March 15, 2018 • 15 mins
From a dangerous island the Brazilian Navy refuses to let you visit (it's for your own good!), to a place where monkeys think they're training for the Kentucky Derby, Will and Mango are scouring the globe for water-locked lands and the incredible stories that come from them.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what mango? All right? So I want to tell
you about this game I've been reading about. It's a
game called Bob. Have you ever heard of this? It's
kind of a variation on rugby and it is pure chaos.
You've got to look this up. So it's played in Kirkwall, Scotland,
once on Christmas and once on New Year's and the
fields it's basically like any street in this tiny island town.
(00:21):
So how's that work? All right? So they take the
town's three hundred men and they split those three men
up into two teams. And it's done by heritage, so
either you're an uppie or a duney, and all based
on which clan you came from. I know you're following
along with this really well. And it's based on whether
your family came from up the road or down the
road from the town's cathedral. And the entire goal of
(00:44):
the game is for one team to bounce the ball
off the corner of a house on one tip of
the island, while the other team's goal is to throw
the ball in the bay on the other side of
the island, and whoever accomplishes their goal first wins. It's
that simple, And so the game is played in alleys
and streets and people get jammed up against buildings and walls,
(01:05):
and of course there are a ton of injuries from this.
So do they stop when someone gets hurt. No, no,
So their medics roving the you know, just to treat
the injuries if they see any, but you just keep playing.
People will line up on the streets to watch. But
basically there's just this giant scrum of three people and
it won't move for like twenty minutes or something, and
then suddenly the ball will slip out and then they'll
(01:27):
be chaos and somebody will run for a bit and
then another scrum and the game can take like half
a day before a single team will score. That's insane.
But basically there's a ton of pride on the line
and the losers have to hear about it, you know,
for the rest of the year if they lose, and
especially if they lose both of the matches. But you know,
on the plus side, I'm guessing there's a lot of
drinking and celebrating after the fact. It is rugby after all, right, well,
(01:51):
I mean, it is Scotland after all, And that's just
the first of nine little known stories we've collected from
remote islands. So let's dive in. Y Hey, their podcast listeners,
(02:19):
Welcome to part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as
always I'm joined by my good friend Manes Ticketer and
sitting behind that soundproof glass showing off his Gilligan Island
coloring book. Have you seen this thing, Mango? Yeah, it's crazy.
The skipper always gives gill Against such a hard time,
even in coloring book form. In the coloring books, it's
pretty crazy. Well, anyway, that's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. So, Mango,
(02:41):
I know today's theme is a little bit strange. Yeah,
So I was reading this interesting article in Wired this
week about how Charles Darwin thought that there was something
special about islands and how you know, because of their
isolation and their unique conditions, that the bio diversity on
islands is different from the mainland, right right, So you
find speech these and variations on animals you might not
(03:01):
find in other places, like the walking saucage insects we
talked about on a previous episode if you remember that. Yeah,
of course, tree lobsters, yeah, got those. But as I
was reading that article, I started wondering, like, are there
some fun strange stories that are also unique to remote islands?
And you know, things about being isolated that could lead
to funny anecdotes we hadn't heard before. So that's kind
(03:22):
of the angle on Today's nine Things, and I like that.
So I decided to kick it off with the Game
of Bob, which I think we can safely assume doesn't
get played anywhere in the else But I'm curious, what
do what do you have next? So? Have you ever
heard of Harold Hackett from Prince Edward Island? I think
you know the answer to that. I have not heard
of Harold Hacket. You know what's funny though, is like,
the only resident I can think of from Prince Edward Island.
(03:43):
You know who I'm gonna say is Anna Green Game. Yeah,
well she's probably a little more famous than Harold, but
it is close, I think. So harold story is great
because he was fishing on a little boat off the
island and he was bored. So he took this empty
pepsi bottle and used some electrical tape and he put
a message in that bottle, and the message was just
(04:05):
his name and address. But then three months later, he
got a note from a new pen pal and he
got him totally excited. And since then he's put out
over eight thousand messages and bottles and received over responses.
I mean, eight thousand is impressive, but actually that response
rate is what's unbelievable. Yeah, it's but what's crazier is
the depth of the friendships that's arisen from this. So,
(04:27):
like he always writes people back, but he's actually been
invited to travel around the world with some of these people,
and he gets like hundreds of Christmas cards every year.
They come from like South America and Africa. Couples have
driven up in motor homes from like South Carolina to
meet him. It's incredible. And he's just this like regular
tatted up Canadian dude who likes to fish. I'm curious though, like,
(04:48):
has he embraced this internet celebrity. No, he doesn't like
to travel, and uh, the only thing he loves to
do is like toss messages and bottles overboard and and
he just likes the letter but exclusively in Cranberry juice
bottles for someone like Yeah, so, so if you see
a bottle coming your way, don't get it unless it's
a cranberry juice bottle. But he's not on the net.
(05:08):
Actually he refuses to get a computer. So all does
he drink this cranberry juice? Do we know that or
where this all comes from? That's amazing. All right, Well,
I've actually also got a fact related to Princess. I
know you were talking about Prince Edward Island, but I'm
talking about a different prince. So did you know there's
a cargo cult on the island of Tanna and Vanawattu
that worships Prince Philip, like Prince Charles's dad, Philip the
(05:32):
One and Only. And it isn't that old of a
religion either. This Prince Philip movement only started in the
nineteen sixties and it's based on this prophecy that the
pale skin son of an ancient mountain god would travel
the seas and marry a rich and powerful woman, and
that he'd eventually returned to the mountain. And for some reason,
(05:52):
when they saw Prince Philip's portrait, they just felt the power.
He's just so powerful, you know, especially for someone with
really very little power power. But when he visited vanawa
To in nineteen seventy four, it only strengthened their faith.
As one chief said at the time, when he saw
Prince Philip approaching on a yacht, quote, I saw him
on deck in his white uniform, and I knew then
(06:15):
that he was the true Messiah. So does Philip even
know about this cult? Oh, he definitely does. I mean
they sent a nollnal to Buckingham Palace. That's an apparently
it's a very traditional club that you'd use for pig hunting.
You know, you should know this thing. And in return,
he sent a picture of himself holding the gift, you know,
the way through Messiah might hold his nonals. They actually
credit him for helping a black man become president in
(06:37):
the US. Basically, they think he's responsible for Obama. That's amazing. Okay,
So I'd love to go to Vanuatu and see these
altars to Prince Philip. But you know one place I
would never travel to is Snake Island, right because it's
called Snake Island. Yeah, and snakes are definitely not my thing.
But it isn't just me who avoids going there. The
(06:59):
Brazilian abe is actually placed a quarantine on the place
and you can't go unless you get a special permit.
And apparently there's some dispute about how snaky Snake Island
is like. Some people claim there are three to five
snakes every square meter. Some biologists actually think it's more
like one snake per square meter. But regardless of that,
what is definitely true is that the snakes there are
(07:19):
incredibly dangerous. There are golden lance head pit vipers, which
are actually responsible for more human deaths than any snake
in North or South America. And as one biologist told Smithsonian,
on the island, you're never more than three ft from death.
That is crazy. So there are somewhere in the neighborhood
of one to five snakes per square meter, and they're
(07:40):
called golden lance head pit vipers. I don't know how,
I've never heard of this place, but that is terrifying.
So do people ever go there? I mean they do
go there that they're actually used to be people stationed
there for a while. There used to be a lighthousekeeper there,
but it was deemed too unsafe for him and his family,
so and his family I have his family there. So
(08:01):
so anyway, that whole lighthouse thing has been automated since
the nineteen twenties. I believe, but there are scientists who
go there, and you know, the lencet is actually thrived
there because you know, there are no predators, at least
no predators on the ground, but there also isn't much
to eat, so the snake's got really good at climbing
trees and also killing these migratory birds. Yeah, so like
(08:22):
over the years, the venom just became stronger and stronger
and stronger to kill the birds faster. But this actually
ends up being useful for science. Apparently the venom has
all these promising properties that could actually lead to anti
cancer drugs. And actually all of this kind of reminds
me of barbarian days. Have you read that book. It's
like a surfing memoir, so it's really great, but but
(08:44):
the guy in it is is just reckless, and he's
reckless about chasing waves and surfing and going to like
the most remote places. And there's the story where he's
on this island I want to say it's in the
Pacific somewhere where they're all these like really venomous sea snakes.
They're like deadly poisonous, and he and his friend just
keep surfing in this area like without any regard for it,
and then on land the snake's actually come, but they're
(09:05):
so slow and dumb and awkward that you could just
pick them up and throw them back into the sea,
which is just terrifying to me. It is totally terrifying.
And now I can't wait. After we've tried to make
up for saying bad things about cats and having to
do a separate cat episode, now we're gonna hear from
all the snake lovers. We're gonna have to do an
episode about how much we love snakes. Anyway, I'm gonna
go in a very different direction from Snake Island. There
(09:28):
was actually this pretty amazing discovery that took place recently
on the Danger Islands, which are these islands that are
located off the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, and
it's really hard to get to because of all the
thick sea ice that's there. But recently scientists found this
super colony of a daily penguins and and it's great
because people were worried that these penguins were dying off,
but it turns out that over seven hundred and fifty
(09:50):
thousand of these birds have just been quietly thriving. Man
and that's amazing. I really like that and definitely like
it better than any story about snakes. But so here's
kind of a cute story I found. It's from um On, Shetland,
which isn't super remote, but it is the northernmost inhabited
place in the UK. Apparently it's two d twelve miles
from the Scottish mainland. And perhaps my favorite thing there
(10:12):
is this little bus stop called Bobby's Bus Shelter. So basically,
years ago, this six year old named Bobby McAuley and
two of his pals would catch the bus in this
little rusting shelter. It was like covered, but you know,
it was ramshackle, and between all the wind and heavy rain,
it eventually had to get taken down. And so little
Bobby decided to write to the local newspaper and asked
(10:34):
the town for a new bus shelter, and the paper
actually took up his cause like they've petitioned the city council,
and eventually Bobby and his school friends got their shelter.
But then it's almost like out of a fairy tale,
because like these mysterious items started getting donated. First, some
proper chairs and a sofa showed up, and then carpeting,
and then a microwave and the telephone and curtains and
(10:57):
and eventually everyone in the town gone back. And and
there's actually a special team that maintains it now and
it gets like these themed decorations every once in a while.
So it's been turned into like this art exhibit or
like a celebration of space travel and tall ships and
underwater life. It was even done up hansibly for the
Queen's Jubilee. I mean, it's amazing if you think about.
(11:17):
It's all thanks to this little bobby. That's right, So
what do you have next? All right, let me see
what I want to talk about next. So this one's
actually a little bit crazy. But had you heard about
someone trying to cut the ear off of one of
those Easter Island heads like they tried to ven go it.
They totally tried to ven go And this was back
in two thousand and eight. There was a finished tourist
there and he was found on a beach just trying
(11:38):
to hack this ear off of one of the statues.
And so some islander saw him fleeing the scene with
a piece of the ear with him. That's so stupid,
like it does remind me though of something I've read about,
like early Plymouth rock that they weren't very protective of
the rocks, so people would actually chisel bits off of
it to take it home. But well, what happened to
this guy? I guess he was identified by a tattoos,
(12:00):
I think. But the guy issued a public apology and
he was fine seventeen thousand dollars, which really is pretty
light considering this guy gone to prison for years. That's crazy. Also,
I mean, he did give us a fun game to
play the next time we're on Easter Island, like which
one of these heads isn't like the others? You know,
we've got two more island facts to cover before we
pick a winner, so let's take a quick break. Welcome
(12:35):
back to Part time Genius. All right, Mango, what's your
last island fact? So I had a really hard time
picking this. I was thinking about like Rikers Island fact
I read about like how Salvador Dolly did a painting
for the prisoners there, or you know about those grandmothers
in Korea who are total badasses, And yeah, I love
(12:55):
that story about how like they said all their daughters
and granddaughters to college it's an amazing me. But you know,
the thing is, I always go back to animal facts.
And did you know there's a Japanese island called Yakushima
where the monkeys ride the deer around for transportation. This
is also one of those animal facts that isn't true?
(13:15):
Is this right? No? So I looked it up and
I didn't believe it at first. I thought it was
like maybe like a tourist that caught this one off
photo and and that just stormed the internet. Remember, But um,
but it's actually true. They're like scientists who study this,
and it's not crazy distances that they're riding them around for.
It's like they'll just hop on them to go like
(13:36):
from a nearby place to another nearby place. But apparently
it is a symbiotic relationship, like the deer eat the
seeds and fruit that the monkeys will drop, and the
monkeys pay for the rides by grooming the ticks and
lights off the deer. It's it's kind of a win win.
And you know, apparently this sort of monkey dear relation
only happens on this one island. That's a pretty good fact, Mango,
And actually a lot of days I would say it
(13:58):
maybe the best fact, but actually I've got one that
I've been saving. So in the Canary Islands, in this
area called Lagomero, the people that have developed a language
made entirely of whistling. It's called Silbo Gomero. So I'm
a little skeptical of like a whistling language is just
like signals to one another or um, you know about
like warning and danger calls and stuff like that. Now
(14:19):
this is actually a full fledged language. You should actually
look this up because it's pretty fascinating. It's it's basically
the Spanish language whistled, so the structure and the words
they're all derived from Spanish. But linguists have actually identified
the consonants and the vowel sounds with it, so you know,
you can actually write it out as Spanish. That's pretty remarkable.
And and so do do kids on this island speaking?
(14:40):
Or is it a dying language? Actually it's a little
bit of both. You know. UNESCO has added it to
its list of the Masterpieces of Humanity. And in the
fifties people realized that silbo was dying out. But now
it's actually being taught in schools. And oddly though, it
isn't the only whistling language, their versions of Turkish and
Greek and I think French that that are all Frans
(15:00):
pose through this whistling as well. Well, that's pretty amazing.
And and between that and your rugby fact, I think
you have to take home today's trophy, which is kind
of a streak for you. Yeah, I think I've won
a few in a row here, you know. It's also impressive.
I think Tristan has finished most of the coloring book over.
It's really uh well, thank you guys for listening today.
(15:21):
I'm sure we forgot some great facts about islands. We'd
love to hear those from you. Please email us at
part Time Genius at how stuff works dot com or
hit us up fact hot Line one eight four four
pt Genius. You can always reach us on Facebook or Twitter.
We'll be back with a full length episode tomorrow
Guess what mango? All right? So I want to tell
you about this game I've been reading about. It's a
game called Bob. Have you ever heard of this? It's
kind of a variation on rugby and it is pure chaos.
You've got to look this up. So it's played in Kirkwall, Scotland,
once on Christmas and once on New Year's and the
fields it's basically like any street in this tiny island town.
(00:21):
So how's that work? All right? So they take the
town's three hundred men and they split those three men
up into two teams. And it's done by heritage, so
either you're an uppie or a duney, and all based
on which clan you came from. I know you're following
along with this really well. And it's based on whether
your family came from up the road or down the
road from the town's cathedral. And the entire goal of
(00:44):
the game is for one team to bounce the ball
off the corner of a house on one tip of
the island, while the other team's goal is to throw
the ball in the bay on the other side of
the island, and whoever accomplishes their goal first wins. It's
that simple, And so the game is played in alleys
and streets and people get jammed up against buildings and walls,
(01:05):
and of course there are a ton of injuries from this.
So do they stop when someone gets hurt. No, no,
So their medics roving the you know, just to treat
the injuries if they see any, but you just keep playing.
People will line up on the streets to watch. But
basically there's just this giant scrum of three people and
it won't move for like twenty minutes or something, and
then suddenly the ball will slip out and then they'll
(01:27):
be chaos and somebody will run for a bit and
then another scrum and the game can take like half
a day before a single team will score. That's insane.
But basically there's a ton of pride on the line
and the losers have to hear about it, you know,
for the rest of the year if they lose, and
especially if they lose both of the matches. But you know,
on the plus side, I'm guessing there's a lot of
drinking and celebrating after the fact. It is rugby after all, right, well,
(01:51):
I mean, it is Scotland after all, And that's just
the first of nine little known stories we've collected from
remote islands. So let's dive in. Y Hey, their podcast listeners,
(02:19):
Welcome to part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as
always I'm joined by my good friend Manes Ticketer and
sitting behind that soundproof glass showing off his Gilligan Island
coloring book. Have you seen this thing, Mango? Yeah, it's crazy.
The skipper always gives gill Against such a hard time,
even in coloring book form. In the coloring books, it's
pretty crazy. Well, anyway, that's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. So, Mango,
(02:41):
I know today's theme is a little bit strange. Yeah,
So I was reading this interesting article in Wired this
week about how Charles Darwin thought that there was something
special about islands and how you know, because of their
isolation and their unique conditions, that the bio diversity on
islands is different from the mainland, right right, So you
find speech these and variations on animals you might not
(03:01):
find in other places, like the walking saucage insects we
talked about on a previous episode if you remember that. Yeah,
of course, tree lobsters, yeah, got those. But as I
was reading that article, I started wondering, like, are there
some fun strange stories that are also unique to remote islands?
And you know, things about being isolated that could lead
to funny anecdotes we hadn't heard before. So that's kind
(03:22):
of the angle on Today's nine Things, and I like that.
So I decided to kick it off with the Game
of Bob, which I think we can safely assume doesn't
get played anywhere in the else But I'm curious, what
do what do you have next? So? Have you ever
heard of Harold Hackett from Prince Edward Island? I think
you know the answer to that. I have not heard
of Harold Hacket. You know what's funny though, is like,
the only resident I can think of from Prince Edward Island.
(03:43):
You know who I'm gonna say is Anna Green Game. Yeah,
well she's probably a little more famous than Harold, but
it is close, I think. So harold story is great
because he was fishing on a little boat off the
island and he was bored. So he took this empty
pepsi bottle and used some electrical tape and he put
a message in that bottle, and the message was just
(04:05):
his name and address. But then three months later, he
got a note from a new pen pal and he
got him totally excited. And since then he's put out
over eight thousand messages and bottles and received over responses.
I mean, eight thousand is impressive, but actually that response
rate is what's unbelievable. Yeah, it's but what's crazier is
the depth of the friendships that's arisen from this. So,
(04:27):
like he always writes people back, but he's actually been
invited to travel around the world with some of these people,
and he gets like hundreds of Christmas cards every year.
They come from like South America and Africa. Couples have
driven up in motor homes from like South Carolina to
meet him. It's incredible. And he's just this like regular
tatted up Canadian dude who likes to fish. I'm curious though, like,
(04:48):
has he embraced this internet celebrity. No, he doesn't like
to travel, and uh, the only thing he loves to
do is like toss messages and bottles overboard and and
he just likes the letter but exclusively in Cranberry juice
bottles for someone like Yeah, so, so if you see
a bottle coming your way, don't get it unless it's
a cranberry juice bottle. But he's not on the net.
(05:08):
Actually he refuses to get a computer. So all does
he drink this cranberry juice? Do we know that or
where this all comes from? That's amazing. All right, Well,
I've actually also got a fact related to Princess. I
know you were talking about Prince Edward Island, but I'm
talking about a different prince. So did you know there's
a cargo cult on the island of Tanna and Vanawattu
that worships Prince Philip, like Prince Charles's dad, Philip the
(05:32):
One and Only. And it isn't that old of a
religion either. This Prince Philip movement only started in the
nineteen sixties and it's based on this prophecy that the
pale skin son of an ancient mountain god would travel
the seas and marry a rich and powerful woman, and
that he'd eventually returned to the mountain. And for some reason,
(05:52):
when they saw Prince Philip's portrait, they just felt the power.
He's just so powerful, you know, especially for someone with
really very little power power. But when he visited vanawa
To in nineteen seventy four, it only strengthened their faith.
As one chief said at the time, when he saw
Prince Philip approaching on a yacht, quote, I saw him
on deck in his white uniform, and I knew then
(06:15):
that he was the true Messiah. So does Philip even
know about this cult? Oh, he definitely does. I mean
they sent a nollnal to Buckingham Palace. That's an apparently
it's a very traditional club that you'd use for pig hunting.
You know, you should know this thing. And in return,
he sent a picture of himself holding the gift, you know,
the way through Messiah might hold his nonals. They actually
credit him for helping a black man become president in
(06:37):
the US. Basically, they think he's responsible for Obama. That's amazing. Okay,
So I'd love to go to Vanuatu and see these
altars to Prince Philip. But you know one place I
would never travel to is Snake Island, right because it's
called Snake Island. Yeah, and snakes are definitely not my thing.
But it isn't just me who avoids going there. The
(06:59):
Brazilian abe is actually placed a quarantine on the place
and you can't go unless you get a special permit.
And apparently there's some dispute about how snaky Snake Island
is like. Some people claim there are three to five
snakes every square meter. Some biologists actually think it's more
like one snake per square meter. But regardless of that,
what is definitely true is that the snakes there are
(07:19):
incredibly dangerous. There are golden lance head pit vipers, which
are actually responsible for more human deaths than any snake
in North or South America. And as one biologist told Smithsonian,
on the island, you're never more than three ft from death.
That is crazy. So there are somewhere in the neighborhood
of one to five snakes per square meter, and they're
(07:40):
called golden lance head pit vipers. I don't know how,
I've never heard of this place, but that is terrifying.
So do people ever go there? I mean they do
go there that they're actually used to be people stationed
there for a while. There used to be a lighthousekeeper there,
but it was deemed too unsafe for him and his family,
so and his family I have his family there. So
(08:01):
so anyway, that whole lighthouse thing has been automated since
the nineteen twenties. I believe, but there are scientists who
go there, and you know, the lencet is actually thrived
there because you know, there are no predators, at least
no predators on the ground, but there also isn't much
to eat, so the snake's got really good at climbing
trees and also killing these migratory birds. Yeah, so like
(08:22):
over the years, the venom just became stronger and stronger
and stronger to kill the birds faster. But this actually
ends up being useful for science. Apparently the venom has
all these promising properties that could actually lead to anti
cancer drugs. And actually all of this kind of reminds
me of barbarian days. Have you read that book. It's
like a surfing memoir, so it's really great, but but
(08:44):
the guy in it is is just reckless, and he's
reckless about chasing waves and surfing and going to like
the most remote places. And there's the story where he's
on this island I want to say it's in the
Pacific somewhere where they're all these like really venomous sea snakes.
They're like deadly poisonous, and he and his friend just
keep surfing in this area like without any regard for it,
and then on land the snake's actually come, but they're
(09:05):
so slow and dumb and awkward that you could just
pick them up and throw them back into the sea,
which is just terrifying to me. It is totally terrifying.
And now I can't wait. After we've tried to make
up for saying bad things about cats and having to
do a separate cat episode, now we're gonna hear from
all the snake lovers. We're gonna have to do an
episode about how much we love snakes. Anyway, I'm gonna
go in a very different direction from Snake Island. There
(09:28):
was actually this pretty amazing discovery that took place recently
on the Danger Islands, which are these islands that are
located off the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, and
it's really hard to get to because of all the
thick sea ice that's there. But recently scientists found this
super colony of a daily penguins and and it's great
because people were worried that these penguins were dying off,
but it turns out that over seven hundred and fifty
(09:50):
thousand of these birds have just been quietly thriving. Man
and that's amazing. I really like that and definitely like
it better than any story about snakes. But so here's
kind of a cute story I found. It's from um On, Shetland,
which isn't super remote, but it is the northernmost inhabited
place in the UK. Apparently it's two d twelve miles
from the Scottish mainland. And perhaps my favorite thing there
(10:12):
is this little bus stop called Bobby's Bus Shelter. So basically,
years ago, this six year old named Bobby McAuley and
two of his pals would catch the bus in this
little rusting shelter. It was like covered, but you know,
it was ramshackle, and between all the wind and heavy rain,
it eventually had to get taken down. And so little
Bobby decided to write to the local newspaper and asked
(10:34):
the town for a new bus shelter, and the paper
actually took up his cause like they've petitioned the city council,
and eventually Bobby and his school friends got their shelter.
But then it's almost like out of a fairy tale,
because like these mysterious items started getting donated. First, some
proper chairs and a sofa showed up, and then carpeting,
and then a microwave and the telephone and curtains and
(10:57):
and eventually everyone in the town gone back. And and
there's actually a special team that maintains it now and
it gets like these themed decorations every once in a while.
So it's been turned into like this art exhibit or
like a celebration of space travel and tall ships and
underwater life. It was even done up hansibly for the
Queen's Jubilee. I mean, it's amazing if you think about.
(11:17):
It's all thanks to this little bobby. That's right, So
what do you have next? All right, let me see
what I want to talk about next. So this one's
actually a little bit crazy. But had you heard about
someone trying to cut the ear off of one of
those Easter Island heads like they tried to ven go it.
They totally tried to ven go And this was back
in two thousand and eight. There was a finished tourist
there and he was found on a beach just trying
(11:38):
to hack this ear off of one of the statues.
And so some islander saw him fleeing the scene with
a piece of the ear with him. That's so stupid,
like it does remind me though of something I've read about,
like early Plymouth rock that they weren't very protective of
the rocks, so people would actually chisel bits off of
it to take it home. But well, what happened to
this guy? I guess he was identified by a tattoos,
(12:00):
I think. But the guy issued a public apology and
he was fine seventeen thousand dollars, which really is pretty
light considering this guy gone to prison for years. That's crazy. Also,
I mean, he did give us a fun game to
play the next time we're on Easter Island, like which
one of these heads isn't like the others? You know,
we've got two more island facts to cover before we
pick a winner, so let's take a quick break. Welcome
(12:35):
back to Part time Genius. All right, Mango, what's your
last island fact? So I had a really hard time
picking this. I was thinking about like Rikers Island fact
I read about like how Salvador Dolly did a painting
for the prisoners there, or you know about those grandmothers
in Korea who are total badasses, And yeah, I love
(12:55):
that story about how like they said all their daughters
and granddaughters to college it's an amazing me. But you know,
the thing is, I always go back to animal facts.
And did you know there's a Japanese island called Yakushima
where the monkeys ride the deer around for transportation. This
is also one of those animal facts that isn't true?
(13:15):
Is this right? No? So I looked it up and
I didn't believe it at first. I thought it was
like maybe like a tourist that caught this one off
photo and and that just stormed the internet. Remember, But um,
but it's actually true. They're like scientists who study this,
and it's not crazy distances that they're riding them around for.
It's like they'll just hop on them to go like
(13:36):
from a nearby place to another nearby place. But apparently
it is a symbiotic relationship, like the deer eat the
seeds and fruit that the monkeys will drop, and the
monkeys pay for the rides by grooming the ticks and
lights off the deer. It's it's kind of a win win.
And you know, apparently this sort of monkey dear relation
only happens on this one island. That's a pretty good fact, Mango,
And actually a lot of days I would say it
(13:58):
maybe the best fact, but actually I've got one that
I've been saving. So in the Canary Islands, in this
area called Lagomero, the people that have developed a language
made entirely of whistling. It's called Silbo Gomero. So I'm
a little skeptical of like a whistling language is just
like signals to one another or um, you know about
like warning and danger calls and stuff like that. Now
(14:19):
this is actually a full fledged language. You should actually
look this up because it's pretty fascinating. It's it's basically
the Spanish language whistled, so the structure and the words
they're all derived from Spanish. But linguists have actually identified
the consonants and the vowel sounds with it, so you know,
you can actually write it out as Spanish. That's pretty remarkable.
And and so do do kids on this island speaking?
(14:40):
Or is it a dying language? Actually it's a little
bit of both. You know. UNESCO has added it to
its list of the Masterpieces of Humanity. And in the
fifties people realized that silbo was dying out. But now
it's actually being taught in schools. And oddly though, it
isn't the only whistling language, their versions of Turkish and
Greek and I think French that that are all Frans
(15:00):
pose through this whistling as well. Well, that's pretty amazing.
And and between that and your rugby fact, I think
you have to take home today's trophy, which is kind
of a streak for you. Yeah, I think I've won
a few in a row here, you know. It's also impressive.
I think Tristan has finished most of the coloring book over.
It's really uh well, thank you guys for listening today.
(15:21):
I'm sure we forgot some great facts about islands. We'd
love to hear those from you. Please email us at
part Time Genius at how stuff works dot com or
hit us up fact hot Line one eight four four
pt Genius. You can always reach us on Facebook or Twitter.
We'll be back with a full length episode tomorrow
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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