Precocious

Some of history's most curious moments come in small packages.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcomed Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I
Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full
of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet

(00:27):
of Curiosities. Art is an ever evolving concept. From ancient
cave paintings to Egyptian hier glyphs and all the way
through Impressionism, Cubism and campbell soup cans. The art world
never stands still, but beyond the images themselves, how they're

(00:50):
made has also changed. Those cave paintings were done using
ground up minerals like ochre and charcoal. Artists like Rembrandt
and van Gogh worked in paints made of linseed oil
and pigments to achieve their signature looks. But in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries a different material was introduced to
the process, and by today's standards, its origin was highly

(01:11):
unusual and controversial. It all started with the ancient Greeks
and their use of a thing called bitumin. It was
a black, viscous substance that was utilized in various applications,
from construction to curing the common toothache. We also used
bitumen today, but mainly for paving roads and filling in potholes,
as bitumin is commonly known as asphalt to the Greeks, though,

(01:35):
it was a miracle substance typically found seeping from the
ground throughout Persia. One twelfth century physician, though, wrote a
lot about ancient Egypt and a substance that he mistakenly
believed was also bitumen. You see, he had seen the
blackened nature of the embalmed bodies there, and he thought
that they had been coated in it. In the event
the natural supply, ever grew scarce, he claimed the viable

(01:58):
substitute for bitumen could be harvested from these ancient Egyptian corpses.
In reality, that black substance on them was just the
embalming materials that had darkened over time, giving them their
unique coloring. Persians had their own word for bitumen, which
they called mum or mamma. This word was also found
in Arabic, and if it sounds familiar, that's because the

(02:20):
words specifically applied to the kind of bitumen that came
from Egyptian bodies. Eventually, mamma became the term we know
today mummy due to the widely held belief that bitumen
had medicinal properties. Though an extensive mummy trade was established
between Egypt and Europe, it grew quite big during the
sixteenth century, with imported mummies being ground up into powders

(02:43):
for various tinctures and the lixers. The use of mummies
in medicine all but died out in the late seventeen hundreds,
but many were still in circulation across Europe. Some were
collected by the wealthy, while others were desecrated for entertainment purposes.
Unwrapping parties even became popular, where mummified remains had their
shrouds and wrappings removed so that the bodies inside could

(03:06):
be examined by the gathered audience. But it was the
art world that found a new way to use an
old material, the ground up mummy. A powder that had
been used in various medical applications was now being mixed
in with oils and water colors to create a new
pigment known as mummy brown. And while mummy brown did
first appear during the sixteenth century, it really hit it big.

(03:28):
A few hundred years later, artists like Edward Burne Jones
and Martin Drolling used it in their paintings. Those who
preferred it enjoyed how it behaved against the canvas, but
as times changed, so did attitudes around the mummy trade.
For one, other artists and critics found the pigments origins
to be off putting. After all, trafficking in mummies was
a vulgar act that disrespected the dead. Burns Jones had

(03:52):
believed that the name was simply a descriptor and not
an indication of the contents within the tube. What a
fellow artist and member of his emily confirmed it was true,
and the realization offended Edwards so much he went and
buried his tube of mummy brown in his garden. Among
those who helped with the burial was his nephew, who
was visiting him for Christmas. Though he was a young

(04:14):
man at the time, he would go on to great
acclaim as a prominent writer in the nineteen and twenty
centuries that young man Rudyard Kipling. In addition to the
colors providence, the quality of the paint could also not
be guaranteed. Not all mummies were created equally, it seems,
and so while one tube of brown paint might be perfect,
another might be rendered unusable. By the twentieth century, mummy

(04:38):
brown was over, but mummy brown still exists today. The
only difference now is that it's made from different minerals
easily found in nature and not graves. Proof that sometimes
a curious history can also be a little bit colorful.

(05:07):
We don't realize it as it's happening, but our children
grow up right before our eyes. One moment their babies
depending on us for every diaper change and bottle feeding,
and the next moment they're getting married and starting families
of their own. And somewhere in between they grow, they
develop personalities and pick up things like mannerisms and beliefs
from the people around them, parents, teachers, siblings, friends. Everyone

(05:31):
contributes something to who they become. Like Madaline. She was
born Marie Madeleine Gera in seventy eight in a suburb
of Montreal, Canada. Her father, Francois, was a soldier who
arrived in town in sixteen sixty five to fight in
the Beaver Wars against the Iroquois people. Four years later,
he married Marie Perrault, and then moved to a plot

(05:53):
of land along the St. Lawrence River, and the couple
did well for themselves, with Francois becoming quite the landholder,
while Marie raised a dozen children, of which Madeleine was
the fourth oldest. Now, the Beaver Wars carried on in
some capacity for about a hundred years, with new battles
cropping up every now and then. The Iroquois fur trade

(06:13):
had been destroyed by the Algonquins and their French backers,
sparking a lengthy fight between the two sides. On one occasion,
Madeleine's mother even helped stave off an attack on the
fort where they lived, thanks to the help of four
other soldiers. But in six two, when she was only
fourteen years old, Madeleine was forced to step up to
the front lines. Both her mother and her father had

(06:34):
left town to attend to business and gather supplies. While
they were gone, the children stayed back at the fort
with several others. Meanwhile, the Iroquois had arrived in town,
looting and setting fire to people's homes. Despite the threat,
a few of the people from the fort set out
into the fields to do some work, and eight soldiers
followed for protection. Madeleine stayed close by, tending to the

(06:57):
cabbage garden, and that's when the Iroquois act, capturing the
men in the fields before heading toward the fort. Madeleine
ran back, chased by one of the Iroquois who got
close enough to grab the scarf around her shoulders. Thinking fast,
she untied it and darted inside the fourth shouting to
arms to arms. The small garrison inside wouldn't be enough

(07:18):
to fend off the incoming forces, but Madaline wasn't about
to give up. She picked up a musket and fired
shots from different points around the fort and told others
to do the same, and then she shot off a cannon,
a signal to other forts that they were under attack
and in need of reinforcements. Her goal was to make
as much noise as possible to fool the Iroquois into

(07:39):
thinking the fort was fully armed with soldiers at the ready,
and they bought it. They hid on the outskirts of
the trees and bushes, along with the settlers they had
taken prisoner. Not long after, a canoe was seen drifting
down the river toward them. On board was a family
by the last name of Fontaine. Someone had to go
and retrieve them before they too were taken captive, but

(08:00):
none of the soldiers were willing to leave the fort,
so fourteen year old Madeleine volunteered. She snuck out and
helped the family get back to safety. She and her
siblings and the others inside literally held down the fort
over the next eight days, and then on the ninth day,
Madeleine was greeted by a welcome sight. A group of
forty frenchmen had arrived from Montreal to help defend them.

(08:22):
She ordered the gate open and rushed out to greet them.
To their leader, Monsieur de la Monteree. She said, Sir,
I surrender my arms to you, and allowed him to
take command of the fort. They managed to run off
the attacking Iroquois as well as rescue the captured settlers,
just as her parents were returning home. For her service,

(08:42):
Madeleine received a pension for the rest of her life
bestowed upon her by none other than the King of
France himself, and a statue was erected in her honor
along the river bank where she risked her life to
help save the lives of others, lasting proof that heroes
come in all shapes and sizes, and I'll ages too.

(09:06):
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,

(09:29):
and you can learn all about it over at the
World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.