Into the Ossuary: Consult the Bones - Part 2

We think of them just propping up the meat bags that we inhabit. That hey, they're doing a lot more than that, they sure are. We're going to discuss the bones of Santa Claus himself. Oh when we're talking about Santa Claus here, and we're not talking about the mythical jolly fat man that lives in the North Pole and brings gifts more of what we're talking about the origin of this a bit the the actual living human being

who himself is wrapped in myth up to this day. Um, But we're talking about St. Nicholas uh born marchis tenth in the year to seventy CE, died in the year three forty three on December six, fourth century Christian Saint Greek Bishop of Mira, which is in modern day Turkey, also known as Nicholas the wonder Worker because he has all these various miracles attributed to him as a reputation

as a gift giver. And two of the stories are pretty great because they tie in nicely with what we just discussed about Benjamin Franklin, because one of the stories involves essentially a serial killer and the other one involves prostitutes. Um, would would you like to tell the prostitute story? Well, the prostitute would be like sort of would be prostitutes?

Possibly there was there was a man and his three daughters, and he didn't have the money to provide dowries for his daughters, which meant that they were about to be sold into slavery, which is probably mean they're about to become prostitutes. So what does old good st Nick do? He himself from a wealthy family, which in accounts for that he gave away a lot of his money. Is that he took bags of gold and tossed them through the windows of these three daughters on three consecutive nights.

Uh thereby saving them from a life of wretched prostitution. There. So there we have gift giving and also some sort of innate understanding of what's going on with people's lives that he knows that you've been naughty or nice or indeed what you really need this Christmas? And also uh, sort of breaking the parameters of someone's house and yeah, breaking in and just and uh and getting done when

needs to getting done. Another story, the serial killer story, if you want to frame it that way, is that, according to legend, there was a famine, and what happens in famine there's not enough food to go around. And if your business is that of a butcher, what are you gonna do? You need meat to sell, people need meat to eat. Sometimes you got to improvise. Sometimes you have to lure three children into your house, kill them, slice them up, and put their meat in a barrel

to cure them. His Ham well St Nick cole w into this, so because he was in talent at the time, you know. And so what did he do. He raised the Ham brothers from the dead using only the power of prayer, like unhanded them and rehumed them right there, presumably right there in the butcher's shop. And and I don't know what happened in the butcher's business. I assume it ruined him. Um, that was the Barbara Fleet Street

right it wasn't. Yeah, but yeah, as you can see, this guy St. Nick St. Nicholas is full of do goodery, literally full of do goodery. Yes, because we're about to discuss St. Nick himself is arguably the gift that keeps on giving. That's right. When he died, he was buried and his remains were revered as holy relics. And the years after his death, his tomb was said to give off a sweet smell and to weep a mysterious liquid

which would cure those who touched it. Yes, and this liquid, according to those who collected and uh and those who spend the myths around it, is supposedly manna. Uh. And for for those of you are not versed in your biblical studies, manna is the edible substance provided by God to the wandering Israelites. Uh. Precious stuff that again just

manner from heaven. You've all heard that phrase, and that the ideas this was literally some sort of a food substance that came from God and just fell right into their laps. Uh, what that food substance actually was. You know, you can just go like a completely supernatural route and

say it's just something magical that sustains you. You can you can go along with a certain rabbinical writings that say that no one pooped from eating manna, and in fact, it wasn't until several decades later when the manna ceased

to fall that people began pooping. I don't know, now, I'm not not sure that means that there was no pooping from mana at all, and then when they had to eat other things then they started pooping in or if there's like a block of build up of poop over those decades until the manna ran out, I'm not sure you can. Yeah, these are things that are lost

in history. Yeah they're they're lost in history. But but then there are just there have been scientists that have argued that manna might have actually been something like locusts um, that it could have been an appetite suppressing cactus sap or even appetite suppressing psychedelic mushrooms, which would have been perfect because then you also have you know, something like psilocybin that's that's playing into some sort of spiritual experience

as well. Now, for hundreds of years now, the manna has been collected, mixed with holy water, embottled in small glass vials, decorated with icons of the saint, and put up for sale to pilgrims, people who were visiting St. Nick's manna for sale to the pilgrim And I would like to say, if if you have some of this, or are habitedt on hand, or or can obtain it, do send it to us. I would love to have some of this nana so you don't so you would never have to poop again. I'm I'm willing to give

it a shot. I'm not really a fan of pooping. So you know, if there's some sort of holy a lick, sir, that seeped from the bones of a dead saint, that I can take and stave that off for a decade or so, I'm all in. As much as I'd like to delve into a rich poop conversation, I'm going to

back away from it. And I'm going to point out that this manner was produced in a couple of locations, so it was in in modern Turkey what we now is modern Turkey and also in Bari, Italy, because in ten eighties seven Italian soldiers moved St. Nicholas's bones to Italy, citing invading Seljuk Turks as a concern for the bones welfare. And here to the bones were found to have a liquid around them. So there's all such a different encount it's here of what that liquid was actually composed of.

There was one analysis of a bottle that was just water. There was another one where it was vegetable oil from a long, long time ago. Yeah, because it can essentially be anything if you just you wrap it in a nice story and enough belief, then it doesn't matter. Now when we start asking the hard questions of what is it really and is there really some sort of liquid it's seeping out of this box that and then people are bottling and drinking um, the answer is a little

less fantastic but but but also kind of disgusting. So it's it's a win win. Do you think it's gross? I mean, it's a little bit we're talking about I mean, we're still talking about bone water um, because essentially we're talking about condensation burries a port town. It's a marble tomb it's below sea level. And there was a two thousand and four documentary titled The Real Face of Santa in which they actually took a small camera and they jabbed it into the tomb so they can actually look

at the bones, and the bones are deteriorating. They're they're lying in pools of shallow water. So this presumably is the source of the manner the condensation, bones soaking in the condensation and the leaking out. Yeah, because really, as you said, it's underground, you have seawater being redistributed around it in these capillaries, so that is a really dank area, and of course condensation happens. Um, I'm not trying to poop poo the holy water that allows you not to

poo poo waiting for that. It's still magical bone water. So I'm I'm I'm happy with it either way. Indeed, and here's a little historical side note on husband killing poisons that used throughout the centuries, because a lot of times that was the only way to get out of a bad relationship. Yeah, you're in a crappy relationship. You have a bottle of this manna sitting around with a

little icon of st Nicholas on it. Maybe your husband has a cold, Maybe you slip in a little bit of poison in there and say, ah, you should really take this. I think it's going to cure you. This happened more than once with these vials. And actually there's a pretty big history of arsenic being used as a husband killer as well that we could go into, but

I just wanted to mention that in terms of St. Nicholas. Okay, well, if you, if you do send a bottle of man to us, please don't put any poison in it, or go ahead and put poison in it, because now I'm gonna be a little hesitant about drinking it. Yeah, all right, we're gonna take a quick break and when we come back more bones. Now, if you walk down the hall here of the hs W headquarters asso Harry Basement, you

will see another specimen. Yes, a very curious specimen, because the the skull is is elongated, kind of swollen looking, almost kind of a cone head looking skull. And you know, if you didn't know anybody, you might look at this and say, this is clearly some sort of non human hominid ancest here, some sort of weird cone head ape that predated human human civilization, or you might look at

the stars for anning for an explanation. Yeah, Child's deformed skull, later dubbed the star Child skull, was found in the early nineteen thirties in the arid region around Chihuahua. Now, at the time, little was known about Meso American civilizations or really any other sort of extenuating circumstances that might shape a skull in such an unusual manner. But this guy found the skull, looked at it and thought, hmm, this could be some sort of ancient alien civilization relic.

And people thought, hey, this is evidence here that that aliens are around, they exist. Yeah. Indeed, I mean if you if you look at enough skulls that that seem to be deformed, you can begin to pull out any

number of ideas about what's going on here. You you constantly see pictures of weird skulls throwing showing up on the internet, be it something that presumably has horns or it's or some sort of weird deformation that makes it appear less human and uh, and you'll see the explanations ranging from the you know, the the realistic and scientific all the way into the cryptozoological and uh and cosmic.

But when it comes to elongated skulls, these these tall skulls, these kind of cone head skulls, um you see these around the world. You see these popping up just about everywhere. And then and then you have to ask these questions, what's going on here? Who are these co netted individuals? Right? And I had mentioned meso American civilizations. Well, this is

where you see a lot of examples of this. And of course this would need to be done in childhood because the bones of the skull are much more malleable than and at birth the heads of babies were tightly wrapped with cloth in order to give their heads that kind of streamlined, elongated look. Of course, the question is why.

And archaeologist Christina Garcia Moreno, director of the research project that looked into this, said that quote, cranial deformation in Mesoamerican cultures was used to differentiate one social group from another and for ritual purposes. So this is also a largely esthetic thing. Yeah, I mean aesthetics is key here. The the idea that a larger skull, a taller skull, brings you closer to heaven or it gives you a higher social status, or that it means you're smarter, you

have a bigger brain. In there um and UH and so you you see variations of this in the in various cultures around the world. You see it in UH in Meso American cultures, you see it in African cultures. You see it UH in some of the Pacific island cultures. I mean, you even see it in in cultures where there's UH, there's there's there's not necessarily any evidence of existing or even recent UH skull deformation rituals. For instance,

you look in in Chinese culture. If you've ever been to a Chinese hotel or even like a Chinese home or Chinese restaurant, you may have seen UH statues of these three little men or sometimes there's three big men, depending on the size of the statues, of course, but their Foo, Lou, and Show Um and they each stand for a different cosmic entity UH. And you have food that represents good fortune, and he's seen in a scholars dress holding a baby. And then there's a Lou that

represents prosperity. But then there's this old man named Show and he's holding the peach of immortality and he has this giant head, and he's this old man with a giant head because he's old and he's wise, and he presumably spent that teen years in his mother's room before he was born. I'm sure that was a happy day for her. Yeah, well she should be proud. He's old and wise and uh, you know he he used to be venerated with a giant head that she gave birth to.

Now the January in March nineteen sixty seven issue of the French fashion magazine Official featured the Mangbatwo people of Congo and they practiced lapombo at the time. Again, this this head elongation, although the practice began dying out in the nineteen fifties with your arrival of more Europeans in westernization, but it's an example of it occurring um in recent history. And because of this distinctive look too, you'll often recognize

it in Magbatwo figures. In African art. You see depictions of the daughter of Pharaoh amatep the fourth, and you can note a definite elongated skull present in both both the art and in the Mamma fid remains uh of of both the Amatet the fourth and his son famous son Tuton, common king Tut and Uh. It really depends on who you ask regarding why those skulls are so shape. Some people will go straight up star child on you and say that they was because clearly, uh, the ancient

Egyptians were interbred with extraterrestrials. Others will say that there was probably some some sort of skull deformation ritual going on to give them that that appearance, or that it's just mere heredity. Um, you can sort of pick and shoes as far as the star talk goes. That skull um was actually tested the DNA hay and it was confirmed that it is in fact a human skull, and in fact it was a male child who likely suffered from hydrocephalus, which is a condition that leads to skull

elongation in deformation. So that one's out now in other people that actually still practice skull deformation to this day are the Vana two people. And Vana two people associate elongated heads with the folk hero and that who had higher intelligence, greater social status, and closer proximity to the world of the spirits. And as according to an excellent article from the Australian Museum that I'll link to, at

the bottom of this landing page for this episode. Now, this might seem kind of strange as practice, but really this is body modification, and if you look at it this way, it's not really any stranger than taking say your skin on your face and stretching it back so it's smooth over your bones, or filling your breast with you know, material to make them larger, your peanuts, or but for that matter, I mean, there's we've been modifying our bodies for a very long time. This is just

a different expression of it. Yeah, and more to the point, this is this is not in the same league as something say like foot binding. Uh. This is even the sometimes see this referred to as skull binding. Uh. There's no evidence to show that this is in any way painful for the child. It's generally done by you have to have something to wrap around the child's skull during that during that time period when the skull is still solidifying, and get into that in just a second. But but yeah,

there's no pain. And then once they have actually grown up, there's no there's no known detrimental aspect to having a different shaped skull. So it's you know, it's totally starbellied sneeches in terms of that it's an aesthetic of beauty in that culture, not exactly, and who's to say that

it's it's not beautiful. I mean, certainly you look at these images of you know, Egyptian queens and it looks pretty there, and that any weirder than anything else we do, uh in terms of of the actual ability the window in which we can manipulate that skull. Uh. This of course comes back to the fact that babies have soft heads because essentially because we decided to become bipeds. Uh,

well we didn't decide, it happened. And in doing so there was a certain amount there's a certain problems came up. It had to do with the size of the pelvis, and then the head has to squit has to fit through uh that uh, that pelvis uh and allow and then also you need to allow breathing room for a large brain to girl in there. So you have this this window where the bones in the in the in the skull don't completely fuse together and during that time you can change the shape uh and and therefore um

alter the finished form of the skull. Yeah. Indeed, and that's why you say it's it's not something that is harmful to the child or painful. Again, these bones are malleable at that point. Yeah, And I mean you see this too as as well with infants. Sometimes if infant sleeps too much in the same position, you'll get kind

of a flat part on the back of the skull. Um. Uh. And there was actually you actually had something called to loose deformities caused by infant headbands in pre twentieth century France, wrapping all the babies in these head bands and it just ends up changing the shape of the skull. Well, just even think about a child who's in their seat carrier a lot, a lot of times the back of

their heads will flatten. Um. I'm sure any parents out there who have experiences can say yes, and you know that does happen, and you have to try to shift their head around a lot when they're sleeping to try to even it out. So apparently in some cases, there there have been cases where doctors have used headgear to try and help readjust skulls that seem to be taking on a less desired form. But the research is kind

of on both sides to whether it actually makes a difference. Uh. To if you actually need to put a headgear on the child, or if you just basically make sure the child is in some different positions to even it out. Now, the next example we're going to cover is actually something that is that we have here is it's in um a jar from aldehyde. It's at Jonathan Strickland's desk. You won't let anybody move it, but we still can go Jonathan Strickland's desk all the way down here in the ossuary. Um.

You know, well, it's just one of his locations. He's got several satellite Well, I think he works well. I guess with the skeletons, you know he does. He needs his you know, quiet time, and I guess this provides it. It is quiet down here. But what we're talking about is a bizarre harry frog that has catlike extendable claws, except for they're not like claws. Their their bones. Indeed,

these bones really put any human bones to shame. And and really they're enough to make any I think any comic book fan also a little jealous, because this is we're talking wolverine s powers here. Um. The harry frog, the Trictobaractus robust us of Cameroon has this unique ubility ability to flex a few muscles and in doing so break sharp bits of bone off in its hind legs and drive them through the skin. So at this point, each toe has what looks like a thorn or acts

claw emerging from the skin. Uh. But it's but it's not. It's not a claw, it's not a tooth, it's not keraton, it's not enamel. It's good old broken bone. Uh, which is gonna jab. It's a amace with I mean, it's breaking its own bones and piercing its own flesh to make a weapon come out of it. It's amazing, Like we couldn't do it because we're talking about a compound fracture. If we get a compound fracture, it's it's horrific and

it needs it needs medical attention right away. Um, and you're certainly not going to go stabbing people in the neck with it, right But but biologists suspect that these bone claws with the with the hairy frog simply slide back into place and everything just regenerates. How cool is that.

Here's here are the specifics at rest. The claws of T. Robust Us are found on the hind feet only and they're they're nestled inside a mass of connective tissue, and a chunk of collagen forms a bomb between the claws short point and a small piece of bone at the

tip of the frog's toe. So the other end of the claw is connected to a muscle, and when the animal is attacked or threatened, it contracts this muscle which pulls the claw downwards, and then the sharp point then breaks away from the bony tip and cuts through the stone, the toepad emerging on the underside. Now to that well or can you? I don't know, because we have another specimen here, also in Jonathan Strickland's desk, which the desk is also made out of bones, just in case anyone

was wondering. By the way, we need to move the jar back into the little round circle that he drew underneath, or else he gets really upset this Uh. This second specimen is the Spanish ribbed newt and wind threatened, the slimy amphibian strange its ribs until they break through the skin and emerge like a row of sharp claws along its side. Uh. And then if this isn't enough, it also secretes a powerful toxin. UH. So you really don't

want to eat this guy. It like makes it, It makes itself appear to be like the boniest, most toxic piece of fish on the plate. You know, I'm not impressed. I've seen this at a Victoria's Secret Angel show. Yeah, you do see some underwear models that do look like their bones are about to just pop out. Um God, it's just do you ever imagine if you've had a leg cramp before, right where you're kind of stretching and

then suddenly cramps. And I wonder sometimes like if you just try to injure yourself through sheer flexing of muscles, you know, could what how much harm could you do to yourself? And then I think of this example and it makes me crampe. Not that not that you can do this, but I'm saying, here's an animal that just by thinking about it and straining it may not even thinking about it, depending on how you look at animal cognition, it just makes its bones pop out of its body. Well.

It used to be really impressed by the seats cucumber, which can take all of its internal organs and eject it from its anus at people, right, But this is I mean that it doesn't have anything on this guy, you know, and much like the hairy frog, this new can simply retract its ribs back into its body and then regenerate the damage tissue. Easy, peasy, let me squeezy,

So that you have it. A couple of of non human skeletal examples that are definitely worth looking at, definitely worth envying even if you if you look at your own skeletal system and it's it's relative inability to break out of your body and harm people. But as we discussed earlier that the fist itself is a is a highly evolved punching skeletal system, so you know, it all works out. Yeah, So this is kind of rethinking of bones, how we house them, how we use them, Uh, just

a whole little uh poo poo platter. Yeah, yeah, Yeah. The ossuary is pretty expansive down here. There are various other specimens we could have discussed, and you know, maybe we'll we'll return in the future and discuss more of them, but for now, it looks like we're out of time. I think I hear John, Do you hear Jo? Here is what? Okay, we need to get out of here. Yeah, before he finds us walk carefully because there's some bones littered on the floor. That wasn't us. That wasn't us. Okay,

we better get out of here, hey. In the meantime, be sure to check out stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's where we'll find all the articles that we've written, all the blog posts, all the podcast episodes, all the videos. Links out to our social media accounts. You name it, it's there. And if you'd like to drop us a letter, please do so. And you can email us at blow the Mind at how Stuff Work stuff for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com