Mirror

Nowhere is that more prevalent than in the varieties of cultures across all seven continents. Where the people in one part of the world might live in a technological paradise of constant digital connection, there might exist in isolated island tribe who have never seen electricity before. In the mid nineteen fifties, though anthropologist Horace Miner had been studying a strange group of people living in a massive territory below Lake Superior and above the state of Sarona in Mexico.

He wrote about them in a paper titled Body Ritual among the Nacarima. The Nacarima prioritized economic pursuits and their appearance above all else, spending their days performing bizarre body rituals in front of shrines in their homes. While every home had at least one shrine, those who had elevated themselves above poorer tribe members often had two or more. In fact, the value of one's living quarters hinged on

how many shrines they could fit inside. Minor discovered through extensive study that every shrine possessed a box of elixirs and concoctions that the Nacarima would either ingest or smear across their faces to improve themselves. Such tinctures could only be procured by medicine men, who would hand over the elixir along with an incantation, and there were magical potions for all sorts of purposes too, for a price. Of course, then Acaima couldn't help but hoard these charms, as they

were called, even once they had served their purpose. The vessels they were packed in would be stored in the shrine in case their contents ever needed to be used again. And right there in the shrine, underneath that collection of boxes sat a front with water provided from a central source, the water temple of the community. Then Acaima performed daily cleansing rituals at this front, including one that was meant to prevent them from incurring the wrath of the holy

mouth men. The holy mouth Men were feared in the community as they performed tortuous acts upon the mouth of people, and they would examine the teeth of the tribes members and carve holes in the ones that had started rotting. Once the holes were large enough, they filled them with a liquid that hardened to protect the teeth from getting worse. Avoiding the holy mouth men involved a daily ritual performed by rubbing a magical substance on a bundle of hogs

hairs and moving them around inside their oral gavities. By doing this each day, they were able to prevent untold evils from invading their mouths and driving away their friends. Folks who needed more help than could be provided by the average medicine man or holy mouth man were required to pay at the La Tipso. The La Tipso was a temple where sacred ceremonies were performed. On the very ill.

They would have all their clothes removed by a vestal maiden who would collect various fluids and excretions from their bodies. To give to a diviner. The diviner studied the organic substances and determine what it was that was making the Nacaraima member sick. The Nacarima were a culture dependent on magic and ceremonies, all of which were performed in specialized rooms in their homes, far from the prying eyes of others,

even from the other members of their own tribes. Horace Miners paper was first seen in American Anthropologist, a journal published by the American Anthropological Association in nineteen fifty six. Today, the rituals of the Nacarima are still widely practiced, though their tools have become more advanced. The bundles of hogs hairs have been changed to nylon, and the Nakarima people hoard elixirs with even more magical powers within their shrines.

In fact, this strange tribe isn't too different from you and I. If you look closely, you might even recognize some of its members. Just reverse the letters in the name and you'll see that Horace Minor was simply exploring the large swath of people living between Canada and Mexico nineteen fifties. Americans. Evolution is a natural process as creatures learned to avoid predators. Over time, their species developed defense mechanisms over the course of tens, hundreds, or even hundreds

of thousands of years. But evolution isn't limited to nature. Everything changes over time. Computers get smaller and more powerful, homes are built with stronger materials, and even sports undergo some alterations. For example, tennis has been played since the twelfth century, when it was called jud Palem or game of the Poem. In France. Around the sixteenth century, players stopped hitting the ball with their hands and started using rackets instead. As more people in more countries continued to

play it, they also began to change it. A British army officer named Walter Wingfield spent over a year perfecting his own version, which he patented and sold as Spheri Styke or ball playing. Included in the box was a net, rackets and balls. He tested his new sports on unsuspecting guests at a friend's garden party, after which Wingfield's creation

took on a life of its own. Spherri Styke found its way to the United States and all over Europe, where it adopted a new and easier to pronounce name, lawn tennis for the simple reason that it wasn't played on a court but on a grassy lawn and stead interest in the sport led to the formation of tennis clubs as well as tournaments in places like New York City in France. And while some of the first tennis balls had been made of leather or wool or strips

of cloth, the equipment kept changing with the times. Leather eventually gave way to rubber, a material used in modern tennis ball manufacturing. Of course, there was one problem with tennis back then. No matter what the ball was made out of, it could only be played outdoors. Wingfield's original game design had included illustrations of an hour glass shaped court, which was wider at the ends and more tapered near the net in the middle. He'd wanted to sport to

appear beautiful from all angles. Unfortunately, those kind of spaces could only be made outdoors, and winters in Victorian England got quite cold. Aristocratic elites didn't want to have to wait until spring to play tennis again, but they didn't want to freeze either. However, rather than construct a court indoors, they just changed the game entirely again, you see. Back in India during the mid eighteen hundreds, British military officers

had found a fun way to pass the time. They would set up books in a row across the center of a table, with one officer on each side. In their hands was a single book, which they used as a racket to whack a golf ball back and forth over the literary wall they'd constructed. Borrowing from both the British military officers and Walter Wingfield's lawn tennis idea, a new game was invented. It used a net, just like in tennis, except it was much smaller. The rackets also

got a change. They went from having taught strings in their empty centers to being solid wood padals. While the company Jay Jacques and Son sold a boxed version of the game in England and nineteen o one, Parker Brothers distributed its own variety in the United States. In fact, Parker Brothers bought the name of the game from Jay Jacquin's son not long after it went on sale and litigated everyone violating its trademark. That same year, two more

major changes to the game happened. The ball was replaced with a new kind made from celluloid the same material that was used to make camera film. These new types of balls were hollow and filled with air, allowing them to bounce quite high. To aid in their delivery across the net, stippled rubber was glued to the surfaces of the wooden rackets or paddles. Within several years, its popularity spawned organizations where players could connect and compete, followed by

tournaments and championships all over the globe. Today, it has become an Olympic sport, chock full of special techniques, strategies, and a glossary of specific terms. What had originally begun as a way to pass the time in winter in the nineteenth century gradually turned into a global phenomenon. Officially it's called table tennis, but Parker Brothers had branded it with a different name, something it had been called since its inception, and one we still used to this day.

Ping Pong, I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff works. I make another award winning show called Lore which is a podcast, book series, and television show and you can learn all about it over at the world of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,