May 15, 2018 • 48 mins
Like many ancient cultures, the civilizations of Mesoamerica had a vast and rich history of unique cultural practices, spiritual beliefs and ceremonies, some of which may seem bizarre to people in the modern day. In this episode, Ben and Noel examine a common practice from ancient Mayan culture: the ritual alcohol enema.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Yea a tiny bit of trivia to begin today's episode,
Friends and neighbors, fellow ridiculous historians. Once upon a time,
(00:33):
I Ben Bolin lived in Guatemala. Ben, you always play
your tales of adventure and Guatemala very close to the
vest I'm hoping today that will change. My name is Noel,
and this is ridiculous history. Why are we talking about Guatemalaban.
I'm so glad you asked, Noel, we're talking about Guatemala
(00:55):
today because it leads us into a very strange topic us,
one that we think you might rightly call ridiculous. Our
super producer Casey Pegram certainly did off air earlier. He chuckled, yeah,
which we took as very high praise. So when I
(01:15):
was living in Guatemala, one of the things that constantly
astounded me was the wealth of ancient culture there, especially
as you go up into the northern part of the
country Paton h Then you will see all these amazing
ruins that have was stood the test of time pretty
(01:36):
well and are currently protected by the government, which is
a good thing. And it inspired in me this interest
in uh Mayan culture, Mesoamerican culture, but Maya in particular.
And the reason I was so inspired by this is
because I was I was living in town called j
La cat Altonango, and there's still a lot of my
(02:00):
influence there. I remember learning Spanish well enough to get
by in the day, and then people would switch to
teach a the other language they spoke. I did not
know that that was a thing until we started researching
this topic today. Um Man, should we should we let
the cat of the bag? We can let it, let
it roll around, just to say good word, because I
(02:21):
would make sure people know that we are we are
being respectful with this. It's a very different thing for
both of us. Okay, Ben, you're really doubling down on this.
It's just I think it's just one sentence we needed
to say it. There is such a wealth of cultural practice,
a lot of which might seem strange to many of
us in the modern day. And recently, Noel, with the
(02:43):
help of our pal Christopher Hasciotaes, we discovered a ritual
that we had never heard of, right, I mean, you
hadn't heard of this in this contect. I had not
heard of it in this context. Um What I would
like you to do, Ben is is give me a
list of three, because, as we decided, a list must
be three minimum. Well that's the bare bones, the the
(03:04):
the barrier of entry to a list there we go
is three. So give me three cultural um oddities that
you found in your time in Guatemala, ending with the
one that is today's episode that you only found out
about just recently. Okay, yes, I'll play these reindeer games.
So one people wouldn't snap their fingers the way that
(03:26):
you and I do like that. What you do is,
and imagine this with us listeners, you take your thumb
and your middle finger and you put them together so
the fingertips touch, and then you shake your hand. I
can do it with my left hand, and you make
a snapping noise. It's tough. You make a snapping noise
with your pointer finger against your middle finger. That sounds
(03:46):
like that would wear out your wrists. Yeah, agreed. I
still never quite mastered the trick too. And this is
one of my favorite things. All those old bluebird school
buses that you know, fairy kids back and forth to
school the States. When they were retired, they move outside
the United States down south and they become what are
known as chicken busses and there a mode of transit.
(04:09):
If you get a second look them up on Google
that they're amazing. You would love these in particular and old.
They have a lot of psychedelic colors. Uh, there are
these amazing mods and the drivers will take these things
anywhere around volcanoes, sort of like a crazy, grateful dead bus.
And of course number three nol we just found out about.
(04:29):
I'm gonna give the honor to you, my friend. Yeah,
I don't know. This is sort of a hollow setup
that I have envisioned, but I mainly just wanted to
hear some of the trivia that you had from your
time there. But we'll get into more. The third one
in the topic of the day's episode is that back
in the days of these Mesoamerican indigenous tribes, the my
other income of the Aztec, the Toltec, the ol Ma.
(04:49):
We'll get into more of those. Uh, there was a
pretty heavy focus on getting utterly smashed on everything from
fermented plants to psychedelic mushrooms. Um, all in the service
of opening up your mind to the spirit world in
kind of a shamanistic way. Yeah. But the one that
(05:11):
we didn't really know about this is all kind of
on the nose is that they did this thing where
they gave themselves and potentially each other ritualistic alcohol animals.
That is true. We will restate this so that you
know you are not mishearing this thing instead a Freudian
slip of your ear ritual alcohol enemas, ritualistic alcohol animas.
(05:35):
Because you see, when you are exploring the material crafts
left behind by the civilization, you will see a lot
of depictions on on the pottery right or on the
walls of people doing various things, stories from the mythology
of the time, as well as daily life commemorations of
(05:55):
the lives of noted figures glyphs right, yeah, glyphs. And
you will also see a ton of what what are
definitively believed to be enemous scenes like you just described
nol and they're on the Mayan pottery. Experts agree that
these undoubtedly represent that like these are not metaphors, they
(06:18):
undoubtedly represent a literal activity. And for a while this
was controversial because it's sort of, um, it's sort of
undermined the image that a lot of people had of
the Mayans as a very contemplative philosophical people. Yeah, even stoic.
They couldn't. They couldn't quite square that with the idea
(06:39):
of indulging in ritual acts of ecstasy. There were also
displays of characters vomiting. That's right. Then. In an article
called Blood, Water, Vomit, and Wine Um, author Lucia Henderson
discusses the importance of these various fermented drinks um that
(07:01):
were used in some of these ceremonies, one of them
being something called pulque, Yes, pulque and you can find
this article online in the Mesoamerican Voices Journal. Polka is
an alcoholic beverage that is made by fermenting the sap
of an agave plant, specifically a mague, not magua. Be careful,
(07:24):
not a gremlin's reference. Uh m, a g u e y.
And you may be familiar with agave being used in
other alcoholic beverages, right even in the modern day, so
we know that this was widespread in in many different forms.
It's almost more of an umbrella term at times. But
(07:45):
uh no, could you tell us a little bit about
polk and what it is and what's in it? I
know honey is associated with it. Yeah, so pul ku um.
It was actually also called act um in the waddle,
which is the Aztec language um. And it's, like you said,
made from the sap of this plant um. But they
actually have to cut into the heart of the plant,
(08:05):
which is the part that you I believe the word
was mague. Yeah, exactly. But the thing is it actually
has pretty low alcohol content um, ranging from two to
eight percent. According to an article Tequila, Mescal and Pulque
by Suzanne Barbeza from Trips Savvy, Um, it's got a
really good rundown of the differences because they are all
(08:27):
made from agave. But the difference with polk is that
it's made from that heart, kind of like a heart
of palm or like an ARTI choke hard or But
it's a pretty low alcohol content. So it kind of
makes sense maybe that in order to get wasted on
it enough to open your mind up to this kind
of other dimension, you might need to absorb it a
(08:50):
little quicker. That's right. The drink had its own goddess.
It was very common in the culture. It featured in
tales of Mesoamerican mythology, and as you said, Noel, it
was draw in moderation on a daily basis. But for
these important religious festivals, you know, weddings, fertility rights, ceremonies
of that nature. Who has served in more copious amounts
(09:12):
and to really get the bang for their buck. They
administered it directly correctly. And we're you know, we're adults.
We can say directly without giggling. I mean, we can
at least make a game out of not giggling and
looking each other directly in the eyes while we say correctly.
I'm good, I'm golden, good, great, great, how are you?
(09:33):
I'm great. Let's go on, let's move on with So
how did they administer this? You talked about finding those artifacts, right,
the clay pots and all of that. Another type of
artifact that they found a lot of this is coming
from a study by the way um from the journal
Neuralgia called Hallucinogenic Drugs and Pre Columbian meso American Cultures
by F. J. Caro ar Tall And one of the
(09:56):
bits of evidence outside of the depictions of these ritual
enemas um on these pieces of pottery, were the actual
implements used to shoot that stuff up there um. They
were syringes. This stuff was administered with syringes made from
gourds and clay. And if you look at one of
(10:19):
the figures in the study, there is a depiction of
one of these mind ritual enemas, and it's a gentleman,
uh laying what do you call it legs akimbo I guess,
sort of reclining and displayed. There you go. And then
you got a priest or some kind of easy seems
to be wearing a different garb um and he is
reaching down um at him with this thing that looks
(10:41):
kind of like alot, but it's actually clearly a gourd
and it's got, you know, the big bulb at the bottom.
It was obviously full of pole quay or any of
the other similar related beverages exactly of the of the region.
And it looks like he's getting ready to to give
give give him a good squirt. Yeah, he's gonna have
a rager right, Well, apparently so, and we need to
(11:02):
backtrack just to touch We sort of started the episode
off by saying that a lot of this was done
in service of getting into a trance like state, because
the purpose was to achieve enlightenment. We talked about this
cultures as being the meso American cultures are being perceived
as more stoic. And this doesn't necessarily entirely fly in
(11:24):
the face of that, because they're not doing this just
around you know, their daily goings on. This is all
in these We call it ritualistic for a reason. It
was to open up their minds to achieve this enlightenment
um get into a state of ecstasy and almost like
an inner peace, and to potentially achieve hallucinations and sort
(11:46):
of a vision questy way and being able to commune
with the gods. Yeah, that's that's the idea. It's removing
some of the barriers of perception that would exist in
normal data day life. So what we're emphasizing here is
that when people were doing it, it wasn't to just
(12:07):
party hardy without some sort of larger plan here. Uh.
We also, in addition to the tools or the implements
that you mentioned, all the gourds and syringes, we also
found these thin hollow bones. We know that there was
a practice in some similar cultures where shamans would use
(12:31):
a deer bladder and maybe hollowed out femur bone to
pump a substance through the rectum into into the body.
And there were some although you know, this thing is
rife for some crass humor. There were some definite medical advantages.
It doesn't touch your stomach. It doesn't touch your stomach,
and it doesn't touch your liver. Yes, and the anus
(12:55):
is full of very sensitive vascular tissue that highly highly absorptive. Yeah. Yeah,
And since there's another point with the liver thing that's
really important and I'm so glad you brought this up.
The liver would break down hallucinogenic elements. So administering these
substances this way, to your point, gives you much more
(13:20):
bang for your buck inebriation or hallucination wise. Yeah, no,
it's true. And um, I you know, I wonder if
the the location of injection was less important than just
the fact that it was a more efficient way of
achieving that state, especially with alcohol that was relatively lower
(13:41):
in potency. Um. We we actually skip. The earliest form
of of this of intoxicating liquors that they use, it
was something called bal chay that's made by infusing um
the bark, some sort of broken down version of the
bark from a tree called the longco carpus uh angus stylus,
and then they mix that with honey. This particular kind
(14:04):
of honey that's made by bees that have fed on
a morning glory derivative that is very high in something
called ergine, which is very closely related to a little
something called l S. D Ergine is li sergic acid
A mind and um. It also can be lisergic acid
(14:25):
uh life surgeon mind. So I think it's a very
close molecular connection between that and life sergic acid diethylamide,
which is the we know about from the you know,
from the Grateful Dead busses earlier in the episode, or
from fish earlier in Vermont. It's true. But here's the thing.
They would, you know, a lot of times when they
were doing these ritual enemas, they would add other psychedelic substances,
(14:49):
psychotropic substances and mix them into kind of a cocktail.
And then that's how they would achieve the heights of
um openness. Tobacco for an since water lilies, those all
went in there. And you know the thing about pul
k specifically is that it had an extremely short shelf life,
(15:10):
so these other alternatives could exist concurrently, but they were
when we talked about these ritual enemies. Whatever the substance was,
and whatever the specific cocktail mix was, it had the
same goal, which was again to achieve this enlightenment. And
I don't know about you know, but I was startled
(15:31):
by how much research had been conducted on this. You know.
It hit me when I was thinking back on search
history and whatever Big Brother would see us looking through
that for some time, my search history will be riddled
with things like Brian Strauss and Justin Cares article notes
(15:53):
on the May envision quest by enema and then of
course blood water, vomit and wine. Uh. We found a
comprehensive breakdown to your point about the specific ingredients in
these enemas. We found a comprehensive breakdown of it by
a guy named Peter A g M. Dismet ritual enemas
and snuffs in the America. Snuffs being things that you
(16:16):
would insult fate like um um cocaine, for example, for
any number of um powders that could be ground down
from plant matter and rather than ingesting it orally, you
sniff it up your nose. Yeah exactly. And you know
what I'd like to make insulfate our word of the day,
a pewee thing um did we mention the fact that
(16:38):
this has been going on as far back as twelve
hundred to four hundred b c. With the all Mac people.
We have not, and it's important that we do, because
we mentioned the phrase polk and the phrase ma being
and being thrown around, but we didn't mention the actual
earliest instances of this practice. And I believe you are
(17:01):
Bellevio are correct, so it is the old Here's a
good detail too. Because the alcohol content and these substances
were so low um they would inject them um rectally
and it would often they would get so intoxicated that
they would vomit. And there was part of the ritual,
(17:23):
particular ritual where their vomit would be collected in bags
that would then be hung around their necks. And this
was a way also of publicly displaying your completion of
our participation in this ritual. And in the article that
Straws and Care worked on, they gave us a little
bit of background as far as the transportation of this
(17:47):
stuff goes. Here's a quotation. The enemy substance they say
may have been transported in liquid form. Given the large
size of these jars, they had specific enema jars, right
you can see the and those are things that bear
a lot of these decoration exact lifts, so they continue.
It's difficult to think of why this would be the
(18:08):
case unless some of the ingredients included fermentation based alcohol.
It's conceivable the heavy jar was transported empty of liquid
and the materials were mixed with liquid on the spot.
But unless a large quantity was used at a time,
the reason for carrying such a jar is rather a mystery.
I love when people use rather that way. I'm going
to start bringing that back. Do you have my back
(18:29):
on that. We're gonna have your back on everything, Ben,
Thanks man. Likewise, so we we know that they had
these specific jars, we know the things that were decorated
on them, and we know that they had specific recurring characters,
which I think is so cool. I'm just a big
world building nerd in that regard. And when we talk
(18:50):
about characters too, they actually have these terra cotta figures
that demonstrated the proper procedure for um. I'm trying to
think of an other way of saying it, administering ministering
these butt fluids. Yes, yes, so we see some common themes. No,
you described the priest administering something to a supplicant or
(19:14):
the receiver. Yeah, I guess priest is maybe a too
broad a term, some something of a shaman who is
trying to guide this process. And here's the thing. What
were these rituals about. They were often things like about
healing rituals where and I just want to point out
too that it was most important for the leader of
these rituals, the shaman, to be as open as possible
(19:38):
to this spirit, realm or I have you. But he
would also administer to the supplicants, you know, the participants
in in the ritual you mentioned earlier, I think marriage rituals.
We're talking about fertility rights, I think you said. And
then the healing, wherein someone maybe was ill or or
dying did in some way, and this would be a
(19:59):
way to exercise that in some way and and hopefully
to promote healing, even though there is no real medical
efficacy here. We'll get to that in a second too.
We can see some of these rituals, or we can
glean some of the purposes behind them by again looking
(20:21):
at the glyphs, the decorations in the art surrounding these jars.
Because they have these recurring participants. There's water lily jaguar uh.
This is a character who's frequently seen in Enema jug
scenes for the Enema ritual. He has a turban bib.
You'll see him involved in enemies that are associated with
(20:42):
sacrificial rights. Interesting. You'll see um other characters like spider Monkey,
who is also common in Enema jug scenes. And then
you'll see things like drug bird. That's the name. Jug
bird is distinguished by a beak with the fat out
and it doesn't look like any real bird, but it's
(21:03):
present at least four enimous scenes that are on these jugs.
You have other characters like big lipped frogs uh and
often holding a water lily or something that would be
representative of ingredients and in particular type of cocktail. And
then when we start getting into some of the other
substances they would imbibe, like psychedelic mushrooms. They even had
(21:25):
a the mixed Tech people had a god called seven
Flowers who is shown holding two mushrooms in each of
his hands. But you know who didn't like this behavior, Ben, Oh, gosh,
tell me who on earth would have a problem with this?
Was the priests, the Catholics, the Catholic prief. Yeah, the
first one, Diego de landa Um. He gave this account
(21:47):
of of experiencing some of this stuff. He said the
Indians consumed. I was always think it's funny because these
are the use of Indian to to refer to Mayan
people and Astec people. It's kind of it's kind of
a misnomer, isn't it. I mean, it's it's lazy naming.
The idea was, uh, you know, the name comes from
this cockamamie idea that they had landed in the Indian continent. Oh,
(22:10):
speaking of which, you just posted a really great uh
Mitchell and Webb look sketch on the Ridiculous Historians Facebook
page that addresses that very thing. Anyway, here's the quote
from Diego. He says, the Indians consumed alcohol and drugs
and immense quantities, which gave rise to many evils, including murders.
They made wine from honey water and the root of
a certain tree. Let's just describing that bulk um that
(22:33):
they grew just for that purpose. The wine had a
very strong flavor and a putrid odor. Not a fan
of these rituals um. And then of course, you know
their goal was to turn them all into two good,
two good Catholics anyway, So any of these what they
would have seen as barbaric kind of rituals probably rubbed
them the wrong way, with or without the booze. Yeah,
(22:55):
and let's not forget this idea of proselytization on their
end was entirely by hook or by crook. The ends
justify the means. So we could imagine a bit we
can speculate on how the Spanish forces would have reacted
to this. Now, the idea of an enema in general
(23:16):
would not have been completely foreign to them. It is,
as they say in The Beauty and the Beast, a
tale as old as time, right. And I mean, you know,
animals are good for like one thing, which is uh, yeah, enemas.
Over the span of human civilizations, here's the sentence I
didn't think I would say today. Over the span of
(23:37):
human civilization, enemas have been used for numerous real or
purported medical benefits. Uh. They've been used for a bowel management.
They've also been you you know, to relieve constantation. That's
the one, Yeah, that's the one that I think is
actually accurate, that that it can help you with well,
(23:58):
They can also be used to administer other substances directly
into the bloodstream, of course, right as we know from
from our pals of the minds, right or you know
from your local veterinarian, they may recommend that you give
someone a suppository or a pet a suppository. I guess, so,
I guess I think of those as being sort of
u two different sides of the same butt coin. Because
(24:20):
cinemas would be liquid, they don't have to be there
smoke ainemas. That's very true, Ben, you are really opening
my third eye. Oh boy. Yes, we are a family
show here. One thing that was very interesting to both
of us when we started exploring this stuff is that
there is an entire culture, so multiple cultures associated with
(24:44):
again the real or perceived effects of enemas in in
a palliative or medical sense. Absolutely, and if you want
to deep dive into this, I highly recommend checking out
our sister podcast Stuff You Miss in History Classes episode
on a fellow by the name of John Harvey Kellogg.
But let's give you the broad strokes. Yeah, John Harvey
(25:05):
Kellogg was nowadays best known as a serial visionary. Right
he made Kellogg corn Flakes. Serial visionary like he may.
He had many visions and then in success and quick succession,
I hope so, Yeah, I hope so. But he also,
you know, came up with what's today still a very
popular breakfast item, the corn flake. And in his uh,
(25:31):
non serial tycoon life, he had very particular and nowadays
very strange seeming medical beliefs. Cereal was a side effect
of or I guess, an added value right to his
primary goal, which was improving people's health and stopping them
(25:56):
from masturbating. Yes, just like the Graham Cracker inventor. Yeah.
He saw masturbation as a moral danger and a medical problem.
He was a Seventh Day Adventist and a staunch vegetarian
and a health night Yeah, and a huge proponent of
enemas you can read, uh, you can read a great
(26:17):
article about this on the Washington Post by Rebecca Fowler.
This is one of my favorite titles, although all the
authors were citing here and knocking it out with the
titles today an enema of the people Nobel, that was
what Harvey Kellogg was after John, not a Blinko album.
It's an enem of the state of the state. And
that's been case on the case and Kellogg himself practiced
(26:42):
what he preached. He preached the health benefits of enemas.
He also administered multiple enemas a day to himself. Sure
do like you too. And the more you dive into
this and yeah, we do recommend the mist and history
class episode. Uh, the more we dive into it, the
more we see that while he had these very hardline
(27:07):
health health based principles like no smoking for instance, Uh,
he really really really doubled down on enemas. Yogurt enemas,
that was a big thing. They just messy. It seems like,
you know what, never tried it, but it does seem
really messy. Yeah, I'll take my my my yogurt orally,
thank you very much. Um. But here's the thing. A
(27:28):
lot of this was was kind of considered to the
to now when we look at it through the lens
of science of modern science, to be kind of quackery
or at least, um, I don't know what do you
call it when you've got kind of pseudoscience, right and
and that, But but it persists to this day. Right,
there are people who swear up and down that, um,
(27:48):
coffee enemas are the thing, right and and speaking of
things you never thought you'd read in your web browser.
For a work related venture, I found an article called
Anima History and the Mind Culture that was sort of
a travelogue of a gentleman who visited, uh, some of
these areas with these ruins to investigate the history of
what we've been talking about today. And it starts thus
(28:10):
in two I visited Guatemala in order to responsibly cultivate
my relationship with the fairly traded Anima coffee that I
sell from my colon cleansed clients to use for their
coffee enemas at home. And then there's a very helpful
link to his fairly traded animal coffee and it it's
it's very it's uh, it's it's certified organic, it's low acidity,
(28:32):
it's air roasted um, and it's hiring caffeine and palmitic acid,
and of course fairly traded. But this gentleman um just
is a real proponent of this remedy and it's it's
a thing. It's kind of a picking up steam a
little bit. And this particular type of of cleans is
(28:52):
part of something called the Gerson therapy that was developed
in the nineteen thirties. But the f d A has
consider instantly come out against cleanses of any kind, saying
that the science just isn't there, and then enemas are
really only good for that one thing we talked about earlier,
which was you know, curing constipation as as God intended,
(29:13):
or you know, for shooting alcohol up your butt and
making you incredibly intoxicated so you can you know, talk
to the spirits or in some cases medicine to help
you that would happen. Also true, I still think that's different.
That's just directal administration of you know what though. That's
you know, alcohol is not like it's it's not water.
You're shooting it up there just to get the effects
(29:33):
of it. It's not like you're not using it as
a cleanse. Well yeah, you know. The thing that I
think fascinates both of us is not just how widespread
this practice has been, but the fact that it continues today.
Unlike several other traditional practices in Mesoamerica, this practice survived
(29:55):
colonialism and some tribes still practice it. It's true. And
additionally here even we record in the United States, as
you know, a long time listeners here it is also
a popular thing, but under a different name. Man, do
we get to say it now? Yes? You you have
waited long enough. But jugging you say it, you say
(30:17):
it right. I'm gonna say it in a in a
posh British voice, but chugging. But no, that just sounds
like you're saying, but chugging is not good for you.
You should drink more gentlemanly like and slower at at
a medium pace. I need you to say, but jugging.
I feel like that's your voice. How about Okay, you
(30:37):
don't have to say it in that voice. I just
want you to really lean into it. Uh, A rowdy
bottom chug. Okay, that's good, that's fine, that's great. Hey man,
if if you do, you I'll do. I obviously am
more excited about but chugging than you are, and that's fine.
We're two different people. We can have our own feels
about things. So but chugging, essentially is is administering alcohol
(31:01):
directly without the purpose of pursuing some great spiritual revelation
or epiphany. It's recreational. Yeah, there was a there was
a case back in oh when was it two thousand fourteen? Um,
that's not she was little earlier than that. Two fourteen
when that was when the fallout kind of went down.
It was in two thousand twelve where a fraternity at
(31:24):
the University of Tennessee, the Pi Kappa Alpha chapter UM,
had got into a little hot water when an underage
student named Alexander P. Broughton went to the hospital after
a a real rager, as they say, UM, with an
alcohol blood alcohol level of point four oh, which is
(31:44):
five times the legal limit and in what doctors called
the death zone for alcohol voice zone. Yeah. And they
examined him and decided that he had been penetrated in
some way. They said, there was signs of sexual assaults UM.
And it came out that the investigators believed, rather than
(32:05):
him having been sexually assaulted in some way, that he
had this alcohol administered directly right with a length of hose. Yeah. Yeah.
And there's a misconception amongst many people, or there was
at the time, that inserting alcohol into any other orifice
would reduce the chances of vomiting from a hangover or
(32:27):
something like that. Seems off, it's misinformed at the very least,
and the experts have labeled this activity extremely dangerous because
think about it. You know, if first off, if this
is being done to someone as another ritual, like a
fraternity hazing ritual or something, then safety is not prioritized
(32:50):
near as much as it should be. Absolutely, Man, whenever
I have you been to a fraternity party before? Yeah, yeah,
I've only been to one and it was well after
I had graduated from college. And I have to say
I was shocked, Ben, I was shocked just the depravity.
I mean, I just thought there was like a like
a very slight three year old girl in a devil
(33:11):
costume walking around pounding a handle, mind you, a vodka
all by herself, like that was her beverage for the night. Um.
I I was, you know, I like a good, a
stiff drink as much as as the rest of them.
But I was taken aback. Um. But here's the thing
with the story about from ut. Yeah, it turned out
(33:31):
that it was very important to uh, the father of
this young man, and the fraternity and their lawyers to
make it very clear that no butt chugging took place.
In fact, there is a delightful um clip you can find.
We're not going to play it here. You can see
that if you want, where their lawyer says the phrase
butt shugging no less than fifteen times in this press conference,
(33:55):
and it is it's a hoot, he claimed the so
of the boy that he was participating in a party
called the Tour of Franzia, because when they went back
to investigate the scene, they found um like those wine
box bags if you open up the box of wine
sometimes space bag, space bag. They found those littered everywhere
(34:17):
and a lot of passed out fraternity brothers there. And
the Tour of Franzias. I guess where you just drink
bad white zinfandel until you black out. Sounds like a
very niche audience. Here are a very niche party. But
despite the hilarious name of butt chugging, the dangers and
(34:37):
effects of this are very real. Like you really owned
it when you said at that time. And you know
what's funny about this snool is we hope everyone has
enjoyed learning about these ritualistic practices that, maybe with different aims,
continue today in the in the modern world. Old but uh,
(35:02):
I gotta tell you, man, I am I'm a little
at odds about how best to end this, because it's
lovely when we end on questions so we can hear
from you friends and neighbors. But I think we should
be careful what questions we ask on this one. I
think we should do it. I would like to do
a little p s a here and say, kids, don't
(35:23):
put alcohol in your butt. No, just don't do it.
Don't do it. Just don't do it. Don't don't do it.
There's not worth it. There are better things you can do.
You can reach the spirit realm naturally. You can meditate, exercise, yeah,
you can um climb a tree, Yeah, climb a tree.
You know what, Go look at the stars. They're beautiful
(35:44):
this time of year. They're beautiful all the time. And
uh on that note, Uh oh, no, you know what
it is. It's been so long I didn't think it
was ever gonna happen again. It's always gonna happen. It's time, gentlemen,
Jonathan Strickland, the quister, you've returned yet again to bedevil
(36:05):
us with fact and fiction, and you're in top wickedly
gleeful form, my friend, I mean my bitter enemy. Yes,
with flattery will gets you nowhere. So this is again. Uh,
there's a surprise to us, as it always seems to be,
when we're about to end the episode. This is the
(36:25):
part of Ridiculous History wherein our longstanding nemesis Jonathan Strickland,
the quister returns to give us a fact, and Nolan,
I must determine whether it is true or it is false.
We have three minutes, yes, and that that timer on
this gigantic grandfather clock behind us does not start until
(36:48):
after you have stated the claim. More of a great
grandfather clock, isn't it? And we should point out that
I also always give you an arbitrary rule you must
follow every time. This time, because we are talking about alcohol,
I got your nice, a nice adult beverage. So before
(37:13):
any question you must pop that open, take a swig,
and then say I got I got one for a quister.
And just to are you, have you had a few?
You sound a little define a few. The word the
euphemism I've always liked to use is charming. No, I
think no saying you sound a bit charming. The quister
is nothing if not charming. That's true, So charming. The
(37:36):
room is spinning rate. Now, all right, I hope that
you administer this alcohol orally well, you know that he
is young. It's fair true, so we uh, we will
have to pop the first time we asked something, and
then after that just sail right. Assuming that you have
to ask anything at all, you may you may feel
very confident did not have to ask any questions. And
(37:57):
just to point out to the listeners at home, it
is approach five. Um, so I think it's it's perfectly
appropriates over the hard arm somewhere. Indeed, all right, let's
do this. Here's your scenario, and guess what what, it's
a long one. Here we go. Since eighteen sixty three,
(38:18):
every year on January fifteen, in Osawa Ons in Japan,
there is an interesting sake fueled ritual that pitts villagers
against each other, all in the name of the Shinto religion.
All men who are either twenty five or forty two
years old are conscripted to guard a wooden shrine constructed
(38:41):
just for the event. The men are encouraged to drink sake,
a lot of it, like half a gallon of the
stuff of more. The purpose for drinking that much is
to imbue the young men with the courage to face
what comes next. That next thing is a priest in
owls the shrine with a dostogen, or a protective travel
(39:04):
spirit associated with crossroads. The drunken twenty five and forty
two year olds must then defend the shrine against all
the other men of the village, who armed themselves with
torches an attempt to burn the shrine down. At least
one person has died from injuries sustained in this yearly festival,
and many received serious injuries. The whole ceremony originally was
(39:27):
meant to encourage a good harvest. These days it's also
to wish for a profitable skiing season. You need some
water man begin all right, I am officially starting the timer.
I get one for you. Him him, So, why are
(39:49):
they only twenty five and forty two? And they're not arranged? Right?
It's not everyone forty two, it's those ages, specific and
excellent question. Many Japanese traditions are based superstition, and the
festival is no different. With the twenty five and two
year old in the village chosen to take on the
special roles because those are the so called unlucky ages
(40:12):
for men. Of course, he had an answer for him.
That's you know, that's almost suspicious. There we go, there
we go. Why are you so horrible? It's just comes naturally,
I guess that's fair, that's it. Yeah, I don't know, man,
I thought you were bringing the fire. I got no.
He puts out my fire. He extinguishes me like like
(40:35):
one of those torches in this potentially untrue story. So
we're at two minutes. Hang on there, you got one
for you. What is what? What year did this originate? In?
It again? Eighteen sixty three? Uh? Damn it? There? Go alright, yeah,
(41:00):
to back up on him, what is the what town
is it? And again it's it's in which is at
the base of a mountain range? Oh? What is this?
Like some kind of generic just just beer, just just
just store brand beer in a white can with the
(41:22):
word beer. Hun it skunky. It's like a prop you'd
see in a movie. I couldn't at least bring natty
like I honestly found it like in the basement. But
go ahead. Yeah, um, I don't know, man, there's so
many things like can't you just give us a quick
a to be kind of like scenario This was a
quick one. No, No, okay, what the torches? The burning down?
(41:45):
Why the man? I I think it's not true. I
think it's it seems like Ben that there's parts of
this I know there are rituals like this that they do.
There's like the sak ceremonies um where they even like,
you know, spit the minted the rice and they they
make their saki, spit the rice, chew it up and
spit it into a queue, and then they cover it
(42:05):
and bury it and then it's like the whole thing.
It was in a movie I saw. Um. I just
feel because I'm such an optimistic person, I feel burned
every time I guess true and it's not. You know,
I just want to believe in stuff too much. I know,
I know, I guess. I just feel like, what what
were they risk burning down infrastructure? Yeah, you want to
go not true? Five four three, Okay, we're gonna lock it.
(42:30):
We didn't lock it in yet. Stop looking at me
that way, cuister. That's our time. He's given me a look.
You know, you never know with Okay, all right, we'll
say it that. Let's do it. Not true, you poor idiots,
you poor idiots. It's true, son of us. It is
absolutely true. I gave you this on a platter. I
(42:53):
did you say platter? Laatter? Listen, I've had a few,
all right, listen, listen, listen, man bowl and listen. Had
to make sure it was good stuff that I brought you. Listen,
all right? So anyway, yeah, no, this is one of
the three big fire festivals of Japan. It's actually one
of the most famous. Has been covered various news outlets
(43:16):
like NPR, and I mean it was the internet is
lousy with information about this thing, and I thought for
sure one of you would have heard about it, since
it's so crazy. So I feel, have you heard about
the one with the rice? Though? Where the spit that one? So?
So what is happening here is the doso jin is
as a Shinto spirit that is considered to be a
(43:37):
kindly spirit that helps travelers, and and so the the
priest from the nearby shrine supposedly abused this temporary shrine,
this model of a shrine that's been constructed over the
course of a few days by about a hundred villagers
with the spirit of a of a doso Jean. The
whole purpose is to burn it. It's it's it's almost
(43:59):
like an offer. And so they build a big bonfire
out of various pieces of very flammable stuff and lots
of the toole m dolls and things that represent various
elements of the culture, and then the men of the
village they light their tortures, they are supposed to eventually
burn the thing down. I think that's also one of
the reasons why the defenders are encouraged to get almost
(44:23):
blackout drunk. It seems dangerous fire. Yeah, that's a guy.
Guy died. He pee in my defense, in our defense.
When you say shrine and you're talking about like a village,
I think I'm picturing like a building that's meant to
stay there. No, this was absolutely just constructed for the
(44:44):
purpose of the festival. That's me and a lot of
those abilities are created from wood rather than this one.
Like you risk burning down the whole village though, Like
the pictures of this, by the way, are phenomenal. It
happens January every year. So if you guys, you know
we're gonna want to do a ridiculous history on the road.
I'm just saying, extra credits be there. Yeah, let's get
(45:07):
the bosses to pop for Japan tickets. Yeah, lend just
for fun. Let's find one of our coworkers that is
either forty two or twenty five and not tell them
what's going down to way like you know what age
I am this year? Right? Two just missed it? Well, yeah,
well I can't even be man that that was good.
(45:28):
I I love learning new stuff nol. So, although Quister,
I do feel like you put a lot more work
into gloating about today than you did into doing the question,
I applaud you. I gave you so many hints for
one thing. Just the last time I was on here,
you mentioned that when I do a really long one,
(45:48):
it means it's fake. I did another really long one
just so that you would know it was real, and
you still chose. I could tell by the way you
were looking at me. Man should have flipped him, should I? Yeah,
But we're a team. We are We're a team. I
don't want to do a last minute flip. And we
have your back. Folks, thank you so much for tuning in.
(46:09):
Uh and Quister, Uh, thank you for coming on the show.
Enjoy your beer, Thank you for the thank you for
the unlabeled generic basement beer. I say, swill. Well, uh,
that's it for us today. However, if you would like
to learn more ridiculous history, if you would like to
hang out with your fellow ridiculous historians, Boy do we
(46:32):
have good news for you. Yeah, you can do it
on the Facebook. You can just go on the Facebook
page for the show, or if you want to take
it up a not you can join our Facebook group,
The Ridiculous Historians, where I hear that pretty soon we're
gonna see pictures of superproducer Casey's very lucrative childhood modeling
career head shots. Here there's catalog spreads, spreads you know,
(46:55):
probably gonna be some oshkosh gosh involved. We'll get to
see him with an assortment of face com parents. From
what I hear, good stuff, good times over, good times
over on the Ridiculous Historians. Um. You can also do
us a solid and leave us a kindly review on
iTunes um, because you know, why wouldn't you. Yeah, we
we always like to hear from you, and uh do
(47:17):
remember to tune in for our next episode where we
nailed down the mystery behind the name of California. Spoiler
alert involves a badass Amazonian queen and weaponized Griffins. Yes, yes, yes,
what the heck are you guys talking about. We'll find
(47:38):
out at our very next episode. In the meantime, that's
all for today, Thank you so much. If you are
uh participating in any of the stuff we mentioned in
this topic. Not to sound too much like a worry warp,
but we, uh we, all of us, the Quister and
Casey included, hope that you are safe and make responsible decisions. Indeed,
(48:00):
I can't open the door, guys, I can't. I can't.
I'm too far. It's because your hands are so tiny.
Let's get some torches.
Yea a tiny bit of trivia to begin today's episode,
Friends and neighbors, fellow ridiculous historians. Once upon a time,
(00:33):
I Ben Bolin lived in Guatemala. Ben, you always play
your tales of adventure and Guatemala very close to the
vest I'm hoping today that will change. My name is Noel,
and this is ridiculous history. Why are we talking about Guatemalaban.
I'm so glad you asked, Noel, we're talking about Guatemala
(00:55):
today because it leads us into a very strange topic us,
one that we think you might rightly call ridiculous. Our
super producer Casey Pegram certainly did off air earlier. He chuckled, yeah,
which we took as very high praise. So when I
(01:15):
was living in Guatemala, one of the things that constantly
astounded me was the wealth of ancient culture there, especially
as you go up into the northern part of the
country Paton h Then you will see all these amazing
ruins that have was stood the test of time pretty
(01:36):
well and are currently protected by the government, which is
a good thing. And it inspired in me this interest
in uh Mayan culture, Mesoamerican culture, but Maya in particular.
And the reason I was so inspired by this is
because I was I was living in town called j
La cat Altonango, and there's still a lot of my
(02:00):
influence there. I remember learning Spanish well enough to get
by in the day, and then people would switch to
teach a the other language they spoke. I did not
know that that was a thing until we started researching
this topic today. Um Man, should we should we let
the cat of the bag? We can let it, let
it roll around, just to say good word, because I
(02:21):
would make sure people know that we are we are
being respectful with this. It's a very different thing for
both of us. Okay, Ben, you're really doubling down on this.
It's just I think it's just one sentence we needed
to say it. There is such a wealth of cultural practice,
a lot of which might seem strange to many of
us in the modern day. And recently, Noel, with the
(02:43):
help of our pal Christopher Hasciotaes, we discovered a ritual
that we had never heard of, right, I mean, you
hadn't heard of this in this contect. I had not
heard of it in this context. Um What I would
like you to do, Ben is is give me a
list of three, because, as we decided, a list must
be three minimum. Well that's the bare bones, the the
(03:04):
the barrier of entry to a list there we go
is three. So give me three cultural um oddities that
you found in your time in Guatemala, ending with the
one that is today's episode that you only found out
about just recently. Okay, yes, I'll play these reindeer games.
So one people wouldn't snap their fingers the way that
(03:26):
you and I do like that. What you do is,
and imagine this with us listeners, you take your thumb
and your middle finger and you put them together so
the fingertips touch, and then you shake your hand. I
can do it with my left hand, and you make
a snapping noise. It's tough. You make a snapping noise
with your pointer finger against your middle finger. That sounds
(03:46):
like that would wear out your wrists. Yeah, agreed. I
still never quite mastered the trick too. And this is
one of my favorite things. All those old bluebird school
buses that you know, fairy kids back and forth to
school the States. When they were retired, they move outside
the United States down south and they become what are
known as chicken busses and there a mode of transit.
(04:09):
If you get a second look them up on Google
that they're amazing. You would love these in particular and old.
They have a lot of psychedelic colors. Uh, there are
these amazing mods and the drivers will take these things
anywhere around volcanoes, sort of like a crazy, grateful dead bus.
And of course number three nol we just found out about.
(04:29):
I'm gonna give the honor to you, my friend. Yeah,
I don't know. This is sort of a hollow setup
that I have envisioned, but I mainly just wanted to
hear some of the trivia that you had from your
time there. But we'll get into more. The third one
in the topic of the day's episode is that back
in the days of these Mesoamerican indigenous tribes, the my
other income of the Aztec, the Toltec, the ol Ma.
(04:49):
We'll get into more of those. Uh, there was a
pretty heavy focus on getting utterly smashed on everything from
fermented plants to psychedelic mushrooms. Um, all in the service
of opening up your mind to the spirit world in
kind of a shamanistic way. Yeah. But the one that
(05:11):
we didn't really know about this is all kind of
on the nose is that they did this thing where
they gave themselves and potentially each other ritualistic alcohol animals.
That is true. We will restate this so that you
know you are not mishearing this thing instead a Freudian
slip of your ear ritual alcohol enemas, ritualistic alcohol animas.
(05:35):
Because you see, when you are exploring the material crafts
left behind by the civilization, you will see a lot
of depictions on on the pottery right or on the
walls of people doing various things, stories from the mythology
of the time, as well as daily life commemorations of
(05:55):
the lives of noted figures glyphs right, yeah, glyphs. And
you will also see a ton of what what are
definitively believed to be enemous scenes like you just described
nol and they're on the Mayan pottery. Experts agree that
these undoubtedly represent that like these are not metaphors, they
(06:18):
undoubtedly represent a literal activity. And for a while this
was controversial because it's sort of, um, it's sort of
undermined the image that a lot of people had of
the Mayans as a very contemplative philosophical people. Yeah, even stoic.
They couldn't. They couldn't quite square that with the idea
(06:39):
of indulging in ritual acts of ecstasy. There were also
displays of characters vomiting. That's right. Then. In an article
called Blood, Water, Vomit, and Wine Um, author Lucia Henderson
discusses the importance of these various fermented drinks um that
(07:01):
were used in some of these ceremonies, one of them
being something called pulque, Yes, pulque and you can find
this article online in the Mesoamerican Voices Journal. Polka is
an alcoholic beverage that is made by fermenting the sap
of an agave plant, specifically a mague, not magua. Be careful,
(07:24):
not a gremlin's reference. Uh m, a g u e y.
And you may be familiar with agave being used in
other alcoholic beverages, right even in the modern day, so
we know that this was widespread in in many different forms.
It's almost more of an umbrella term at times. But
(07:45):
uh no, could you tell us a little bit about
polk and what it is and what's in it? I
know honey is associated with it. Yeah, so pul ku um.
It was actually also called act um in the waddle,
which is the Aztec language um. And it's, like you said,
made from the sap of this plant um. But they
actually have to cut into the heart of the plant,
(08:05):
which is the part that you I believe the word
was mague. Yeah, exactly. But the thing is it actually
has pretty low alcohol content um, ranging from two to
eight percent. According to an article Tequila, Mescal and Pulque
by Suzanne Barbeza from Trips Savvy, Um, it's got a
really good rundown of the differences because they are all
(08:27):
made from agave. But the difference with polk is that
it's made from that heart, kind of like a heart
of palm or like an ARTI choke hard or But
it's a pretty low alcohol content. So it kind of
makes sense maybe that in order to get wasted on
it enough to open your mind up to this kind
of other dimension, you might need to absorb it a
(08:50):
little quicker. That's right. The drink had its own goddess.
It was very common in the culture. It featured in
tales of Mesoamerican mythology, and as you said, Noel, it
was draw in moderation on a daily basis. But for
these important religious festivals, you know, weddings, fertility rights, ceremonies
of that nature. Who has served in more copious amounts
(09:12):
and to really get the bang for their buck. They
administered it directly correctly. And we're you know, we're adults.
We can say directly without giggling. I mean, we can
at least make a game out of not giggling and
looking each other directly in the eyes while we say correctly.
I'm good, I'm golden, good, great, great, how are you?
(09:33):
I'm great. Let's go on, let's move on with So
how did they administer this? You talked about finding those artifacts, right,
the clay pots and all of that. Another type of
artifact that they found a lot of this is coming
from a study by the way um from the journal
Neuralgia called Hallucinogenic Drugs and Pre Columbian meso American Cultures
by F. J. Caro ar Tall And one of the
(09:56):
bits of evidence outside of the depictions of these ritual
enemas um on these pieces of pottery, were the actual
implements used to shoot that stuff up there um. They
were syringes. This stuff was administered with syringes made from
gourds and clay. And if you look at one of
(10:19):
the figures in the study, there is a depiction of
one of these mind ritual enemas, and it's a gentleman,
uh laying what do you call it legs akimbo I guess,
sort of reclining and displayed. There you go. And then
you got a priest or some kind of easy seems
to be wearing a different garb um and he is
reaching down um at him with this thing that looks
(10:41):
kind of like alot, but it's actually clearly a gourd
and it's got, you know, the big bulb at the bottom.
It was obviously full of pole quay or any of
the other similar related beverages exactly of the of the region.
And it looks like he's getting ready to to give
give give him a good squirt. Yeah, he's gonna have
a rager right, Well, apparently so, and we need to
(11:02):
backtrack just to touch We sort of started the episode
off by saying that a lot of this was done
in service of getting into a trance like state, because
the purpose was to achieve enlightenment. We talked about this
cultures as being the meso American cultures are being perceived
as more stoic. And this doesn't necessarily entirely fly in
(11:24):
the face of that, because they're not doing this just
around you know, their daily goings on. This is all
in these We call it ritualistic for a reason. It
was to open up their minds to achieve this enlightenment
um get into a state of ecstasy and almost like
an inner peace, and to potentially achieve hallucinations and sort
(11:46):
of a vision questy way and being able to commune
with the gods. Yeah, that's that's the idea. It's removing
some of the barriers of perception that would exist in
normal data day life. So what we're emphasizing here is
that when people were doing it, it wasn't to just
(12:07):
party hardy without some sort of larger plan here. Uh.
We also, in addition to the tools or the implements
that you mentioned, all the gourds and syringes, we also
found these thin hollow bones. We know that there was
a practice in some similar cultures where shamans would use
(12:31):
a deer bladder and maybe hollowed out femur bone to
pump a substance through the rectum into into the body.
And there were some although you know, this thing is
rife for some crass humor. There were some definite medical advantages.
It doesn't touch your stomach. It doesn't touch your stomach,
and it doesn't touch your liver. Yes, and the anus
(12:55):
is full of very sensitive vascular tissue that highly highly absorptive. Yeah. Yeah,
And since there's another point with the liver thing that's
really important and I'm so glad you brought this up.
The liver would break down hallucinogenic elements. So administering these
substances this way, to your point, gives you much more
(13:20):
bang for your buck inebriation or hallucination wise. Yeah, no,
it's true. And um, I you know, I wonder if
the the location of injection was less important than just
the fact that it was a more efficient way of
achieving that state, especially with alcohol that was relatively lower
(13:41):
in potency. Um. We we actually skip. The earliest form
of of this of intoxicating liquors that they use, it
was something called bal chay that's made by infusing um
the bark, some sort of broken down version of the
bark from a tree called the longco carpus uh angus stylus,
and then they mix that with honey. This particular kind
(14:04):
of honey that's made by bees that have fed on
a morning glory derivative that is very high in something
called ergine, which is very closely related to a little
something called l S. D Ergine is li sergic acid
A mind and um. It also can be lisergic acid
(14:25):
uh life surgeon mind. So I think it's a very
close molecular connection between that and life sergic acid diethylamide,
which is the we know about from the you know,
from the Grateful Dead busses earlier in the episode, or
from fish earlier in Vermont. It's true. But here's the thing.
They would, you know, a lot of times when they
were doing these ritual enemas, they would add other psychedelic substances,
(14:49):
psychotropic substances and mix them into kind of a cocktail.
And then that's how they would achieve the heights of
um openness. Tobacco for an since water lilies, those all
went in there. And you know the thing about pul
k specifically is that it had an extremely short shelf life,
(15:10):
so these other alternatives could exist concurrently, but they were
when we talked about these ritual enemies. Whatever the substance was,
and whatever the specific cocktail mix was, it had the
same goal, which was again to achieve this enlightenment. And
I don't know about you know, but I was startled
(15:31):
by how much research had been conducted on this. You know.
It hit me when I was thinking back on search
history and whatever Big Brother would see us looking through
that for some time, my search history will be riddled
with things like Brian Strauss and Justin Cares article notes
(15:53):
on the May envision quest by enema and then of
course blood water, vomit and wine. Uh. We found a
comprehensive breakdown to your point about the specific ingredients in
these enemas. We found a comprehensive breakdown of it by
a guy named Peter A g M. Dismet ritual enemas
and snuffs in the America. Snuffs being things that you
(16:16):
would insult fate like um um cocaine, for example, for
any number of um powders that could be ground down
from plant matter and rather than ingesting it orally, you
sniff it up your nose. Yeah exactly. And you know
what I'd like to make insulfate our word of the day,
a pewee thing um did we mention the fact that
(16:38):
this has been going on as far back as twelve
hundred to four hundred b c. With the all Mac people.
We have not, and it's important that we do, because
we mentioned the phrase polk and the phrase ma being
and being thrown around, but we didn't mention the actual
earliest instances of this practice. And I believe you are
(17:01):
Bellevio are correct, so it is the old Here's a
good detail too. Because the alcohol content and these substances
were so low um they would inject them um rectally
and it would often they would get so intoxicated that
they would vomit. And there was part of the ritual,
(17:23):
particular ritual where their vomit would be collected in bags
that would then be hung around their necks. And this
was a way also of publicly displaying your completion of
our participation in this ritual. And in the article that
Straws and Care worked on, they gave us a little
bit of background as far as the transportation of this
(17:47):
stuff goes. Here's a quotation. The enemy substance they say
may have been transported in liquid form. Given the large
size of these jars, they had specific enema jars, right
you can see the and those are things that bear
a lot of these decoration exact lifts, so they continue.
It's difficult to think of why this would be the
(18:08):
case unless some of the ingredients included fermentation based alcohol.
It's conceivable the heavy jar was transported empty of liquid
and the materials were mixed with liquid on the spot.
But unless a large quantity was used at a time,
the reason for carrying such a jar is rather a mystery.
I love when people use rather that way. I'm going
to start bringing that back. Do you have my back
(18:29):
on that. We're gonna have your back on everything, Ben,
Thanks man. Likewise, so we we know that they had
these specific jars, we know the things that were decorated
on them, and we know that they had specific recurring characters,
which I think is so cool. I'm just a big
world building nerd in that regard. And when we talk
(18:50):
about characters too, they actually have these terra cotta figures
that demonstrated the proper procedure for um. I'm trying to
think of an other way of saying it, administering ministering
these butt fluids. Yes, yes, so we see some common themes. No,
you described the priest administering something to a supplicant or
(19:14):
the receiver. Yeah, I guess priest is maybe a too
broad a term, some something of a shaman who is
trying to guide this process. And here's the thing. What
were these rituals about. They were often things like about
healing rituals where and I just want to point out
too that it was most important for the leader of
these rituals, the shaman, to be as open as possible
(19:38):
to this spirit, realm or I have you. But he
would also administer to the supplicants, you know, the participants
in in the ritual you mentioned earlier, I think marriage rituals.
We're talking about fertility rights, I think you said. And
then the healing, wherein someone maybe was ill or or
dying did in some way, and this would be a
(19:59):
way to exercise that in some way and and hopefully
to promote healing, even though there is no real medical
efficacy here. We'll get to that in a second too.
We can see some of these rituals, or we can
glean some of the purposes behind them by again looking
(20:21):
at the glyphs, the decorations in the art surrounding these jars.
Because they have these recurring participants. There's water lily jaguar uh.
This is a character who's frequently seen in Enema jug
scenes for the Enema ritual. He has a turban bib.
You'll see him involved in enemies that are associated with
(20:42):
sacrificial rights. Interesting. You'll see um other characters like spider Monkey,
who is also common in Enema jug scenes. And then
you'll see things like drug bird. That's the name. Jug
bird is distinguished by a beak with the fat out
and it doesn't look like any real bird, but it's
(21:03):
present at least four enimous scenes that are on these jugs.
You have other characters like big lipped frogs uh and
often holding a water lily or something that would be
representative of ingredients and in particular type of cocktail. And
then when we start getting into some of the other
substances they would imbibe, like psychedelic mushrooms. They even had
(21:25):
a the mixed Tech people had a god called seven
Flowers who is shown holding two mushrooms in each of
his hands. But you know who didn't like this behavior, Ben, Oh, gosh,
tell me who on earth would have a problem with this?
Was the priests, the Catholics, the Catholic prief. Yeah, the
first one, Diego de landa Um. He gave this account
(21:47):
of of experiencing some of this stuff. He said the
Indians consumed. I was always think it's funny because these
are the use of Indian to to refer to Mayan
people and Astec people. It's kind of it's kind of
a misnomer, isn't it. I mean, it's it's lazy naming.
The idea was, uh, you know, the name comes from
this cockamamie idea that they had landed in the Indian continent. Oh,
(22:10):
speaking of which, you just posted a really great uh
Mitchell and Webb look sketch on the Ridiculous Historians Facebook
page that addresses that very thing. Anyway, here's the quote
from Diego. He says, the Indians consumed alcohol and drugs
and immense quantities, which gave rise to many evils, including murders.
They made wine from honey water and the root of
a certain tree. Let's just describing that bulk um that
(22:33):
they grew just for that purpose. The wine had a
very strong flavor and a putrid odor. Not a fan
of these rituals um. And then of course, you know
their goal was to turn them all into two good,
two good Catholics anyway, So any of these what they
would have seen as barbaric kind of rituals probably rubbed
them the wrong way, with or without the booze. Yeah,
(22:55):
and let's not forget this idea of proselytization on their
end was entirely by hook or by crook. The ends
justify the means. So we could imagine a bit we
can speculate on how the Spanish forces would have reacted
to this. Now, the idea of an enema in general
(23:16):
would not have been completely foreign to them. It is,
as they say in The Beauty and the Beast, a
tale as old as time, right. And I mean, you know,
animals are good for like one thing, which is uh, yeah, enemas.
Over the span of human civilizations, here's the sentence I
didn't think I would say today. Over the span of
(23:37):
human civilization, enemas have been used for numerous real or
purported medical benefits. Uh. They've been used for a bowel management.
They've also been you you know, to relieve constantation. That's
the one, Yeah, that's the one that I think is
actually accurate, that that it can help you with well,
(23:58):
They can also be used to administer other substances directly
into the bloodstream, of course, right as we know from
from our pals of the minds, right or you know
from your local veterinarian, they may recommend that you give
someone a suppository or a pet a suppository. I guess, so,
I guess I think of those as being sort of
u two different sides of the same butt coin. Because
(24:20):
cinemas would be liquid, they don't have to be there
smoke ainemas. That's very true, Ben, you are really opening
my third eye. Oh boy. Yes, we are a family
show here. One thing that was very interesting to both
of us when we started exploring this stuff is that
there is an entire culture, so multiple cultures associated with
(24:44):
again the real or perceived effects of enemas in in
a palliative or medical sense. Absolutely, and if you want
to deep dive into this, I highly recommend checking out
our sister podcast Stuff You Miss in History Classes episode
on a fellow by the name of John Harvey Kellogg.
But let's give you the broad strokes. Yeah, John Harvey
(25:05):
Kellogg was nowadays best known as a serial visionary. Right
he made Kellogg corn Flakes. Serial visionary like he may.
He had many visions and then in success and quick succession,
I hope so, Yeah, I hope so. But he also,
you know, came up with what's today still a very
popular breakfast item, the corn flake. And in his uh,
(25:31):
non serial tycoon life, he had very particular and nowadays
very strange seeming medical beliefs. Cereal was a side effect
of or I guess, an added value right to his
primary goal, which was improving people's health and stopping them
(25:56):
from masturbating. Yes, just like the Graham Cracker inventor. Yeah.
He saw masturbation as a moral danger and a medical problem.
He was a Seventh Day Adventist and a staunch vegetarian
and a health night Yeah, and a huge proponent of
enemas you can read, uh, you can read a great
(26:17):
article about this on the Washington Post by Rebecca Fowler.
This is one of my favorite titles, although all the
authors were citing here and knocking it out with the
titles today an enema of the people Nobel, that was
what Harvey Kellogg was after John, not a Blinko album.
It's an enem of the state of the state. And
that's been case on the case and Kellogg himself practiced
(26:42):
what he preached. He preached the health benefits of enemas.
He also administered multiple enemas a day to himself. Sure
do like you too. And the more you dive into
this and yeah, we do recommend the mist and history
class episode. Uh, the more we dive into it, the
more we see that while he had these very hardline
(27:07):
health health based principles like no smoking for instance, Uh,
he really really really doubled down on enemas. Yogurt enemas,
that was a big thing. They just messy. It seems like,
you know what, never tried it, but it does seem
really messy. Yeah, I'll take my my my yogurt orally,
thank you very much. Um. But here's the thing. A
(27:28):
lot of this was was kind of considered to the
to now when we look at it through the lens
of science of modern science, to be kind of quackery
or at least, um, I don't know what do you
call it when you've got kind of pseudoscience, right and
and that, But but it persists to this day. Right,
there are people who swear up and down that, um,
(27:48):
coffee enemas are the thing, right and and speaking of
things you never thought you'd read in your web browser.
For a work related venture, I found an article called
Anima History and the Mind Culture that was sort of
a travelogue of a gentleman who visited, uh, some of
these areas with these ruins to investigate the history of
what we've been talking about today. And it starts thus
(28:10):
in two I visited Guatemala in order to responsibly cultivate
my relationship with the fairly traded Anima coffee that I
sell from my colon cleansed clients to use for their
coffee enemas at home. And then there's a very helpful
link to his fairly traded animal coffee and it it's
it's very it's uh, it's it's certified organic, it's low acidity,
(28:32):
it's air roasted um, and it's hiring caffeine and palmitic acid,
and of course fairly traded. But this gentleman um just
is a real proponent of this remedy and it's it's
a thing. It's kind of a picking up steam a
little bit. And this particular type of of cleans is
(28:52):
part of something called the Gerson therapy that was developed
in the nineteen thirties. But the f d A has
consider instantly come out against cleanses of any kind, saying
that the science just isn't there, and then enemas are
really only good for that one thing we talked about earlier,
which was you know, curing constipation as as God intended,
(29:13):
or you know, for shooting alcohol up your butt and
making you incredibly intoxicated so you can you know, talk
to the spirits or in some cases medicine to help
you that would happen. Also true, I still think that's different.
That's just directal administration of you know what though. That's
you know, alcohol is not like it's it's not water.
You're shooting it up there just to get the effects
(29:33):
of it. It's not like you're not using it as
a cleanse. Well yeah, you know. The thing that I
think fascinates both of us is not just how widespread
this practice has been, but the fact that it continues today.
Unlike several other traditional practices in Mesoamerica, this practice survived
(29:55):
colonialism and some tribes still practice it. It's true. And
additionally here even we record in the United States, as
you know, a long time listeners here it is also
a popular thing, but under a different name. Man, do
we get to say it now? Yes? You you have
waited long enough. But jugging you say it, you say
(30:17):
it right. I'm gonna say it in a in a
posh British voice, but chugging. But no, that just sounds
like you're saying, but chugging is not good for you.
You should drink more gentlemanly like and slower at at
a medium pace. I need you to say, but jugging.
I feel like that's your voice. How about Okay, you
(30:37):
don't have to say it in that voice. I just
want you to really lean into it. Uh, A rowdy
bottom chug. Okay, that's good, that's fine, that's great. Hey man,
if if you do, you I'll do. I obviously am
more excited about but chugging than you are, and that's fine.
We're two different people. We can have our own feels
about things. So but chugging, essentially is is administering alcohol
(31:01):
directly without the purpose of pursuing some great spiritual revelation
or epiphany. It's recreational. Yeah, there was a there was
a case back in oh when was it two thousand fourteen? Um,
that's not she was little earlier than that. Two fourteen
when that was when the fallout kind of went down.
It was in two thousand twelve where a fraternity at
(31:24):
the University of Tennessee, the Pi Kappa Alpha chapter UM,
had got into a little hot water when an underage
student named Alexander P. Broughton went to the hospital after
a a real rager, as they say, UM, with an
alcohol blood alcohol level of point four oh, which is
(31:44):
five times the legal limit and in what doctors called
the death zone for alcohol voice zone. Yeah. And they
examined him and decided that he had been penetrated in
some way. They said, there was signs of sexual assaults UM.
And it came out that the investigators believed, rather than
(32:05):
him having been sexually assaulted in some way, that he
had this alcohol administered directly right with a length of hose. Yeah. Yeah.
And there's a misconception amongst many people, or there was
at the time, that inserting alcohol into any other orifice
would reduce the chances of vomiting from a hangover or
(32:27):
something like that. Seems off, it's misinformed at the very least,
and the experts have labeled this activity extremely dangerous because
think about it. You know, if first off, if this
is being done to someone as another ritual, like a
fraternity hazing ritual or something, then safety is not prioritized
(32:50):
near as much as it should be. Absolutely, Man, whenever
I have you been to a fraternity party before? Yeah, yeah,
I've only been to one and it was well after
I had graduated from college. And I have to say
I was shocked, Ben, I was shocked just the depravity.
I mean, I just thought there was like a like
a very slight three year old girl in a devil
(33:11):
costume walking around pounding a handle, mind you, a vodka
all by herself, like that was her beverage for the night. Um.
I I was, you know, I like a good, a
stiff drink as much as as the rest of them.
But I was taken aback. Um. But here's the thing
with the story about from ut. Yeah, it turned out
(33:31):
that it was very important to uh, the father of
this young man, and the fraternity and their lawyers to
make it very clear that no butt chugging took place.
In fact, there is a delightful um clip you can find.
We're not going to play it here. You can see
that if you want, where their lawyer says the phrase
butt shugging no less than fifteen times in this press conference,
(33:55):
and it is it's a hoot, he claimed the so
of the boy that he was participating in a party
called the Tour of Franzia, because when they went back
to investigate the scene, they found um like those wine
box bags if you open up the box of wine
sometimes space bag, space bag. They found those littered everywhere
(34:17):
and a lot of passed out fraternity brothers there. And
the Tour of Franzias. I guess where you just drink
bad white zinfandel until you black out. Sounds like a
very niche audience. Here are a very niche party. But
despite the hilarious name of butt chugging, the dangers and
(34:37):
effects of this are very real. Like you really owned
it when you said at that time. And you know
what's funny about this snool is we hope everyone has
enjoyed learning about these ritualistic practices that, maybe with different aims,
continue today in the in the modern world. Old but uh,
(35:02):
I gotta tell you, man, I am I'm a little
at odds about how best to end this, because it's
lovely when we end on questions so we can hear
from you friends and neighbors. But I think we should
be careful what questions we ask on this one. I
think we should do it. I would like to do
a little p s a here and say, kids, don't
(35:23):
put alcohol in your butt. No, just don't do it.
Don't do it. Just don't do it. Don't don't do it.
There's not worth it. There are better things you can do.
You can reach the spirit realm naturally. You can meditate, exercise, yeah,
you can um climb a tree, Yeah, climb a tree.
You know what, Go look at the stars. They're beautiful
(35:44):
this time of year. They're beautiful all the time. And
uh on that note, Uh oh, no, you know what
it is. It's been so long I didn't think it
was ever gonna happen again. It's always gonna happen. It's time, gentlemen,
Jonathan Strickland, the quister, you've returned yet again to bedevil
(36:05):
us with fact and fiction, and you're in top wickedly
gleeful form, my friend, I mean my bitter enemy. Yes,
with flattery will gets you nowhere. So this is again. Uh,
there's a surprise to us, as it always seems to be,
when we're about to end the episode. This is the
(36:25):
part of Ridiculous History wherein our longstanding nemesis Jonathan Strickland,
the quister returns to give us a fact, and Nolan,
I must determine whether it is true or it is false.
We have three minutes, yes, and that that timer on
this gigantic grandfather clock behind us does not start until
(36:48):
after you have stated the claim. More of a great
grandfather clock, isn't it? And we should point out that
I also always give you an arbitrary rule you must
follow every time. This time, because we are talking about alcohol,
I got your nice, a nice adult beverage. So before
(37:13):
any question you must pop that open, take a swig,
and then say I got I got one for a quister.
And just to are you, have you had a few?
You sound a little define a few. The word the
euphemism I've always liked to use is charming. No, I
think no saying you sound a bit charming. The quister
is nothing if not charming. That's true, So charming. The
(37:36):
room is spinning rate. Now, all right, I hope that
you administer this alcohol orally well, you know that he
is young. It's fair true, so we uh, we will
have to pop the first time we asked something, and
then after that just sail right. Assuming that you have
to ask anything at all, you may you may feel
very confident did not have to ask any questions. And
(37:57):
just to point out to the listeners at home, it
is approach five. Um, so I think it's it's perfectly
appropriates over the hard arm somewhere. Indeed, all right, let's
do this. Here's your scenario, and guess what what, it's
a long one. Here we go. Since eighteen sixty three,
(38:18):
every year on January fifteen, in Osawa Ons in Japan,
there is an interesting sake fueled ritual that pitts villagers
against each other, all in the name of the Shinto religion.
All men who are either twenty five or forty two
years old are conscripted to guard a wooden shrine constructed
(38:41):
just for the event. The men are encouraged to drink sake,
a lot of it, like half a gallon of the
stuff of more. The purpose for drinking that much is
to imbue the young men with the courage to face
what comes next. That next thing is a priest in
owls the shrine with a dostogen, or a protective travel
(39:04):
spirit associated with crossroads. The drunken twenty five and forty
two year olds must then defend the shrine against all
the other men of the village, who armed themselves with
torches an attempt to burn the shrine down. At least
one person has died from injuries sustained in this yearly festival,
and many received serious injuries. The whole ceremony originally was
(39:27):
meant to encourage a good harvest. These days it's also
to wish for a profitable skiing season. You need some
water man begin all right, I am officially starting the timer.
I get one for you. Him him, So, why are
(39:49):
they only twenty five and forty two? And they're not arranged? Right?
It's not everyone forty two, it's those ages, specific and
excellent question. Many Japanese traditions are based superstition, and the
festival is no different. With the twenty five and two
year old in the village chosen to take on the
special roles because those are the so called unlucky ages
(40:12):
for men. Of course, he had an answer for him.
That's you know, that's almost suspicious. There we go, there
we go. Why are you so horrible? It's just comes naturally,
I guess that's fair, that's it. Yeah, I don't know, man,
I thought you were bringing the fire. I got no.
He puts out my fire. He extinguishes me like like
(40:35):
one of those torches in this potentially untrue story. So
we're at two minutes. Hang on there, you got one
for you. What is what? What year did this originate? In?
It again? Eighteen sixty three? Uh? Damn it? There? Go alright, yeah,
(41:00):
to back up on him, what is the what town
is it? And again it's it's in which is at
the base of a mountain range? Oh? What is this?
Like some kind of generic just just beer, just just
just store brand beer in a white can with the
(41:22):
word beer. Hun it skunky. It's like a prop you'd
see in a movie. I couldn't at least bring natty
like I honestly found it like in the basement. But
go ahead. Yeah, um, I don't know, man, there's so
many things like can't you just give us a quick
a to be kind of like scenario This was a
quick one. No, No, okay, what the torches? The burning down?
(41:45):
Why the man? I I think it's not true. I
think it's it seems like Ben that there's parts of
this I know there are rituals like this that they do.
There's like the sak ceremonies um where they even like,
you know, spit the minted the rice and they they
make their saki, spit the rice, chew it up and
spit it into a queue, and then they cover it
(42:05):
and bury it and then it's like the whole thing.
It was in a movie I saw. Um. I just
feel because I'm such an optimistic person, I feel burned
every time I guess true and it's not. You know,
I just want to believe in stuff too much. I know,
I know, I guess. I just feel like, what what
were they risk burning down infrastructure? Yeah, you want to
go not true? Five four three, Okay, we're gonna lock it.
(42:30):
We didn't lock it in yet. Stop looking at me
that way, cuister. That's our time. He's given me a look.
You know, you never know with Okay, all right, we'll
say it that. Let's do it. Not true, you poor idiots,
you poor idiots. It's true, son of us. It is
absolutely true. I gave you this on a platter. I
(42:53):
did you say platter? Laatter? Listen, I've had a few,
all right, listen, listen, listen, man bowl and listen. Had
to make sure it was good stuff that I brought you. Listen,
all right? So anyway, yeah, no, this is one of
the three big fire festivals of Japan. It's actually one
of the most famous. Has been covered various news outlets
(43:16):
like NPR, and I mean it was the internet is
lousy with information about this thing, and I thought for
sure one of you would have heard about it, since
it's so crazy. So I feel, have you heard about
the one with the rice? Though? Where the spit that one? So?
So what is happening here is the doso jin is
as a Shinto spirit that is considered to be a
(43:37):
kindly spirit that helps travelers, and and so the the
priest from the nearby shrine supposedly abused this temporary shrine,
this model of a shrine that's been constructed over the
course of a few days by about a hundred villagers
with the spirit of a of a doso Jean. The
whole purpose is to burn it. It's it's it's almost
(43:59):
like an offer. And so they build a big bonfire
out of various pieces of very flammable stuff and lots
of the toole m dolls and things that represent various
elements of the culture, and then the men of the
village they light their tortures, they are supposed to eventually
burn the thing down. I think that's also one of
the reasons why the defenders are encouraged to get almost
(44:23):
blackout drunk. It seems dangerous fire. Yeah, that's a guy.
Guy died. He pee in my defense, in our defense.
When you say shrine and you're talking about like a village,
I think I'm picturing like a building that's meant to
stay there. No, this was absolutely just constructed for the
(44:44):
purpose of the festival. That's me and a lot of
those abilities are created from wood rather than this one.
Like you risk burning down the whole village though, Like
the pictures of this, by the way, are phenomenal. It
happens January every year. So if you guys, you know
we're gonna want to do a ridiculous history on the road.
I'm just saying, extra credits be there. Yeah, let's get
(45:07):
the bosses to pop for Japan tickets. Yeah, lend just
for fun. Let's find one of our coworkers that is
either forty two or twenty five and not tell them
what's going down to way like you know what age
I am this year? Right? Two just missed it? Well, yeah,
well I can't even be man that that was good.
(45:28):
I I love learning new stuff nol. So, although Quister,
I do feel like you put a lot more work
into gloating about today than you did into doing the question,
I applaud you. I gave you so many hints for
one thing. Just the last time I was on here,
you mentioned that when I do a really long one,
(45:48):
it means it's fake. I did another really long one
just so that you would know it was real, and
you still chose. I could tell by the way you
were looking at me. Man should have flipped him, should I? Yeah,
But we're a team. We are We're a team. I
don't want to do a last minute flip. And we
have your back. Folks, thank you so much for tuning in.
(46:09):
Uh and Quister, Uh, thank you for coming on the show.
Enjoy your beer, Thank you for the thank you for
the unlabeled generic basement beer. I say, swill. Well, uh,
that's it for us today. However, if you would like
to learn more ridiculous history, if you would like to
hang out with your fellow ridiculous historians, Boy do we
(46:32):
have good news for you. Yeah, you can do it
on the Facebook. You can just go on the Facebook
page for the show, or if you want to take
it up a not you can join our Facebook group,
The Ridiculous Historians, where I hear that pretty soon we're
gonna see pictures of superproducer Casey's very lucrative childhood modeling
career head shots. Here there's catalog spreads, spreads you know,
(46:55):
probably gonna be some oshkosh gosh involved. We'll get to
see him with an assortment of face com parents. From
what I hear, good stuff, good times over, good times
over on the Ridiculous Historians. Um. You can also do
us a solid and leave us a kindly review on
iTunes um, because you know, why wouldn't you. Yeah, we
we always like to hear from you, and uh do
(47:17):
remember to tune in for our next episode where we
nailed down the mystery behind the name of California. Spoiler
alert involves a badass Amazonian queen and weaponized Griffins. Yes, yes, yes,
what the heck are you guys talking about. We'll find
(47:38):
out at our very next episode. In the meantime, that's
all for today, Thank you so much. If you are
uh participating in any of the stuff we mentioned in
this topic. Not to sound too much like a worry warp,
but we, uh we, all of us, the Quister and
Casey included, hope that you are safe and make responsible decisions. Indeed,
(48:00):
I can't open the door, guys, I can't. I can't.
I'm too far. It's because your hands are so tiny.
Let's get some torches.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
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Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!