Speaker 1: You're listening to an airwave media podcast.
Speaker 2: Monster Talk is supported by listeners like you. Find out
Speaker 2: how you can contribute via Patreon or with reviews at
Speaker 2: monster talk dot org, forge slash support. Your contributions, large
Speaker 2: or small, make a huge difference. Thanks. One of the
Speaker 2: most satisfying aspects of researching monsters is when you can
Speaker 2: find interesting facts that have become the focus of legend
Speaker 2: for reasons I still don't understand. Some historical characters seem
Speaker 2: to accrete legends the way old houses collect spider webs.
Speaker 2: Such is the case with this week's subject matter, perhaps
Speaker 2: the most legendary character of Quebec history yet based on
Speaker 2: a very real person. She had a full name and
Speaker 2: a short life, but her afterlife has been lengthy and fakend,
Speaker 2: giving birth to many many legends. Was she a witch?
Speaker 2: Was she a murderer? Poisoner? Hey, let's stop being care
Speaker 2: We're going to talk about lecre though.
Speaker 3: It's actually quite unlike anything we've ever seen before.
Speaker 1: A giant, hairy creature Mark Ape part Matt in Luckness,
Speaker 1: a twenty four a mile long bottomless lake in the
Speaker 1: Highlands of Scotland. Get the creature known as the Luckness
Speaker 1: monster Monstertal.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters. I'm
Speaker 2: Blake Smith and I'm Karen Stolsner. A really fun thing
Speaker 2: about creating Monster Talk is I get to learn stuff
Speaker 2: if I'm being honest. If I'm being honest. In many ways,
Speaker 2: the self motive force of this show is my insatiable
Speaker 2: curiosity about the macabre and the monstrous. Monster Talk gets
Speaker 2: me in touch with people who've done deep research on
Speaker 2: topics that I've often never even heard of before. Some
Speaker 2: listeners suggest them as an episode topic, and such is
Speaker 2: the case with today's subject, the woman they call le Corvo.
Speaker 2: Legends say she killed as many as twenty husbands, that
Speaker 2: she was a witch, that she was a poisoner, that
Speaker 2: she consulted with werewolves and other dark forces, that she
Speaker 2: would come back from beyond the grave and do harm.
Speaker 2: But behind all that, it's an interesting historical study of
Speaker 2: a woman a suspicious death in the middle cage they
Speaker 2: call the Gibbet. Our guest today is historian Joseph Ganie,
Speaker 2: and check out the show notes. In addition to the
Speaker 2: links to additional research material, he also provides some photos
Speaker 2: relevant to the story of this notorious figure. Of Quebec History.
Speaker 1: Monstertal.
Speaker 2: We're gonna be talking about an interesting character, but first
Speaker 2: let's find about you as an interesting character. Who are you,
Speaker 2: Joseph Ganie.
Speaker 1: I am the one, the only, the irreplaceable Joseph Gangy. Yes, indeed,
Speaker 1: I'm actually a doctoral student at Lavalle University in Quebec City.
Speaker 1: I'm originally from Northern Ontario and I'm French Canadian despite
Speaker 1: the goofy Northern Ontario. Acci and a, is that your
Speaker 1: friend and the wood Chipper are there? But yeah, no,
Speaker 1: And I specialize in the Seven Years War, So that's
Speaker 1: basically the French and Indian War for Americans at lovely
Speaker 1: period of nine years. Don't do the math that preceded
Speaker 1: the American Revolution. So basically there would be no American
Speaker 1: Revolution without the French in Indian War. And so I'm
Speaker 1: currently working on. My doctoral thesis is studying military intelligence
Speaker 1: within the French armies, everything having to do with spies
Speaker 1: and gathering information on the enemy.
Speaker 2: Wow. Interesting, that is interesting. I wish we had time
Speaker 2: to go into.
Speaker 1: That another day.
Speaker 2: Does anybody so the French and India the Seven Years
Speaker 2: Does anybody called the Frindian War?
Speaker 1: No? But I've once seen a cartoon where they had
Speaker 1: Americans going, oh no, it's the French French Poodle and
Speaker 1: Indian War.
Speaker 2: It's a I like history, but and we do get
Speaker 2: into it occasionally, and I guess we will be about
Speaker 2: to get into a little bit. Does this topic have
Speaker 2: anything to do with war?
Speaker 1: Honestly, absolutely there is. There is. There is a context
Speaker 1: absolutely with that period. First of all, I think like
Speaker 1: the best way to start is is to kind of
Speaker 1: back up with with what the actual story is, because
Speaker 1: the the irony is that this is a very well
Speaker 1: known story, uh in French Canada without necessarily being accurately known.
Speaker 1: But outside of French Canada, most people will have heard
Speaker 1: of it, probably thanks to the TV show a few
Speaker 1: years ago Creepy Canada. La Correvo's story actually made the
Speaker 1: top ten Scariest Canadian.
Speaker 2: Ghost stories Creepy Canada.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think I forget if it was like
Speaker 1: late nineties, early two thousands.
Speaker 2: I have to track it down. That sounds awesome.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Was doing some research on this topic and it just
Speaker 3: seems like we've got the English language scoop on the
Speaker 3: story by in large because there's just not very much
Speaker 3: out there. But I did discover that there was a
Speaker 3: heavy metal band by the same.
Speaker 1: Name, I believe, so, yes, it's that's really.
Speaker 2: Good through the magic of editing. I don't think anybody
Speaker 2: knows who we're talking about yet.
Speaker 3: I don't think they do either. We're being mysterious about it.
Speaker 3: So Lcorvo and Joseph, if you could give us her
Speaker 3: full name?
Speaker 1: Oh, her full name is Marie jo zift Coivo.
Speaker 2: And basically does that make her marry Joe Corvo?
Speaker 1: I guess so. Really, when you think about it.
Speaker 2: I think that sounds like an Appalachian story from a
Speaker 2: previous episode. All right, go ahead, sorry.
Speaker 1: Which I'm actually halfway listening to right.
Speaker 2: Now, wait till we get done with this interview. That's
Speaker 2: my advice.
Speaker 3: So all right, perfect, Hey, well, I think we ask
Speaker 3: the big question. Who is she?
Speaker 1: Well, Mattie joisef Corriveau was traditionally regarded as a witch
Speaker 1: in French Canadian folklore. She was said to be a
Speaker 1: woman that basically would murder her husbands and finally got caught.
Speaker 1: There are hundreds of versions of her story. The most
Speaker 1: traditionally she killed two of her husbands, but you have
Speaker 1: some versions where she had over twelve where she killed
Speaker 1: each one in a more sordid manner, from one after another,
Speaker 1: whether poisons, abbing, strangling, one of the weirder ones just
Speaker 1: basically taking a pillow and sitting on her last husband's face.
Speaker 1: And the idea was that she was a witch who
Speaker 1: would be peddling in in love potions and poisonous brew
Speaker 1: and so on. And she finally gets caught and she
Speaker 1: was punished, and depending on the version you hear, either
Speaker 1: she was executed by hanging and then placing a gibbet,
Speaker 1: or she was squarely put in a gibbet, left to
Speaker 1: die hanging, and then after her death she would basically
Speaker 1: be haunting the south shore of Quebec, of the Quebec region,
Speaker 1: and you would actually have parents telling their kids, come home,
Speaker 1: come home earlier, else that Koreivo will get you which
Speaker 1: and these stories still circulate to this day. And what
Speaker 1: I find fascinating as well is that I'm French Canadian,
Speaker 1: but I'm from the next province over. I'm from Ontario,
Speaker 1: and as a kid, even I had heard of the story.
Speaker 1: This is how infamous it is in French Canadian society.
Speaker 2: Are there a lot of French Canadian ghosts. You mentioned
Speaker 2: Creepy Canada, so obviously they had to flesh out a
Speaker 2: whole season. Did they did they hit like the Wind
Speaker 2: to Go? Or like what kind of things did they cover?
Speaker 2: If you don't mind me asking a TV show.
Speaker 1: Well, that's for the TV show. They surprisingly had very
Speaker 1: little French Canadian folklore. They tended to try to cover
Speaker 1: Canada from coast to coast, so you have you would
Speaker 1: have stories from haunted lighthouses in the Maritimes to strange
Speaker 1: disappearances in Ontario and and so on. I don't recall
Speaker 1: there being that many monster stories, unfortunately, but it was
Speaker 1: a lot of like gray ladies, haunting buildings and so on. Lane.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, I want to hear about la poutine.
Speaker 1: By the way, good on you for saying it more
Speaker 1: or less correctly. Some people will say, like whether we'll
Speaker 1: actually just stretch it like pootie, and it's like no, no,
Speaker 1: poots it and it's just spin it out.
Speaker 2: By the way, it's what's for breakfast, That's what I know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh you can have it in Quebec. Can you
Speaker 1: have it for breakfast? Now there's a place that's open
Speaker 1: twenty four hours?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, they have it. You know, this is
Speaker 2: really a weird tangent, but they have it in Detroit too.
Speaker 2: You can get it at what they like, what we
Speaker 2: would call it, kind of a diner or greasy spoon.
Speaker 2: They call a coney Island and so they yeah, you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: hot dog's chili. But you can get poutin in us
Speaker 2: of this place. It's a good deal anyway.
Speaker 1: Fun fact Detroit used to be French. A lot of
Speaker 1: people don't know that.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, I do that because we've talked about
Speaker 2: the the werewolf of Gross Points and a few other
Speaker 2: things related to Yeah, and then of course we still
Speaker 2: haven't covered but I owe us an episode on named Rouge.
Speaker 1: Yes, indeed, yes, indeed.
Speaker 2: So many fun things in that whole area there. But
Speaker 2: how did you get an interest in La Corvo?
Speaker 1: Well? It it was a nice coincidence where I was
Speaker 1: originally interested by it as a kid because the imagery
Speaker 1: is quite lively when you think of a woman punished
Speaker 1: by being put in a cage or a gibbet. So
Speaker 1: that already struck my imagination as a kid when I
Speaker 1: would when we would read about her story in our
Speaker 1: textbooks in elementary school. But later on as I became
Speaker 1: a specialist of the French regime in North America, specifically
Speaker 1: a seven years War. Well turns out that the true
Speaker 1: story happens in the year seventeen sixty three, which is
Speaker 1: the end of the French and Udian War. That's where
Speaker 1: the real story gets fascinating if we backtrack with her life. Essentially,
Speaker 1: very little is known of mahisho Zeft herself besides the
Speaker 1: fact that she was born in seventeen thirty three, so
Speaker 1: that would make roughly thirty years old when she was executed.
Speaker 1: She had gotten married at the age of sixteen to
Speaker 1: her first husband, Charles Bouchal Charles Bouchard with the English pronunciation.
Speaker 1: As far as we know, they had a happy marriage.
Speaker 1: They had three children, two daughters and one son, but
Speaker 1: he eventually he eventually passed away in the seventeen fifties,
Speaker 1: I believe, from what seems to have been smallpox or
Speaker 1: some disease that caused a great fever. So that kind
Speaker 1: of breaks that first part of the legend where she
Speaker 1: would kill all her husbands one after another. But where
Speaker 1: it gets interesting is that she remarries. Shortly after she
Speaker 1: marries her neighbor Luis de Zier on July twentieth, seventeen
Speaker 1: sixty one, and things go off on a rocky start.
Speaker 1: First of all, we're talking about the seventeen sixties, the
Speaker 1: early seventeen sixties, when just to recap everyone's history, you
Speaker 1: have French North America, the Colleague of New France, which
Speaker 1: stretches roughly across two thirds of the continent. A lot
Speaker 1: of Americans don't realize the American Midwest was very much French.
Speaker 1: Just look at your geography. I have Grand Rapids, Michigan,
Speaker 1: and Happy Green Bay was actually beavel all these French
Speaker 1: names you can find around in the American Midwest, all
Speaker 1: the way down to Louisiana. Now, through war and diplomacy,
Speaker 1: that whole territory ended up being carved up between Great
Speaker 1: Britain and Spain. Now, Canada was conquered by the British
Speaker 1: in seventeen sixty when they took Montreal. And so when
Speaker 1: that Codevo gets married in seventeen sixty one, the colony
Speaker 1: had been British for a year, and so so everyone
Speaker 1: is uncertain is the colony going to remain British as
Speaker 1: France going to get it back through diplomatic negotiations. No
Speaker 1: one knows for now, But in the meantime she gets
Speaker 1: married and her husband turns out seems to be unfortunately
Speaker 1: quite violent, and her father would regularly get into spats
Speaker 1: with him, and they would actually get quite public. People
Speaker 1: would be would be talking about these run ins between
Speaker 1: the two men. But worse than that was that Machholz
Speaker 1: effort actually talk to British soldiers and try to seduce
Speaker 1: them or offer them anything they wanted in exchange for
Speaker 1: beating up her husband to give him a lesson, And
Speaker 1: until finally, in January of seventeen January seventeen sixty three,
Speaker 1: the twenty eight year old duds Ye is found dead
Speaker 1: in his barn, supposedly trampled by a horse. Now, at first,
Speaker 1: no one makes anything of it. They bury his body immediately,
Speaker 1: But that's probably what what brought up suspicions was how
Speaker 1: quickly the family buried the body. Usually in French Canadian
Speaker 1: society back then, they would wait two or three days
Speaker 1: before burying it, and so people were starting to whisper
Speaker 1: that this might have been a murder. And sure enough,
Speaker 1: days later.
Speaker 2: Are you saying that murder is beating a horse death?
Speaker 1: Actually this was the reverse, the the the alibi, whether
Speaker 1: the horse beat the guid to death?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I say in the popularity though, I
Speaker 2: think she's like true, murder's much more exciting. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, it was like chickens.
Speaker 1: You could have said this was murder most foul.
Speaker 2: Oh nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So it seems like these two deaths are unrelated.
Speaker 1: The unrelated, Yes, indeed, contrary to the.
Speaker 2: Uh yes, are they related by marriage?
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is that, yes, yes. In February of that
Speaker 1: same year, basically there was a military tribunal that was
Speaker 1: brought about military court investigate the death because so Louis
Speaker 1: does you was dug up? His body re examined. Sergeant
Speaker 1: George Fraser of the Fraser's Highlanders had examined the body,
Speaker 1: and in his report he wrote, and I'm quoting, upon
Speaker 1: examining the body of Louis du Z, I found two
Speaker 1: wounds in his face, one near his upper lip, which
Speaker 1: penetrated through the flesh and upper jaw. The other wound
Speaker 1: a little before the eye, which was about four inches deep.
Speaker 1: Two other wounds on the left side of his head,
Speaker 1: which fractured his skull. His lower jaw was fractured without
Speaker 1: a wound. The wounds on his face and head were
Speaker 1: about three inches from each other. I am of the
Speaker 1: opinion that those wounds were the cause of the man's death.
Speaker 1: Signed George Fraser, fourteenth February seventeen sixty three. And so
Speaker 1: the court decided that there was a murder, and so
Speaker 1: they tried both Marijelost and her father, Joseph, because he
Speaker 1: was the one who had the reputation of getting into
Speaker 1: fights constantly with his new son in law.
Speaker 3: And they didn't they didn't investigate the first death, they
Speaker 3: didn't revisit that.
Speaker 1: No, the first death was admitted as being a natural cause.
Speaker 1: The priest attested to it. So basically, at the end
Speaker 1: of the tribunal, the autopsy was in February, but the
Speaker 1: first tribunal was in March March twenty ninth to April ninth.
Speaker 1: So on April ninth, the military court concluded that a
Speaker 1: murder had been committed and that it was Marijeozest's father fault, Joseph,
Speaker 1: and so he was set to be hanged on the
Speaker 1: fifteenth Wow. And what's interesting is that she was also
Speaker 1: seen as being part of the of the murder, so
Speaker 1: as to quote the document, the period document. The court
Speaker 1: is likewise of opinion that Marie Joseph Corriveau, his daughter
Speaker 1: widow Louis Helena Helena Dudsy, is guilty of knowing of
Speaker 1: said murder, and doth therefore adjudge her to receive sixty
Speaker 1: lashes with a cat and nine tales upon her bare
Speaker 1: back at three different places Visavie under Gallows, upon the
Speaker 1: marketplace of Quebec, and in the parish of Saint Valier,
Speaker 1: twenty lashes at each place and branded on the left
Speaker 1: hand with the letter M and the letter M for murderer. Ye.
Speaker 1: Now there's a giant twist in the story is that
Speaker 1: her father is set to be executed on the fifteen
Speaker 1: of April. Now, just before his execution, he ends up
Speaker 1: speaking with Father Glapion, who was the superior of the
Speaker 1: Jesuits in Quebec city, and almost like an Alfred Hitchcock twist,
Speaker 1: he confesses that he didn't commit the murder, but he
Speaker 1: didn't want to go to hell for basically committing suicide
Speaker 1: through lying ah And so Father Glapion is now stuck
Speaker 1: with the choice of revealing what was told to him
Speaker 1: or leaving an innocent man be executed, and so he
Speaker 1: obviously tells the local authorities, and so there's a new
Speaker 1: trial altogether, which takes place April fifteenth, ironically, the day
Speaker 1: that Joseph was supposed to be executed, and they immediately
Speaker 1: lay the blame on Marie Joseph. Confession is given and
Speaker 1: so on, and she is set to be executed three
Speaker 1: days later on the eighteenth. And so she was to
Speaker 1: be executed on the Plains of Abraham, which are now
Speaker 1: famous for having been the setting of the battle for
Speaker 1: the City of Quebec in seventeen fifty nine, the famous
Speaker 1: one where both generals died Moulka and Wolf, very famous
Speaker 1: in Canadian history, even though technically it's a year later
Speaker 1: in Montreal that Canada gets lost to the British altogether.
Speaker 1: But point is, she's said to be executed on the plains,
Speaker 1: and one's dead. Her body was to be placed in
Speaker 1: a gibbet and exposed on the south shore of Quebec
Speaker 1: in what is now the city of Le v just
Speaker 1: across the river. So, just so people have a mental
Speaker 1: image of how the region looks geographically, is that you
Speaker 1: have the city of Quebec and there's the Saint Lawrence
Speaker 1: and right south on the south shore, the Saint Lawrence
Speaker 1: is the city of le v that ends in a
Speaker 1: point as the river turns northwards towards the ocean, and
Speaker 1: it's on that point that the cage the Gibbet was
Speaker 1: exhibited because it was a perfect spot where you could
Speaker 1: see back in the day, you could actually see it
Speaker 1: from both sides of the shore, and anyone coming from
Speaker 1: villages down the river would come up to the city
Speaker 1: and see the cage. Yeah, very gruesome.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess the point is it does have a
Speaker 2: deterrent effect too.
Speaker 1: If that was the idea. Yeah, yeah, But this is
Speaker 1: where it becomes fascinating because this was seen as particularly
Speaker 1: gruesome by the locals.
Speaker 2: Now mind you and smelly, I imagine.
Speaker 1: Yes, indeed, yeah, because the body was left there for
Speaker 1: forty two days, which was actually short. And let me
Speaker 1: explain is that traditionally, in under French law in the colony,
Speaker 1: you would punish criminals with hanging, or for particularly nasty crimes,
Speaker 1: they would be executed with the wheel. Now it's not
Speaker 1: the wheel you're thinking of, the and the medieval stretching
Speaker 1: wheel where you're strapped and they just basically start your
Speaker 1: limbs No, this is the wheel where they would strap
Speaker 1: you on a big on a on a big wagon
Speaker 1: wheel and break every bone in your body with an
Speaker 1: iron mass and basically let the birds peck you to death.
Speaker 1: So there were there were gruesome punishments in New France.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: The other very gruesome one is for suicides. You would
Speaker 1: actually have your body dragged all the way to the
Speaker 1: public market, face down and then exposed to public infamy.
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, like, after you've committed suicide, they dragged
Speaker 2: you and then put you on on display.
Speaker 1: Basically look at the coward who took his own life.
Speaker 2: But if they dragged you face down, wouldn't you be
Speaker 2: pretty much unrecognizable?
Speaker 1: There are many strange.
Speaker 2: And I found a hole in their plan, That's what
Speaker 2: I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought they were just buried at crossroads.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they would just be abandoned in a in a
Speaker 1: an unclaimed field. But point is that these criminals would
Speaker 1: be exposed at crossroads or in public markets and so on,
Speaker 1: but usually just hanging off of a rope. That's about it.
Speaker 1: But the British had their punishment looked particularly gruesome because
Speaker 1: of the iron cage, the gibbet. So that was the
Speaker 1: extra added creepy factor for the locals, because even though
Speaker 1: gibbets had been more or less common in France as
Speaker 1: well by that period in the eighteenth century, it wasn't
Speaker 1: common anymore, and it was never really brought into the
Speaker 1: colonies as a practice, So this kind of stuck to
Speaker 1: people's minds. And in fact, what's also interesting is that
Speaker 1: La Corriveau was not the first person put in a gibbet.
Speaker 1: There's actually a French soldier in seventeen sixty one that
Speaker 1: had been caught by the British after a quadruple murder
Speaker 1: and also put in a gibbet and also inspired his
Speaker 1: own legend, but that's probably a story for another day.
Speaker 1: All in all, the reason why La Carrevo's case is
Speaker 1: fascinating is because remember we're at the end of the war,
Speaker 1: and in February of seventeen sixty three, a peace treaty
Speaker 1: is signed with between France and Great Britain, and so
Speaker 1: the war is over, and they also confirm that Canada
Speaker 1: will remain British, and so the temporary governor of Canada,
Speaker 1: James Murray, figures, oh, crap I gotta make friends real quick,
Speaker 1: and so he orders the cage to be buried. And
Speaker 1: that's why, even though to us it would seem in
Speaker 1: humane seeing this body for forty two days, it was
Speaker 1: technically really short. Usually bodies were exposed until he would
Speaker 1: just completely fall apart and there was nothing left to expose.
Speaker 1: And so that's particular, and that brings us to the
Speaker 1: second part of her story, because the cage disappears for
Speaker 1: about one hundred years until eighteen forty nine or eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty one, we're not sure. It's between those those dates.
Speaker 1: People were renovating the cemetery in Levy and as they're
Speaker 1: digging up, as I recall, I believe they're trying to
Speaker 1: make the wall wider, and as they were removing stones,
Speaker 1: they stumbled on the cage, which back in the day
Speaker 1: would have been buried outside of the cemetery. They stumble
Speaker 1: on the cage, and all of a sudden, people are
Speaker 1: talking about this. And this is a period of time
Speaker 1: where people still had memories of their grandparents and they
Speaker 1: would say, oh, my grandmother, my grandfather told me about
Speaker 1: this lady that was in a cage and in a
Speaker 1: gibet that was exhibited. And then people start talking about
Speaker 1: the story, and also fascinating that this is a period
Speaker 1: in time where Quebec intellectuals are obsessed with writing the
Speaker 1: history of the province, are obsessed with writing down the folklore.
Speaker 1: Where speaking of ethnography, this was a movement that we're
Speaker 1: seeing in Europe. In the US. Just think of the
Speaker 1: Brothers grim for example, just writing down all those old
Speaker 1: folk tales. So the discovery of her cage happens in
Speaker 1: that precise movement in the intellectual world, and so many
Speaker 1: writers latch onto her story and start telling their own versions,
Speaker 1: and from then on other people will tell a story.
Speaker 1: And it was snowball with details and so on, to
Speaker 1: the point where people didn't even believe her story was true.
Speaker 1: But as for the cage, the cage disappears yet again,
Speaker 1: and I'll let you guess where it went.
Speaker 2: It was it still in Canada, not at all.
Speaker 1: It made its way to Montreal. Basically, people were encouraging
Speaker 1: people to come and visit and give a small amount
Speaker 1: of money, and they eventually sold it to P. T.
Speaker 1: Barnum made museum.
Speaker 2: That would have been my only guess. That's really funny.
Speaker 1: But of course, let's as we recall P. T. Barnum's
Speaker 1: museum burns down in eighteen sixty five in New York,
Speaker 1: and so for the longest time, many people thought the
Speaker 1: cage had had been destroying that fire, even though there
Speaker 1: are rumors going about that the cage had been seen
Speaker 1: the Gibbet rather had been seen at the Boston Museum,
Speaker 1: that apparently P. T. Barnum had lent or rented the
Speaker 1: cage to I forget the name of the owner of
Speaker 1: the Boston Museum, but that it was there until finally
Speaker 1: it made its way and none other than Salem, Massachusetts.
Speaker 4: Really absolutely why essentially just ended up in the collections
Speaker 4: of the Peabuddy Essex Museum.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure people in Massachusetts are screaming saying it's
Speaker 1: not how you pronounce the museum's name, things like TBD
Speaker 1: or something like that. So please forgive me people from
Speaker 1: Salem in Massachusetts. I I admit I don't know how
Speaker 1: to pronounce that museum.
Speaker 3: So is it still there today? Can you see it today?
Speaker 1: Well, back in twenty eleven, researchers on the internet, I
Speaker 1: believe it was Vicky lap Poynt had mentioned that the
Speaker 1: New York Public Library had a bunch of black and
Speaker 1: white photographs. I had to do with Quebec history, and
Speaker 1: the president of the le v Historical Association stumbled on
Speaker 1: a black and white photograph and the description of the
Speaker 1: gibbet in the photograph was gibbit having contained the widow duds. Ye.
Speaker 1: That's an oddly specific detail because your average person only
Speaker 1: knows the name Krivo, and anyone familiar with the true
Speaker 1: facts of her story immediately recognized, Wait a minute, the
Speaker 1: widow duds Ye, that is La Correvo's gibbit. And so
Speaker 1: as the rumor was running amok on Facebook that the
Speaker 1: cage possibly still existed at the Peabody Essex Museum, because
Speaker 1: the photograph also said a picture taken seventeen thirties in
Speaker 1: Salem at the Peabody Essex Museum, I actually called up
Speaker 1: the museum to ask them if they had if they
Speaker 1: still had the gibbet, and a few days later they
Speaker 1: contacted me back and confirmed that they had it. And
Speaker 1: by the time I was supposed to go down and
Speaker 1: see the cage. Because just a little side note for
Speaker 1: any of your listeners that read French and want to
Speaker 1: know more about this cage and the story of that Kohivo.
Speaker 1: Two friends of mine, two wonderful friends of mine, Catherine
Speaker 1: Felnant and Dave Karivo wrote the definitive biography of mahisho
Speaker 1: Zeff's life and how her legend just snowballed into infamy.
Speaker 1: And as they were writing, I contacted them about the cage,
Speaker 1: and we were set to actually travel to Salem to
Speaker 1: see the cage, until at the last minute the museum
Speaker 1: contacted that said never mind, we're actually shipping it to
Speaker 1: Quebec because now that they knew the infamy of this
Speaker 1: collection piece they had in their museum, they immediately contacted
Speaker 1: the Museum of Civilizations in Quebec and they had their
Speaker 1: best specialists take a look at the cage, and I
Speaker 1: am happy to say officially, as of last year, the
Speaker 1: gibbet is now back in Quebec where it belongs with
Speaker 1: its legend and infamy.
Speaker 2: But they did confirm for sure it was hers though right.
Speaker 1: The paperwork indicates it, and so far nothing seems to
Speaker 1: contradict the cage's identity. Everything sticks, the timeline, the paperwork,
Speaker 1: the paper trail metallurgically. Now that the museum actually owns
Speaker 1: the cage. Because they have the Museum Civilization did have
Speaker 1: to basically make a case that the cage was authentic
Speaker 1: before the Peabody Essex agreed to donate it.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 1: And now that they do possess that, they want to
Speaker 1: push their analysis see if there's anything metallurgical they can
Speaker 1: get out of it. But so far all the circumstantial
Speaker 1: evidence evidence fits with the gibbet. And then it's actually
Speaker 1: one of the only two authentic gibbets in North America.
Speaker 2: So you would you say that after wrestling with that question,
Speaker 2: it's a steel cage match.
Speaker 1: That's a good one.
Speaker 3: Joseph, did you do you finally get to see it?
Speaker 1: I did? I did. I was very fortunate every time
Speaker 1: has been exhibited to the public or for scientific scrutiny.
Speaker 1: I've found a way of seeing it. And in fact,
Speaker 1: if anyone is visiting Quebec between now and the end
Speaker 1: of January, the cages the gibbet is actually currently exhibited
Speaker 1: at our Museum of Civilizations along with all the best
Speaker 1: pieces of the collections. There's a wonderful exhibit. It's basically
Speaker 1: curators favorite pieces and the case is right in there,
Speaker 1: right in the back with all of the artifacts having
Speaker 1: to do with crime and murder. Uh. Now you might
Speaker 1: be wondering why is the cage temporarily exhibited. It's basically
Speaker 1: because of its infamy, ironically, because let's not forget that
Speaker 1: Marjuozev did have three children, and they, in their turn
Speaker 1: had many descendants, and so some people will question the
Speaker 1: cage's curiosity aspect is it is it really proper and
Speaker 1: humane to make a spectacle out of this basically a
Speaker 1: tool of torture and humiliation that had been used against
Speaker 1: someone's ancestor, especially considering that her the murder wasn't gratuitous.
Speaker 1: She was basically defending herself against a violent husband. Confess
Speaker 1: if she did, it was basically a forced confession. I
Speaker 1: do recall having read an article one time by a modern,
Speaker 1: a modern lawyer, and I just wish I remembered her name,
Speaker 1: and she had concluded that if this case were to
Speaker 1: be brought to court today, it would have actually been
Speaker 1: dismissed for lack of actual proof, because everything was circumstantial
Speaker 1: according to what people would say and so on. And
Speaker 1: there's so many contradictory eyewitnesses, including one who swore he
Speaker 1: saw three people leave the bar, and including one that
Speaker 1: was bloodied, So it's really hard to tell. Was she
Speaker 1: the one who actually did the act. Now we do
Speaker 1: know that she wanted to get rid of her husband.
Speaker 1: She had been approaching people to at least give him
Speaker 1: a good lesson, not necessarily kill him. But that is
Speaker 1: unfortunately the problem with primary sources that are written, especially
Speaker 1: in this case. It's fascinating to know that like the
Speaker 1: court documents, which by the way, were not found in
Speaker 1: Canada but actually back in back in England in the
Speaker 1: nineteen forties by one of her descendants, all the documents
Speaker 1: are nearly completely in English, even though the occupying British
Speaker 1: force were in a French country essentially, so one wonders
Speaker 1: how much of the court had trouble understanding the cross
Speaker 1: examinations because of the language barrier.
Speaker 3: And I was wondering too how the locals would have
Speaker 3: reacted to the British coming in and making decisions about
Speaker 3: what was to happen to her.
Speaker 1: It harkens back to what I was saying about how
Speaker 1: even the British were kind of embarrassed by the GiB
Speaker 1: At once peace was declared, because as much as they
Speaker 1: had been really imposing basically an iron fist and their
Speaker 1: ruling just to keep the peace, well, once the colony
Speaker 1: became British. The idea was to try to make friends
Speaker 1: as fast as you could so you wouldn't have that
Speaker 1: friction between the British and French Canadian.
Speaker 2: I'm curious about how her case became sort of associated
Speaker 2: with the folklore of being sort of a female version
Speaker 2: of blue Beard, where you know, how did did you
Speaker 2: an your research? Did you happen to note when these
Speaker 2: stories about her being responsible for multiple husbands stacking up,
Speaker 2: you know, like you know, to large numbers. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: how did you find any pattern about when that started
Speaker 2: to sort of accrete around her story?
Speaker 1: Basically everything starts after the discovery of the cage, where
Speaker 1: you have people that at first are just basing themselves
Speaker 1: on what their grandparents remembered, and then from then it
Speaker 1: just takes on a literary life of its own. For example,
Speaker 1: many people will always say, oh, yes, La Corrivo, the
Speaker 1: witch that was put in a GiB, She never was
Speaker 1: a witch. Ironically, as a colleague of mine, Stephanie Pettigrew
Speaker 1: in Acadia put it, Canada's most famou a witch wasn't
Speaker 1: a witch at all. Because these are all elements from
Speaker 1: literature that were added much later in the late nineteenth century. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And as I had mentioned earlier, the story has snowball
Speaker 1: so much. The cage once that had disappeared into the US,
Speaker 1: people forgot about the cage having actually existed, but the
Speaker 1: story remained to the point where people didn't even believe
Speaker 1: that this was a true story to begin with it.
Speaker 1: It really became pure legend, and so people just ran
Speaker 1: with it. There was no there's no case to be
Speaker 1: made of having any purely historical inquiry into the story.
Speaker 1: And in fact, as you'll recall earlier, I mentioned that
Speaker 1: was one of her descendants in the nineteen forties who
Speaker 1: he went to England to find the original court documents,
Speaker 1: precisely on a quest to prove that the story of
Speaker 1: her execution was true. Because this is also in a
Speaker 1: time where genealogy was becoming quite popular in French Canada,
Speaker 1: and so people knew they were descended of this woman,
Speaker 1: but without necessarily knowing the true details. And so it's
Speaker 1: really from the nineteen forties that we finally were able
Speaker 1: to say, no, no, she only had two husbands, she
Speaker 1: didn't have twelve, and so on. Oh, she really became
Speaker 1: an icon in popular folklore, not only through oral history,
Speaker 1: but also on the Quebec literary scene. Either people would
Speaker 1: write books about her entirely or she would be she
Speaker 1: would have a supporting role. I'm trying to remember the
Speaker 1: author's name. He had written a novel named The Golden Dog,
Speaker 1: where all of a sudden, a krivo. She's not a
Speaker 1: thirty year old young woman. She's actually an old crone
Speaker 1: who basically poison, sells poison to people and to spurned
Speaker 1: lovers and so on. And even to this day you
Speaker 1: see the figure of Marijosef Karivo being common deered and
Speaker 1: transformed again and again. Where you had nationalists during the
Speaker 1: Quebec referendum periods trying to show her as look at
Speaker 1: the injustice brought upon by the British putting our people
Speaker 1: in cages and so on, then you have people trying
Speaker 1: to put a feminist slant going look at this victim
Speaker 1: who was just protecting herself from a violent husband, who
Speaker 1: ends up being punished for having defended herself. And so
Speaker 1: it's fascinating how Lako turns from historical figure to boogeyman,
Speaker 1: to a national symbol to a feminist symbol. And today
Speaker 1: we're coming full circle, right back to the historical person
Speaker 1: thanks to the cage having been rediscovered again. So it's
Speaker 1: this weird perennial lie the many lives of Lacoiveau, if
Speaker 1: we can call it that. And it's just such a
Speaker 1: fascinating character because she she combines two historical regimes, the
Speaker 1: French and British. Reyme she combines folklore in history. Uh,
Speaker 1: and and so on. It's just one of those like
Speaker 1: Lynchpin characters of our history that that even though she
Speaker 1: was your average person, really just has like this extraordinary
Speaker 1: afterlife in the popular consciousness.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just being looked at it through the lanes of
Speaker 3: different ears.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And in fact, just a fun fact, a few
Speaker 1: years ago, Canada, for three years in a row had
Speaker 1: their Haunted Canada postage stamps, and I believe their last
Speaker 1: year of doing that, they actually had that Corrivo on
Speaker 1: a Canadian stamp. So you can actually send mail with
Speaker 1: that Corrivo and her and her gibbet.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, who would have thought? What a strange story it is? Yeah,
Speaker 3: isn't she there? Aren't they ghost sightings of her today?
Speaker 3: And or she manifests as a pultageist.
Speaker 1: Oh, there's always that rumor. It's funny. And here here's
Speaker 1: the funny thing too, is that I should mention that
Speaker 1: i really love Lea Corivo because I've spent the past
Speaker 1: ten years. I've been in Quebec for ten years, and
Speaker 1: for ten years I've worked at the Ghost Tours of
Speaker 1: Quebec and every night we would tell her story. And
Speaker 1: what was fascinating is that I would constantly have people
Speaker 1: from the South Shore going, yes, I know the story
Speaker 1: we used to talk about as a kid. And there's
Speaker 1: always someone's family member who swore they saw they saw
Speaker 1: the ghost or whatnot. It's interesting to know what, skeptically speaking,
Speaker 1: what came first, the chicken or the egg. As skeptics,
Speaker 1: we can probably argue a there is one direction. But
Speaker 1: in popular folklore you you will see that Lea Koivo
Speaker 1: comes back as her witch form because she wants to
Speaker 1: hang out with other witches, do the Witch Sabbath and
Speaker 1: so on.
Speaker 2: Hanging out at this point.
Speaker 1: There are stories of also where werewolves would come howling
Speaker 1: under her gibbet for her to come out and and
Speaker 1: come celebrate the Black Sabbath and so on. And in fact,
Speaker 1: if anyone is interested in reading one of the original
Speaker 1: stories having to do with it. I would strongly suggest
Speaker 1: reading The Canadians of Old by Philip Aubert de guesp
Speaker 1: do my best English pronunciation of his name. Uh. He
Speaker 1: was basically our earliest French Canadian novelist, and he would
Speaker 1: he basically wrote a book that was a mishmash of
Speaker 1: childhood memories, of of what his elders would tell him
Speaker 1: through oral history and whatnot. And he basically just created
Speaker 1: this anthology with a single common thread of two characters
Speaker 1: interacting with each other. But point is, there's a there's
Speaker 1: a whole chapter, and in fact, there's two chapters dedicated
Speaker 1: to Le Corrivou, and you can actually search for it
Speaker 1: on archive dot org.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we should put a link to that in the
Speaker 2: show notes.
Speaker 3: Just a little side question. I'm curious about her three children.
Speaker 3: So they were, they survived, and they continued and had
Speaker 3: their own children, and so far, so far.
Speaker 1: As we know, and in fact, what's interesting is that
Speaker 1: madijel Zev had eight siblings and she's the only one
Speaker 1: who reached adulthood and she herself only had three children.
Speaker 1: And we were not sure if she had any other
Speaker 1: children because they don't appear in the in the birth records,
Speaker 1: because if she did have, for example, a miscarriage, or
Speaker 1: if a child died shortly after birth before being baptized,
Speaker 1: they probably would have buried the child without bothering to
Speaker 1: go notify the church, because at this point the child
Speaker 1: was seen as unbaptized then beyond that church sacrament. But
Speaker 1: as far as I recall, I do believe her children,
Speaker 1: if not all, there are many corrivos today descended from her.
Speaker 1: Now I don't have the exact numbers, but we do
Speaker 1: know that she had many descendants. So I wish I
Speaker 1: had actual numbers and name who had the most descendants,
Speaker 1: but unfortunately I can't.
Speaker 3: I'm glad she's able to live on through them anyway.
Speaker 2: Yes, so you know, I we'd like to finish our
Speaker 2: interviews with this sort of signature question. What's your favorite monster?
Speaker 1: Joe? Oh, it's in my head. I always have like
Speaker 1: that holy trifecta where I love were wolves. I absolutely
Speaker 1: love were wolves, and I'm also lumping in the Beast
Speaker 1: of Chevode in there, like I'm just nuts about that story,
Speaker 1: and movie wise, I love the creature from the Black Lagoon.
Speaker 1: But but for the occasion, I will name Bigfoot. And
Speaker 1: this is why. So uh, so we're we're in December,
Speaker 1: and last year, unfortunately my mother passed away, but I
Speaker 1: was finding Thank you, I was lucky in finding this.
Speaker 1: Amongst your documents. There was a clipping. I'm amazed she
Speaker 1: had actually kept that. It was a clipping from a
Speaker 1: magazine and it is my earliest memory of Bigfoot where
Speaker 1: I think I was like five or six or something
Speaker 1: like that. So for anyone in Canada, if you remember
Speaker 1: al magazine, I have no idea if it still exists,
Speaker 1: but it was a nature magazine for kids, and it
Speaker 1: was a little clipping explaining Bigfoot, just an excuse to
Speaker 1: praise my mother for having fed my my my cryptosological
Speaker 1: needs as a kid without telling me. I was fastened
Speaker 1: by this. It was just like one paragraph with a
Speaker 1: with a sketch of like, oh, yes, there's apparently this
Speaker 1: ape like man creature running around in the woods. She
Speaker 1: went to the library took out all the books she
Speaker 1: could on Bigfoot, and my favorite one when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, if anyone remembers monster Mysteries, it was a
Speaker 1: book by I believe it was Rupert Matheuse, and it
Speaker 1: was wonderfully illustrated. Just every night my mom would read
Speaker 1: that book with me and just got me hooked on Bigfoot,
Speaker 1: and just for that, tonight I have to love were wolves,
Speaker 1: love creature for the Black Lagoon, but tonight is definitely Bigfoot,
Speaker 1: just because.
Speaker 3: Of that awesome great choice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, I think, you know, even as much as
Speaker 2: my mom. You know, really, I think frowns on a
Speaker 2: lot of this stuff. She did take me to go
Speaker 2: see King Kong, and I can't even imagine what kind
Speaker 2: of ridiculous begging I must have done to warrant that.
Speaker 2: But I still have a really great memory of her
Speaker 2: taking me to go see the the was it seventy
Speaker 2: six version of King Kong? You know, Dayla Renz's version,
Speaker 2: And it's just those when your mom or your dad
Speaker 2: takes the time to indulge your monster taste. It's it's
Speaker 2: a really big deal.
Speaker 1: See King Kong. I have like a reverse experience where
Speaker 1: what's that version of King Kong where they like, I
Speaker 1: think it's like King Kong Tour or whatever, where they
Speaker 1: give them like an artificial heart and bring them back.
Speaker 2: And that's like, uh, it's it's actually the where King
Speaker 2: Kong lives, I think, because he hooks up with that
Speaker 2: you have like his girlfriend.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's something that he has a son or whatever,
Speaker 1: which was actually I think it's just a chimpanzee. But
Speaker 1: the point is, like I remember watching it as a kid,
Speaker 1: and at one point, like King Kong just starts eating
Speaker 1: people or whatever. My mom's like, oh my god, and
Speaker 1: she just like ran up covered my eyes like they're
Speaker 1: just garbage bags kind of deer. It's just special effects.
Speaker 1: But I don't want you to see this.
Speaker 3: I remember my mom taking me to c Et and
Speaker 3: was I think I was about four or five at
Speaker 3: the time when it came out, and uh, and then
Speaker 3: afterwards I was seeking some kind of reassurance that aliens
Speaker 3: didn't exist. But no, no, she convinced me that she
Speaker 3: tried to reassure me or not reassure me by telling
Speaker 3: me that aliens certainly did exist.
Speaker 1: So I hate. I could not stand, you know how,
Speaker 1: like kids have like the monster onto the bed or
Speaker 1: whatever I had. There was like this little room right
Speaker 1: next to the right next to the bath up where
Speaker 1: we have the hot water heater, and every time I
Speaker 1: would take my bath alone as a little kid, I
Speaker 1: would always imagine ET's long fingers just sticking out from
Speaker 1: that little room, ready to strangle me, just freak me out.
Speaker 1: Oh did not like? Did not like?
Speaker 2: I liked him all right until the Atari game came out.
Speaker 2: All right, Joseph, thank you so much for listening to
Speaker 2: the show and for joining.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I think it's been great to talk about
Speaker 3: a lesser known character monster.
Speaker 2: You've been listening to Monster Talk, this science show about monsters.
Speaker 2: I'm Blake Smith.
Speaker 3: And I'm Karen Stolzner.
Speaker 2: You just heard an interview with historian Joseph Kanye about
Speaker 2: the Quebec folkloric figure known as Le Corvo. Check out
Speaker 2: our show notes at monster talk dot' org for more
Speaker 2: information about her, plus some photos that Joseph shared with
Speaker 2: us at the location where her body had been gibbeted.
Speaker 2: Monster Talk is an official podcast of Skeptic Magazine. The
Speaker 2: views expressed here are those of myself and my guests
Speaker 2: and don't necessarily reflect the opinions of Skeptic Magazine or
Speaker 2: the Skeptic Society. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of
Speaker 2: Monster Talk. Each episode, we strive to bring you the
Speaker 2: very best in monster related content, with a focus on
Speaker 2: bringing scientific skepticism into the conversation. If you enjoy Monster Talk,
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Speaker 2: Joseph, you've heard the show before, so you probably.
Speaker 1: Know absolutely fact. I'm having a fanboy moment right now.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I can't believe I'm on the show.
Speaker 2: Well, let's just skip the last question.
Speaker 1: Then, Oh it hurts. That hurts.
Speaker 2: I'm now your favorite monster, Joseph, I'm now your favorite