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CLASSIC: The Mummies of Guanajuato · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Oh, we're doing some uh, we're doing some cool stuff
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: with our classic episode this week, Noel, we're exploring mummies.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Mmm, we are indeed that not mummies and Daddy's No.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Mummy's the embalman kind, the kind that potentially arise from
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: the dead and spook people out on Halloween. It's also
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: a fun lo fi costume. Just involve some toilet paper.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah. This is the story of a city called Guanayato,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: and back in the day they instituted a grave tax,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: which just feels terrible, like that's so petty and penny pinching.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: You're going to tax people on the way out as well.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: If you couldn't pay the grave tax, you would run
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: into some harsh penalties. Three, if you fall three years
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: behind on your loved ones resting place, they will dig
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: the body up and they will take it out.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Of the grave. Yeah. And these bodies were not just
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: non into Egypt. They weren't like wrapped in linens and
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: mama in that classic fashion. They were somehow found to
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: have been naturally mummified, and words spread and it became
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: something of a sideshow attraction, which is pretty gross. Grave
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: diggers are trying to make a quick buck charging folks
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: to take a peek at these naturally mummified remain So
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: why don't we jump into the story and hear all
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: about the mummies of Guanayato.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio, Casey. Could we
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: get a little bit of spooky music just for a
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: second in the background. Here is in fact October perfect.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the show, Ridiculous Historians. We are men of
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: our word. Earlier, we had floated the idea of finding
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: some more frightening, disturbing creepy tales as we get closer
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: to Halloween.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Ben, didn't we do a Pope based kind of spooky
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: creepy tale already? But that was pre October?
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: No, you're right, that was pre October, and we talked
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: about whether or not we should save that one.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: But that was just such a cool and strange story. Oh,
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: we were compelled. The power of Christ compelled us to
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: put that podcast out in the world.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: And the power of super producer Casey Pegram helped make
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: that reality. We're looking at a story today that is
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: equal parts ridiculous and I would say.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Tragic, yeah, I'd say mainly tragic mm hmm.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: And book yeah, and this is something that you had
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: you had a hip to me to Noel, which is
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: the story of mummies in Mexico.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, pacifically, the Mexican town of Guanajuato, which was established
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: in the early sixteenth century and was something of a
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: boom town for silver mining. It became that in the
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: eighteenth century to the point where I believe it actually
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: kind of messed with the economy of silver because there
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: was just so much damn silver coming out of there
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: that it like jacked with the price of silver in
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: a way that caused some real economic problems in the region.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. Yeah, for a time it was the third largest
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: silver mine on the planet in terms of production. They
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: still have traces of this mining industry, right, especially what
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: is it Boca del in Ferno.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Boca del in Ferno. It's a mine shaft that boca
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: meaning mouth, so that's that's the mouth of Hell, and
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: this is an attraction you can see there are also
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: it's known for its beautiful architecture, these brightly colored Baroque
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: buildings and there are these like narrow kind of alleys
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: between the buildings and it's a very walkable, picturesque little city.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: But it also was an important stronghold during the Mexican
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: Revolution when Mexico was able to break free of Spanish control.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: And that is when Father Miguel Hidalgo in eighteen ten,
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: who was the parish priest in Dolores, put out his
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: infamous Grito de la Dolores, which is the shout of Dolores,
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: and he assembled a mob of peasants brandishing machetes and clubs,
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: and they eventually made their way to Guandajuato because it
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: was the most prominent largest city in the area and
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: that became their stronghold and the site of the beginning
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: of the Mexican Revolution. So a lot of history in
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: this town. But today's episode it's not about any of
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: those things. Oh yes, yes, let me set this up.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: We should say that the name Guanauato actually translates to
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: mountainous place of frogs. Love that and it's had several
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: different names throughout it time because it's a very old city.
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  Speaker 2: So maybe an Aztec era where the name was, Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: what was it. It was the land of straw, I believe,
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: and the word is beautiful where this is translated from
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: and it was an Aztec word paks Titlan you know,
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: that's that is a beautiful word. I personally, I also
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: liked Mooti the place of metals, Yeah, which is the older,
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: older name. It makes perfect sense. It was also the
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: place of a weird government sanctioned grave robbing.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: That's right. Today's story involves grave robbing, and it involves
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: I'm just going to say it, a really terrible move
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: on the part of local government. So there's a big city,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: a lot of people get buried. You know, life happens born,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: you live, and you die. And there was a cholera
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: outbreak around the area of Guanuatu in the eighteen thirties,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: around eighteen thirty three or so, and these people when
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: they expired, they were interned, they were buried. In some
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: cases they were embalmed. But a few years later the
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: local government puts attacks on graves. Yeah.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: So the thing is like, you would rent this place,
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: like you didn't own it. Yeah, yeah, you would rent it.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: And I think the initial rental period was about five years,
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: and then you had to re up your rental. Your
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: family had to you know, assuming you had any family
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: to speak of, and if you didn't pay this. This
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: is something that was instituted between eighteen sixty five to
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: nineteen fifty eight, by the way, very recently done away with.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: And if you did not pay for three years in
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: a row, that's right, then your peeps would be uprooted,
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  Speaker 2: literally dug up, not really dug up because they were
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: in these air tight mausoleum chambers. They would be removed
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: and evicted and they were either taken to a simple
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: pauper's grave outside of town. And this is the thing too,
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  Speaker 2: is interesting about the story of this culture very much
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  Speaker 2: reveres death. You know, you have like the Deos deos
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  Speaker 2: Martos and all of these kind of death related rituals
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: and just deep veneration for one's ancestors and paying respects,
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: and you know, this very religious culture. The idea of
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: digging up these loved ones and like putting them in
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  Speaker 2: a less desirable burial space had to have been very
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: painful for some of these families. But that wasn't even
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: the worst thing that could have happened, was it.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there are stranger things that happened because they would
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: be put in a pauper's grave, or they might be
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: placed in an osuary which was actually under the cemetery
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  Speaker 1: grounds itself, waiting in case the relatives would come back,
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  Speaker 1: cough up the money and have their loved ones reinterred
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: or reburied, which did happen in a couple of cases.
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  Speaker 1: These people were taken out of the grave and then
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: put back in. But when they were taken out of
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: the grave, often they weren't decayed in the way that
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: you would expect a body to rot over time. They
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: were preserved. They were mummies. They were mummies. They had
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: become mummies naturally. They were mummified by the environment in
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: which they were interred. I believe the first one that
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: was found mummified was a man named doctor Remiguio Leroy
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty five, the.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Frenchman, right, or the French doctor, I think is what
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: he was known as. So we're sort of bearing the
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: lead here and we were getting there. But yes, Ben,
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: this is very important, the fact that they were naturally
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: mummified from lack of oxygen and just the very dry
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: climate that existed there as part of the world, and
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  Speaker 2: so they would literally just dry out and their clothes
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  Speaker 2: would rot quicker than their bodies would. And here's the thing,
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: these mummies when they found this Frenchman, the first guy
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: they found that had undergone this transformation. They were like,
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: this is pretty cool. And by day I mean, I
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  Speaker 2: guess the city people that ran the mausoleum, what do
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  Speaker 2: you think, like city officially this was a state run facility,
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  Speaker 2: right right, Yeah, they were like, Okay, this is pretty cool.
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  Speaker 2: We should hold onto this guy. And so they do that,
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: and they continue doing that for several years before they realize, hey,
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: I think we might have a little moneymaker on our hands.
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  Speaker 2: So what happens then is the ones that the curators,
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: let's call them deem I guess fascinating. Enough specimens are
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  Speaker 2: kept and in the fifties a museum is opened.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, it's true. This hearkens back to our earlier episode,
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  Speaker 1: which seems so long ago.
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  Speaker 2: Now.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: On corpses in a dior rama, do you remember that.
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  Speaker 2: I very much do with the camel and the Arabic
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  Speaker 2: gentleman with the human skull, I believe, right?
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  Speaker 1: And when yes, and when we say thought to be fascinating,
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  Speaker 1: what do we mean? This is pretty graphic stuff? Is
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: mean things like mummy that was pregnant, or people who
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  Speaker 1: appear to have been buried alive, such as Ignacia Aguilar,
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  Speaker 1: the people who were buried alive were almost certainly buried
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: by accident due to the extreme nature of the color outbreak.
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  Speaker 2: And yeah, that's right. And a lot of these specimens
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: were found to have cholera or have suffered from smoke inhalation.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: There's a really great, really short podcast from a show
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  Speaker 2: called Mexico Unexplained. I think that's what it's. Yeah, and
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  Speaker 2: it goes into some of these details, but really interesting
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  Speaker 2: that they would have had smoke inhalation because it was
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: either from smoking cigarettes or any kind of tobacco, or
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: possibly from working in those minds under less than ideal conditions.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Oh yes, And before we get too far away from it,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: I want to clarify because I remember it. I did
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  Speaker 1: find the explanation of how this museum thing came about,
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  Speaker 1: and it's kind of disappointing in what it says about
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  Speaker 1: the human condition. Because once word of the Guanauatu mummies
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: started spreading around town, other people in town were apparently
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: sneaking over and paying people who worked at the cemeteries
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  Speaker 1: just a couple of pesos to sneak in and take
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  Speaker 1: a quick peek. So it was a the workers were
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: motivated by profit, and then they were incentivized, you know,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: because this burial tax is still around to pull more
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  Speaker 1: and more bodies out of the crypt and then find
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  Speaker 1: more and more mummies and charge more and more people
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  Speaker 1: to see them.
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  Speaker 2: So where were they keeping them before the museum situation
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  Speaker 2: took off?
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Before the museum, they would eventually they would be kept
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: in that ossuary under the graveyard, just like for a
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: rainy day. And Kate, well, the official reason again is
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: just in case the families come back and say, we
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: do have the money to pay the burial tax.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: But why would they keep them versus burying them outside
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: of town? Like my understanding whether they kept these because
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: they were so crazy looking and they.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Like I think, I think it's a situation again where
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: there was an official reason and then there was a
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: real reason, got it.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: So let's talk about this museum. When that started happening.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: El Museo de las Momias, which you know, the Museum
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: of the Mummies. It was the same place where the
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: cemetery workers were just charging people several pesos to enter
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  Speaker 1: into the building and see the bones and the mummies,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: with again doctor Leroy being the first one on display.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: But when did it officially become a museum instead of
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: this underground display of death.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. But like I said before, you know,
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: there was money to be made here and the government
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: wasn't getting those mausoleum lease rental fees, so they figured
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: they would capitalize in another way, and they opened this
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: to the public in the nineteen fifties and it was
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: actually voted Guanajuato's I believe number one tourist attraction. And
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: so for a nominal fee of two pesos you can
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  Speaker 2: take a look at the more than one hundred, one
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: hundred and eight Yeah, one hundred and eight dried out
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  Speaker 2: human mummies, natural mummies, and that this includes all different
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: types of situations in varying the stages of decay kind of.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can still see their facial expressions in
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: a lot of cases, which you know, we mentioned the
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: somewhat gruesome details that have allowed investigators to determine who
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: was buried alive and who was buried when they were
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: actually dead.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: Well, the one you mentioned that was buried alive actually
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: still has her hands like trans like you know, like
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: covering her eyes, biting her arm. Yeah. And the thing
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: too is most of these these cadavers have these just
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: pained expressions, as though they're like shrieking in agony. And
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: it's because of what happens when the tongue dries out
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: during this rumification process and the jaw starts to slacken.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: You start it kind of looks like the scream. You
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: know that that painting and this is pretty crazy. Ray
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: Bradberry actually wrote a short story about based on his
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: visit to this this museum when he was vacationing with
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: his wife in Guanajuato, and he wrote a story called
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: The Next in Line where he very vividly describes this.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: So I'm gonna read a little bit of that for Casey.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: Can we get that spooky music back for this? This
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: is I think this deserves it.
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  Speaker 3: They were screaming. They looked as if they had leaped
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: snapped upright in their graves, clutched hands over their shriveled
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: bosoms and screamed.
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  Speaker 2: Jaws wide, tongues out, nostrils flared and been frozen that way.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: All of them had open mouths. There was a perpetual screaming.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: They were dead and they knew it. In every raw
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: fiber and evaporated organ, they knew it. She stood listening
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: to them scream. They say dogs here sounds. Humans never
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: hear sounds so many decibels higher than normal hearing that
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: they seem non existent. The corridor swarmed with screams, screams
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: poured from terror, yawned lips and dry tongues, screams you
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: couldn't hear because they were so Highho not cool, Ray Bradberry,
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: not cool? What do you think about that, Ben?
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've actually I've read this story. It's Ray Bradberry
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: is a fantastic writer and very appropriate for Halloween. The
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: Mummy Museum also inspired other works of fiction. In the
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: late nineteen seventies, Verner Herzog took a number of shots
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: of these various mummies for the title sequence of his
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: film Nosferatu the Vampire because he just wanted a morbid, eerie,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: atmospheric opening sequence.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: I remember that sequence, and I did not know that, Ben.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: And one of the museum's other notable points of interest
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: is that it has the smallest mummy in the world.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: It is a fetus from the pregnant woman that we
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: had mentioned earlier. It's a heartbreaking thing, and it's strange
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: to feel the turns of history so immediate and tactile,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: you know, because so often we think of these horrific
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: or tragic events as an abstract thing from a history book,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: but going and seeing these real people is a tremendously
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: profound and moving experience. One other work of fiction that
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: we absolutely have to mention is the film that incorporates
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: the mummies of Guanahata in a not accurate way, is
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: called Santo Versus the Mummies of Guanawato.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: Santo being a very popular luchador. Luchador. These are these
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: wrestlers that wear this cool masks, and this guy was
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: like a real celebrity and it was almost sort of
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: like Abbot and Costello, you know, meets Frankenstein or whatever.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: It was like a very well known national figure fighting
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: a very well known national monster.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Rodolfo Guzman Herta, famous wrestler at the time. And
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: we found we found some various clips of this film,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: you know again, made in nineteen seventy two, and I'm
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: all in, I want to check it out. I want
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: to watch the whole thing. I'll come back with a review.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: If I'll come back with a review, if there's some interest.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: What makes it relevant for our interest today is that
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: this film spread word of the mummies outside of Mexico
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: and people began to learn about this on an international level.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it started kind of became much more
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: of a fixture of popular culture at the time, and
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: it wasn't really replicated for many years, but it certainly
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: spread awareness and likely upped the value to the government
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: of this place, right.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Right, And this leads us to the ethical question that
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: we've run into before, you know, and that question is
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: is it right to display the bodies of these people? Certainly,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: I mean it's certainly not with their consent, and we
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: don't know if their family members were asked or if
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: they're family members consented.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah. There's actually a quote in this piece from the
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Guardian that just talks about how there were no laws
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: broken in doing this, that the Mexican people have a
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: different attitude towards death that they don't I don't know,
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: and it's kind of counter to what I said at
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: the beginning of the show. I would assume that it
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: would be this would be very disrespectful, This would be
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: considered like heresy, kind of you know, to disinter the
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: people's loved ones. But you know, the guy that's in
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: charge of this place seems to think differently. Yeah, this guy,
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: Arturo Taberas, who is the head spokesman for the Guanajuato government,
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: said in this daily mail piece, I think I misattributed
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: to The Guardian earlier that quote the museum is an
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: important part of Guanajuato's tourist appeal. Okay, that's your first point.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: The museum breaks no laws and displaying its exhibit to
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: visitors who are given fair warning of his graphic content.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: Here's the important part. We have a different cultural approach
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: to death in Mexico. Here we celebrate the cycle of
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: life and accept death as inevitable. Ninety nine percent of
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: the visitors leave the experience pleased with what they saw.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: But here's the thing. So many of these infants in
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: the museum, of which there are several, are often dressed
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: as saints. So there's one that goes by that they
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: call colloquially Little Saint Martin, who is it's basically a
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: skeleton of a tiny baby wearing the traditional garb of
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: Saint Martin, something called a cassock, and holding a broom
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: and holding rosary beads. And it is macabre, my friend,
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: So I'm.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Glad that you mentioned the Guardian, because there's a Guardian
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: piece I remembered I wanted to bring up. It's called
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Why Mexican Celebrate the Day of the Dead by Antonio
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Wa and in there it has this just stunning octoviopause
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: quote about what he sees as the Mexican attitude with death.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: He says, the Mexican is familiar with death, jokes about it,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: caresses it, sleeps with it, celebrates it. True, there is
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: as much fear in his attitude as in that of others,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: but at least death is not hidden away. He looks
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: at it face to face, within patience, disdain, or irony.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: And I think that's you know, maybe that's it. Maybe
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: that's what makes it okay. Maybe this is an important
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: thing rather than an exploitative thing, you know what I mean,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Because they can't be making that much money, right, profit
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: can't be the sole motivation at this points.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: As four thousand visitors a week, I mean, that's a
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: decent amount of cash.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess it does add up.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sure, it's been open since the fifties. I mean,
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: you know, yeah, you're right, kind of a bit of
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: a cash cow when you say so myself. But I
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: guess what I'm getting out I'm struggling with is there
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: even so this this tax was relinquished right and at
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: the end of the fifties, but nineteen fifty eight, in
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: nineteen fifty eight, but there actually was a recent addition
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: to this collection was a baby that died in nineteen
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: ninety nine at six months old. So I want to
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: clear something up real quick. And we actually had a
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: little discussion off my The law that required the tax,
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: there was a grave tax went away in nineteen fifty eight,
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: but there was also like you still had to rent
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: these spaces. You still had the land, and like you
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: would up re up it for like twenty years or
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: something like that, Like it started like a five year
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: and then if you didn't come back, then they could
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: still remove your loved ones corpse. And that happened with
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: this baby. And the really heartbreaking thing is apparently the
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: baby is in the collection museum and the mother who's
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: still living pretty regularly comes in visits in child.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's some the description of how this happens
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: sounds remarkably cold. So if the if the family, the
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: surviving relatives choose not to pay or re sign on
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: that lease. Then the body is removed and it goes
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: to the museum's curator, and the curator inspects the corpse
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: to see whether it's good enough to be added to
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: the collection. And I had earlier said the number was
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: one hundred and eight corpses in the display, but I
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: believe it's one hundred and eleven now because they have
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: added some.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: I thought that wasn't too confusing with the difference between
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: the grave tax and the lease, because they were two
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: different things, and it threw me for a little bit.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: But no, we got there.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: I think we did. I think we did. So what's
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: what's next? Yeah, this sounds like a place that I
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: would be intrigued. I mean, I'm I'm into kind of
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: like this sort of dark type stuff. I went to
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: the Museum of Death in la and quite enjoyed that,
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: even though some of it was even a little little
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: much for me. A lot of like embalming videos and
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: you know, murder crimes, seen photographs and things like that.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: But do you think this is right, Ben, Do you
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: think this is a value to society to be able
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: to experience death in such a raw, you know, kind
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: of detached way. It's interesting to me. I mean, that's
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: the question I asked earlier in the show. You know, ethically,
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: is this more useful to humanity as a memorial, as
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: a way of educating people, or is it exploitative. It
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: seems like the museum itself has a lot of support
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: from the local community, and it is of benefit to
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: science because we're able to research the process of natural mummification.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: Texas State University had some great research on how this
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: stuff occurs and how the environment interacts with the corpse.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: But I would say it's similar to did you ever
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: see a body's exhibit?
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: I never did, but I've seen photographs of it and
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: the perfectly preserved codaverage whether you see the muscles and
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: all that stuff.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: And it's fascinating. Yeah, where you see organs or the
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: circulatory system or nervous system taken out and kind of
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: plasticize to give you a better look at human anatomy.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: But those people, when they were alive, didn't consent to that, right,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Surely not in every case, And we have to ask
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: ourselves at what point does the benefit to science or
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: the benefit to history outweigh the ethical pitfalls of displaying
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: someone's corpse after they die. I will say that if
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: I'm in that town, I will go visit just because
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: I think it's in a way it would feel more
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: like memorial or commemorating the deaths of those people. And
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: these were not These were not for the most part,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: these were not well off folks. These were the point, right,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: These were common people.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the idea they had to you know,
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: because I mean rich people would have been able to
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: buy a plot, right, and you certainly didn't have to lease.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: That's not the law. It's just they couldn't afford to
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: buy a grave plot, so they were able to lease
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: it in one of these municipal cemeteries, mausoleums or whatever.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Right, absolutely, and I would air on the side of
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: scientific benefit and historical commemoration. Guanawato's mayor, doctor Eduardo Hicks
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: at the back, in two thousand and seven, initiated the
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Guanawatu Mummy Research Project and invited several scientists to go
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: down and spend more than a year exploring the origin
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: and the development of the mummies. And it's also been
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: a subject of national geographic documentary series which I'm going
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: to tell you the name of it. I haven't seen
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: the series, but the name throws me off. You're ready,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: I am the Mummy road Show. Nice, So it's sort
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: of like the Antiques Roadshow, but with mummies.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: Mummies.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like, yeah, that's a little glib. But
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: in these recent years they've learned a lot about the people,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: the individuals who were interred here and then later displayed
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: in this museum. It's an incredibly interesting article and if
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: you would like to read it, let me know on
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous Historians and we could just post it up there.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: And if you are a person who does not want
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: to see any of the visuals of this stuff, we
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: completely understand. This particular article has no photographs.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: Oh, I think that's a pretty good place to leave it.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: There's certainly if you're into photographs, there's plenty of them
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: out there, and these are really pretty upsetting images, to
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: be honest, but it's also they're strangely beautiful, I want
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: to say, haunting, very haunting, as you may have gotten
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: from that Ray Bradbury passage, and it really apparently severely
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: affected him and that he felt the need to write
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: this piece to kind of exercise some of those demons
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: from himself. And I could see that. I wonder what
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: it smells like in there. Ben probably is kind of musty,
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: like an old library or something, because these corpses would
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: not have had a smell of putrification because everything was
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: just dried up.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: The mummification happens so rapidly, like a lot of museums.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: It probably just smells old in some inexplicable way. But
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: our senses are so vulnerable to our pre existing mental states, right,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: so maybe we are mentally capturing the smell. You know what.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: It Probably it probably smells like cleaning cleaning supplies because
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of glass, so I'm sure they have
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: to use a ton of windex. It probably smells faintly clean.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, may be a little bit of a chemical smell.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: And I have a question too. So so far we
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: have we have covered a very interesting specific type of
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: vampire native to the Philippines. We've looked at mummies, although
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: they were not monster mummies from an old universal horror
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: film or something. What particular monsters are historical cases of monstrosity?
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: Should we should we look at next? Should we look
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: at the trials of were wolves? That's always an interesting
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: strange path to go on.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: One of the things we did the other night when
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: we had a game night at the obviously played a
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: game called Werewolf, where I ended up falsely accusing several
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: of my closest friends and coworkers of being were wolves
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: and had them lynched. And they didn't deserve that, Ben.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: They were village, they were townspeople the whole time, and
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: they were be able to forgive myself for that.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: They probably won't be able to forgive you either.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: That's okay, So I deserve it the end of it.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: I deserve it. But in their memory, we should, in
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: fact research something about were wolves. I think that's smart.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let us know if there's a werewolf's story that
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: particularly stands out to you. I'd love to. Ben. You
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: might be saying, but how on earth do I contact you? Guys, Well,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: it's quite simple. We've got good news. If you are
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: on the internet, you can find us on Instagram, you
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: can find us on Twitter, you can find us on Facebook,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: in particular, check us out on Ridiculous Historians our Facebook
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: community page, where you can talk with your fellow listeners,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: all of whom I assure you are brilliant, wonderful people
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: with great taste and podcast.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: Right, that's pretty good. Yeah, I support that. Let's thank
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: our super producer Casey Pegram for you know, being super
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: as always. Thanks to our friend and colleague Alex Williams,
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: who composed our theme.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Christopher Hasiotis and Eve's Jeff Coate, our research associates.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Thank you to Jonathan Strickland, aka the Quizzer, who's been
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: quiet lately.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thank god.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Oh folks, I suspect Noel really no you like him?
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: Your friends? Sure? Whatever you say?
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Man, oh man, Noory, Well, I will try to keep
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: the quiztor heat off of you.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: Mike, I'm kidding. I welcome man. I need a little
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: little kick in the pants every now and then. Who
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: better to do it than that guy?
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: And most importantly, we're to thank you for bringing this
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: great story.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: To the show. Oh Man, no problem. It was a
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: lot of fun. That's That's not the right thing at all.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: It wasn't really fun at all. It was kind of
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: disturbing and upsetting. But I'd rather there's no one I'd
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: rather be disturbed and upset with in this world, ben
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: than you, and you, folks, We'll see you next time.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.