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The Life and Times of Ol' Knife Hand · Ridiculous History

0:23
Speaker 1: No no no no no no no no no no
0:25
Speaker 1: no no no knife Man. Welcome to the show, Ridiculous Historians.
0:31
Speaker 1: I'm Ben. How am I supposed to say my name
0:34
Speaker 1: when it's not nearly as cool as a knife man?
0:37
Speaker 1: I mean it's his name, I know, but his real
0:39
Speaker 1: name is probably something like Giovanni. Yeah, it's probably true.
0:43
Speaker 1: I'm Noll the or the ordinary. We are joined with
0:46
Speaker 1: our guests. Super producer, give him a big hand. He's
0:49
Speaker 1: got his own sound cue super producer Paul dekant. Uh.
0:56
Speaker 1: No love lost was super producer Casey Pegrum, who will
0:59
Speaker 1: return to his regular American life. Wait, no love lost?
1:02
Speaker 1: You mean that? You mean they're they're bitter enemies. Isn't
1:06
Speaker 1: that what no love lost means? You know, I'm using
1:08
Speaker 1: in this case to say that we don't love Casey
1:10
Speaker 1: any less, we have not lost love for him. That's
1:13
Speaker 1: I think that's how it always occurred to me, as
1:15
Speaker 1: it should be said. But I've I've always understood it
1:17
Speaker 1: to mean some kind of enmity towards you, like there's
1:21
Speaker 1: no love lost between them exactly because there was never
1:24
Speaker 1: any to begin with. Right, Well, let's let's take it back.
1:27
Speaker 1: Let's make it something positive the way the Ghostbusters charged
1:31
Speaker 1: that goo and Ghostbusters too and made it a positive thing.
1:35
Speaker 1: Remember that that's a science joke, Ben, Is that a
1:37
Speaker 1: science charged it? Mean charged it because they it's an
1:41
Speaker 1: eye on or something. Right, Isn't that I positively charged it? Yeah? Well,
1:45
Speaker 1: as you can tell from our intro, it's Friday, it's
1:48
Speaker 1: been a long week, and today's episode is about Ghostbusters.
1:51
Speaker 1: You know. Uh it touches on something spooky. There's that.
1:57
Speaker 1: We are still in the throes of Halleween month. Yeah, yes,
2:00
Speaker 1: the most hallowed of Wiens. And weirdly enough, the band
2:04
Speaker 1: Ween is doing a double engagement at our famous Tabernacle
2:08
Speaker 1: Theater tonight and tomorrow night. So it's all come Fullween.
2:12
Speaker 1: It's all happening. It's all happening. Well, uh yeah, I
2:15
Speaker 1: like I would say I'm a Ween fan too. Today's
2:19
Speaker 1: episode as that that's our that's our slow, circuitous route
2:24
Speaker 1: towards today's episode. Today's episode does not, uh, as far
2:28
Speaker 1: as we know, involve the band Ween, but it does
2:32
Speaker 1: involve something grim, grizzly, and we'll say it badass. It
2:37
Speaker 1: does strike me as the kind of thing that we
2:39
Speaker 1: might write a song about because they're all about weird
2:43
Speaker 1: stuff and badass stuff and like kind of psychedelic trippy stuff,
2:47
Speaker 1: and I feel like this falls into all of those categories.
2:49
Speaker 1: It does, and it takes us to our Our story
2:53
Speaker 1: begins long, long ago, but let's start in the middle
2:57
Speaker 1: of the story. In nineteen eighties Italy, in a region
3:01
Speaker 1: of northern Italy called Veneto, in archaeologists made a fascinating discovery.
3:09
Speaker 1: They found a necropolis that housed the corpses of people
3:13
Speaker 1: known as the Longo Bards. The Longo Bards also, it
3:17
Speaker 1: took me a minute to realize these were one and
3:18
Speaker 1: the same, known as the Lombards or the long Beards. Yes,
3:24
Speaker 1: it kind of mutated over time because these warring Germanic
3:28
Speaker 1: tribesmen who held sway over a lot of Europe for
3:33
Speaker 1: a lot longer than you would expect um, which is
3:36
Speaker 1: I know, very vague. Maybe Ben you can plug in
3:37
Speaker 1: some specific numbers in a minute, but they wore quite
3:41
Speaker 1: long beards, yes, and they were nothing to sneeze at,
3:47
Speaker 1: these these Germanic people. According to Lombard historian Paul the Deacon,
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Speaker 1: they descended from a small tribe that dwelt in southern
3:56
Speaker 1: Scandinavia tribe called the Winili w in in i l
4:01
Speaker 1: i Uh, And from this relatively humble beginning they would
4:07
Speaker 1: rise to eventually rule most of the Italian peninsula from
4:11
Speaker 1: five six a d to the late seven seventies, like
4:16
Speaker 1: seven seventy four seventy five a D. And that this
4:21
Speaker 1: this is the environment in which our story takes place.
4:24
Speaker 1: Nol As you said, they were known for being warlike. Ma,
4:28
Speaker 1: did you hear that story that Paul the Deacon wrote
4:30
Speaker 1: about how the Long Beards A nice apocryphal tale of
4:33
Speaker 1: how the long Beards may have had some divine intervention
4:35
Speaker 1: and getting that name. Oh it's great. Yeah, it's super cool.
4:39
Speaker 1: So if you've played the new God of War game,
4:40
Speaker 1: I guess it's not that new anymore, but apparently if
4:42
Speaker 1: you get the update, it lets you like replay the
4:45
Speaker 1: entire game using all of your armor or less you
4:47
Speaker 1: like start over again. Just f y. I really cool game, okay,
4:50
Speaker 1: but features Odin and Freya and a lot of this
4:53
Speaker 1: pantheon of Norse gods that these folks worship. I'll tell
4:57
Speaker 1: you who else worshiped them was the win Nilly, these
5:00
Speaker 1: kind of rivals who were the Vandals, and they were
5:03
Speaker 1: in a conflict together because the Winnilli's refused to pay
5:07
Speaker 1: a tribute to the leaders of the Vandals. And have
5:09
Speaker 1: a great quote here. The Winili were a smaller tribe
5:13
Speaker 1: to in terms of numbers. The Vandals had them out
5:16
Speaker 1: numbered and out knived or whatever, which which is a
5:20
Speaker 1: nice a nice bit of foreshadowing there. So the Winili
5:23
Speaker 1: said it is better to maintain liberty by arms than
5:27
Speaker 1: to stain it by the payment of tribute. They thought
5:30
Speaker 1: it would be shameful to pay these people off. And
5:33
Speaker 1: they said, you know what, if we go down, we're
5:35
Speaker 1: going to go down swinging, and we're going to ask
5:40
Speaker 1: our God for help. Goden, who we know is Odin today?
5:43
Speaker 1: Oh Goden g O d a N. I never heard
5:46
Speaker 1: it said that before. That's interesting. So yeah, So the
5:49
Speaker 1: Vandals and the Winnelly both appealed to Odin and said, hey,
5:53
Speaker 1: we would like it very much if you would grant
5:55
Speaker 1: us a victory, to which Odin replied he would give
5:57
Speaker 1: a victory to the tribe he first saw at sunrise
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Speaker 1: Um and then apparently the mother of the two Winili
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Speaker 1: leaders whose names were Ibor and Io, went to Freya,
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Speaker 1: who was Odin's wife. The mother's give their mother exactly, yeah, Gambara,
6:14
Speaker 1: and Freya told Gambara that the women of the tribe
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Speaker 1: should take their hair and tie it in front of
6:19
Speaker 1: their faces so they looked like beard, and then appear
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Speaker 1: at sunrise so that they seem to have more numbers
6:25
Speaker 1: than they do, more soldiers at least. And then Freya also,
6:29
Speaker 1: according to this story, loads the dice a little bit
6:32
Speaker 1: because she turns Odin's bed to face east at sunrise
6:37
Speaker 1: and she wakes him. And because of this, Odin sees
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Speaker 1: the Winili tribe first and said, who are these long beards?
6:47
Speaker 1: And then, according to this article from about history dot com,
6:50
Speaker 1: Freya responded, well, since you have given their tribe and name,
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Speaker 1: he should also give them a victory, and that he did. Um.
6:59
Speaker 1: You know, if you'd like to believe this legend, I
7:01
Speaker 1: like to believe this one. It's it's an inspiring story.
7:04
Speaker 1: We should also note that Paul the Deacon wrote his
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Speaker 1: history of the Long Beards the Historia Longo bard Room,
7:13
Speaker 1: which is fun to say. He wrote this between late
7:18
Speaker 1: seven eight eight d so seven eighty seven seven eight
7:22
Speaker 1: and seven nine six, so he wrote this far far
7:27
Speaker 1: after the events had transpired. That's right, And I just
7:30
Speaker 1: want to back up what you said a minute ago.
7:32
Speaker 1: Then these women with the beards tied in front of
7:34
Speaker 1: their faces were added to the ranks of the men
7:36
Speaker 1: who already sported these long, bushy beards that they did
7:39
Speaker 1: not want to cut, so it would make them appear
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Speaker 1: to have greater numbers. And I don't know, I don't
7:44
Speaker 1: know what phrase logic was here. I can't get inside
7:46
Speaker 1: the head of a god. It's to be more intimidating.
7:49
Speaker 1: And also, you know, I love, I love the moments
7:53
Speaker 1: in mythology and folklore where someone plays a trick where
7:57
Speaker 1: cleverness becomes as important as physical strength, like turning the
8:02
Speaker 1: bed east. Yeah, but it's also like there's a lot
8:04
Speaker 1: of what one might consider cheating in some of these stories,
8:08
Speaker 1: you know, are like being dishonest, but sometimes that's just
8:11
Speaker 1: having gumption, tenacity, and you know, like you said, loading
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Speaker 1: the dice a little bit in a in a clever way,
8:17
Speaker 1: and that's all that. You know, that's classic Longo bart
8:21
Speaker 1: So these are long beards if you prefer, that might
8:24
Speaker 1: be more fun for some of us. So this is
8:27
Speaker 1: how the tribes started, and they expanded possibly with the
8:30
Speaker 1: help of divine intervention. And as we said, they go
8:33
Speaker 1: on to for not insignificant amount of time rule a
8:38
Speaker 1: large swath of Italy. And in Night five, we're gonna
8:43
Speaker 1: jump around in time a little bit here for the
8:44
Speaker 1: sake of the story. In five, archaeologists discover a necropolis
8:51
Speaker 1: for the longo Bard people that has over two hundred
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Speaker 1: corpses buried inside two and twenty two And in these
9:02
Speaker 1: different areas of the necropolis they find some some strange,
9:07
Speaker 1: weird things. They found one female corpse with two brooches
9:12
Speaker 1: that were used to estimate the time roughly when these
9:17
Speaker 1: people were interred. Uh. They also found two greyhounds and
9:22
Speaker 1: a horse, but they did not find the head of
9:24
Speaker 1: the horse. Yeah, it wasn't a headless horseman, it was
9:26
Speaker 1: a headless horse. Still quite appropriate for Halloween times. And
9:30
Speaker 1: that's just the beginning, because, as we learned in the
9:34
Speaker 1: paper entitled Survival to Amputation and pre Antibiotic Era, a
9:37
Speaker 1: case Study from a Longobard Necropolis courtesy of Journal of
9:42
Speaker 1: Anthropological Sciences, this necropolis contained one corpse that was extraordinary. Yeah,
9:52
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, Yes, in many ways. They
9:54
Speaker 1: found they found a man who was between fort and
10:00
Speaker 1: fifty years old. They say maybe they pegged it at
10:04
Speaker 1: forty seven in the paper. Uh. And his body, even
10:10
Speaker 1: hundreds of years later, showed signs of extreme hardship and uh,
10:15
Speaker 1: that's putting it very diplomatically, signs of extreme hardship and privation.
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Speaker 1: His teeth were all kinds of messed up. The enamel
10:24
Speaker 1: was extremely worn down to the point where it was
10:27
Speaker 1: damaging his jaw. He had evidence of plenty of fighting,
10:31
Speaker 1: but most importantly for this story, archaeologists focused on something
10:36
Speaker 1: that he did not have, which was part of his
10:39
Speaker 1: right arm. Not only was he missing an arm, he
10:48
Speaker 1: was missing an arm in a very unusual way. And
10:51
Speaker 1: that the bone, the nub of the bone where the
10:54
Speaker 1: arm had been amputated, was worn down and calloused in
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Speaker 1: a very particular a that was caused by something else
11:02
Speaker 1: they found in this uh, in this grave, that's right. Uh,
11:06
Speaker 1: they literally buried the lead long enough. Let's just let's
11:09
Speaker 1: just let it out in the open. This guy had
11:13
Speaker 1: replaced his arm with a prosthetic blade. He had a
11:18
Speaker 1: knife hand, a knife hand. Yeah, And um, the way
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Speaker 1: it was attached was with like a kind of a
11:24
Speaker 1: cup that would attach over the nub, and then the
11:27
Speaker 1: blade was fashion fashion onto the cup. I guess it
11:30
Speaker 1: was like a leather cup of some kind. And then
11:32
Speaker 1: there were straps harnesses that would fasten it on. And
11:37
Speaker 1: you remember you mentioned a minute ago, Ben that he
11:38
Speaker 1: had some significant wear and tear to his teeth. One
11:42
Speaker 1: of the ideas is that it was because he was
11:44
Speaker 1: constantly using his teeth to tighten the straps on the
11:49
Speaker 1: knife knife arm. Yeah, as he was going through and
11:52
Speaker 1: dealing ungodly amounts of damage to his enemies. You can
11:56
Speaker 1: in the papers see close up photographs of the fellow's teeth.
12:01
Speaker 1: We don't know a ton of details about this man.
12:04
Speaker 1: His name is lost to history. We don't know necessarily
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Speaker 1: what he did in his free time, what his dreams were,
12:12
Speaker 1: what did he have children, and so on. But we
12:15
Speaker 1: do know a ton of things based entirely on the
12:19
Speaker 1: state of his body. We know, for instance, that the
12:24
Speaker 1: orientation of his amputated forearm, the orientation of the fracture
12:29
Speaker 1: that occurred, indicates that it was an angled cut by
12:33
Speaker 1: a single blow, maybe probably from a blunt instrument. And
12:37
Speaker 1: this amputation was the result of one of three things.
12:42
Speaker 1: An amputation through injury and combat which has its own
12:45
Speaker 1: fascinating rabbit hole to follow a medical intervention. Maybe he
12:49
Speaker 1: had a wound and I got infected, or some sort
12:51
Speaker 1: of judicial punishment how they put it in the paper,
12:55
Speaker 1: I believe, yes, exactly. So he either gotten a beef,
13:00
Speaker 1: got sick, or or broke the law. I no, you know,
13:06
Speaker 1: forensics guy or anything. But it does seem like the
13:09
Speaker 1: cleanness of the cut would indicate that he was, you know,
13:14
Speaker 1: had it positioned in such a way to receive the
13:17
Speaker 1: blow right, like on some sort of like hard surface
13:20
Speaker 1: or maybe held down or you know something. It doesn't
13:23
Speaker 1: seem like it would be that clean if he just
13:25
Speaker 1: got a giant axe swung at him in battle and
13:28
Speaker 1: got the arm lobbed off right. And there's a So
13:31
Speaker 1: there's an interesting thing I've been reading about for something
13:34
Speaker 1: unrelated to this show that ties in very well, and
13:37
Speaker 1: it's the problem of fighting on a battlefield in these
13:40
Speaker 1: ancient days. You know, we see all these depictions in
13:43
Speaker 1: fiction and historical accounts of groups of people just yelling
13:47
Speaker 1: and running into each other until they collide in blood,
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Speaker 1: sweat and violence. But is it possible, this is the
13:55
Speaker 1: question is looking at. Is it possible that some people
13:58
Speaker 1: just faked their death, that just like laid down and
14:02
Speaker 1: waited for the fighting to stop. The answer is yes,
14:05
Speaker 1: and that's why soldiers from either side would go through
14:09
Speaker 1: after a conflict to make sure the dead were dead.
14:13
Speaker 1: You've seen that in movies. They just go around just
14:14
Speaker 1: stabbing the piles of bodies, and in some cases it
14:18
Speaker 1: was considered an act of mercy rather than an act
14:21
Speaker 1: of malevolence, because think about it, this is a time
14:24
Speaker 1: with no antibiotics. This is the time where medicine is
14:28
Speaker 1: often administrated through a spiritual leader, right, rather than some
14:33
Speaker 1: sort of doctor. And additionally, this is the biggest point
14:39
Speaker 1: for the the idea that this guy may have been
14:41
Speaker 1: injured in battle. Additionally, every time that someone is attempting
14:47
Speaker 1: to recover from an injury, especially one of this magnitude,
14:50
Speaker 1: that means that a community of other people has to
14:53
Speaker 1: take care of them. Wait a minute, so he's saying.
14:55
Speaker 1: The takeaway from this weird knife armed dude is that
14:59
Speaker 1: like people in his lifetime were nice to him, at
15:02
Speaker 1: least because he also uh the the analysis of his teeth,
15:07
Speaker 1: the strontium levels in his teeth proved that he was
15:10
Speaker 1: not from this area. He was a stranger in a
15:13
Speaker 1: strange land at the time. And don't you think that
15:15
Speaker 1: forty or fifty years old is a pretty decent lifetime
15:20
Speaker 1: in this day and age. And as you said, from
15:22
Speaker 1: the callous from from the callous is and the wear
15:25
Speaker 1: on the on the amputated limb, we know that this
15:29
Speaker 1: happened a long time before he died. He lived this
15:32
Speaker 1: way for years. Yeah. And I don't think we can
15:34
Speaker 1: stress enough how important it is to uh think about
15:37
Speaker 1: the idea that they had had no antibiotics and no
15:41
Speaker 1: real way to intervene and stop the blood flow other
15:45
Speaker 1: than just to like rub it with some sort of
15:47
Speaker 1: poultice or like, you know, physically bind it and keep
15:51
Speaker 1: an eye on the guy and make sure that he
15:53
Speaker 1: had stayed clean. Otherwise he would have just gone septic
15:55
Speaker 1: and kicked it in no time. Yeah. Absolutely. In the
15:58
Speaker 1: paper they say vote the Longo Bard Mail survived the
16:02
Speaker 1: loss of a forearm even though antibiotics were not readily available.
16:05
Speaker 1: This highlights a community level effort to provide an ideal
16:09
Speaker 1: setting for healing to take place. This suggests a clean
16:12
Speaker 1: environment with intensive care during the early stages of healing,
16:15
Speaker 1: with the ability to prevent death from blood loss and
16:18
Speaker 1: specific herbal bombs were available to the Longo Bard people
16:22
Speaker 1: for this purpose. And they go back and forth arguing
16:27
Speaker 1: the different cases that this could have been combat and
16:30
Speaker 1: then he was saved by his his community, or that
16:33
Speaker 1: it was a judicial punishment where they said, okay, maybe
16:38
Speaker 1: you have stolen something, so now you lose your hand,
16:41
Speaker 1: but we don't want to kill you. But if that
16:42
Speaker 1: was the case, why would they go out of their
16:44
Speaker 1: way to like keep him from bleeding out. That's the mystery, right,
16:48
Speaker 1: and I am tempted to place this injury in the
16:51
Speaker 1: realm of combat or traumatic accident, because as we mentioned,
16:56
Speaker 1: the Longo Bards invaded in five s a d. Right,
17:02
Speaker 1: and that's when they began to take over Italy. And
17:06
Speaker 1: it looks like this death. This guy was interred in
17:11
Speaker 1: this necropolis not too long after, so he was definitely
17:16
Speaker 1: alive and kicking and maybe even had both of his
17:19
Speaker 1: hands during the invasion. It's quite possible that they took
17:24
Speaker 1: care of him because he was helping with this takeover,
17:28
Speaker 1: with this regional takeover. By the way, if you're wondering
17:30
Speaker 1: why the Winili behame the Longo Bards and moved down
17:34
Speaker 1: south like this, the current best guess is it was
17:39
Speaker 1: to seek better resources because they had overpopulated their native land.
17:43
Speaker 1: And and unless we paint a picture of these um
17:46
Speaker 1: these Lombards as being entirely like barbaric or some kind
17:51
Speaker 1: of like completely unhinged warring, you know, psychotic unlike force,
17:57
Speaker 1: I mean they eventually when they kind of settled, they
18:00
Speaker 1: they built a bunch of incredible architecture. They became dukes
18:04
Speaker 1: and and had a very very robust system of government
18:07
Speaker 1: and created these territories called duchies. And that's a term
18:11
Speaker 1: that was used moving forward. I believe Ben that is true.
18:14
Speaker 1: Old the term duchy did stick around. The Kingdom of
18:19
Speaker 1: the Lombards are also known as the Kingdom of Italy
18:22
Speaker 1: at the time, was established, as he said, in the
18:27
Speaker 1: later part of the sixth century. And they they knew
18:33
Speaker 1: that this kind of game was going by King of
18:36
Speaker 1: the Hill rules, not the not the cartoon, but the
18:39
Speaker 1: actual game. What I mean is they knew that there
18:42
Speaker 1: would be people trying to oust them from their new kingdom.
18:47
Speaker 1: One of the groups that vehemently opposed them was the
18:50
Speaker 1: Byzantine Empire. Yeah, you had them, you had the the Celts,
18:54
Speaker 1: the Chelts, Celts, Celts, the Celts. There we the Celts.
18:59
Speaker 1: That's the worst, worst one. Then you had the Visi
19:01
Speaker 1: Goths or is I like to refer to them as
19:03
Speaker 1: just the Goths? You know it's and then you had
19:05
Speaker 1: the Franks, and they were the they were the big bads,
19:08
Speaker 1: they were the ultimate bosses, the Franks. They're the ones
19:11
Speaker 1: who conquered the kingdom, right and yeah, the Franks. Ben Um.
19:15
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've heard of this little guy
19:17
Speaker 1: named Charlemagne the Great. You don't. You don't get the
19:20
Speaker 1: name the Great unless you're pretty badass. I'm skeptical of hype,
19:23
Speaker 1: that's fair. But he was like the big boss. Like
19:25
Speaker 1: he said, he was the big bad and he is
19:28
Speaker 1: the due that ultimately led to the downfall of the
19:33
Speaker 1: the long Beards. Yeah. He even after after the Franks
19:37
Speaker 1: conquered most of the kingdom, he even adopted the title
19:41
Speaker 1: King of the Lombards. And the one city they never
19:45
Speaker 1: managed to gain control of was ben Evento, the most
19:49
Speaker 1: southern of the Lombard duchies, so at the time, at
19:59
Speaker 1: the time that this entire empire, Rosen finally fell, the
20:03
Speaker 1: Kingdom of the Lombards was the last holdout the last
20:06
Speaker 1: minor Germanic kingdom in Europe other than the Frankish Empire,
20:11
Speaker 1: and we we should mention too. There's there's a good
20:13
Speaker 1: question of how Lombard these people were, or at least
20:19
Speaker 1: their rulers by the time they fell, because over the
20:23
Speaker 1: more than one hundred years that they governed this area
20:25
Speaker 1: of the world, they gradually assimilated to a Roman culture.
20:29
Speaker 1: They would get Roman titles, they would start naming their
20:33
Speaker 1: kids Roman names, they would start practicing Roman traditions. So
20:38
Speaker 1: at what level did their assimilation just make them Romans
20:42
Speaker 1: who historically were Lombards, you know what I meant. But
20:45
Speaker 1: no one was at that level of PC at this time.
20:48
Speaker 1: Of course, they were like die long beards and they
20:52
Speaker 1: almost got our guy knife man. He would have been
20:56
Speaker 1: a beast on the battlefield. Can you imagine. There's there's
21:00
Speaker 1: great details in here about well, they still are speculating
21:04
Speaker 1: about how is injury occurve, but there's some great details
21:06
Speaker 1: about his life after the injury. As we said, the
21:09
Speaker 1: teeth on the side of his mouth that he used
21:11
Speaker 1: to tighten the strap where Terri We cannot over emphasize this.
21:15
Speaker 1: They were terribly worn down, like the pulp was out
21:18
Speaker 1: of his teeth. Someone had to extract some of his
21:21
Speaker 1: teeth so he could eat. Yeah. I think he actually
21:23
Speaker 1: like had some sort of serious infection because he ruptured
21:26
Speaker 1: the pulp sack, which is the thing apparently in in
21:29
Speaker 1: one of his teeth, and that could have been fatal.
21:32
Speaker 1: This guy really dodged some serious bullets. Yeah, he won
21:35
Speaker 1: a brutal lottery for sure. We also know that he didn't.
21:40
Speaker 1: Here's the question that I immediately had at least, and
21:44
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've had it as well, ridiculous historians.
21:47
Speaker 1: Did he survive long enough to use his blade arm
21:51
Speaker 1: in battle? Well, one would think. Here's the thing though,
21:55
Speaker 1: there there this the speculation is like he maybe even
21:58
Speaker 1: used this to like eat, But I don't buy that.
22:00
Speaker 1: Why why not have a fork arm if you're gonna
22:02
Speaker 1: use it to eat? I mean, a blade arm is
22:04
Speaker 1: clearly designed to slice. And we know from the level
22:08
Speaker 1: of metal working that was available at the time that
22:12
Speaker 1: they could make something with times or yeah, it was
22:15
Speaker 1: they could make something that wasn't just a blade arm.
22:20
Speaker 1: They chose blade arm, and I'm just I'm not I'm
22:24
Speaker 1: not being completely prejudiced here, but I'm saying that choice
22:29
Speaker 1: implies something. There's there's intention, there's the implication. It's like
22:33
Speaker 1: it's like Ash and the Evil Dead. He made himself
22:35
Speaker 1: a chainsaw arm, right, you know, with which to slice
22:39
Speaker 1: demons the undead. I mean he didn't make himself, you know,
22:42
Speaker 1: some other non lethal type of arm, like like a
22:45
Speaker 1: mannequin hand, or like a flagpole or flagpole. Yeah, you know,
22:49
Speaker 1: he didn't make anything like that. He wasn't gonna be
22:51
Speaker 1: a crossing guarden. He was going to be a demon slayer.
22:53
Speaker 1: And we know that with knife Man. It appears that
22:58
Speaker 1: he did not what whatever did with this blade arm.
23:01
Speaker 1: It appears that he didn't lift heavy weights with it,
23:04
Speaker 1: but surprise, surprise, that would be kind of difficult anyway,
23:07
Speaker 1: just to keep the prosthetic on. He's saying that his
23:09
Speaker 1: arm was slightly like atrophied or something. We're saying that
23:12
Speaker 1: we can tell from the strain that like obviously his
23:17
Speaker 1: left hand, the one he still has, is going to
23:19
Speaker 1: be the new dominant hand, right, but so it wasn't
23:22
Speaker 1: like as evenly distributed between the two right, so we
23:25
Speaker 1: can tell that we can tell that he wasn't attempting
23:29
Speaker 1: to or did not successfully for long periods of time
23:32
Speaker 1: lift heavy things. But what about slashing. Slashing is totally
23:36
Speaker 1: different because that's more of an impact, right than a strain.
23:41
Speaker 1: That's so we would have to we would have to
23:44
Speaker 1: ask ourselves. They don't really address it in the paper,
23:47
Speaker 1: but we'd have to ask ourselves whether there's some sort
23:51
Speaker 1: of research we can do that would let us know
23:55
Speaker 1: whether he used it in combat. You don't think if
23:57
Speaker 1: you did enough slashing and stabbing that he wouldn't have
23:59
Speaker 1: a big muscle on that arm, right, wouldn't you imagine?
24:02
Speaker 1: I would think so. But then also, you know, we
24:04
Speaker 1: have to remember a lot of the stuff we're a
24:07
Speaker 1: lot of stuff we're discovering with the prosthetic is based
24:11
Speaker 1: on guesswork, because a lot of the leather has already decayed.
24:14
Speaker 1: This guy has been in the ground for a long time.
24:17
Speaker 1: I wish we knew his name. You know, I'm fine
24:20
Speaker 1: with knife Man. I'm fine with knife Man. He could
24:22
Speaker 1: be a boss in the Mega Man games. He could.
24:26
Speaker 1: That's a good call. He probably also, knowing the way
24:29
Speaker 1: that nicknames and stuff worked at that time, he probably
24:32
Speaker 1: also had a name that was something like that. It
24:35
Speaker 1: was something like, you know, Gilbert knife hand or Gilbert
24:39
Speaker 1: of the Knife, Mac the Knife. Yeah, similar, similar, right,
24:43
Speaker 1: although Mac the Knife did not have a knife for
24:46
Speaker 1: a hand. You don't know that, pretty pretty sure. It's
24:50
Speaker 1: not in the song. It's not in the song, which
24:53
Speaker 1: they probably would have mentioned that, right, you think, I think.
24:56
Speaker 1: But this is our spooky tail for the week and
24:59
Speaker 1: somewhat inspiring because, as as we said at the beginning,
25:02
Speaker 1: it shows us that, regardless of how community might be
25:07
Speaker 1: portrayed in history, love conquers all. Love conquers all. It's
25:11
Speaker 1: certainly heals it heals wounds. It's time. That was probably
25:17
Speaker 1: a combination of both time and love. And you have
25:21
Speaker 1: to you have to marvel sometimes that that's just how
25:25
Speaker 1: how tough these people were, you know what I mean,
25:28
Speaker 1: Like I freak out if I have a cough for
25:30
Speaker 1: more than two weeks. So do you have any prosthetic
25:33
Speaker 1: limbs that are lethal weapons? Let any kind right in?
25:36
Speaker 1: Let us know, send us picks. We're interested. Oh I
25:38
Speaker 1: thought you're asking me now, and I know I know
25:40
Speaker 1: you don't have any. All right, man, man, let's keep moving. Yes,
25:46
Speaker 1: how can you find us? You can? We're so glad
25:49
Speaker 1: you asked. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter.
25:53
Speaker 1: We'd like to give a special shout out to everybody's
25:55
Speaker 1: favorite community page on the old FB that is Whiculous Historians,
26:01
Speaker 1: where you can shoot the breeze, see some pretty top
26:03
Speaker 1: tier memes, and give us suggestions for episodes you would
26:07
Speaker 1: like to hear in the future. As always, thanks to
26:11
Speaker 1: our super producers, especially to you super producer paulf We're
26:14
Speaker 1: filling in today. Yeah, thanks to Alex Williams who composed
26:17
Speaker 1: this theme. Thanks to the one and only irreplaceable yet
26:21
Speaker 1: occasionally replaceable super producer Casey pegram here in spirit. Thanks
26:25
Speaker 1: to our research peeps, uh Eve's Jeff Coat and Christopher
26:29
Speaker 1: Hasiotas who we love dearly love those books. They're the best.
26:33
Speaker 1: He's a great guy. You know. He's a very talented
26:35
Speaker 1: food critic as well. I do know that in Eaves
26:38
Speaker 1: is also on a show called Afro Punk Solution Sessions
26:42
Speaker 1: and a show called Stuff Mom Never told you should
26:44
Speaker 1: check those out. Check them both out. We'd love to
26:46
Speaker 1: have Eaves on the show one day soon too, definitely,
26:49
Speaker 1: so spoiler alert with that and you know what, NOL
26:53
Speaker 1: Thanks to knife Man for making it through the tough
26:56
Speaker 1: days and giving us an inspiring story and thanks to you,
27:00
Speaker 1: an Eer