure. Happy to be here.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, a quick shout out to our mutual friend Horace

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Smith for introducing us. You touched a few things in

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our email exchanges that really piqued my interest, so I'm

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very excited to pick your brain about some things today.

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Speaker 4: Oh it's here to be picked, so happy to provide it.

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Speaker 3: And you're joining us from Puckwagy Territory.

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Speaker 4: I am. I'm in Fall River, Massachusetts, which I guess

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is it's technically I think, directly below the lower tip

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of the so called Bridgewater Triangle. Freetown, the town that's

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right north of us, is that southern tip. It up

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got the state forest where you know a lot of

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the Puckwadgy sightings are. It is officially the Fall River

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Freetown State Forest. So I feel like I'm able to

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still say I'm in the Bridgewater Triangle, even if just

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at that lower edge.

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Speaker 3: I think it's more like the Bridgewater Blob personally. And

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I don't think that like Puckwadgies would adhere to any

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type of border or boundary. I don't think they'd be

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into that definitely. Yeah, So the Freetown State Forest is

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actually the one place I do not like. I am

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not you know, like a parent, normal sensitive person at all,

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but that place I just don't like it.

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Speaker 2: It makes me angry.

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Speaker 4: I mean, it's funny. I knew about its reputation before

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I moved here a few years ago. And when I

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did move here, you know, one of the first things

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I did was, you know, I'll go walk around the

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state Forest, you know, to have a good time there.

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And it was still in winter, so there's a lot

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of snow and I'm walking around just thinking, like, you know,

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it's not too spooky, and they know, the sun was

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started to go down that I realized, like, there's no

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signs in I was getting a little lost walking around.

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So when all of a sudden it's cold, it's getting dark,

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you know, you're lost. So I could see the uh,

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you know, kind of the uh ominous aspect of the

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forest and maybe during the day it's not so evident.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and then I've also stayed at the Lizzie Borden House.

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If I'm there, nothing perfectly fine.

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Speaker 4: I think my understanding and I know this just from

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hearsay around town. Like I'll say, you know, the current

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owners of the Lizzie Bordon House are they're not too

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popular around here. There's been a big dispute with them

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in a coffee shop that's nearby, and mister I mean,

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and the coffee shop owners are very nice, and you know,

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I think the Lizzie Bordon House owners did not do

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themselves any and it's kind of been doubling down on

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it too. It's been so they've kind of made a

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bad name for themselves in town. But my understanding is

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that a lot of the so called haunted reputation of

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the Lizzie Bordon House kind of was pr for them

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after they started promoting it as the big bed and Breakfast.

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I don't believe there was a huge history of kind

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of a you know, paranormal sightings there and you know,

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and it's also worth it's not the house that she

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died in either, as across town the Maplecroft House, which

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is still a private residence. And it's funny that house

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was up or sale a few years ago and I'd

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go running past it in the morning and you know,

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no sign, nothing else indicates that this is the Lizzie

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Borden like residence at all, but a lot of signs

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and you know, like private property, you know under surveillance,

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do not approach. So I imagine they must have or at least

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in the past, have had some issue, you know, people

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you know, kind of trying to show up and peep

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in the windows or something.

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Speaker 3: Actually, not too long ago, I noticed that the Fall

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River Historical Society's website they have a picture of her

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holding it was either she was holding a dog, but

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the caption said with her cat or vice versa.

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Speaker 4: Interesting, it's a I've noticed a few issues with the

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Fall River Historical Society website. I've only actually been to

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the location once. They've actually maybe they're done that, but

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for a while they were renovating, so it was I

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wasn't able to go in person, but I asked them

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about something on the website when I went there, and

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no one knew any think about it, so I think

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maybe there's a bit of a disconnect between the website

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and the volunteers who actually work at the place, which

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I guess is on. I've volunteered at historical societies before,

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so I can understand that, but yeah, it is something

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I've run into.

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Speaker 1: Also.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, have you noticed a lot of difference in different

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towns historical societies and the way they operate, Because from

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my perspective, I grew up in Lebanon, Connecticut, where everything's historical.

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The historical society kind of runs the town and they

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like to gloss over any kind of ugly aspects. But

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I just went to Old Newgate Prison that's under the

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state and they are very straightforward and giving you the

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real history of the place. So have you found that,

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you know, some towns do a better job than others

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with that type of thing.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I've noticed that. I used when I was in college,

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I worked at the Glastonbury Historical Glastonbury, Connecticut. I should

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say I also worked for the Connecticut Historical Society for

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a brief amount of time, and the old State House

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in Hartford. So those are kind of the three direct

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bits of historical society experience I have. But no, just

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going to local towns. It really varies. No, there's certain

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towns where they have something notorious. You know, the Fall

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River Historical Societies. You can imagine a lot of it's

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dedicated to Lizzie Bordon. You know, if you go into

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the uh the gift shop, a lot of Lizzy Bordon

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history books there. And you know they have a big science.

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You know, we were not endorsing any particular verdict or theory.

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They're very clear about that. You know, you go to

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some like no I say, like you know, middle of

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nowhere town in Vermont or upstate New York, and it's like,

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here's the history of you know this one farm, or

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you know, here's the church. I mean, I think it varies. Me.

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I will say I've noticed that you in Connecticut, at

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least the State Historical Society in Hartford. Even in Glastonbury too,

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they've done a big effort of you know, bringing I guess,

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you know, marginalized people's not shying away from negative experiences.

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I know, at least in real I think since I've

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really worked there, which was some time ago, I think

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they've really tried to do a lot more of Native

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American stuff at the Glastonbury Historical Society, which was definitely

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a large blank or not not. They did have a

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small amount, but it wasn't as prominent as the last

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time I was there a few years ago.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, some time like we're growing up as kids, I

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didn't even think that.

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Speaker 2: There were slaves in the North.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and then you you know, you find out there

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definitely was for sure. In the Ancient Burying Burial Grounds

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in Hartford, they have been doing a great job of

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talking about history of slavery as well as the Connecticut

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witch Trials.

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Speaker 4: And I was gonna say, maybe five years I guess

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this would have been right before the pandemic. In twenty nineteen,

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I went on one of the guided tours of the

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ancient Burial ground, and I know a lot of detail

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on the Connecticut witch Trials, and my understanding is that

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a lot of the actual or suspected witch graves are

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now kind of underneath the street in front of the

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Traveler's Tower there, so I think certainly they're not marked

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in any way. But they've done a good job, at

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least in the tours of bringing that up, and I

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think the Connecticut Trials in particular kind of gotten a

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bit more of a residence. In the last few years,

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there's been the efforts to pardon or to secure pardons

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for the people executed during the trials, which also has

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been my understanding, fairly difficult, just because it's a lot

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of international lit If I'm remembering correct, this might be

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either some of the choose Its ones or Connecticut ones.

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They ended up having to basically lobby the British government

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because as colonies at the time they essentially know had

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to you know, get part. They're not certainly not under

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US jurisdiction. So modern laws, even you know, the modern

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states state constitutions aren't in effect. There aren't their colonies

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not states. But yeah, so it's it is interesting exactly

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who you have to approach to get a pardon h overall,

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And there's there's been something similar too with H. You know,

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I'm sure you're familiar with the New England vampire uh

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you know panic and some of the vampire graves that

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have been accidentally unearthed and the need to rein ter them.

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And I think my understanding is this is not just

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the vampire grave, so that's how he came across this,

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but anytime you know, there's a colonial era grave that

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you know, a construction site accidentally on earth, you have

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to reinter them by the religious u uh uh, the

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religious understandings of the time. But because of you know,

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the separation of church and state, the state government can't

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really intrude in this. There's a lot of no kind

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of informal back and forth of you know, the state

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hiring like no Congregationalist ministers as you know, advisors to

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conduct the burial rights. And it is an interesting, interesting

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morass when you get into some of these issues of

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modern government's modern historical institutions trying to determine how best

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to deal with historical injustices when they're very directly being

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applied to modern law, modern government.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Now, the Glastonbury Historical Society had an exhibit about a

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local cryptid.

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Speaker 4: Correct they did. Yes, I believe it's no longer there,

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but at least as of I think mid late twenty

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twenty two it was. They told me it was being

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taken down, but it might still be there if anyone's curious.

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This is the Gloacus, which definitely a very interesting case

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one of the well I guess, not one of the

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not the only, but one of the few kind of

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so homegrown Connecticut cryptid. Certainly, I'm curious, you know, so

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as someone who's interested in this, what what was your

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knowledge or what have you heard about the Gloacus?

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Speaker 3: So no one ever talks about it. I only came

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across it a few years ago, and I read a

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few articles with a few accounts, and my initial I

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kind of wrote it off as these people just didn't

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know what a fisher cat was, just from the descript

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like the physical description and the like the terrible screaming

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noises they said it was making. I remember the first

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time I saw a fisher cat, and.

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Speaker 2: It sounds like a demon.

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Speaker 3: They are kind of If I didn't have the Internet

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to look up what I had seen, I would have

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I don't know what I would have thought that was,

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you know how I assessed it.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I remember the first time I heard of red

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fox screaming at night. I mean, if you didn't know

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what it was, you would think someone was being murdered

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in the woods, sir. But yeah, yeah, I mean so

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for listeners who are to wear which imagine probably most

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even most listeners from Connecticut. Yeah, it's in nineteen thirty

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nine in Glastonbury, Connecticut, and people who might be aware

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of Glastonbury today are very say, an upscale, you know,

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a suburb of Hartford across the Connecticut River. But in

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the nineteen thirties, this was a very poor, agricultural neighborhood town,

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a very small population even compared to today, to the

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extent that most of the bridges in town even today

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are left over from the new deal they had to have,

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you know, the federal government come in and build you know,

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even just like basic roads at the time. So there's

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a very poor farming community at the height of the depression.

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This is coming right after, you know, the huge destructive

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hurricane of nineteen thirty eight, which really damaged a lot

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of towns along the Connecticut River. I believe, I understand

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this is also a very harsh winter as well. But

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in the middle of the night, farmers are listening, they're

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hearing this, you know, screaming animals screaming something. They find these,

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you paw prints in the snow. In the morning, pet dogs, cattle,

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livestock have been killed by this creature. They see glimpses

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of what seems to be some kind of giant black

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cat or cat like creature, and this becomes known as

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the Gloacus, or originally it eventually termed that kind of affectionately,

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it's an abbreviation of the Glasston very Wackiuss. And so

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you have something which initially, you know, for farmers, especially

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in the Great Depression, something that's killing your live stock

238
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is going to you know, that's a major threat to

239
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your livelihood. Not to mention it's dangerous. That kills livestock,

240
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it can kill you. This quickly became, you know, kind

241
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of like a quickly got defined, so to speak, the

242
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Hertford Current, the Hertford Times, which is no longer around

243
00:14:11,440 --> 00:14:15,120
but was the other rival newspaper. Actually the Hartford Times

244
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building is now the yukon Hertford campus downtown. But the

245
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two newspapers first and then the New York Times, the

246
00:14:21,960 --> 00:14:26,600
national newspaper, are publishing stories about the Gloacus. There are

247
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people across Connecticut coming to Glastonbury to hunt this. People

248
00:14:31,159 --> 00:14:34,320
are putting up bounties. But it quickly becomes kind of

249
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a like a publicity thing. You know, local farmers in Glastonbury,

250
00:14:39,720 --> 00:14:43,360
you know they're charging you know, parking for gloacis hunters.

251
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You know they're selling food. You know, the people coming

252
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in for the day, you know, selling AMMO in Hartford,

253
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several insurance companies and again Hartford insurance capital of the world.

254
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They're offering to sell Gloacis insurance. There are people you know,

255
00:14:58,639 --> 00:15:01,039
like offering you know, like a bounce, you know, Butcher's

256
00:15:01,080 --> 00:15:06,679
in Hartford are offering bounties for Gloacis meat clothing or

257
00:15:06,759 --> 00:15:11,480
clothiers are offering, you know, bounties for the Gloacis pelts,

258
00:15:11,519 --> 00:15:15,480
you know, to make you know, a Gloacis pelt shirt

259
00:15:15,600 --> 00:15:18,639
or something. So this becomes you know, a major thing

260
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for a few weeks, a few months. It does, you know,

261
00:15:20,919 --> 00:15:25,159
eventually die out. But there are this, you know, a

262
00:15:25,240 --> 00:15:28,240
few occasional waves over the next few decades. I think

263
00:15:28,759 --> 00:15:31,720
the nineteen fifties there's a brief wave, and then the

264
00:15:31,840 --> 00:15:36,679
nineteen sixties there's also like another brief wave of sightings,

265
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notably not in Glastonbury but elsewhere in Connecticut. But my

266
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understanding least is that after the nineteen sixties it kind

267
00:15:44,279 --> 00:15:47,799
of like permanently dies down. And you know, the question

268
00:15:47,879 --> 00:15:52,919
is what was this the view of the Glastonbury Historical Society,

269
00:15:52,960 --> 00:15:56,000
I think, you know, it's pretty incontrovertible, is that some

270
00:15:56,080 --> 00:15:59,720
of these are hoaxes, and actually at the Glastonbury Historical

271
00:16:00,440 --> 00:16:03,240
they have like the wooden blocks that were used to

272
00:16:03,279 --> 00:16:06,480
make some of the fake Glowacus prints. I think it's

273
00:16:06,960 --> 00:16:10,039
the nephew of the guy who did the hoaxes and

274
00:16:10,600 --> 00:16:13,759
offered it to the Historical Society. So some of these,

275
00:16:13,840 --> 00:16:16,840
especially later on, were hoaxes that were meant to draw

276
00:16:16,879 --> 00:16:21,000
in tourists of Blastonbury basically. But again, you know, initially

277
00:16:21,559 --> 00:16:24,200
there are dead lives stuck, there is stuff that's screaming

278
00:16:24,200 --> 00:16:25,799
in the middle of the night, there is some kind

279
00:16:25,799 --> 00:16:29,240
of black panther like creature that's being sought. So it's

280
00:16:29,279 --> 00:16:32,600
not it's never not one hundred percent clear exactly what

281
00:16:32,639 --> 00:16:35,919
those initial sightings, where those initial creatures were. I think,

282
00:16:35,960 --> 00:16:38,840
you know, probably not anything supernatural. You know, there's probably

283
00:16:38,879 --> 00:16:42,759
some you know, flesh and blood explanations of some kind

284
00:16:42,759 --> 00:16:48,639
of exotic or rare or just misidentified creature that wandered in.

285
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But it is this kind of lingering mystery, I'll say.

286
00:16:51,759 --> 00:16:55,480
Also growing up in Glastonbury, not really you know, it's

287
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not something you would see a lot of. I think

288
00:16:56,960 --> 00:17:00,200
they had a display in the library and the public

289
00:17:00,279 --> 00:17:03,960
library in glaston area for a brief time as you know,

290
00:17:04,000 --> 00:17:06,759
like one summer there's like, you know, the Gloacus display,

291
00:17:07,839 --> 00:17:11,000
probably in nineteen ninety nine for the anniversary. I think

292
00:17:11,039 --> 00:17:14,440
the Historical Society might have had like a Gloacis shirt

293
00:17:14,480 --> 00:17:17,640
on sale. In recent years, I've noticed kind of an

294
00:17:17,759 --> 00:17:22,400
uptick of discussion about this. So there's a historian at

295
00:17:22,519 --> 00:17:27,079
UMS Amherst, Stephen Jenkrella. He just published a few years

296
00:17:27,079 --> 00:17:30,799
ago a book of like like Spooky Trails and Tales

297
00:17:30,799 --> 00:17:34,240
of Connecticut, and he has one chapter on the Gloacus

298
00:17:34,279 --> 00:17:36,759
and you know, he went through did some scholarly work

299
00:17:36,839 --> 00:17:41,720
on kind of like you know, Gloacis reports in newspapers

300
00:17:41,720 --> 00:17:44,079
of the time. I believe that's the only kind of

301
00:17:44,079 --> 00:17:48,160
like scholarly attention that's really been given to it. There's

302
00:17:48,200 --> 00:17:51,519
a few podcasts on you know, cryptids or mythology that

303
00:17:51,599 --> 00:17:53,960
have covered it. So it does seem like there's a

304
00:17:54,039 --> 00:17:57,440
slow uptick in you know, kind of like the media attention.

305
00:17:57,480 --> 00:18:02,480
I think because cryptozoology cryptids in general is becoming a

306
00:18:02,599 --> 00:18:07,039
much more popular mainstream thing. I think any cryptid is

307
00:18:07,079 --> 00:18:10,480
going to get some attention at least. But one thing

308
00:18:10,559 --> 00:18:12,920
that is kind of also interesting to me is that

309
00:18:13,599 --> 00:18:17,039
the Wikipedia page for the glax is very short, it's

310
00:18:17,200 --> 00:18:20,319
very inaccurate. They described this as originating I think in

311
00:18:20,720 --> 00:18:26,920
nineteenth century lumberjack folklore, which is absolutely wrong in every detail.

312
00:18:26,960 --> 00:18:30,240
I'm curious what the source for that was. At some point,

313
00:18:30,480 --> 00:18:32,599
I'm sure I'll look into that and try and figure

314
00:18:32,640 --> 00:18:35,880
it out. But based on that, a lot of the

315
00:18:35,960 --> 00:18:40,480
more recent media appearances of the Gloacus are basically just

316
00:18:40,519 --> 00:18:43,960
saying it's a lumberjack thing. It's from the nineteenth century,

317
00:18:44,240 --> 00:18:46,640
so you can tell they're just reading the Wikipedia article

318
00:18:46,680 --> 00:18:49,160
and kind of building off that, which I think also

319
00:18:49,400 --> 00:18:52,920
may have some maybe a cautionary tale in how a

320
00:18:52,960 --> 00:19:01,759
lot of paranormal cryptozoological certainly beyond cryptozoological notions are mainstreamed,

321
00:19:01,799 --> 00:19:05,839
and the lack of fact checking. We can say that

322
00:19:06,000 --> 00:19:06,799
goes into some of this.

323
00:19:08,079 --> 00:19:13,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, I see that with puckulags too a lot, especially recently.

324
00:19:14,640 --> 00:19:18,559
There was some interests around the turn of the early

325
00:19:18,640 --> 00:19:23,640
nineteen hundreds. You see a lot of references in literature,

326
00:19:24,480 --> 00:19:26,839
and then you know there's nothing about it. You see

327
00:19:26,880 --> 00:19:30,200
some accounts start popping up in the nineties, but then

328
00:19:30,240 --> 00:19:33,079
in the last few years now you have like people

329
00:19:33,960 --> 00:19:39,519
going on podcasts saying are puckwadgis nephilim and things like that,

330
00:19:39,599 --> 00:19:41,640
and it's gotten a little bit out of control the

331
00:19:41,680 --> 00:19:43,759
past couple of years, especially.

332
00:19:44,519 --> 00:19:47,359
Speaker 4: The nephilim aroma. They're responsible for everything. There are the

333
00:19:47,400 --> 00:19:51,880
ancient aliens, you know, they're demons, they're puckwags. Now it's

334
00:19:52,599 --> 00:19:57,079
I guess they're they're they're busy, busy entities. I guess.

335
00:19:57,599 --> 00:19:58,519
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely.

336
00:19:59,720 --> 00:20:02,759
Speaker 3: One of the other local cryptids that we have in

337
00:20:02,799 --> 00:20:05,640
Connecticut I think you've done some research on is the

338
00:20:05,680 --> 00:20:06,359
melon heads.

339
00:20:07,240 --> 00:20:10,880
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, that's another interesting uh kind of like I

340
00:20:10,880 --> 00:20:14,680
would say probably the big homegrown I guess you can

341
00:20:14,720 --> 00:20:19,720
call them cryptid or urban legend mythological entity. But these

342
00:20:19,720 --> 00:20:24,200
are focused in uh, southwestern Connecticut, and there's a few

343
00:20:24,240 --> 00:20:27,480
different kind of origin stories for them. You know, these

344
00:20:27,480 --> 00:20:30,880
are again kind of like diminutive you know beings with

345
00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:35,039
you know, boldest heads that somewhat like the gray aliens.

346
00:20:35,359 --> 00:20:37,519
But you know, none of the stories are that these

347
00:20:37,559 --> 00:20:42,319
are aliens. But essentially these you know, diminutive, kind of hairless, pallid,

348
00:20:42,440 --> 00:20:47,039
large headed creatures that you can find, uh if you

349
00:20:47,079 --> 00:20:49,880
know you're in you know, walking through the woods, or

350
00:20:50,079 --> 00:20:55,599
certain uh roads. I think in Hamden there's a Dracula

351
00:20:55,720 --> 00:20:57,680
Drive is the name. I did go down there with

352
00:20:57,720 --> 00:20:59,960
a friend once and I did not see any mail

353
00:21:00,119 --> 00:21:02,480
and heads there. But again, you know, kind of like

354
00:21:02,480 --> 00:21:05,519
these creatures, and there's a few like stories of their origins.

355
00:21:05,519 --> 00:21:07,839
I think one story is that these are you know,

356
00:21:07,880 --> 00:21:11,960
the descendants of like accused witches in the colonial era

357
00:21:12,160 --> 00:21:14,400
that are you know, kind of being driven off and

358
00:21:14,440 --> 00:21:17,240
then you know kind of like you know, interbreed or

359
00:21:17,279 --> 00:21:20,160
like inbreeding and you know in the modern day they're

360
00:21:20,200 --> 00:21:23,519
the descendants. There are other stories, you know, some like

361
00:21:23,559 --> 00:21:27,920
you know, evil doctor was experimenting on children and you know,

362
00:21:28,000 --> 00:21:31,200
gave them a hydrocephalitis you know, in large heads and

363
00:21:31,440 --> 00:21:34,920
they killed the doctor. Living in the woods and you

364
00:21:34,920 --> 00:21:36,559
know base. I think those are kind of like the

365
00:21:36,640 --> 00:21:40,880
two extremes. And I think certain towns the melon head

366
00:21:40,960 --> 00:21:42,960
legends that you know, they just want to be left alone.

367
00:21:43,000 --> 00:21:45,160
They'll tell you to leave. Others, you know, they're kind

368
00:21:45,160 --> 00:21:48,279
of more malicious and are attacking you. And so again

369
00:21:48,319 --> 00:21:52,720
it seems like a very regional but with town differences

370
00:21:52,839 --> 00:21:55,640
amongst them, and I know occasionally there's some other towns

371
00:21:55,680 --> 00:21:58,960
I think is it Fairfield. I think that has like

372
00:21:59,039 --> 00:22:02,279
a some kind of like you know, like haunted house

373
00:22:02,359 --> 00:22:05,319
that's in like a local town legend, and that's supposed

374
00:22:05,319 --> 00:22:07,160
to be, you know, where the melon heads hang out

375
00:22:07,160 --> 00:22:11,279
and occasionally they'll you know blink up, you know, crossover

376
00:22:11,440 --> 00:22:14,880
some other like town boogeyman. But it is this interesting

377
00:22:14,920 --> 00:22:20,519
phenomenon of specifically south western Connecticut, although there's also the

378
00:22:20,519 --> 00:22:25,759
fact that these are apparently prevalent in Ohio, which you know,

379
00:22:25,799 --> 00:22:28,680
for those aren't where Ohio before was the state of

380
00:22:28,720 --> 00:22:32,720
Ohio is the western reserve of Connecticut. I have been

381
00:22:32,839 --> 00:22:35,759
like very interested in kind of recording like where in

382
00:22:35,839 --> 00:22:39,000
Ohio these melon head legends are and seeing, you know,

383
00:22:39,079 --> 00:22:42,039
because you know, certain towns in Ohio are established by

384
00:22:42,079 --> 00:22:46,480
settlers that come from certain towns in Connecticut. Very curious

385
00:22:46,480 --> 00:22:47,799
to see if there's any you know, kind of like

386
00:22:48,319 --> 00:22:51,200
links to the towns in Connecticut with melon heads, because

387
00:22:51,440 --> 00:22:53,960
that would seem to be one indication that this is

388
00:22:54,039 --> 00:22:57,640
some kind of much longer folklore. U I used to

389
00:22:57,720 --> 00:23:00,279
be more used to be a bigger proponent of this,

390
00:23:00,359 --> 00:23:02,720
that this is you know, a mythology that goes back

391
00:23:02,880 --> 00:23:06,440
much further, which might elements of it might be, but

392
00:23:06,559 --> 00:23:09,759
I think a lot of you know, more in depth

393
00:23:09,799 --> 00:23:13,960
researched by me, and there's certainly not uh, you know,

394
00:23:14,240 --> 00:23:18,680
entirely definitive. Seems to indicate that these legends don't really

395
00:23:18,680 --> 00:23:21,680
come up until after World War Two. Seem to be

396
00:23:21,759 --> 00:23:24,880
you know, some kind of you know, byproduct of suburbanization.

397
00:23:25,359 --> 00:23:28,400
I've seen arguments that this might the melon head. The

398
00:23:28,519 --> 00:23:31,640
term might come from the lungeon, which is an Appalachian

399
00:23:31,720 --> 00:23:34,559
term essentially for like a mixed race person who was

400
00:23:34,640 --> 00:23:38,119
kind of shunned by white society. I'm not really sure

401
00:23:38,160 --> 00:23:41,440
how that term would then come to Connecticut or why,

402
00:23:41,480 --> 00:23:44,839
you know, you don't have melon heads in Appalachia, although

403
00:23:44,839 --> 00:23:47,599
I guess they probably have equivalents to some degree. But

404
00:23:47,720 --> 00:23:52,480
it is interesting that there seems to be possibly some linkage,

405
00:23:52,519 --> 00:23:56,000
you know, to some kind of outcasts of some sort,

406
00:23:56,799 --> 00:23:58,920
or as I think is the case with a lot

407
00:23:58,960 --> 00:24:03,880
of cryptid especially like arboreal cryptids. We can say that

408
00:24:03,960 --> 00:24:09,160
it's some reaction to suburbanization expansion into wilderness after World

409
00:24:09,200 --> 00:24:11,759
War two, and it was kind of nostalgia for a

410
00:24:11,799 --> 00:24:16,079
more pastoral lifetime before the war, especially you know, the

411
00:24:16,160 --> 00:24:22,640
nineteenth century. But yeah, that's my interesting ideas about the

412
00:24:22,680 --> 00:24:23,359
melon heads.

413
00:24:23,880 --> 00:24:25,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, I might actually be able to help you out

414
00:24:25,960 --> 00:24:29,759
with the Ohio melon heads. I have a couple of

415
00:24:29,759 --> 00:24:33,839
friends that made a documentary about them. They actually had

416
00:24:33,839 --> 00:24:39,240
it narrowed. They went to one specific location where there's

417
00:24:39,319 --> 00:24:42,799
common sighting. So if you're interested in like specific locations,

418
00:24:42,799 --> 00:24:43,640
they could definitely.

419
00:24:44,160 --> 00:24:46,839
Speaker 4: Oh, absolutely, yeah, I would love that. I would definitely

420
00:24:46,839 --> 00:24:47,799
be interested in that.

421
00:24:48,799 --> 00:24:56,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting too. You mentioned that sometimes folklore travels

422
00:24:57,240 --> 00:25:03,200
with settlers during that time pe and I've always wondered

423
00:25:03,319 --> 00:25:09,440
about that with Puckwadji specifically, because you had the Pilgrims

424
00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:16,519
coming here. They technically would not have on the books

425
00:25:16,680 --> 00:25:21,519
believed in fay in that type of thing. But there is,

426
00:25:21,799 --> 00:25:25,119
you know, the on the books beliefs, and then there's

427
00:25:25,160 --> 00:25:28,640
what you actually believe. So I don't think it's impossible

428
00:25:28,680 --> 00:25:32,440
that they brought some of those legends over.

429
00:25:33,440 --> 00:25:34,359
Speaker 2: But New England.

430
00:25:34,160 --> 00:25:41,440
Speaker 3: Actually had lots of different groups visiting throughout history and

431
00:25:41,799 --> 00:25:46,519
that left some evidence here and some things we don't

432
00:25:46,519 --> 00:25:49,440
even know who left it here, like Mystery Hill up

433
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:51,759
in New Hampshire and then Dighton Rock.

434
00:25:52,519 --> 00:25:54,799
Speaker 2: Oh yeah your area also.

435
00:25:55,920 --> 00:26:01,119
Speaker 4: Yeah, said Dighton Rocket. It's definitely an interesting case study

436
00:26:01,160 --> 00:26:05,000
of I guess the way we maybe I don't want

437
00:26:05,680 --> 00:26:08,599
not pseudo. I don't want to say pseudo Hitchman. Interpretations

438
00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:13,079
of history can change depending on demograph if you go

439
00:26:13,240 --> 00:26:16,160
back to the colonial I'll say, for those who aren't aware,

440
00:26:16,279 --> 00:26:19,559
Dighton Rock it's a large boulder in the Taunton River.

441
00:26:19,920 --> 00:26:23,160
It's actually in currently now it's in the town of Berkeley,

442
00:26:23,200 --> 00:26:27,200
which broke off from Dyton, but still called Dighton Rock.

443
00:26:27,279 --> 00:26:30,960
But it's now a state park, state museum. There's a

444
00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:35,119
little museum around it, which is sometimes open, sometimes there's not.

445
00:26:35,160 --> 00:26:38,279
There's not really any fixed schedule. It's kind of frustrating

446
00:26:38,440 --> 00:26:41,480
if you call ahead of time. Supposedly they will keep

447
00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:45,519
it unlocked for you. I've had mixed luck on that,

448
00:26:45,559 --> 00:26:47,720
but at least you know I have been inside, so

449
00:26:47,799 --> 00:26:51,720
it is occasionally open. But I know it's this large

450
00:26:51,720 --> 00:26:55,799
boulder with pictographs on it, and you know, from the

451
00:26:55,880 --> 00:26:59,440
sixteen hundreds has been a lot of settler interest in

452
00:27:00,160 --> 00:27:03,119
who left the images, you know, on this rock, on

453
00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:06,160
this pictograph, especially because you know, if you look at there,

454
00:27:06,240 --> 00:27:08,559
there's some symbols that seem like maybe it's a boat

455
00:27:08,599 --> 00:27:11,279
with sails, I think my favorite one is there is

456
00:27:11,319 --> 00:27:14,839
a smiley face on it. So again smiley face a

457
00:27:14,960 --> 00:27:20,079
universal symbol apparently. But the earliest so in the Pilgrim

458
00:27:20,119 --> 00:27:23,799
era in the sixteen hundreds, they were very interested in

459
00:27:23,920 --> 00:27:27,319
the idea that this was a boulder that had been

460
00:27:27,359 --> 00:27:30,960
left by Phoenicians or the lost tribes of Israel. Because

461
00:27:30,960 --> 00:27:34,839
again these are radical Puritans, their Calvinists. You know, worldview

462
00:27:35,039 --> 00:27:38,559
is that you know, the lost tribes were scattered across

463
00:27:39,839 --> 00:27:44,400
the world with the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem,

464
00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:47,279
and that you know, finding evidence of the lost tribes

465
00:27:47,319 --> 00:27:50,200
would help, you know, bring about this millinery and prophecy,

466
00:27:50,559 --> 00:27:53,079
help bring about the Second Coming. Is not just in

467
00:27:53,200 --> 00:27:57,799
New England, in Central Africa, in East Asia. You have

468
00:27:57,960 --> 00:28:02,519
a lot of these sets explorers in the fifteen, sixteen,

469
00:28:02,599 --> 00:28:07,839
seventeen hundreds really basically coming across any sign of quote

470
00:28:07,880 --> 00:28:10,480
civilization and saying this must have been the Lost tribes

471
00:28:10,480 --> 00:28:14,359
of Israel. And so there's that initial interests in that period.

472
00:28:14,759 --> 00:28:18,759
By the eighteen hundreds it really becomes that da that

473
00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:23,519
vikings leftist, because that started to be the main interest.

474
00:28:23,799 --> 00:28:28,720
In eighteen thirty seven, there's a Danish antiquarian I think

475
00:28:28,759 --> 00:28:32,440
he writes a book it translates into English as Antiquities

476
00:28:32,599 --> 00:28:35,680
American I I think. But among other things, this is

477
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:38,880
the idea that, for example, Newport Tower was a Viking

478
00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:42,119
tower that comes from that. Here in Fall River, there's

479
00:28:42,160 --> 00:28:46,000
the skeleton in armor that's discovered by Lizzie Borden's or

480
00:28:46,119 --> 00:28:48,799
Lizzy Borden's future aunt is the one who discovers it,

481
00:28:48,799 --> 00:28:53,160
which also interesting local connection there. But New Englanders in

482
00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:58,240
particular had started to look at the Viking Vinland sagas

483
00:28:58,279 --> 00:29:01,240
from the Middle Ages, which Blood dismisses. Just you know,

484
00:29:01,720 --> 00:29:03,880
there's a lot of stories, you know, people sailing into

485
00:29:03,920 --> 00:29:08,079
the ocean finding strange islands in the early eighteen hundreds,

486
00:29:08,119 --> 00:29:11,279
they start to say maybe this was New England was

487
00:29:11,279 --> 00:29:15,400
what they discovered, And there's some cultural reasons for that too.

488
00:29:16,240 --> 00:29:19,559
This is the start of the era of an early

489
00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:22,960
Catholic emigration to the United States, which has a lot

490
00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:26,799
of opposition, especially in New England, a heavily Protestant region.

491
00:29:27,599 --> 00:29:32,119
The Vikings not Christian, but from Northern England. And you know,

492
00:29:32,359 --> 00:29:35,000
even though it's before there even is a Protestant religion,

493
00:29:35,160 --> 00:29:37,519
if you're from Northern England, you can kind of be

494
00:29:37,720 --> 00:29:41,640
encoded as Protestant. So by saying the Vikings were here first,

495
00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:44,640
that's kind of a way to reaffirm that Protestants had

496
00:29:44,680 --> 00:29:47,599
been here first. And it also means if the Vikings

497
00:29:47,599 --> 00:29:50,799
had first, you know, quote discovered America, you know, to

498
00:29:50,799 --> 00:29:54,640
say Columbus, this southern European Catholic was and so again

499
00:29:54,759 --> 00:29:57,559
kind of the way of you know, moving past that.

500
00:29:57,640 --> 00:30:02,680
So the Viking interpretation of Dyton becomes very prominent at

501
00:30:02,680 --> 00:30:05,920
the time. Flash forward, you know, to the end of

502
00:30:05,920 --> 00:30:09,880
the nineteenth century, quite a lot of Portuguese settlers start

503
00:30:10,079 --> 00:30:13,920
emigrating to this region. A fall River, I think, by percentage,

504
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:18,359
is the most Portuguese city in the United States. I

505
00:30:18,359 --> 00:30:22,480
think forty nine percent speak Portuguese as their first language.

506
00:30:22,960 --> 00:30:25,519
You know, if you come to visit, see Portuguese flags,

507
00:30:25,519 --> 00:30:28,359
cape Verdean flags everywhere. A lot of good food too.

508
00:30:28,920 --> 00:30:34,920
But there's a self educated port or a self he's

509
00:30:34,960 --> 00:30:37,119
a dentist, so he's not self but he's a self

510
00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:41,960
educated historian who after World War two comes to Fall River.

511
00:30:42,680 --> 00:30:46,640
He becomes absolutely convinced that diton rock had been sent

512
00:30:47,039 --> 00:30:51,200
or had been carved by these lost Portuguese explorers in

513
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:56,240
the early fifteen hundreds. And that's indeed, the modern State

514
00:30:56,319 --> 00:31:00,960
Museum really emphasizes that because again lot of Portuguese in

515
00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:05,839
the region, they lobby the state government to endorse the Portuguese.

516
00:31:07,519 --> 00:31:09,920
It's quarto real is the name of the sailor that

517
00:31:09,960 --> 00:31:14,279
this is left by his crew. And so therefore, you know,

518
00:31:14,920 --> 00:31:18,000
if there's a large Portuguese voting block here, no one

519
00:31:18,079 --> 00:31:20,720
really wants to challenge that in the state government. And

520
00:31:20,759 --> 00:31:23,599
so you know, you go from Phoenicians or the Lost

521
00:31:23,640 --> 00:31:27,039
tribes of Israel reflecting you know, the settler views of

522
00:31:27,079 --> 00:31:31,160
the sixteen hundreds. You have you know, the Viking interpretation

523
00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:34,799
reflecting a lot of these emerging you know, racial and

524
00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:40,559
religious politics of the eighteen hundreds, the Portuguese interpretation of

525
00:31:40,599 --> 00:31:45,039
the twentieth century reflecting the Portuguese population, and I would

526
00:31:45,119 --> 00:31:49,559
I know several archaeologists. Kenneth Fader at Central Connecticut State

527
00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:53,680
University is kind of he's a leading I think he's

528
00:31:53,880 --> 00:32:00,359
an archaeologist of Native Americans, and he makes a specialty

529
00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:02,799
of exploring kind of cases like this hill are you

530
00:32:02,839 --> 00:32:05,519
know this is it's very similar to a lot of

531
00:32:05,559 --> 00:32:08,480
womp and og pictograms you'll find around your act, you know,

532
00:32:08,640 --> 00:32:10,880
even to a friend of mine. You know, we went

533
00:32:10,960 --> 00:32:14,759
hiking along the Taunton River. No. Last winter, we found

534
00:32:14,759 --> 00:32:17,920
a couple womp and og pictographs. No, just on boulders

535
00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:20,240
along the river. You can find them here. They're not

536
00:32:20,799 --> 00:32:23,680
they are rare, but they're not absent. And uh, this

537
00:32:23,799 --> 00:32:27,160
is the only place where you can find pictograms. The logical,

538
00:32:27,559 --> 00:32:32,680
the most logical interpretation will say is that it probably is, uh,

539
00:32:33,440 --> 00:32:38,119
the wamp and OG's the local Native Americans who left this. Now,

540
00:32:38,200 --> 00:32:41,599
the problem is the pictograms we have on the boulder

541
00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:45,240
today have been touched up over time by by well

542
00:32:45,279 --> 00:32:47,720
meaning I'm not gonna say this is van but well

543
00:32:47,799 --> 00:32:51,480
meaning people across time have touched them up because, again

544
00:32:51,720 --> 00:32:55,000
at different interpretations, some of them thought, this looks like,

545
00:32:55,039 --> 00:32:58,640
you know, like Scandinavian ruins. Let's just highlight this, you know,

546
00:32:58,720 --> 00:33:00,880
let's make it so it's easier to reach these ruins.

547
00:33:01,119 --> 00:33:03,319
You know, in the twentieth century, a lot of the

548
00:33:03,359 --> 00:33:06,559
Portugese this looks like a Portuguese galley, and let's kind

549
00:33:06,559 --> 00:33:08,839
of highlight that, just to make sure we don't miss that.

550
00:33:09,319 --> 00:33:12,359
And you know, if you see photographs or not even photographs,

551
00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:15,759
but inscriptions of dieton rock, some of which are like

552
00:33:15,839 --> 00:33:19,000
several hundred years old. It looks very different from the

553
00:33:19,039 --> 00:33:21,799
pictographs that are there today. So it has changed over

554
00:33:21,880 --> 00:33:25,240
the years, which is why, you know, a definitive interpretation

555
00:33:26,279 --> 00:33:31,599
is you know, probably impossible. It's most likely womp. Now

556
00:33:31,640 --> 00:33:35,519
that being said, probably not Phoenicians and lost tribes of Israel.

557
00:33:35,559 --> 00:33:39,000
But it's not impossible that Vikings came to southern New England.

558
00:33:39,079 --> 00:33:43,079
It's not impossible that you know, Portuguese explorers did I

559
00:33:43,119 --> 00:33:46,079
mean certainly by you know, the mid fifteen hundreds there

560
00:33:46,119 --> 00:33:49,960
were Portuguese sailing around here of Arizona. But again saying

561
00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:52,839
that this is left by those specific people, that requires

562
00:33:52,880 --> 00:33:56,680
a standard of evidence that I think is not there currently.

563
00:33:56,960 --> 00:34:00,640
Speaker 3: We'll say, yeah, the same thing happened with the Bellow

564
00:34:00,759 --> 00:34:05,400
Falls Petrick glyphs in Vermont. Then the Smiley faces again,

565
00:34:06,680 --> 00:34:12,599
someone probably well intentioned, went back over them. That's a

566
00:34:12,639 --> 00:34:15,800
little bit frustrating, and I understand the desire to do that,

567
00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:20,360
but still frustrating at the same time. But what do

568
00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:23,880
you make of Newport Tower That's a little bit different

569
00:34:23,920 --> 00:34:24,840
than a Petrick glyph?

570
00:34:25,639 --> 00:34:28,239
Speaker 4: Yes, I mean, and again that's probably the kind of

571
00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:33,519
the most famous quote Viking relic, which I say quote it,

572
00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:38,159
I would say it's probably not left by Vikings. The

573
00:34:38,199 --> 00:34:42,679
most accurate or the most likely in my opinion interpretations,

574
00:34:42,679 --> 00:34:45,519
that is a colonial era wind million. If you look

575
00:34:45,559 --> 00:34:51,119
at images of windmills from from specifically the parts of

576
00:34:51,119 --> 00:34:54,199
the England where the settlers from early Rhode Island came,

577
00:34:55,199 --> 00:34:59,320
it looks very similar to Newport Tower. There's mentions of

578
00:34:59,360 --> 00:35:03,360
it in the colonial governor Benedict Arnold, who's not not

579
00:35:03,519 --> 00:35:07,679
the the Revolutionary War trader, although he is related to him,

580
00:35:07,679 --> 00:35:11,599
but the colonial governor of Rhode Island back when Newport

581
00:35:11,760 --> 00:35:15,239
was the colonial governor or colonial capital. He mentions his

582
00:35:15,360 --> 00:35:19,280
stone built windmill in his lease. And so again it

583
00:35:19,519 --> 00:35:22,800
seems probably clear that this was the stone built windmill

584
00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:25,920
since this was his property. Also, so that seems to

585
00:35:25,960 --> 00:35:31,639
be the balance of it. But again there's there's alternate interpretations.

586
00:35:32,119 --> 00:35:35,639
There is a Newport Tower museum that's right across the

587
00:35:35,760 --> 00:35:40,079
road from the Newport Tower. The gentleman who runs that

588
00:35:40,199 --> 00:35:45,679
I'm forgetting his actually have his book here, just James

589
00:35:45,719 --> 00:35:51,400
Allen Egan. Uh He His interpretation is that Newport Tower

590
00:35:51,559 --> 00:35:56,039
was built by John D. The I know, the court astrologer,

591
00:35:56,199 --> 00:35:59,760
court magician of Elizabeth the First. Now who is himself.

592
00:35:59,800 --> 00:36:01,480
He was the first person to come up with the

593
00:36:01,559 --> 00:36:04,960
term British Empire, so he does have some connections there.

594
00:36:05,960 --> 00:36:09,280
Mister Egan and his museum, you know, has this very

595
00:36:09,320 --> 00:36:14,239
elaborate theory that the Newport Tower was a camera obscura

596
00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:16,719
and that was you know, design, you know, as kind

597
00:36:16,719 --> 00:36:20,760
of like you know, early observation. I mean it's uh,

598
00:36:20,800 --> 00:36:24,159
it's it's not the typical uh of theory, but it's

599
00:36:24,320 --> 00:36:28,719
you know, it's a it's interesting an interpretation, I will say, uh.

600
00:36:28,960 --> 00:36:31,360
I was not convinced by his argument was built by

601
00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:34,800
or by John D. He did convince me that John

602
00:36:34,880 --> 00:36:38,039
D knew of the location of Newport and probably didn't

603
00:36:38,079 --> 00:36:40,679
tend to establish a settlement here. He pointed out, you know,

604
00:36:40,920 --> 00:36:44,280
historical sources where John D is talking about the region

605
00:36:44,360 --> 00:36:47,960
that is modern day Newport in Rhode Island, and so

606
00:36:48,119 --> 00:36:51,280
it does seem that John D didn't tend to establish

607
00:36:51,280 --> 00:36:54,800
an English settlement here. That's, on the one hand, I

608
00:36:54,840 --> 00:36:57,400
think that is interesting. I think he deserved some credit

609
00:36:57,480 --> 00:37:00,280
for that, but it's that's also very different from saying

610
00:37:00,280 --> 00:37:04,119
that John d basically you know, from Afar, designed this tower,

611
00:37:04,519 --> 00:37:08,360
sent the designs over with English sailors who established this

612
00:37:08,519 --> 00:37:11,719
and built this because of that, you know, building those

613
00:37:11,800 --> 00:37:15,960
kind of instructions from across the Atlantic Ocean five hundred

614
00:37:16,039 --> 00:37:20,559
years ago. That is quite the feat. But I do

615
00:37:20,639 --> 00:37:25,559
think that the colonial windmill is probably the most accurate one.

616
00:37:25,599 --> 00:37:30,159
But certainly the Viking interpretation is still pretty dominant. I mean,

617
00:37:30,159 --> 00:37:33,239
there's the Viking hotel that is right next to the

618
00:37:33,280 --> 00:37:36,960
Newport Tower. I think the local sports team are called

619
00:37:37,000 --> 00:37:42,119
the Vikings. I just had a curiosity. I asked someone

620
00:37:42,159 --> 00:37:44,719
at the Newport Art Museum just like you know, which

621
00:37:44,719 --> 00:37:47,199
you can see the Newport Tower from there, as being like,

622
00:37:47,239 --> 00:37:49,159
you know, what do you make of the Newport Tower,

623
00:37:49,239 --> 00:37:51,000
And she was like, oh, I don't really think about

624
00:37:51,000 --> 00:37:53,480
it wasn't supposed to be like a Viking church or

625
00:37:53,519 --> 00:37:55,800
something like that. So it does seem that it's you know,

626
00:37:55,920 --> 00:38:01,960
kind of a general sense of you know, the Viking ancestry.

627
00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:06,239
But again it's coming from this cultural context of the

628
00:38:06,280 --> 00:38:10,199
eighteen thirties, when there is this need to reaffirm, you know,

629
00:38:10,239 --> 00:38:15,280
the Northern European Protestant nature of America at the first time,

630
00:38:15,320 --> 00:38:19,000
that's being significantly challenged by not just you know, like

631
00:38:19,079 --> 00:38:23,039
a mainly Irish and German at the time, which again

632
00:38:23,199 --> 00:38:25,639
today we would consider white, but at the time we're

633
00:38:25,719 --> 00:38:30,920
not considered white or European, uh, and French Canadians a

634
00:38:30,960 --> 00:38:33,840
few years after that, which again is a major site

635
00:38:33,880 --> 00:38:38,360
for French Canadians, and then Polish Portuguese and so again,

636
00:38:38,400 --> 00:38:41,760
you know, the the New Englanders like to imagine themselves

637
00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:44,960
as modern day Vikings, which also seems kind of strange

638
00:38:44,960 --> 00:38:46,679
to us. But again, you know, the idea, you know,

639
00:38:47,159 --> 00:38:53,199
medieval Greenland, Norway Ice in this very hard scrabble, very

640
00:38:53,239 --> 00:38:55,719
austere lifestyle to kind of fit in with, you know,

641
00:38:55,800 --> 00:38:59,400
the congregationalist view of themselves. And you know, it's worth

642
00:38:59,440 --> 00:39:01,679
noting that Iceland, at least this is one of the

643
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:06,880
very first modern republics. The alt Ting was a democratic

644
00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:09,960
Ish legislature, and so again there was an effort to

645
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:13,320
combine the town hall spirit of New England with you know,

646
00:39:13,400 --> 00:39:18,039
the Norse legislature of Iceland and kind of draw that

647
00:39:18,679 --> 00:39:21,480
symbolic link to republicanism.

648
00:39:21,960 --> 00:39:26,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think something similar happened with Gungey wop Down

649
00:39:26,360 --> 00:39:30,800
and into people very much want that to have some

650
00:39:30,920 --> 00:39:34,760
kind of Celtic origin, and I do think it's because

651
00:39:34,960 --> 00:39:40,039
most of the people here are of Celtic origin. I

652
00:39:40,079 --> 00:39:43,280
have never understood why, you know, the same thing with

653
00:39:43,360 --> 00:39:48,159
Dyton Rock and mister Yale. I've never understood why there's

654
00:39:50,639 --> 00:39:56,920
the refusal to admit it's probably just indigenous. I'd even

655
00:39:56,960 --> 00:39:59,440
heard someone say, you know, there's evidence that there was

656
00:39:59,480 --> 00:40:02,079
a sheep for here, why are we even talking about this, Well,

657
00:40:02,119 --> 00:40:04,760
it was a continuously inhabited site. There's going to be

658
00:40:04,800 --> 00:40:06,719
evidence of other things there also.

659
00:40:08,159 --> 00:40:11,239
Speaker 4: I mean this reflects the sense I think that you know,

660
00:40:11,320 --> 00:40:15,559
like a Native American, indigenous you know American, just like

661
00:40:15,599 --> 00:40:18,199
you know if you go to Africa, but technically, you know,

662
00:40:18,199 --> 00:40:20,960
I did my dissertation on African history. Seems a very far,

663
00:40:21,280 --> 00:40:24,239
very long way away. But it's the same with African

664
00:40:24,320 --> 00:40:28,519
cultures when Europeans arrive. You know, if you're not building cities,

665
00:40:28,559 --> 00:40:32,360
if you don't have a literate you know, written based

666
00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:36,840
transmission of knowledge, you're not really considered no real civilization.

667
00:40:37,039 --> 00:40:39,679
And I mean it's even I think in recent years

668
00:40:39,719 --> 00:40:43,480
you've seen things like the city of Kahokia. You've seen

669
00:40:43,519 --> 00:40:46,239
a lot of the Native mounds in the Midwest kind

670
00:40:46,239 --> 00:40:49,840
of get a bit more recognition, a bit more interest.

671
00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:53,239
But again it is a shame that so much you know,

672
00:40:53,760 --> 00:40:58,880
indigenous history is not not remembered, not seen as exciting

673
00:40:58,960 --> 00:41:02,559
as Europeans for some reason. You know, like if you

674
00:41:02,639 --> 00:41:05,920
have you know, like Viking sailing across the ocean, you know,

675
00:41:06,159 --> 00:41:12,960
encountering you know, the Americas, that's exciting. You know Native Americans,

676
00:41:12,960 --> 00:41:15,320
you know, traveling across you know, visiting here from different

677
00:41:15,360 --> 00:41:18,400
parts of the country. There's evidence that trade networks linked

678
00:41:18,559 --> 00:41:22,239
New England to you know, the southwest, Central America. I

679
00:41:22,239 --> 00:41:25,320
mean not directly, but that's very interesting. I mean in

680
00:41:25,360 --> 00:41:28,400
my view that you can have you know, like uh,

681
00:41:29,920 --> 00:41:34,719
what's jade or from Central America or you know, aquamarine

682
00:41:34,760 --> 00:41:38,239
from the Southwest wind up here in Jewelry. That's a

683
00:41:38,360 --> 00:41:41,320
very I think that's just as interesting to me as

684
00:41:41,360 --> 00:41:45,480
you know, Viking sailing across the Atlantic. And again there's

685
00:41:45,519 --> 00:41:48,639
also the fact that there is some evidence that Native

686
00:41:48,679 --> 00:41:52,760
Americans sailed across to Europe, and you don't really hear that.

687
00:41:52,840 --> 00:41:56,360
You hear about that much less than you hear about

688
00:41:56,400 --> 00:41:59,039
you know, the opposite, even when most of the opposite

689
00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:02,800
is of question historicity to some extent. But you know,

690
00:42:02,880 --> 00:42:07,159
the idea that some Native Americans may have sailed to Ireland,

691
00:42:07,239 --> 00:42:12,320
may have sailed to h Norway, there's fairly strong evidence

692
00:42:12,400 --> 00:42:15,119
for that as well as far back as Roman times.

693
00:42:15,159 --> 00:42:18,760
Even again, you know, that's not really as well known.

694
00:42:18,840 --> 00:42:20,760
Not the same with, for example, I think, on the

695
00:42:20,760 --> 00:42:25,920
other side of the continent, Polynesian navigation, which I think

696
00:42:25,960 --> 00:42:29,320
is starting to get maybe a bit more recognition that

697
00:42:29,440 --> 00:42:32,920
you know, there's been multiple contacts between kind of an

698
00:42:33,159 --> 00:42:37,719
ancient Asian and Polynesian cultures and the West coast of

699
00:42:37,760 --> 00:42:41,679
the Americas. The fact that the Polynesians navigating across the

700
00:42:41,719 --> 00:42:46,039
Pacific Ocean, you know, using just you know, memorization of

701
00:42:46,119 --> 00:42:49,519
star maps, that it seems like possibly no Polynesians were

702
00:42:49,599 --> 00:42:53,239
the first to sail to Antarctica over a thousand years

703
00:42:53,280 --> 00:42:57,719
before Europeans new Antarctica existed. I think that's all very interesting,

704
00:42:57,760 --> 00:43:01,719
but again, unfortunately it's not really not as sexy as

705
00:43:01,800 --> 00:43:05,519
Vikings or Phoenicians or you know, people from the quote

706
00:43:05,559 --> 00:43:08,840
Old World, you know coming to North America.

707
00:43:10,000 --> 00:43:13,079
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, a while back, so you know, growing

708
00:43:13,159 --> 00:43:16,880
up you're told that people came to North America over

709
00:43:17,039 --> 00:43:21,159
the land bridge. And then you know, recently there's been

710
00:43:21,159 --> 00:43:24,679
more conversation about, well, maybe that doesn't all add up.

711
00:43:24,719 --> 00:43:27,840
There's some evidence of humans being here before there was

712
00:43:27,880 --> 00:43:31,559
a land bridge. I made the mistake of trying to

713
00:43:31,599 --> 00:43:35,079
google that recently and what mess.

714
00:43:35,480 --> 00:43:38,440
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's I mean that it's again, and I want

715
00:43:38,440 --> 00:43:40,639
to be careful this is this is far afield from

716
00:43:40,639 --> 00:43:43,159
my specialty, but I know I have dabbled in this

717
00:43:43,239 --> 00:43:47,280
because it's such a prominent topic. But yeah, the idea

718
00:43:47,320 --> 00:43:50,599
that used to be used to decades ago is the

719
00:43:50,679 --> 00:43:54,639
idea of the Clovis first hypothesis, which I argued that

720
00:43:54,679 --> 00:43:58,239
you know, people came over the bearing land bridge first,

721
00:43:58,320 --> 00:44:01,079
that you know, that was the only way that people

722
00:44:01,119 --> 00:44:04,159
came in waves, that this certain culture was the first

723
00:44:04,239 --> 00:44:07,920
culture over you know, in the decades since, that's increasingly

724
00:44:07,960 --> 00:44:10,199
been challenged that there are now kind of like pre

725
00:44:10,400 --> 00:44:14,119
Clovis artifacts that you know, the settlement of the coast

726
00:44:14,159 --> 00:44:17,480
may have happened or almost certainly did happen much faster

727
00:44:17,559 --> 00:44:22,039
than inland Today. You know, you'll have a we'll say,

728
00:44:22,039 --> 00:44:25,000
people with certain agendas saying like, oh, you know, Clovis

729
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:28,360
first is impossible therefore, you know, the entire basis for

730
00:44:29,400 --> 00:44:31,920
you know, the idea that you know, Native Americans you know,

731
00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:36,199
came here, so that that's a completely thrown out. They challenged,

732
00:44:36,239 --> 00:44:41,280
you know, the idea of that. They challenged the history

733
00:44:41,280 --> 00:44:44,280
of Native settlement of the Americas based on how it

734
00:44:44,360 --> 00:44:46,360
was you know, in the nineteen sixties, probably when a

735
00:44:46,360 --> 00:44:48,719
lot of them were in school. They don't recognize that,

736
00:44:48,800 --> 00:44:52,119
you know, scholarship has changed, and so any you know,

737
00:44:52,199 --> 00:44:55,400
supposed out of place artifact. They then used to challenge

738
00:44:55,880 --> 00:44:59,559
all of archaeology, and I think some, not all, I

739
00:44:59,559 --> 00:45:01,280
want to know be clear, not all, but I think

740
00:45:01,280 --> 00:45:04,800
there are some who are are doing this for particularly

741
00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:07,239
nefarious reasons. I don't know if you've come across this.

742
00:45:07,440 --> 00:45:12,840
There's the the Solutrean hypothesis as it's called, which are

743
00:45:12,880 --> 00:45:15,400
you know, just as there is the bearing land bridge

744
00:45:15,480 --> 00:45:18,880
during the Ice Age connecting Siberia and Alaska, this is

745
00:45:18,920 --> 00:45:20,719
the idea that there's kind of like no a frozen

746
00:45:20,840 --> 00:45:25,920
land bridge across the North Atlantic, and they know ancient Europeans,

747
00:45:26,119 --> 00:45:30,639
you know, migrated across the Solutrean ice bridge, as it's termed.

748
00:45:30,920 --> 00:45:33,239
And you know, this is an idea that's popular among

749
00:45:33,280 --> 00:45:36,800
eight quote no certain online crowd because it means that

750
00:45:36,960 --> 00:45:41,360
Europeans were the quote real Native Americans, that the people

751
00:45:41,360 --> 00:45:46,679
we associate with Paleo Indians migrating out of Siberia massacred,

752
00:45:46,719 --> 00:45:49,800
you know, killed off the original quote white settlers of

753
00:45:49,840 --> 00:45:53,000
the America, and that therefore, as a result, you know,

754
00:45:53,119 --> 00:45:56,079
the conquest of the Americas by Europeans, you know, the

755
00:45:56,159 --> 00:45:59,519
genocide of the Native Americans. This is justified because you know,

756
00:45:59,599 --> 00:46:02,119
they did it to quote us, as you know, ancient

757
00:46:02,159 --> 00:46:05,960
Europeans tens of thousands of years ago. Just to be clear,

758
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:10,480
there is absolutely no evidence for that at all. But

759
00:46:11,400 --> 00:46:14,400
you'll you'll find this very commonly repeated, even in a

760
00:46:14,599 --> 00:46:19,079
you know, we'll say, like a more main more politically

761
00:46:19,119 --> 00:46:22,519
active right wing websites that otherwise you have no interest

762
00:46:22,599 --> 00:46:27,239
in ancient history and you know, Paleo Indian settlement theories,

763
00:46:27,280 --> 00:46:31,000
but are very committed to the idea of this solutrean

764
00:46:31,159 --> 00:46:33,639
land Bridge. No, it's it's kind of I always sent

765
00:46:33,920 --> 00:46:37,840
much like you know, like the New Englanders of the

766
00:46:37,880 --> 00:46:41,000
eighteen hundreds were very interested in the Viking theory. It's

767
00:46:41,599 --> 00:46:46,079
essentially a similar reason why modern you know, right wing

768
00:46:46,199 --> 00:46:48,760
people are very interested in the Solutrean idea.

769
00:46:50,119 --> 00:46:54,480
Speaker 3: Yeah. I recently started looking into the legend of the

770
00:46:54,519 --> 00:46:55,440
moon eyed people.

771
00:46:56,400 --> 00:46:58,360
Speaker 2: It's a legend familiar with.

772
00:46:58,320 --> 00:47:04,679
Speaker 3: That, yes, Yeah, And people will try to turn that

773
00:47:04,719 --> 00:47:08,920
into a narrative of white people being here, you know,

774
00:47:09,360 --> 00:47:14,840
And it's it's almost it's disheartening. It's a little bit

775
00:47:14,880 --> 00:47:20,599
disgusting at times, the way some people try to take

776
00:47:20,760 --> 00:47:24,760
history and rewrite it and make it fit there narrative.

777
00:47:26,280 --> 00:47:28,119
Speaker 4: I mean, it's it's it's a sign that you know,

778
00:47:28,960 --> 00:47:32,239
you hear the attack today that you know history is

779
00:47:32,280 --> 00:47:34,920
too political or you know, people with the agendas are right,

780
00:47:35,440 --> 00:47:38,000
as if that's never been the case. You know. Again,

781
00:47:38,079 --> 00:47:42,679
it's as I tell students, and I you know, historians

782
00:47:42,679 --> 00:47:46,719
are people, you know. I mean, no reputable historian will say, yeah,

783
00:47:46,840 --> 00:47:50,400
you can be objective, because no one, no human is objective.

784
00:47:50,800 --> 00:47:52,880
No AI is objective either, you know, as a lot

785
00:47:52,920 --> 00:47:57,039
of the recent AI debates have shown, AIS are programmed

786
00:47:57,039 --> 00:48:00,679
by humans that have just the same bio sees as

787
00:48:00,719 --> 00:48:05,280
their creators. So you know, less unless an angel descends

788
00:48:05,280 --> 00:48:07,719
from heaven, those without sin or something like that. You know,

789
00:48:08,119 --> 00:48:12,119
no history that's written by any thinking being is going

790
00:48:12,159 --> 00:48:15,480
to be free of bias. You know, some are hopefully

791
00:48:15,679 --> 00:48:19,360
more objective than others, but the idea they know, it's

792
00:48:19,480 --> 00:48:23,440
only like no crazy Marxist you know, university professors who

793
00:48:23,480 --> 00:48:26,760
have you know, started to pervert history. You know, just

794
00:48:26,840 --> 00:48:31,039
read any of the views of history, you know, for example,

795
00:48:31,239 --> 00:48:35,000
in the eighteen hundreds or the nineteen hundreds, and you'll

796
00:48:35,039 --> 00:48:42,480
see definitely interesting interpretations with clearly you know, political agendas

797
00:48:43,719 --> 00:48:44,239
back then.

798
00:48:45,000 --> 00:48:48,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, my family history also, so my mother is a

799
00:48:48,880 --> 00:48:55,519
Hinckley governor. Thomas Hinckley is my ninth grade uncle, and

800
00:48:55,639 --> 00:48:58,639
you know, growing up, I was told, you know, he

801
00:48:58,679 --> 00:48:59,519
was a great guy.

802
00:48:59,559 --> 00:49:02,440
Speaker 2: He was governor of Plymouth Colony and all this.

803
00:49:02,960 --> 00:49:05,760
Speaker 3: When I started researching Puck Wedgies, I had to look

804
00:49:05,800 --> 00:49:10,960
into King Phillips war his name started coming up and

805
00:49:11,039 --> 00:49:16,039
it was not flattering. And so I had this ancestor

806
00:49:16,079 --> 00:49:18,679
who I was told growing up was a great guy.

807
00:49:18,920 --> 00:49:24,400
And then I found out his thought process was that

808
00:49:24,559 --> 00:49:28,719
the great dying was because God killed everyone here because

809
00:49:28,800 --> 00:49:30,079
they were meant to live here.

810
00:49:30,719 --> 00:49:33,000
Speaker 2: And then he.

811
00:49:34,679 --> 00:49:38,360
Speaker 3: Basically he was not the only one, but he was

812
00:49:38,760 --> 00:49:43,559
a driver of a genocide. Really, So, I mean, it's

813
00:49:43,599 --> 00:49:46,599
funny how you grow up with one narrative and then

814
00:49:46,639 --> 00:49:49,559
you start digging and you find out it's not anything

815
00:49:50,440 --> 00:49:52,199
like what you thought. My family does not like when

816
00:49:52,199 --> 00:49:52,880
I talk about that.

817
00:49:54,559 --> 00:49:58,639
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's the idea that I know, God

818
00:49:58,760 --> 00:50:03,159
knows a no prepared this land for us. I mean,

819
00:50:03,320 --> 00:50:06,159
I think that's a deeply ingrained not just in the US,

820
00:50:06,199 --> 00:50:10,639
I mean it's a Canada, Australia. I think anywhere there's

821
00:50:10,679 --> 00:50:14,639
a settler or colony, you're going to find ideas like this.

822
00:50:14,719 --> 00:50:16,199
I mean, you know, I think I think it makes

823
00:50:16,239 --> 00:50:17,719
sense in a certain point of you know, like, if

824
00:50:18,119 --> 00:50:20,719
if God has prepared it for you, you can't really

825
00:50:20,800 --> 00:50:26,079
challenge God, and it's therefore very and very easy. Again,

826
00:50:26,599 --> 00:50:31,880
so not just bashing religion. Science also is ideas of

827
00:50:31,960 --> 00:50:37,760
scientific evolution. The idea that you could take Darwin's theory

828
00:50:37,800 --> 00:50:41,719
of evolution and apply it to the different human races

829
00:50:41,840 --> 00:50:45,679
or human cultures, something that Darwin himself was definitely did

830
00:50:45,719 --> 00:50:48,960
not believe in that, but others use that, including some

831
00:50:49,039 --> 00:50:51,719
of his own friends. But you know, the idea that okay,

832
00:50:51,840 --> 00:50:55,519
Native Americans are this you know, supposed you know, dying race,

833
00:50:55,639 --> 00:50:58,920
because again it's just the law of natural selection. So

834
00:50:59,000 --> 00:51:01,280
you know, it's not that you know, God has you know,

835
00:51:01,719 --> 00:51:03,559
cleared them all off and take them up to heaven.

836
00:51:03,599 --> 00:51:06,800
It's just you know, the scientific laws of you know, uh,

837
00:51:07,119 --> 00:51:10,239
survival of the fittest just means it's it's the way

838
00:51:10,280 --> 00:51:12,840
things work. And you know, even though if you read

839
00:51:12,880 --> 00:51:16,119
a lot of like you know, a Bureau of Indian

840
00:51:16,159 --> 00:51:19,760
Affairs documents from the late nineteenth century, you know, there

841
00:51:19,840 --> 00:51:22,239
was this large sentiment it was just an assumption that

842
00:51:22,519 --> 00:51:26,320
Native Americans will go extinct. That's not out of question.

843
00:51:26,400 --> 00:51:28,480
You know, maybe a few of them can kind of

844
00:51:28,519 --> 00:51:31,320
you know, be elevated to basically you know, become white

845
00:51:31,639 --> 00:51:34,679
in culture, if not in well, you know, not in blood.

846
00:51:34,719 --> 00:51:37,599
I guess I didn't have genes or knowledge of it then,

847
00:51:37,679 --> 00:51:39,599
but it was essentially like, okay, you know, our job

848
00:51:39,719 --> 00:51:42,400
is based you know, to be like, you know, hospice

849
00:51:42,400 --> 00:51:45,440
workers for the Native Americans that set them on reservations

850
00:51:45,440 --> 00:51:47,719
where they can know peacefully die off and then we

851
00:51:47,719 --> 00:51:50,159
don't have to think about them anymore. And I think

852
00:51:50,280 --> 00:51:54,280
it's I mean, it's uh, something I think is still

853
00:51:54,320 --> 00:51:57,719
in a lot of the background you know, of a

854
00:51:57,719 --> 00:52:00,920
lot of people today, even you know, not inventally maybe,

855
00:52:00,920 --> 00:52:03,440
but I think it is difficult, you know, to think like,

856
00:52:03,480 --> 00:52:06,440
you know, oh, it's the reason you know we're here

857
00:52:06,480 --> 00:52:09,159
in North America is you know, you have to kind

858
00:52:09,159 --> 00:52:11,519
of think about like, oh, it's the wide just how

859
00:52:11,559 --> 00:52:15,800
widespread you know the population was before uh uh you

860
00:52:15,800 --> 00:52:18,920
know settlers arrived and why you know we're able to

861
00:52:19,000 --> 00:52:22,760
migrate west And I mean, uh, even then, you know,

862
00:52:22,800 --> 00:52:26,760
I think the idea of you know, the pastoral native

863
00:52:26,800 --> 00:52:29,880
and like the Native who lived in harmony with nature.

864
00:52:30,239 --> 00:52:32,039
I think even that it's kind of a sense. Okay,

865
00:52:32,199 --> 00:52:34,519
the Native American is you know or quote know, the

866
00:52:34,639 --> 00:52:38,119
Native American is not a culture and it doesn't have

867
00:52:38,159 --> 00:52:40,440
its own history. It's part of nature. I mean, I

868
00:52:40,440 --> 00:52:43,960
think even until fairly recently in the Smithsonian, I think

869
00:52:44,159 --> 00:52:48,119
a lot of Native American artifacts and like a Polynesian

870
00:52:48,239 --> 00:52:51,079
artifacts do are in the natural history. Part is if

871
00:52:51,119 --> 00:52:53,519
you know they're part of nature, they're not part of

872
00:52:53,559 --> 00:52:57,039
you know, human history or human culture. And uh and

873
00:52:57,159 --> 00:53:00,599
you know, the reality is Native Americans impacted there environment.

874
00:53:00,679 --> 00:53:03,639
I mean, part of the reason why you can see

875
00:53:03,719 --> 00:53:08,280
in records of ice cores that the Native American genocide

876
00:53:08,639 --> 00:53:12,519
led to a global cooling because Native Americans were cutting

877
00:53:12,559 --> 00:53:15,760
down trees, they had fires, you know, they were impacting

878
00:53:15,800 --> 00:53:18,639
the environment. When they're all when many of them are

879
00:53:18,800 --> 00:53:22,119
being killed off, they're stopping impacting the environment. So I

880
00:53:22,159 --> 00:53:25,800
think even the idea, the probably well meaning idea of

881
00:53:25,800 --> 00:53:29,199
you know, the noble savage who lived in concert with nature,

882
00:53:29,239 --> 00:53:31,519
and it was kind of like an ideal for the

883
00:53:31,679 --> 00:53:35,840
environmentalists movement in the nineteen seventies, that's also fairly a

884
00:53:36,079 --> 00:53:38,360
historical that's a way of, you know, dealing with the

885
00:53:38,400 --> 00:53:40,039
fact that you don't have to think of the Native

886
00:53:40,079 --> 00:53:43,800
American as a human just it's part of nature. It's

887
00:53:43,800 --> 00:53:47,639
not a branch of human history and human culture.

888
00:53:48,880 --> 00:53:49,519
Speaker 2: Yeah.

889
00:53:49,559 --> 00:53:55,480
Speaker 3: And so there was one colonial New Englander that has

890
00:53:55,639 --> 00:54:00,000
not been ruined for me yet. You might tell me otherwise,

891
00:54:00,360 --> 00:54:04,159
but he seems to have had a positive attitude towards

892
00:54:04,239 --> 00:54:07,559
Native Americans even and he hated my ancestors.

893
00:54:07,639 --> 00:54:09,079
Speaker 2: So I immediately like him.

894
00:54:09,480 --> 00:54:14,199
Speaker 4: But Roger Williams, Yeah, I mean it's the founder of

895
00:54:14,880 --> 00:54:19,199
Rhode Island, founder of Providence. I think there's a few

896
00:54:19,320 --> 00:54:23,199
examples of these in the seventeen hundreds. I think William

897
00:54:23,360 --> 00:54:28,199
Penn comes across relative I say relatively. I don't think entirely,

898
00:54:28,280 --> 00:54:32,719
but relatively well compared with other treatment of Native Americans,

899
00:54:32,760 --> 00:54:37,639
and also with religious differences as well amongst the settlers.

900
00:54:38,039 --> 00:54:40,679
And I know it tell us my students too. It's

901
00:54:40,679 --> 00:54:43,719
worth pointing out there are people. You know, the idea

902
00:54:43,760 --> 00:54:47,239
that you know, slavery was universally accepted is not true.

903
00:54:47,280 --> 00:54:50,440
You know, the idea that settlement of the Americas was

904
00:54:50,480 --> 00:54:52,880
seen as a good thing that was not You know,

905
00:54:52,960 --> 00:54:56,920
there are critics in the past. I know, famously kind

906
00:54:56,960 --> 00:55:00,320
of the Spanish colonial context. It's a Bartolo may dela

907
00:55:00,400 --> 00:55:04,159
Cossas who wrote on the Destruction of the Indies, and

908
00:55:04,480 --> 00:55:07,480
again he did think that the goal was to convert

909
00:55:07,559 --> 00:55:10,639
Native Americans to Christianity, but you know, to kind of

910
00:55:10,760 --> 00:55:14,280
do it through kindness, through respecting their culture, instead of

911
00:55:14,320 --> 00:55:16,800
you know, just killing them off. Juan tom Lee. So

912
00:55:17,119 --> 00:55:20,000
there are people in the past, maybe not as much

913
00:55:20,039 --> 00:55:22,039
as today, but they are. There are people in the

914
00:55:22,079 --> 00:55:26,599
past who were critics, did see Native Americans and Africans

915
00:55:26,679 --> 00:55:30,920
as humans, as fully humans, did condemn you know, colonialism,

916
00:55:31,039 --> 00:55:34,599
did condemn slavery. And you know, we can see that

917
00:55:35,519 --> 00:55:38,079
there's a bit more recognition of that. But I think

918
00:55:38,079 --> 00:55:41,119
that also kind of know fuels. I think kind of

919
00:55:41,119 --> 00:55:43,559
on both sides of the political I you can see,

920
00:55:43,920 --> 00:55:46,880
you know, conservatives who would like to say, you know,

921
00:55:46,960 --> 00:55:49,559
like everyone in the past, who it's just terrible, so

922
00:55:49,880 --> 00:55:52,440
who cares who killed who? And also now that we have,

923
00:55:52,480 --> 00:55:55,079
you know, any kind of recognition of this, now that's

924
00:55:55,119 --> 00:55:57,199
an inherent sign that we've done so much we don't

925
00:55:57,199 --> 00:55:59,559
have to do anything else. And I think there's also

926
00:55:59,679 --> 00:56:05,000
some you know, a section of liberals who I think

927
00:56:05,159 --> 00:56:07,920
a either want you know, to view themselves, you know,

928
00:56:07,920 --> 00:56:10,480
as a kind of like, you know, the endpoint of progress,

929
00:56:10,519 --> 00:56:12,760
and so if you have any like any positives in

930
00:56:12,800 --> 00:56:16,599
the past, that impacts their view of their own development.

931
00:56:16,639 --> 00:56:19,360
But also I think you know a lot of scourging

932
00:56:19,360 --> 00:56:23,239
of themselves also and don't want to recognize anything or

933
00:56:23,280 --> 00:56:25,559
anyone good in the past. So I think on both

934
00:56:25,559 --> 00:56:28,480
sides of the political divide, at least kind of in

935
00:56:28,519 --> 00:56:33,000
the modern culture wars, there was a reluctance to address this.

936
00:56:33,119 --> 00:56:35,320
And again, you know, it's not like these people were

937
00:56:35,360 --> 00:56:38,760
dominant in the past, but they were there occasionally. I

938
00:56:38,760 --> 00:56:41,000
think it's worth keeping that in mind as well, that

939
00:56:41,159 --> 00:56:43,760
you know, even people in the past did recognize that

940
00:56:43,840 --> 00:56:49,719
some of this stuff was pretty messed up, so to speak. Yeah,

941
00:56:49,719 --> 00:56:53,360
and there's also I think maybe coming back a bit

942
00:56:53,480 --> 00:56:57,920
to the more not necessarily cryptozoological, but mythological, there's an

943
00:56:57,960 --> 00:57:01,960
increasing I think understanding that you know, people you know

944
00:57:02,199 --> 00:57:05,599
long talk about trade with Native Americans, with you know,

945
00:57:05,679 --> 00:57:09,119
Meso Americans, with the Caribbean peoples. But I think there's

946
00:57:09,119 --> 00:57:11,599
been a bit more study recent of ideas that have

947
00:57:11,679 --> 00:57:14,840
come from Native Americans, especially you know, for example, from

948
00:57:14,840 --> 00:57:21,679
the Iroquois ideas of a democracy, representative government, constitutionalism that

949
00:57:21,880 --> 00:57:25,239
impacted a lot of the colonial settlers, especially in the

950
00:57:25,280 --> 00:57:29,039
decades leading up to the American Revolution. Very recently, you know,

951
00:57:29,119 --> 00:57:32,599
there's been some historical work arguing that some of the

952
00:57:32,639 --> 00:57:36,239
ideas of you know, the Declaration of Independence the Constitution

953
00:57:36,760 --> 00:57:40,079
were coming from people like Benjamin Franklin who are very

954
00:57:40,119 --> 00:57:45,000
interested in Iroquois political notions in the decades before the

955
00:57:45,039 --> 00:57:50,239
American Revolution. Simultaneously, there's a historian of science, Adrian Mayer,

956
00:57:50,320 --> 00:57:52,280
and others have as well, she's kind of the main

957
00:57:52,880 --> 00:57:55,679
name behind this, but who have looked at how you know,

958
00:57:56,000 --> 00:57:59,880
not just a Native Americans, but enslaved Africans in the

959
00:58:00,119 --> 00:58:05,320
early colonies have applied their knowledge of fossils of life

960
00:58:05,360 --> 00:58:10,679
to early paleontology and you know, identifying early fossils, like

961
00:58:10,719 --> 00:58:15,280
the very first mastodon remains in the United States were

962
00:58:15,320 --> 00:58:19,760
discovered by enslaved Africans from the Congo who not only

963
00:58:19,800 --> 00:58:23,119
you know, physically uncovered the remains of the mastadon, but

964
00:58:23,400 --> 00:58:26,280
identified them because they knew what elephant remains looked like.

965
00:58:26,360 --> 00:58:29,599
And so you can argue paleontology as a science in

966
00:58:29,639 --> 00:58:34,880
the Americas comes from Native Americans and Africans much more

967
00:58:34,920 --> 00:58:39,880
than Europeans. And in the Midwest I'll be quiet after this,

968
00:58:40,039 --> 00:58:44,599
but in the Midwest also there's a creature amongst kind

969
00:58:44,599 --> 00:58:48,000
of like the plains, and it's a mythological beast, the

970
00:58:48,119 --> 00:58:52,280
untech Ye, the water monster. The original like depiction of

971
00:58:52,320 --> 00:58:56,039
the water monster from when these tribes lived around the

972
00:58:56,079 --> 00:59:01,239
Great Lakes was very clearly based on quatic mammal uh.

973
00:59:01,719 --> 00:59:05,519
When these tribes are then forcibly relocated to the bad

974
00:59:05,679 --> 00:59:08,559
lands of you know, South Dakota, an area with a

975
00:59:08,559 --> 00:59:14,280
lot of fossilized prehistoric animals, the description of the untech

976
00:59:14,360 --> 00:59:17,760
Ye changes to reflect the fossils the moses ur so

977
00:59:17,760 --> 00:59:20,599
you get something that's originally like a water buffalo and

978
00:59:20,719 --> 00:59:24,480
starts to get described as a uh, you know, like

979
00:59:24,559 --> 00:59:27,519
a dinosaur basically. And again this is because they're seeing

980
00:59:27,559 --> 00:59:30,199
the fossil remains. They're decided think, you know, you can

981
00:59:30,239 --> 00:59:33,840
see fossilized flippers from the Mosesaur. They said, this is

982
00:59:33,880 --> 00:59:38,159
an this is an actual like ancient water monster. They

983
00:59:38,199 --> 00:59:42,400
then change their mythological creature. They have the mythology of

984
00:59:42,440 --> 00:59:45,199
this water monster. They see the actual remains. Oh, this

985
00:59:45,280 --> 00:59:49,440
must actually be what the untechie looks like. By analyzing

986
00:59:49,480 --> 00:59:52,480
remains of the past, they're applying it to their own histories.

987
00:59:52,480 --> 00:59:56,320
And so you get this change of this mythological creature

988
00:59:56,920 --> 01:00:00,119
through early scientific method we and.

989
01:00:00,199 --> 01:00:05,760
Speaker 3: Say, yeah, I point out I have my Stegaton bone

990
01:00:05,800 --> 01:00:06,840
necklace on right now.

991
01:00:07,719 --> 01:00:08,119
Speaker 4: Very good.

992
01:00:09,199 --> 01:00:12,480
Speaker 3: So what advice would you give someone that wants to

993
01:00:12,519 --> 01:00:18,159
look into either folklore local history. You know, I we

994
01:00:18,239 --> 01:00:22,159
talked briefly about my frustration just looking into the history

995
01:00:22,199 --> 01:00:25,519
of these stone sites in the area. So what advice

996
01:00:25,559 --> 01:00:28,119
would you give someone that wants to find out the

997
01:00:28,639 --> 01:00:34,360
real facts between behind these these things in history?

998
01:00:35,000 --> 01:00:38,119
Speaker 4: I would say, if you're interested in local story, again,

999
01:00:38,559 --> 01:00:41,719
I'll promote the local historical Society. I think that's a

1000
01:00:41,760 --> 01:00:43,599
good place, you know, just to start to see what

1001
01:00:44,039 --> 01:00:47,239
people in the past have thought of some of these stories,

1002
01:00:47,280 --> 01:00:50,480
some of these mythologies, I would say, you know, particularly

1003
01:00:50,519 --> 01:00:56,159
with stone sites, with things like you know, fossils or cryptozoology. Again,

1004
01:00:56,199 --> 01:01:00,199
I'll bring up Kenneth Fader's books. He in particular has

1005
01:01:00,239 --> 01:01:03,440
one called I'm hoping I'm going to remember the title right, Frauds,

1006
01:01:03,480 --> 01:01:06,440
Myths and Mysteries, which is basically, you know, a good

1007
01:01:06,519 --> 01:01:09,199
primary it's kind of like a good source for the

1008
01:01:09,320 --> 01:01:17,679
aspiring paleon not just paleon archaeologists, paleontologist, cryptozoologists of how

1009
01:01:17,719 --> 01:01:20,840
to think about some of these myths, think about like

1010
01:01:21,119 --> 01:01:24,679
how to analyze and interrogate stories. Has a lot of

1011
01:01:24,760 --> 01:01:27,679
case studies. I think he's done kind of a really

1012
01:01:27,719 --> 01:01:32,599
good job creating, you know, literally the textbook for understanding

1013
01:01:32,719 --> 01:01:36,480
a lot of these. Some other names that I'll just

1014
01:01:36,559 --> 01:01:43,039
kind of throw out Andrew Kinkella's podcast pseudo Archaeology. Jeb

1015
01:01:43,119 --> 01:01:47,599
Card has a number of podcasts and books that explore this.

1016
01:01:47,800 --> 01:01:51,920
One of his books is called Spooky Archaeology. Definitely recommend that.

1017
01:01:52,599 --> 01:01:57,119
Sharon Hill has a book called scientifical Americans, which again

1018
01:01:57,199 --> 01:02:00,559
is about you know, how to understand, you know, the

1019
01:02:00,679 --> 01:02:05,639
scientific method and how it's used and misused by kind

1020
01:02:05,679 --> 01:02:08,719
of paranormal researchers. And I think these are all fairly

1021
01:02:08,800 --> 01:02:11,280
easy to read books. I think they're good kind of

1022
01:02:12,079 --> 01:02:17,199
introductory levels for people interested in historical analyzes of some

1023
01:02:17,280 --> 01:02:20,280
of these myths and legends of the past.

1024
01:02:21,280 --> 01:02:28,119
Speaker 3: Excellent, speaking of books, you have some company is interested

1025
01:02:28,159 --> 01:02:30,719
in them? What are their names, what are they about?

1026
01:02:30,760 --> 01:02:32,000
Where can they find them?

1027
01:02:32,440 --> 01:02:36,320
Speaker 4: So my first book that's out with Horace Smith your

1028
01:02:36,400 --> 01:02:40,440
Past Guests, called When the Stars Are Right HP Lovecraft

1029
01:02:40,480 --> 01:02:44,440
and Astronomy, available from Hippocampus Press. It looks at you

1030
01:02:44,840 --> 01:02:48,360
the Providence, Rhode Island author HP Lovecraft, you know, the

1031
01:02:48,400 --> 01:02:52,400
creator of Cthulhu, among many other things. It specifically looks

1032
01:02:52,440 --> 01:02:56,440
at a lot of his interests in astronomy and how

1033
01:02:56,480 --> 01:02:59,679
it impacts his life and his fiction. But I think

1034
01:02:59,719 --> 01:03:01,880
that's all so useful because we use it to look

1035
01:03:01,880 --> 01:03:05,119
at kind of like a case study of several evolving

1036
01:03:05,199 --> 01:03:09,519
notions of astronomical science. So yeah, we talk about evolving

1037
01:03:09,599 --> 01:03:12,400
notions of life on Mars and the Moon, you know,

1038
01:03:12,599 --> 01:03:15,360
during Lovecraft's lifetime we talked about a lot of the

1039
01:03:15,440 --> 01:03:20,679
early UFO sightings from the nineteenth century about changing ideas

1040
01:03:20,679 --> 01:03:23,719
of cosmology, like you know, the ether. I think we

1041
01:03:23,760 --> 01:03:26,440
talk about the hollow Earth a little bit. So even

1042
01:03:26,480 --> 01:03:28,519
if you know you only have kind of a vague

1043
01:03:28,599 --> 01:03:31,719
knowledge of Lovecraft, this is a good book for looking

1044
01:03:31,760 --> 01:03:38,280
at how ideas about astronomy and humanity's relationship to it changes,

1045
01:03:38,320 --> 01:03:41,639
you know, from the late nineteenth into the early twentieth centuries.

1046
01:03:42,480 --> 01:03:46,079
My second book, which I'm hoping should be done and

1047
01:03:46,119 --> 01:03:48,239
submitted to the publisher by the end of this year,

1048
01:03:48,599 --> 01:03:51,559
it's called The Power of the Flat Earth Idea. It's

1049
01:03:51,599 --> 01:03:54,760
going to be published by Paul Grave McMillan. This is

1050
01:03:55,360 --> 01:03:58,159
kind of like a political history of flat earthers, and

1051
01:03:58,599 --> 01:04:03,079
again relevant to our discussion. One of the main focus

1052
01:04:03,119 --> 01:04:05,480
is kind of one of the main quote characters in

1053
01:04:05,519 --> 01:04:09,840
my book is a former slave in Virginia after the

1054
01:04:09,920 --> 01:04:12,760
end of the Civil War named John Jasper, who is

1055
01:04:12,800 --> 01:04:16,239
a Baptist preacher but also a very prominent flat earther.

1056
01:04:17,119 --> 01:04:19,360
I talk to some degree about how, you know, his

1057
01:04:19,519 --> 01:04:23,559
ideas of the flat Earth come from basically a liberation

1058
01:04:23,840 --> 01:04:27,400
theology interpretation of the Old Testament, so kind of the

1059
01:04:27,480 --> 01:04:32,159
same religious sources he's looking at to justify and support

1060
01:04:32,199 --> 01:04:37,360
black emancipation during the reconstruction and post reconstruction eras, these

1061
01:04:37,360 --> 01:04:39,679
are interpretations that are leading him to think the Earth

1062
01:04:39,760 --> 01:04:44,280
is flat. So again kind of like a liberation interpretation

1063
01:04:44,440 --> 01:04:47,760
of flat earth theology, which, again, to pat myself on

1064
01:04:47,800 --> 01:04:49,760
the back, I haven't really seen this done before, so

1065
01:04:49,800 --> 01:04:53,639
I think it will make an interesting reveal in the field.

1066
01:04:53,679 --> 01:04:55,360
And I do talk a bit about, you know, where

1067
01:04:55,639 --> 01:04:59,760
flat earth ideas overlap with other notions a lot of

1068
01:04:59,800 --> 01:05:03,960
like UFO and modern conspiracy stuff near the end. So again,

1069
01:05:04,000 --> 01:05:08,199
if you're interested in kind of wider conspiracy or pseudoscience,

1070
01:05:08,239 --> 01:05:11,159
that could be a book of interest. And outside of that,

1071
01:05:11,199 --> 01:05:13,199
I have a number of articles, some of which are

1072
01:05:13,239 --> 01:05:16,800
online you can find google Edward Giemont some of these

1073
01:05:16,840 --> 01:05:20,599
will come up. Have some works on cryptozoology that are

1074
01:05:20,679 --> 01:05:25,280
free to read online. Some of my works on UFOs

1075
01:05:25,360 --> 01:05:29,840
and specifically UFOs and New England folklore, which maybe if

1076
01:05:29,840 --> 01:05:31,679
I come on again, I can talk about ideas you know,

1077
01:05:31,880 --> 01:05:34,760
UFOs and puck wedgies and melon heads. I feel like

1078
01:05:34,960 --> 01:05:38,880
there may be some kind of a unifying theory between these,

1079
01:05:38,920 --> 01:05:40,599
so maybe that's a little hook for me to come

1080
01:05:40,639 --> 01:05:43,599
back next time. But again, google my name and you'll

1081
01:05:43,639 --> 01:05:45,920
definitely find some interesting stuff to read.

1082
01:05:47,119 --> 01:05:52,599
Speaker 3: I'm definitely hooked because I have seen some commonalities there

1083
01:05:52,639 --> 01:05:55,239
and connections as well, so interested to see if they're

1084
01:05:55,280 --> 01:05:56,440
the same as what you found.

1085
01:05:57,000 --> 01:05:59,119
Speaker 4: Well, can't wait to talk about it someday.

1086
01:06:00,079 --> 01:06:02,599
Speaker 3: So well, thank you very much. This has been a blast.

1087
01:06:02,960 --> 01:06:04,880
I don't think I got through half of the list

1088
01:06:04,920 --> 01:06:08,480
of things. Definitely have to have you back on anytime.

1089
01:06:08,519 --> 01:06:10,239
Speaker 4: I'm happy to talk all.

1090
01:06:10,199 --> 01:06:12,119
Speaker 3: Right, great and thanks everyone for good night.

1091
01:06:13,119 --> 01:06:28,679
Speaker 4: Goodbye.