Latest / Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities / Forked

Transcript

Forked · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. When the world makes one weary, it's not
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: uncommon for that person to imagine something better world where
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: there is no war or famine or homelessness, where people
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: take care of one another and live in harmony. It's
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: a lovely sentiment, but while it may work in theory,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: it almost always falls apart in practice. Communes and organizations
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: led by one person, often a man, end up the
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: same way. They turn into cults. That wasn't the goal
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: for religious philosopher and preacher John Humphrey Nous, but even
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: his idealistic troop wound up with that notorious label. However,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: unlike other cults, his didn't end with mass death or suicide.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: It ended with spooning. John was born in eighteen eleven
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: in Brattleboro, Vermont. His father had been a teacher, a minister,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: and had even served with the U. S House of Representatives,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: while his mother happened to be the aunt of the
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: nineteenth U S President Rutherford B. Hayes. John was religious
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: like his father, but even more so. After witnessing a
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: revival in eighteen thirty one, he went through a conversion
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: and abandoned his law degree at Dartmouth in favor of
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: the seminary. Instead, he studied the Bible well religiously and
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: learned how to preach before diving into the world of
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: antislavery activism. However, the more he studied, the more obsessive
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: he grew. His beliefs shifted. For example, while enrolled at
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: the Yale Theological Seminary, John had tried to pin down
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: the date of Christ's second coming, which, too many was
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: meant to be a date set far into the future,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: but not to John, he believed that it had already
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: happened in seventy a d. And that humans were on
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: a downward spiral towards sin and degradation. He preached perfectionism,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: that those who had converted could be free of all sin.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: He also believed in keeping multiple wives, known as complex marriage.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: His views got him expelled from Yale, with his professors
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: labeling him as a heretic, but that didn't deter him
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: from exploring them further. He believed that his faith had
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: given him carte blanche to ignore the traditional moral values
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: of the time, and that he could do as he pleased.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: His family encouraged him to return home and find a
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: new path, but John refused. He instead traveled around preaching
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: to anyone who would listen and picking up strays in
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: a way. One of those strays happened to be a
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: woman named Abigail Merwin, who was already married when she
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: started following John's teachings. John, however, developed feelings for his
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: students and wouldn't let a trivial thing such as marriage
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: getting his way. In eighteen thirty seven, he created the
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: idea of a spiritual spouse, which flew in the face
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: of traditional monogamy. To John, relationships were meant to be shared,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: and the more wives a man had, the marrier. In fact,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: the term free love, which picked up steam during the
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: late nineteen sixties, was originally coined by John. As he
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: continued to preach, he gained more followers, leading to the
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: creation of the Society of Inquiry around eighteen forty five,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: with almost thirty six members under its wing. The society
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: became the start of John's grand utopian vision. Unfortunately, John's
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: unorthodox beliefs, especially those concerning his nine wives, were not
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: shared by the Vermont legislature. The spiritual leader was arrested
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: and charged with adultery. However, he was released before the
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: start of his trial in April and used that time
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: to organize his followers and leave Vermont entirely. So they
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: moved to New York, where they settled in a small
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: city in the middle of the state. John happened to
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: know some of the fellow perfect Actionists there, who were
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: able to share a portion of their land and help
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: his people get established. He even renamed the group after
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: their new home. What had started as a modest commune
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: eventually grew into a palatial state that they called the
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Mansion House, completed in eighteen sixty two. And how did
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: they get the money to build such a house. Well,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: they sold all manner of goods, such as canned fruits
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: and vegetables, thread leather bags, and hats. But it was
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: the production and sale of something even more desirable that
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: put their commune on the map, and even after their
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: community fell apart in the early eighties, that business continued
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: to thrive. Look in most kitchens today and you're likely
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: to find something from the company, some product of the
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: lucrative business they began almost two hundred years ago. Forks, knives,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: and spoons, all made and sold by a utopian community
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: at the New York town of Oneida. Read any book,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: watch any movie or TV show, or see any play,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: and you probably don't realize that they all have one
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: thing in common William Shakespeare. Even though the play right
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: behind Othello, Hamlets and King Lear may not have written
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: the works being produced today, his tropes and his words
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: are all over them. Stories about deceitful family members, star
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: crossed lovers, and enemies who become lovers can all chart
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: their origins back to Shakespeare. So can words like lonely,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: swagger and zany. Shakespeare was responsible for more than seventeen
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: hundred words in the English language that we still used today,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: but he was far from the only writer of his time.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Many had come before him and had also contributed significantly
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: to the written word. However, one stands above them all.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Before Romeo and Juliet, before Plato and Aristotle, there was
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: an ad Wuanna and Aduana was the daughter of Sargon
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: of a Cad, founder of the Achadian Empire in ancient Mesopotamia.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: She lived during the twenty third century BC, but almost
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: nothing was known about her until nineteen seven. That year,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: a British archaeologist named Sir Leonard Woolley found several ancient
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: relics in his travels that carried her name. One was
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: a disc made of alabaster that had broken apart into
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: several pieces. The artifact was eventually reconstructed, which allowed scholars
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: to read its contents. The back of the disc mentioned
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Sargon of a cod and Aduana and her husband Nana Suan.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Sargon had been a ruthless conqueror who had laid waste
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: to dozens of cities and city states across the region
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: with his massive army. One of those city states was
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: a place called Er located in present day Iraq, R
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: had been home to a Sumerian cult built around Nena Suan.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Sargon knew the importance of bridging the gaps between the
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: Acadian and Sumerian empires, and Nana Suan was at the
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: center of each, so he appointed and Aduana to the
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: role of High priestess handled the job, but Nana Suan
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: wasn't a human like an Aduana or even Sargon. He
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: was a god, specifically the moon God, and an Aduana
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: worshiped him. As high priestess. She came to embody Nana
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Suan's actual wife, the goddess Ningle, hence her being listed
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: on the disc as the moon God's spouse. The other
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: side of the disc bore a relief of an Aduana
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: standing before a nude figure pouring some kind of drink.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: It was possible that the figure was Nana Suan. Soon after,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: other objects were excavated and reassembled, shedding more light on
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: the identity of the elusive daughter of Sargon the Great
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: and Aduana's Sumerian name translated to ornament of Heaven, and
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: she had a great political sway among her people. Her
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: parentage and her high ranking status made her a leader,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: and with the help of her writings, she was able
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: to unify Mesopotamia. Poems, religious hymns, and other works that
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: have been lost for thousands of years. Now being dug
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: up and analyzed, they gave deeper insight into a woman
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: who didn't know her true place in history, and a
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Duana was the world's first named author. She composed odes
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: to the Sumerian goddess Nana and the Akkadian goddess Ishtar,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: odes that exalted the deities of both cultures and brought
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: them together. Her work was instrumental in building one central
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: belief system for the people of Mesopotamia. She did this
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: through her poems, which she wrote for forty two southern temples,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: expounding on the individual qualities that she admired in each
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: of them, all of which had been chiseled into clay tablets.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: Many of the tablets recovered by Wooly and other archaeologists
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: were only fragments, with large chunks of her writing broken
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: off and missing, But what was there was still enlightening.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: In a hymn titled the Exaltation of Nana, and Aduana
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: wrote of the goddess's pensiont for violence, The author prayed
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: to her for help with a Sumerian rebel named google Anna,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: who had knocked her from her purchase high priestess. She
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: begged for revenge against the rebel and to have her
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: title restored. In the end, her prayers were answered, and
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: an Aduana was once again made high priestess to her people.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Another hymn, which was told from the goddess and Nana's perspective,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: spoke of revenge against the mountains of Eba because they
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: would not bow down to her. After being turned down
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: for help from the other gods, she destroyed the mountains herself.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: According to some experts, this hymn was an Aduanna's way
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: of telling a fictional story about a very real ecological
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: disaster that had occurred. Anna Duanna was a person unlike
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: any other. She didn't just pray to her gods. She
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: wrote poetic narratives about them. They became like characters to her,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: with lives and wills of their own. Not many people
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: know who Anadu Wanna is today, and that's a shame,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: because there is still so much she can teach us.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: She wasn't just the first named author. She was among
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: the very best whoever lived. I hope you've enjoyed today's
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Make Another Award winning show called Lore which is a podcast,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: book series, and television show and you can learn all
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: about it over at the world of Lore dot com.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious.