December 23, 2016 • 49 mins
For centuries communities in France and Spain practiced a brutal, widely-accepted system of discrimination against a group of families and individuals known as Cagots -- but who were these people? Where did they come from, and where are they now?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M Hello,
(00:23):
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt. We
are joined in spirit by our super producer, Nold the
Madman Brown, who will be returning his absence. Will if
we make the heart grow fonder? Right? Certainly it will
for me. And they call me Ben. You are you?
And that makes this stuff they don't want you to
(00:47):
know again? Here closer and closer to the end reminds
me of that Yates poem Matt, what rough beasts our
come at last slouches towards Yeah. I do remember the
second coming. I believe it's called Yeah. I am certainly
ready for to be over, though I do dread a
(01:09):
bit of what the next may bring, what will happen
in Yeah, that's the that's the matter of perspective, right.
The most frightening thing that people can think about when
we look at the future and turns of events is, uh,
what if people in look back on this is the
(01:32):
good old days? Oh? I was gonna say, they will
definitely you know, well, the world is big. It depends
on where you live, right, and even perhaps more importantly,
what your position in a given society has been, And
that's something we're exploring today. Much of human history has
(01:52):
been a study in unequal rights, either by this constant
conflict right, either by group striving for better representation or
other groups fighting to maintain a system of oppression that
benefits them. You know, I'm not a big believer in hierarchies.
I think they're garbage. I think they're for the birds,
(02:12):
not even the cool birds, like the crappy birds, like seagulls. Right,
I haven't seen many crow hierarchies. Maybe there are some,
there are there are, I'm sure there are, um, but
you're absolutely right. I I don't like these things hierarchies
in general, and I understand why they're necessary for some
(02:34):
some people, but uh, philosophically and historically, they're used to
oppress the many for the benefit of the few. That
is what happens with hierarchies. Whether you're talking about the
tribal system in the UK, which continues to exist, of course,
I guess people feel better about it when we called
(02:56):
an aristocracy, or whether you're talking about continued cultural repression
in other countries. Uh, it all boils down to the
same thing, and it's a source of uh, massive conflict
in these conflicts have occurred, the cycle of conflict rather
has occurred multiple times. In the US, for example, we
have these struggle for civil rights that was again a
(03:19):
group of people who were benefiting from a system of
oppression versus a group of people who were h who
are losing out because that same system and the reasoning
behind these Uh, these oppressive systems are based on so
many different things. There's so many different reasons. I know,
(03:40):
it sounds like I just picked on the United Kingdom
and I just picked on the United States. But these
are just two examples. Like, there are multiple kinds of oppression. Yeah,
you can go to gender discrimination, where you're looking at
male and female and one is treated differently. Over the
course of history, it's largely on on the females who
(04:01):
have been oppressed in this way. But let's not forget
women in the United States could not vote, couldn't vote
for president, couldn't vote for anything just a few decades ago.
It hasn't been that long. Yeah, right, And as we
record this, uh, this country and many other countries in
the West are in the grips of a new kind
(04:21):
of gender discrimination with people who are trans. Right, So
the the idea that um a person who identifies as
female but was biologically identified as a male at the
time of their birth, is that that's becoming a huge
(04:42):
legal issue here in the US. And then there are
other things too, Right, there's the untouchable cast of India,
and these folks have have endured horrific discrimination, and the
Government of horse has taken steps to try to mitigate
(05:05):
this situation. But the caste system of India is not
something that's going to be swept away by a convenient law,
you know what I mean, It's it's too deep set.
Then you have various systems of slavery, everything from chattel
(05:26):
slavery like in the United States for example back in
the day, wage slavery, bondage labor, mandatory minimums and uh
and prison labor. I mean, it's a version of it.
It's not outright slavery, but wage slavery. Yeah, that might
have to be its own episode. Yeah, yeah, we can
(05:47):
talk about that. We should definitely have Nolan for that one.
Does anybody want to write to us and and let
us know your opinion of wage slavery. Actually, this is
a sidebar. This is a sidebar. Um, Could I ask
what your first job was. My first job was working
pool side as a server at the Piedmont Driving Club, fancy,
(06:11):
and then I got an internship here, so I've got
I had to oh, man, okay, uh without going too
deep into my past because I don't usually say that
sort of stuff. My first legal job was at a
at at a grocery store, and I tried, eventually, I
(06:33):
tried matt to get fired. I did numerous things. They
just wouldn't fire me because the other people at the
grocery store were that bad, and so eventually I just
stopped going. Man, you weren't worried about the stigma of
being fired from one job. No. I went ahead and
(06:53):
told them that I was just going to stop showing
up because I'm getting another job. And I got a
different job, and then just stopped going. That was the
only way, because I had said I'll quit before and
they would call with a with a follow up thing.
But it was just very strange. This is surreal situation.
You know. I feel like you're opening up more than
(07:16):
i've heard you open up in a while, so I
want to keep going, but I know we have to continue.
I'm setting it up because Okay, let's you were a servant.
I was a grocer. Those are types of occupations, right,
I mean I was still a servant, So aren't we all,
well most of us. There's also ethnic or so called
racial discrimination. That is, when you hear about minorities being
(07:40):
being persecuted, or when you hear about groups that maybe
to an outsider, seem pretty much identical, right, when you
hear about these groups having bitter, bitter rivalries U. One
famous situation in Europe course is the Roma who have
(08:05):
met numerous types of prejudice and discrimination in stereotyping and
have in many cases never fully assimilated into the local
culture of wherever they are. Yeah, I was gonna say,
it's a lot of that has to do with cultural
differences and clashing with whichever power is seen as the
(08:27):
norm or whichever group is seen as the norm in
an area, and then there's cultural discrimination, right. One big
example of this would be World War two era Japan's
nationalistic superiority complex over China and uh the puppet state
of Banchuria that they built. They did unspeakable things. Uh,
(08:51):
they did it because they thought the other people weren't like,
really human. Yeah, that's a common theme. That's a common theme.
And then there's the religious discrimination to right, Yes, and
for examples of this, you can look to Catholic persecution
of Jewish people's Protestants, native peoples, and colonized countries. And
you can also see this in the various forms of
(09:13):
discrimination practice between Islamic and Jewish cultures. Yeah. Yeah, there's
another aspect to this, however, and this is the strangest thing,
ladies and gentlemen. In some cases, societies have no concrete
reasoning behind the discriminatory practice none. Yeah. I wanted to
(09:34):
say that I feel that a lot of times there's
not that much of a concrete basis for a lot
of these discriminatory practices. But these in particular that were
about to look at just feels like why so. Yeah.
For instance, the Bruckmann of Japan were historically treated in
a manner very similar to the Dale or untouchables in India,
(09:58):
despite the fact they are not just not just visually identical,
but genetically identical to mainstream Japanese population, and they are
practicing Buddhists, and they are not in almost any other
way distinguishable from the rest of Japan. We're talking about
discrimination based on name or neighborhood. But today, ladies and gentlemen, yes,
(10:20):
there is a point to our brief exploration. Today we're
looking at another, perhaps lesser known example of a similarly
mysterious case of persecution. It's a group of people known
as the Cargo, also Capo ago Gehette or Chris, which
stands for Christian Right. So who are these people? What's
(10:45):
going on? Why have most of the world population never
ever heard of them? We will tell you after a
brief word from our sponsor m Welcome back. So we're
(11:06):
looking at this group called they could go Now, historical
records have proven that for centuries, communities in western France
and northern Spain practiced brutal, systematic discrimination against this group
of people. There there was a system that was well established,
and it was oddly uniform throughout much of France. All right,
(11:29):
because this is unusual because at this time people weren't
communicating as easily as people communicate today, which means that
there's a lot of drift or creep in local customs,
and this was also one of the reasons why haresy
was such a big concern for the Catholic Church. Let's
(11:49):
say there's a church as Gun isolated, it's out in
the Alps or something. Nobody's seen these people for fifteen
twenty years. They're getting some weird ideas and changing stuff around,
doing some weird things, right, So this happened. This happened constantly,
and the that is one of the reasons why the
(12:12):
persecution of the persecution of Cago in France and in
that area of Spain is fascinating. Now. Of course it
evolves over time, but it seemed to have a very
oddly specific system to you know, to this persecution. And
(12:35):
the could Go were Catholic. They were. They were just
as Catholic as their neighbors who were not Cuyo. But
they were only reluctantly loud into the auspices of the church.
Let's talk about some of the community rules applying to
these people. Uh, they could not take communion the same
way as I guess the more legitimate people of their community.
(12:58):
They had to enter and sit in separate parts of
the church, and they were also buried in separate graveyards.
And when it came to the church. There are several
instances of churches that had entrances just in the back,
you know, smaller doors that appeared to be that's what
they were for. Some of them have signs that even
(13:18):
have the word could go or one of these other
names referred to them as it. But there were also
a few that had strange entrances where you had to
climb up a ladder in order to get into another
ladder system inside the church. Fascinating the lengths that some
of these churches went to to separate this group of
people from the rest of their flock because they were
(13:40):
seen somehow as tainted dirty. Yeah. They were also not
allowed to walk bare foot, which gave rise to rumors
that their feet were webbed, and in some places they
were required to wear a badge that was occasionally in
the shape of a goose's foot. Yeah, and it was red. Yeah,
just a red badge that you had to wear hot
and red footed. I was going to say, again, sounds
(14:03):
familiar to historical references here. Um. Oh, and also they
were only allowed to make purchases in town on Mondays.
This is according to an eighteen account. Yeah, so this
already sounds weird, but it goes on. They were restricted
(14:24):
to certain trades, particularly carpentry. This led to situations in
which uh cago may end up building the very same
church that's going to persecute them and their family later
talk about a head trip. Huh A little bit, and
we're by the way. One of the great resources we
(14:46):
got for this was from an author named Daniel Hawkins,
who wrote paper called Cameras that degrade humanity like cago
and discrimination. So we uh, we found some other things here.
I want to read a small selection from this paper.
(15:07):
Restrictive legislation concerning could go appeared many times after twelve
eighty eight, which is when we see more detailed municipal records.
While details differed, prohibitions typically expressed similar concerns. They required
that could go were segregated in their living quarters, occupations,
and day to day interactions. They were forbidden from marrying
(15:28):
non couldgo. They could not enter taverns, hold cabarets, use
public fountains, sell food or wine, touch food in the market,
work with livestock, or enter a mill. They were not
allowed to carry arms other than professional tools. And this
goes to the example we talked about earlier, there was
severe and brutal punishment for transgressors. So if we go
(15:50):
back with our time traveling hypothetical French Matt Frederick, which,
by the way, I'm liking this character. I see him
in a beret, but I don't know if that's historically accurate.
I don't think so, but let's go with it. What
about it? What about it? Cassic? Yes, all right, So
(16:10):
if we go back to that time where where our oh, Matt,
what's your French name? Pierre Pierre? Okay, alright, Pierre Frederick.
When Pierre Frederick is walking by, he may and sees
that hand being nailed to the door, he may well
(16:32):
have not said a word if it was familiar with
the discrimination against could go, because we know what's happened
several times one could go. Merchant was punished for touching
the main baptismal fought by having his hands severed from
his arm and nailed to a door. I don't think
it was the door of the church, but that would
be that seems like that would be a bad idea
(16:53):
nail a severed arm to the place where everybody hand enter,
just the hand to hand. Sure, just uh. There was
another account of a man who allegedly, uh, grew food
on his land and farmed it, and he had metal
spikes pushed through his feet as punishment. That's that's very
(17:18):
it's very odd, you know, and it's it's disturbing to
get when you consider that these people. Although you might
have heard them described as swarthy at some point, uh,
I also read something where they were described as being
fair skinned. Yeah. There are widely different accounts of how
what a cago looks like. Right. Rumors about them were
(17:41):
wide ranging, rampant stuff. We can just go down the list, right,
Oh sure. Yeah. They were viewed as heretics, like we said,
despite their regular attendants to church, despite being Catholics, they
reviewed as not being Catholic. They were accused of being lepers,
which will get into Uh. There was there were rumors
about them holding secret meetings for nefarious, unknown purposes. Yeah. Again,
(18:05):
we see this throughout history, Like what are they meeting
in secret about? Are they actually meeting in secret dude?
Or are you are you just a little paranoid? Anyway,
they're probably saying, hey, does everybody have their hands? Yeah?
How what are strategies we can use to not be
as persecuted. Yeah, we're pro hand h. Yeah, they're also
(18:28):
accused of being descendants of Ghaazi. I don't know if
I'm saying that correctly, but this was the wicked servant
of the prophet Elisha, and you know, being the children
of this person, it was believed that they were all
cursed with the curse that was placed on Ghazzi. That's
that's similar to the old Latter Day Saint policy of
(18:49):
discrimination against against darker skinned people, right. Uh. Yeah. Ghazzi
is a figure found in the Book of Kings. He
was in a position of power, but he was corrupt.
Rudard Kipling wrote a poem about him, but I can't
remember exactly what it was. Uh yeah. So this something,
(19:12):
This was something that was common in this era of Christianity,
which was to find a biblical basis, however tenuous, to
rationalize mistreatment of an individual. So it's a long book.
(19:33):
You read closely enough and think creatively enough, you're bound
to find something. And I want to note here. So
his big sin was avaraice, right, he was stealing stuff,
he was racking up change in his master's names, tricking people. Yeah,
(19:55):
and he was guilty of duplicity. And dissan Stee. So
Elisha the prophet denounced him and passed upon him the
terrible doom. And this is a quote from Kings that
leprosy of Namin would leave to him and his descendants forever. Yep.
So that's where you pull some you know, someone in
(20:17):
the church believing that to be true, and hey, here's
someone I can apply that too. But but this curse
came with at least some allegations of dark powers, isn't
that right? Yeah, there are there are allegations that they
were sorcerers. It was believed that they could be witch cattle,
which sounds a little more fun than it probably should
(20:39):
to me. It sounds like the you know, of course
these are largely agricultural communities, but right now it sounds
like one of the most useless superpowers ever. Whether you're
whether you're a a villain or a hero, you're pretty
much restricted. You have to live around livestock for it
to even matter. The cattle Witcher is not going to
(21:02):
be a threat in New York City. Gosh, that's a
great character, though. The cattle which the cattle Witcher On
the next episode of The Cattle Witcher, Yes, it was
also believed that perhaps they have the power of the
evil eye, where if they stared at your child long enough,
(21:22):
or anyone really, they can cause terrible things to happen
to them. They could curse with a glance. Yeah. Uh.
And this this ties into some of the more wide
ranging accusations of paranormal ability that occur with this sort
of persecution. You'll also hear stuff about being able to
(21:42):
poison wells or being able to you know, when they're
talking about bewitching cattle, they're talking about the cattle falling
ill or perhaps miscarrying during birth and stuff like that. Well, yeah,
that's why they weren't allowed to touch food. It was
it was believed that any food that they touch, no
matter at what stage. That's why you can't farm, it
(22:03):
will rot immediately, will be soiled immediately, you cannot eat
or you know, do anything with edible objects that are
touched by these could go. That's the belief. Cattle witchers.
I'm stuck out it out, cattle witchers. Uh. Yeah. So
you also find that in the real estate, right, you
(22:24):
find evidence of this belief in the real estate. Oh yeah,
with these powers, that's why a lot of times you
would see there, their residences, the areas where they lived
had to be separated by somebody of water, a stream
of water, just enough to where those mystical powers can't
carry over because their beliefs about how magic operates. Today,
(22:46):
you're not going to hear much about the cold goo fit.
Families that discover this heritage in the modern day often
will hide it in fear of continuing low level discrimination
against their spouses or their children. So very very very
very very few come forward in the modern day, and
the population itself was always relatively small in comparison to
(23:12):
you know, the rest of France and Spain. Uh. Now
it seems set to fade into nothingness. But there's still
so many unanswered questions, Matt, Who are these people, why
did they become the repressed class, and maybe most importantly,
where did they come from? These are all questions we're
(23:33):
going to look at. Right after a word from our sponsor.
Here's where it gets crazy. No one really knows. No
one knows for certain where they could go originate. Yeah,
but there's some theories. There are many, many, many, many,
(23:56):
many theories, but they are of a varying plausibility, and
they are all somewhat fascinating. I would say, for instance,
were they the descendants of Moorish soldiers who, for instance,
during the Muslim conquest of Spain or areas of Spain
(24:18):
simply migrated up and out in de France, It's a possibility.
Did they begin as a guild of skilled medieval woodworkers
with their persecution rising as a form of commercial rivalry
that eventually got solidified into tradition. So people didn't know
(24:38):
why these dudes were dirty, but they knew that their
parents thought that what if they were Moorish medieval woodworkers?
And so this, yeah, this ties back into the question
that I earlier asked you, Matt about your first occupation.
Because the strange thing is that if we lived in
(24:59):
a different society, where we lived in a even a
different time period, we would overwhelmingly be likely to continue
the work that our parents did as even a guild
or caste or something, so because we would be apprentices,
(25:19):
hopefully if we were lucky talented. So, if your father
is a cobbler, you're a cobbler. If your father is
uh yeah, then you're an accountant. If your father is
a military officer, you follow the same thing. If your
father is a cattle witcher. Um, then you are also,
(25:41):
I'm sorry you're also a cattle witcher. I would gonna
let it go. I wouldna let it go. I'm not
in any way condoning the bewitchment of live stock of cattle.
They've got it tough enough, however, I am which all
the cattle that you possibly can, and then tell me
how you did it. Write to us conspiracy and how
stuff works dot com. Okay, all right, yes, yes, please
(26:04):
let Matt know the source of your dark Movine related powers.
So the thing that we see here that's strange is
that when people had less social mobility, when your parents
or your grandparents occupations would largely determine your own occupation,
(26:29):
we also see a society where certain occupations are considered
more valuable than others, or maybe a better way to
say it to certain occupations are seen as much less valuable.
For instance, executioners had some of the same laws against
their behavior as did could go in and this was
(26:51):
in Germany. Perhaps an executioner can't go to the bar,
can't touch food or drink around people, because the executioner,
like his father before him, makes a living by killing people.
And that's seen as you know, morally reprehensible but necessary
(27:12):
for society. And we see this in some other cultures,
for instance, working with hides or disposing of human waste,
like the untouchables, right, that would be that would be
a lower cast job. So and a lot of it
seems to arise from almost it's a it's a combination
(27:34):
of lack of scientific understanding of how some of it works,
a lack of technology for cleaning, like and being able
to cleanse oneself after working a job such as killing
people or you know, taking the hides off of animals. Sure,
you know this perception of unclean. I mean, it's rife
(27:55):
with disease and for germ theory. And it's true that
it is like it acts, really is so that not
having the technology also creates that system where somebody in
the historical record experienced, you know, drinking with the executioner
who happened to kill somebody who had a terrible disease
and boom next thing. You know, Yeah, I mean, well,
(28:18):
well no, but I can. I mean, that's just how
it happened. It's just the only way that it happens, right,
And it's something that people accept and also of course
I'm just saying couru because I like the word. The
only way that somebody can get kuru is by consuming
uh brains. Brains, yeah, which will give you those prions, um,
(28:40):
which are bad news. Uh. Speaking of bad news, Matty,
I just realized something. If your avatar in the Middle
Ages there in the Pierre in the thirteen hundreds, right, Uh,
if if he's wearing a cassock, it makes your situation
(29:02):
even worse because you're probably the priest or a priest.
People have a lot to get ready for. There's a
mass later. Yeah. Yeah, you don't want him to get
your own. You maybe even want to help the guy,
but you're like, I'm not getting that filthy cago blood
(29:22):
on my cassock to use my shoe to open the door.
Just shoot open the door quick. Everyone check the cattle. Uh.
So there's this other idea that they were descendants of
earlier uh cultural groups, and that this somehow made them
(29:44):
not worthy of trust or made them tainted, made them
somehow other made them threatening to a degree. And one
would be that that they were descendants of the Goths.
The could go first appear in records as early as
the tenth century, but they became more prominent from the
(30:05):
thirteenth century on, and they were in both sides of
the Western Pyrenees. Uh. They lived in these small, poor,
segregated communities on the periphery of these villages and towns.
So they've been around for so long that it's easily
easily understandable that someone would rationalize persecuting them by saying, well,
(30:29):
you know, you remember those other guys from centuries ago. Yeah,
it's them, don't trust them. And there are a couple
other theories about groups that came through France and Spain
as conquerors at one point or another, like the Saracens.
Like there again remnants who perhaps have um switched over
(30:50):
to Catholicism and now they continue to live in the
area their families do, and you know they're bad news
just because of that. Again, these are all possibilities. And
maybe then it's a range of these, Like it's a
combination of all of these things, of just people that
look other Yeah, yeah, possibly like the we'll get to
(31:14):
the the conspiratorial angle of this. But there are more
than you might think, because obviously we're looking at a
mainstream community that conspired to repress a very small minority. Uh,
which is odd because I think in the sixteen hundreds
the could go or maybe two percent of the population.
So never never in large numbers. Um, Although I did
(31:38):
really remember some some other stuff I wanted to mention.
I don't know if you found this in your research,
some more specificity about could go so like you and
I said, they were described as fair skinned by some,
as swarthy by others, dark skinned, dark skinned, lights in
the earlobes. That's the thing, that's why I wanted to mention.
(32:00):
And they supposedly lacked ear lobes and were miss magicians.
Sorcerers had an infectious, terrible odor. They're always accused of
smelling bad. And they gave off great heat. Here's a
quote when the south wind blew their lips, jugular glands
and the duck foot mark under their left armpit all swelled.
(32:22):
What yeah, so uh they okay? So they are considered
to be smelly, to have these strange physical ailments, and
that goes to one of their biggest rash, one of
(32:43):
the biggest rationalizations for persecuting these people, which was that
they are lepers and Cretans. So I'm familiar with lepers,
that would be Uh, several. I know that encompasses several
different diseases of the time, but a lot of it
has to do with infectious disease that could be transmitted
(33:05):
easily if interacting with this person, right, and that would
make sense. Uh, make sure these people aren't interacting with
the everyday public as to not kill everyone in the village, right,
I mean that that makes sense. Yeah. So one of
the prevailing beliefs among historians about the cold Goo is
(33:25):
that leprosy was the essence of this phenomenon. People used
to think that leprosy was inherited, right, a poison the
generations and the blood. However, even after people knew that
leprosy was not a purely inherited trait, you know, that
(33:49):
could communicate between unrelated people. Uh. Some authors consider the
could Go to be a special case of hereditary lepers, uh,
that the disease was just kind of concentrated in them. However,
another writer said that maybe what happens, maybe the birth
(34:10):
of the could Go when the records were appearing in
the tenth century, started when people who were already infected
with something and considered lepers banded together on the periphery
of a town solidarity and to yeah, to make their own,
make their own village, and that later you know, their
(34:31):
descendants were affected by the stigma of the disease even
though they didn't carry it. They just came from that
crappy home situation. So the weird thing is though that,
aside from you know, these vestigial treats, these vestigial rules
(34:56):
of you know, don't touch stuff with your hands, don't
go through the same door, et cetera. Uh, people seemed
to interact. They seemed to exist in the community. You know,
if they were doing woodworking, you would still take a
table from the person. Somehow, somehow the wood was fine.
Somehow the wood was fine. Yeah. Also, we know that
(35:20):
groups of could Go were proven not to have leprosy.
In six after decades of dispute, people complained of discrimination.
Could Go complain this discrimination to Parliament and they gave
them a thorough medical examination. They examined twenty two people,
all carpenters or joiners, and they exams at this time,
(35:44):
we're not we're not the turn your head and cough
inconveniences of the modern age. These people had their bodies palpated,
their arms were bled. Uh, they applied heated cups to
them to check their sir ppulation, and the doctors came
back with the results and they said, well, these are
(36:05):
just the ordinary people. Uh there, fine, they're in the quota.
Is there in all health in their body, exempt from
all contagious maladies and without any disposition to those maladies
requiring them to be separated from the company of other
healthy people. So they blew it out of water. Yeah,
they didn't find any quote, peculiar diseases. But leprosy at
(36:28):
the time was not considered purely a specific physical ailment.
In earlier years, it was more of a umbrella or
catch all description for possibly a spiritual things. Your your
body could be fine, but you might be morally or
spiritually leprous. That's why they could go. We're also occasionally
(36:48):
called white lepers, which is just a very un appealing
name that Well, could it simply be that they were
discriminated against because as they were poor, We know that
the state of the poor in France and Spain at
the time was the social position was very very different.
(37:10):
It was considered an affront to have to see the poor. Yeah,
but then there are accounts at least from that reference
that I gave, where the poor people the peasants are
the ones who are prosecuting the could go. They're the
most opposed. So that's the chicken and negg thing. Was
(37:34):
their poverty results of this discrimination or was the discrimination
result of the poverty? I tend to think the former.
But you're right, and we see this in modern societies
today too. If you want people to be satisfied with
their position in an unfair hierarchy, all you have to
(37:55):
do is put at least one more wrong on the
ladder below them, Give them someone to look down on,
and they will stop looking up to wonder what's happening
at the top. That is unfortunate and too true, too true. Uh.
It seems that later the rise of racially based accusations
(38:16):
like oh these sworely Moorish soldiers or whatever, that they
came about after the decline of leprosy, after the climb
physical threat from disease, meaning that the racism happened afterwards
to rationalize the pre existing prejudice. You know, that's so crazy. Yeah,
(38:43):
it's so disturbing. If it's not one thing, it's another. Well,
what I found. What I found is that the way
a lot of these with these rumors that we discussed earlier,
and all these things that that could go were purportedly
to be able to do and smell like and all
these things. A lot of it was handed down through
songs that were the they called them party songs that
(39:07):
would be spread in probably a tavern where it's the
again the peasants all drinking together. And this makes so
much sense to me now, been drinking together singing about
the rung of the ladder that's below them, uh, to
make themselves feel better. I can totally see that now
as Pierre in the tavern. Uh wow, this that is
(39:30):
really disturbing. Yeah, ah, no kidding. And here's here's another thing.
Next question. Right, we were probably never gonna have an
answer about where where this group of people came from,
where they actually came from, and why they were originally persecuted.
We just have those best guesses and sadly we are
(39:55):
probably not going to find out because I know there's
so many people in the audience now who are probably
yelling at the speaker DNA, you guys, just do the
DNA tests. Fantastic point. If there were someone to do
a DNA test on you can read. Probably the most
(40:15):
recent thing you can read about this disappearing group of
people is an article in The Independent from about two
thousand and eight where one one woman from the French Pyrenees,
Marie Pierre huh MiNet Bezet, as talking about her ancestry.
(40:38):
At the time, she was a forty something mother of three,
and she was being billed as the last living Cago,
or at least the last one who will admit to
being Cago. And they say it's a bad thing. She said,
it's still a bad thing in the mountains in two
tho eight. Uh the French are a shamed of what
(40:58):
they did they could go or shamed of what they were,
and no one will confess that they could go descent.
So this means that h This means that this entire concept,
whatever was based on, is disappearing because now the conspiracy
(41:19):
has shifted. It went from mainstream French communities conspiring to
essentially make life hell and keep these people at the
bottom of the social barrel, to a conspiracy by those
people's descendants, by the could go descendants to escape and
erase their past, just like that guy in Gataga played
by Ethan Hawk. Great movie Thank you. They thank you,
(41:45):
thank you, to go back to to go back to
um rebe Pierre really fast. Yes. At the very end
of that article, she they're asking about her children, because
she has several children. And the big thing she says,
and she's like, no, I can't show you pictures of
my children because of the stigma. It remains so much
(42:09):
in this area today. You can't. You can't even know
my children. Look at just in case. And she also
says that could go. She's one of the people who
says that could go or described as swarthy or as
darker skinned. Postiferous. Yes, they called the postiferous people, which
has an unfortunate ring to it. And with this, we
(42:32):
with this, we end our narrative of the could go.
This the shifting social conspiracy first of a group of
a mainstream group too essentially enslave, socially bind a group,
and then that group's collective effort to end itself. It's
(42:56):
very successful effort to do so. But these are not
the old vanishing people in the world. We know that
there are several other examples, right, the Aromanians UH and
the Russians who are both mentioned in the article, and
the Independent UH. The Aromanians the day back to Roman colonization.
(43:19):
They're spread across the southern Balkans, but they're believed to
be almost extinct or their cultural identity and evidence of
their culture lives on with some Grecian festivals. And then
the Russians are they're around one point two million expected
(43:39):
to ar estimated to live in Europe, over half of
them or in the Ukraine. They're not recognized by Ukraine
because of the communist regime of the fifties and that's
the time their church was also eradicated. But but they're
responsible for a lot of those beautiful wooden churches that
you can see in the area. One of the points
(44:00):
here is that our species doesn't, you know, just lose memories,
doesn't just lose cities, which we've covered, doesn't just lose civilizations, No,
it also loses entire cultures, entire groups of people who
who are alike by blood, who are also alike by
(44:23):
language and by custom. You know. Then one of the
other things we lose our entire animal species. I know
that's another podcast, but yeah, that's another podcast too. Uh.
And it's true, unfortunately, but it is also true that
now in the modern age, we have the ability to
(44:44):
preserve some of this stuff, and we have the ability, thinks,
to rise of easily affordable recording technology. Two preserve some
piece of the past, some knowledge, some essence of the
days and the people that came before. And that's why
(45:06):
I would suggest this is just my opinion, but I
would suggest to all of you out there listening to this,
whether in twenty sixteen or twenty one oh six, don't
hesitate to if you have older family members, or if
you have someone older in your community and you think
that that community is not long for this world, because
(45:28):
it happens every civilization rises and falls. You can easily
take a second to just interview them and record their answers,
and it's something that you will like and and your
kids will like, and on and on on and on
and nobody has to be a cattle witcher. So with
that being said, before we head out today, it's time
(45:50):
for ours shut at corners. We have a single shout
out to give today. It is is from redacted. That's
what I'm gonna call that, uh, and here it goes.
I'm a military psychiatrist currently in residency training. So when
(46:10):
you ask for stories from people who use mind altering
drugs in the military. Well, it's kind of my thing.
Regarding drugs in general, all active duty personnel get randomly
drug tested frequently, and unless you have very good medical
reason to be on a drug, you're likely going to
be dishonorably discharged. Yeah, we're going to continue reading just
some excerpts from redacted email, which is fantastic by the
(46:33):
way he says or she says. Regarding uppers, Yes, some
are still used, but to a substantially lesser degree than
you might suspect. Uh. Provigil, which is the brand name
for modafinil, is a non amphetamine stimulant vastly preferred over
amphetamine derivatives. We still don't know exactly how it works,
(46:56):
but it seems to simulate alpha brainwave activity while decree
seen delta and data waves, effectively simulating wakefulness regarding amphetamines.
While a d h D is still probably underdiagnosed, chances
are if you've made it through basic training, you don't
need a d h D. Meads personally, I hate them.
(47:16):
I've seen several sailors and marines get kicked out of
the service after getting caught using them to try and
boost their performance. I've also seen several service members get
tipped over into a frank psychosis that appears to have
been triggered by amphetamine overdoses. It's scary, it's dangerous, and
I keep my sailors as far away from the stuff
as possible. And then about battlefield medications. All sorts of
(47:40):
really crazy stuff goes down a firefight. Sometimes you cannot
afford to lose a riflemen, no matter what the cause.
We have combinations of common medicines that can keep a
trigger puller in the fight for longer than nature would allow.
But it's last ditch kind of move and deeply frowned
upon by almost all medical professionals. That is fascinating that
that one particular he talks about new tropics, which may
(48:03):
be something that you heard from the Joe Rogan podcast
or somewhere else. That's how I heard about them. And
the person writing this email says, I have personally cared
for patients that have had substantially catastrophic reactions from trying
to get a quote Bradley Cooper in limitless unquote state,
and these people have crashed and burned on the way there.
I strongly advise the patients avoid this type of supplicant,
(48:25):
supplement or medication. So it finishes up talking about withdrawal. Said,
in the vast majority of cases, morphine withdrawal cannot kill you.
They say it's awful, it's painful, squatesque, but unlikely to
be life threatening. Nowhere nearest dangerous is opiate overdose. And
so it says, hope that helps. If you have any
other questions about medicine, psychiatry, the military, particularly military medicine,
(48:49):
I'd be happy to share what I can. Thanks so
much for writing in redacted. We appreciate We appreciate your
time immensely. Thank you. Yeah, and we'd like to hear
from um you ladies, gentlemen, other folks identifying otherwise werewolves,
which is cattle Witcher's right, definitely those. You can check
(49:10):
us out on Facebook and Twitter, where we are conspiracy stuff,
where a conspiracy stuff show on Instagram, and if you
would like to send an email to us directly, you're
in luck. We are conspiracy at how stuff works dot com.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M Hello,
(00:23):
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt. We
are joined in spirit by our super producer, Nold the
Madman Brown, who will be returning his absence. Will if
we make the heart grow fonder? Right? Certainly it will
for me. And they call me Ben. You are you?
And that makes this stuff they don't want you to
(00:47):
know again? Here closer and closer to the end reminds
me of that Yates poem Matt, what rough beasts our
come at last slouches towards Yeah. I do remember the
second coming. I believe it's called Yeah. I am certainly
ready for to be over, though I do dread a
(01:09):
bit of what the next may bring, what will happen
in Yeah, that's the that's the matter of perspective, right.
The most frightening thing that people can think about when
we look at the future and turns of events is, uh,
what if people in look back on this is the
(01:32):
good old days? Oh? I was gonna say, they will
definitely you know, well, the world is big. It depends
on where you live, right, and even perhaps more importantly,
what your position in a given society has been, And
that's something we're exploring today. Much of human history has
(01:52):
been a study in unequal rights, either by this constant
conflict right, either by group striving for better representation or
other groups fighting to maintain a system of oppression that
benefits them. You know, I'm not a big believer in hierarchies.
I think they're garbage. I think they're for the birds,
(02:12):
not even the cool birds, like the crappy birds, like seagulls. Right,
I haven't seen many crow hierarchies. Maybe there are some,
there are there are, I'm sure there are, um, but
you're absolutely right. I I don't like these things hierarchies
in general, and I understand why they're necessary for some
(02:34):
some people, but uh, philosophically and historically, they're used to
oppress the many for the benefit of the few. That
is what happens with hierarchies. Whether you're talking about the
tribal system in the UK, which continues to exist, of course,
I guess people feel better about it when we called
(02:56):
an aristocracy, or whether you're talking about continued cultural repression
in other countries. Uh, it all boils down to the
same thing, and it's a source of uh, massive conflict
in these conflicts have occurred, the cycle of conflict rather
has occurred multiple times. In the US, for example, we
have these struggle for civil rights that was again a
(03:19):
group of people who were benefiting from a system of
oppression versus a group of people who were h who
are losing out because that same system and the reasoning
behind these Uh, these oppressive systems are based on so
many different things. There's so many different reasons. I know,
(03:40):
it sounds like I just picked on the United Kingdom
and I just picked on the United States. But these
are just two examples. Like, there are multiple kinds of oppression. Yeah,
you can go to gender discrimination, where you're looking at
male and female and one is treated differently. Over the
course of history, it's largely on on the females who
(04:01):
have been oppressed in this way. But let's not forget
women in the United States could not vote, couldn't vote
for president, couldn't vote for anything just a few decades ago.
It hasn't been that long. Yeah, right, And as we
record this, uh, this country and many other countries in
the West are in the grips of a new kind
(04:21):
of gender discrimination with people who are trans. Right, So
the the idea that um a person who identifies as
female but was biologically identified as a male at the
time of their birth, is that that's becoming a huge
(04:42):
legal issue here in the US. And then there are
other things too, Right, there's the untouchable cast of India,
and these folks have have endured horrific discrimination, and the
Government of horse has taken steps to try to mitigate
(05:05):
this situation. But the caste system of India is not
something that's going to be swept away by a convenient law,
you know what I mean, It's it's too deep set.
Then you have various systems of slavery, everything from chattel
(05:26):
slavery like in the United States for example back in
the day, wage slavery, bondage labor, mandatory minimums and uh
and prison labor. I mean, it's a version of it.
It's not outright slavery, but wage slavery. Yeah, that might
have to be its own episode. Yeah, yeah, we can
(05:47):
talk about that. We should definitely have Nolan for that one.
Does anybody want to write to us and and let
us know your opinion of wage slavery. Actually, this is
a sidebar. This is a sidebar. Um, Could I ask
what your first job was. My first job was working
pool side as a server at the Piedmont Driving Club, fancy,
(06:11):
and then I got an internship here, so I've got
I had to oh, man, okay, uh without going too
deep into my past because I don't usually say that
sort of stuff. My first legal job was at a
at at a grocery store, and I tried, eventually, I
(06:33):
tried matt to get fired. I did numerous things. They
just wouldn't fire me because the other people at the
grocery store were that bad, and so eventually I just
stopped going. Man, you weren't worried about the stigma of
being fired from one job. No. I went ahead and
(06:53):
told them that I was just going to stop showing
up because I'm getting another job. And I got a
different job, and then just stopped going. That was the
only way, because I had said I'll quit before and
they would call with a with a follow up thing.
But it was just very strange. This is surreal situation.
You know. I feel like you're opening up more than
(07:16):
i've heard you open up in a while, so I
want to keep going, but I know we have to continue.
I'm setting it up because Okay, let's you were a servant.
I was a grocer. Those are types of occupations, right,
I mean I was still a servant, So aren't we all,
well most of us. There's also ethnic or so called
racial discrimination. That is, when you hear about minorities being
(07:40):
being persecuted, or when you hear about groups that maybe
to an outsider, seem pretty much identical, right, when you
hear about these groups having bitter, bitter rivalries U. One
famous situation in Europe course is the Roma who have
(08:05):
met numerous types of prejudice and discrimination in stereotyping and
have in many cases never fully assimilated into the local
culture of wherever they are. Yeah, I was gonna say,
it's a lot of that has to do with cultural
differences and clashing with whichever power is seen as the
(08:27):
norm or whichever group is seen as the norm in
an area, and then there's cultural discrimination, right. One big
example of this would be World War two era Japan's
nationalistic superiority complex over China and uh the puppet state
of Banchuria that they built. They did unspeakable things. Uh,
(08:51):
they did it because they thought the other people weren't like,
really human. Yeah, that's a common theme. That's a common theme.
And then there's the religious discrimination to right, Yes, and
for examples of this, you can look to Catholic persecution
of Jewish people's Protestants, native peoples, and colonized countries. And
you can also see this in the various forms of
(09:13):
discrimination practice between Islamic and Jewish cultures. Yeah. Yeah, there's
another aspect to this, however, and this is the strangest thing,
ladies and gentlemen. In some cases, societies have no concrete
reasoning behind the discriminatory practice none. Yeah. I wanted to
(09:34):
say that I feel that a lot of times there's
not that much of a concrete basis for a lot
of these discriminatory practices. But these in particular that were
about to look at just feels like why so. Yeah.
For instance, the Bruckmann of Japan were historically treated in
a manner very similar to the Dale or untouchables in India,
(09:58):
despite the fact they are not just not just visually identical,
but genetically identical to mainstream Japanese population, and they are
practicing Buddhists, and they are not in almost any other
way distinguishable from the rest of Japan. We're talking about
discrimination based on name or neighborhood. But today, ladies and gentlemen, yes,
(10:20):
there is a point to our brief exploration. Today we're
looking at another, perhaps lesser known example of a similarly
mysterious case of persecution. It's a group of people known
as the Cargo, also Capo ago Gehette or Chris, which
stands for Christian Right. So who are these people? What's
(10:45):
going on? Why have most of the world population never
ever heard of them? We will tell you after a
brief word from our sponsor m Welcome back. So we're
(11:06):
looking at this group called they could go Now, historical
records have proven that for centuries, communities in western France
and northern Spain practiced brutal, systematic discrimination against this group
of people. There there was a system that was well established,
and it was oddly uniform throughout much of France. All right,
(11:29):
because this is unusual because at this time people weren't
communicating as easily as people communicate today, which means that
there's a lot of drift or creep in local customs,
and this was also one of the reasons why haresy
was such a big concern for the Catholic Church. Let's
(11:49):
say there's a church as Gun isolated, it's out in
the Alps or something. Nobody's seen these people for fifteen
twenty years. They're getting some weird ideas and changing stuff around,
doing some weird things, right, So this happened. This happened constantly,
and the that is one of the reasons why the
(12:12):
persecution of the persecution of Cago in France and in
that area of Spain is fascinating. Now. Of course it
evolves over time, but it seemed to have a very
oddly specific system to you know, to this persecution. And
(12:35):
the could Go were Catholic. They were. They were just
as Catholic as their neighbors who were not Cuyo. But
they were only reluctantly loud into the auspices of the church.
Let's talk about some of the community rules applying to
these people. Uh, they could not take communion the same
way as I guess the more legitimate people of their community.
(12:58):
They had to enter and sit in separate parts of
the church, and they were also buried in separate graveyards.
And when it came to the church. There are several
instances of churches that had entrances just in the back,
you know, smaller doors that appeared to be that's what
they were for. Some of them have signs that even
(13:18):
have the word could go or one of these other
names referred to them as it. But there were also
a few that had strange entrances where you had to
climb up a ladder in order to get into another
ladder system inside the church. Fascinating the lengths that some
of these churches went to to separate this group of
people from the rest of their flock because they were
(13:40):
seen somehow as tainted dirty. Yeah. They were also not
allowed to walk bare foot, which gave rise to rumors
that their feet were webbed, and in some places they
were required to wear a badge that was occasionally in
the shape of a goose's foot. Yeah, and it was red. Yeah,
just a red badge that you had to wear hot
and red footed. I was going to say, again, sounds
(14:03):
familiar to historical references here. Um. Oh, and also they
were only allowed to make purchases in town on Mondays.
This is according to an eighteen account. Yeah, so this
already sounds weird, but it goes on. They were restricted
(14:24):
to certain trades, particularly carpentry. This led to situations in
which uh cago may end up building the very same
church that's going to persecute them and their family later
talk about a head trip. Huh A little bit, and
we're by the way. One of the great resources we
(14:46):
got for this was from an author named Daniel Hawkins,
who wrote paper called Cameras that degrade humanity like cago
and discrimination. So we uh, we found some other things here.
I want to read a small selection from this paper.
(15:07):
Restrictive legislation concerning could go appeared many times after twelve
eighty eight, which is when we see more detailed municipal records.
While details differed, prohibitions typically expressed similar concerns. They required
that could go were segregated in their living quarters, occupations,
and day to day interactions. They were forbidden from marrying
(15:28):
non couldgo. They could not enter taverns, hold cabarets, use
public fountains, sell food or wine, touch food in the market,
work with livestock, or enter a mill. They were not
allowed to carry arms other than professional tools. And this
goes to the example we talked about earlier, there was
severe and brutal punishment for transgressors. So if we go
(15:50):
back with our time traveling hypothetical French Matt Frederick, which,
by the way, I'm liking this character. I see him
in a beret, but I don't know if that's historically accurate.
I don't think so, but let's go with it. What
about it? What about it? Cassic? Yes, all right, So
(16:10):
if we go back to that time where where our oh, Matt,
what's your French name? Pierre Pierre? Okay, alright, Pierre Frederick.
When Pierre Frederick is walking by, he may and sees
that hand being nailed to the door, he may well
(16:32):
have not said a word if it was familiar with
the discrimination against could go, because we know what's happened
several times one could go. Merchant was punished for touching
the main baptismal fought by having his hands severed from
his arm and nailed to a door. I don't think
it was the door of the church, but that would
be that seems like that would be a bad idea
(16:53):
nail a severed arm to the place where everybody hand enter,
just the hand to hand. Sure, just uh. There was
another account of a man who allegedly, uh, grew food
on his land and farmed it, and he had metal
spikes pushed through his feet as punishment. That's that's very
(17:18):
it's very odd, you know, and it's it's disturbing to
get when you consider that these people. Although you might
have heard them described as swarthy at some point, uh,
I also read something where they were described as being
fair skinned. Yeah. There are widely different accounts of how
what a cago looks like. Right. Rumors about them were
(17:41):
wide ranging, rampant stuff. We can just go down the list, right,
Oh sure. Yeah. They were viewed as heretics, like we said,
despite their regular attendants to church, despite being Catholics, they
reviewed as not being Catholic. They were accused of being lepers,
which will get into Uh. There was there were rumors
about them holding secret meetings for nefarious, unknown purposes. Yeah. Again,
(18:05):
we see this throughout history, Like what are they meeting
in secret about? Are they actually meeting in secret dude?
Or are you are you just a little paranoid? Anyway,
they're probably saying, hey, does everybody have their hands? Yeah?
How what are strategies we can use to not be
as persecuted. Yeah, we're pro hand h. Yeah, they're also
(18:28):
accused of being descendants of Ghaazi. I don't know if
I'm saying that correctly, but this was the wicked servant
of the prophet Elisha, and you know, being the children
of this person, it was believed that they were all
cursed with the curse that was placed on Ghazzi. That's
that's similar to the old Latter Day Saint policy of
(18:49):
discrimination against against darker skinned people, right. Uh. Yeah. Ghazzi
is a figure found in the Book of Kings. He
was in a position of power, but he was corrupt.
Rudard Kipling wrote a poem about him, but I can't
remember exactly what it was. Uh yeah. So this something,
(19:12):
This was something that was common in this era of Christianity,
which was to find a biblical basis, however tenuous, to
rationalize mistreatment of an individual. So it's a long book.
(19:33):
You read closely enough and think creatively enough, you're bound
to find something. And I want to note here. So
his big sin was avaraice, right, he was stealing stuff,
he was racking up change in his master's names, tricking people. Yeah,
(19:55):
and he was guilty of duplicity. And dissan Stee. So
Elisha the prophet denounced him and passed upon him the
terrible doom. And this is a quote from Kings that
leprosy of Namin would leave to him and his descendants forever. Yep.
So that's where you pull some you know, someone in
(20:17):
the church believing that to be true, and hey, here's
someone I can apply that too. But but this curse
came with at least some allegations of dark powers, isn't
that right? Yeah, there are there are allegations that they
were sorcerers. It was believed that they could be witch cattle,
which sounds a little more fun than it probably should
(20:39):
to me. It sounds like the you know, of course
these are largely agricultural communities, but right now it sounds
like one of the most useless superpowers ever. Whether you're
whether you're a a villain or a hero, you're pretty
much restricted. You have to live around livestock for it
to even matter. The cattle Witcher is not going to
(21:02):
be a threat in New York City. Gosh, that's a
great character, though. The cattle which the cattle Witcher On
the next episode of The Cattle Witcher, Yes, it was
also believed that perhaps they have the power of the
evil eye, where if they stared at your child long enough,
(21:22):
or anyone really, they can cause terrible things to happen
to them. They could curse with a glance. Yeah. Uh.
And this this ties into some of the more wide
ranging accusations of paranormal ability that occur with this sort
of persecution. You'll also hear stuff about being able to
(21:42):
poison wells or being able to you know, when they're
talking about bewitching cattle, they're talking about the cattle falling
ill or perhaps miscarrying during birth and stuff like that. Well, yeah,
that's why they weren't allowed to touch food. It was
it was believed that any food that they touch, no
matter at what stage. That's why you can't farm, it
(22:03):
will rot immediately, will be soiled immediately, you cannot eat
or you know, do anything with edible objects that are
touched by these could go. That's the belief. Cattle witchers.
I'm stuck out it out, cattle witchers. Uh. Yeah. So
you also find that in the real estate, right, you
(22:24):
find evidence of this belief in the real estate. Oh yeah,
with these powers, that's why a lot of times you
would see there, their residences, the areas where they lived
had to be separated by somebody of water, a stream
of water, just enough to where those mystical powers can't
carry over because their beliefs about how magic operates. Today,
(22:46):
you're not going to hear much about the cold goo fit.
Families that discover this heritage in the modern day often
will hide it in fear of continuing low level discrimination
against their spouses or their children. So very very very
very very few come forward in the modern day, and
the population itself was always relatively small in comparison to
(23:12):
you know, the rest of France and Spain. Uh. Now
it seems set to fade into nothingness. But there's still
so many unanswered questions, Matt, Who are these people, why
did they become the repressed class, and maybe most importantly,
where did they come from? These are all questions we're
(23:33):
going to look at. Right after a word from our sponsor.
Here's where it gets crazy. No one really knows. No
one knows for certain where they could go originate. Yeah,
but there's some theories. There are many, many, many, many,
(23:56):
many theories, but they are of a varying plausibility, and
they are all somewhat fascinating. I would say, for instance,
were they the descendants of Moorish soldiers who, for instance,
during the Muslim conquest of Spain or areas of Spain
(24:18):
simply migrated up and out in de France, It's a possibility.
Did they begin as a guild of skilled medieval woodworkers
with their persecution rising as a form of commercial rivalry
that eventually got solidified into tradition. So people didn't know
(24:38):
why these dudes were dirty, but they knew that their
parents thought that what if they were Moorish medieval woodworkers?
And so this, yeah, this ties back into the question
that I earlier asked you, Matt about your first occupation.
Because the strange thing is that if we lived in
(24:59):
a different society, where we lived in a even a
different time period, we would overwhelmingly be likely to continue
the work that our parents did as even a guild
or caste or something, so because we would be apprentices,
(25:19):
hopefully if we were lucky talented. So, if your father
is a cobbler, you're a cobbler. If your father is
uh yeah, then you're an accountant. If your father is
a military officer, you follow the same thing. If your
father is a cattle witcher. Um, then you are also,
(25:41):
I'm sorry you're also a cattle witcher. I would gonna
let it go. I wouldna let it go. I'm not
in any way condoning the bewitchment of live stock of cattle.
They've got it tough enough, however, I am which all
the cattle that you possibly can, and then tell me
how you did it. Write to us conspiracy and how
stuff works dot com. Okay, all right, yes, yes, please
(26:04):
let Matt know the source of your dark Movine related powers.
So the thing that we see here that's strange is
that when people had less social mobility, when your parents
or your grandparents occupations would largely determine your own occupation,
(26:29):
we also see a society where certain occupations are considered
more valuable than others, or maybe a better way to
say it to certain occupations are seen as much less valuable.
For instance, executioners had some of the same laws against
their behavior as did could go in and this was
(26:51):
in Germany. Perhaps an executioner can't go to the bar,
can't touch food or drink around people, because the executioner,
like his father before him, makes a living by killing people.
And that's seen as you know, morally reprehensible but necessary
(27:12):
for society. And we see this in some other cultures,
for instance, working with hides or disposing of human waste,
like the untouchables, right, that would be that would be
a lower cast job. So and a lot of it
seems to arise from almost it's a it's a combination
(27:34):
of lack of scientific understanding of how some of it works,
a lack of technology for cleaning, like and being able
to cleanse oneself after working a job such as killing
people or you know, taking the hides off of animals. Sure,
you know this perception of unclean. I mean, it's rife
(27:55):
with disease and for germ theory. And it's true that
it is like it acts, really is so that not
having the technology also creates that system where somebody in
the historical record experienced, you know, drinking with the executioner
who happened to kill somebody who had a terrible disease
and boom next thing. You know, Yeah, I mean, well,
(28:18):
well no, but I can. I mean, that's just how
it happened. It's just the only way that it happens, right,
And it's something that people accept and also of course
I'm just saying couru because I like the word. The
only way that somebody can get kuru is by consuming
uh brains. Brains, yeah, which will give you those prions, um,
(28:40):
which are bad news. Uh. Speaking of bad news, Matty,
I just realized something. If your avatar in the Middle
Ages there in the Pierre in the thirteen hundreds, right, Uh,
if if he's wearing a cassock, it makes your situation
(29:02):
even worse because you're probably the priest or a priest.
People have a lot to get ready for. There's a
mass later. Yeah. Yeah, you don't want him to get
your own. You maybe even want to help the guy,
but you're like, I'm not getting that filthy cago blood
(29:22):
on my cassock to use my shoe to open the door.
Just shoot open the door quick. Everyone check the cattle. Uh.
So there's this other idea that they were descendants of
earlier uh cultural groups, and that this somehow made them
(29:44):
not worthy of trust or made them tainted, made them
somehow other made them threatening to a degree. And one
would be that that they were descendants of the Goths.
The could go first appear in records as early as
the tenth century, but they became more prominent from the
(30:05):
thirteenth century on, and they were in both sides of
the Western Pyrenees. Uh. They lived in these small, poor,
segregated communities on the periphery of these villages and towns.
So they've been around for so long that it's easily
easily understandable that someone would rationalize persecuting them by saying, well,
(30:29):
you know, you remember those other guys from centuries ago. Yeah,
it's them, don't trust them. And there are a couple
other theories about groups that came through France and Spain
as conquerors at one point or another, like the Saracens.
Like there again remnants who perhaps have um switched over
(30:50):
to Catholicism and now they continue to live in the
area their families do, and you know they're bad news
just because of that. Again, these are all possibilities. And
maybe then it's a range of these, Like it's a
combination of all of these things, of just people that
look other Yeah, yeah, possibly like the we'll get to
(31:14):
the the conspiratorial angle of this. But there are more
than you might think, because obviously we're looking at a
mainstream community that conspired to repress a very small minority. Uh,
which is odd because I think in the sixteen hundreds
the could go or maybe two percent of the population.
So never never in large numbers. Um, Although I did
(31:38):
really remember some some other stuff I wanted to mention.
I don't know if you found this in your research,
some more specificity about could go so like you and
I said, they were described as fair skinned by some,
as swarthy by others, dark skinned, dark skinned, lights in
the earlobes. That's the thing, that's why I wanted to mention.
(32:00):
And they supposedly lacked ear lobes and were miss magicians.
Sorcerers had an infectious, terrible odor. They're always accused of
smelling bad. And they gave off great heat. Here's a
quote when the south wind blew their lips, jugular glands
and the duck foot mark under their left armpit all swelled.
(32:22):
What yeah, so uh they okay? So they are considered
to be smelly, to have these strange physical ailments, and
that goes to one of their biggest rash, one of
(32:43):
the biggest rationalizations for persecuting these people, which was that
they are lepers and Cretans. So I'm familiar with lepers,
that would be Uh, several. I know that encompasses several
different diseases of the time, but a lot of it
has to do with infectious disease that could be transmitted
(33:05):
easily if interacting with this person, right, and that would
make sense. Uh, make sure these people aren't interacting with
the everyday public as to not kill everyone in the village, right,
I mean that that makes sense. Yeah. So one of
the prevailing beliefs among historians about the cold Goo is
(33:25):
that leprosy was the essence of this phenomenon. People used
to think that leprosy was inherited, right, a poison the
generations and the blood. However, even after people knew that
leprosy was not a purely inherited trait, you know, that
(33:49):
could communicate between unrelated people. Uh. Some authors consider the
could Go to be a special case of hereditary lepers, uh,
that the disease was just kind of concentrated in them. However,
another writer said that maybe what happens, maybe the birth
(34:10):
of the could Go when the records were appearing in
the tenth century, started when people who were already infected
with something and considered lepers banded together on the periphery
of a town solidarity and to yeah, to make their own,
make their own village, and that later you know, their
(34:31):
descendants were affected by the stigma of the disease even
though they didn't carry it. They just came from that
crappy home situation. So the weird thing is though that,
aside from you know, these vestigial treats, these vestigial rules
(34:56):
of you know, don't touch stuff with your hands, don't
go through the same door, et cetera. Uh, people seemed
to interact. They seemed to exist in the community. You know,
if they were doing woodworking, you would still take a
table from the person. Somehow, somehow the wood was fine.
Somehow the wood was fine. Yeah. Also, we know that
(35:20):
groups of could Go were proven not to have leprosy.
In six after decades of dispute, people complained of discrimination.
Could Go complain this discrimination to Parliament and they gave
them a thorough medical examination. They examined twenty two people,
all carpenters or joiners, and they exams at this time,
(35:44):
we're not we're not the turn your head and cough
inconveniences of the modern age. These people had their bodies palpated,
their arms were bled. Uh, they applied heated cups to
them to check their sir ppulation, and the doctors came
back with the results and they said, well, these are
(36:05):
just the ordinary people. Uh there, fine, they're in the quota.
Is there in all health in their body, exempt from
all contagious maladies and without any disposition to those maladies
requiring them to be separated from the company of other
healthy people. So they blew it out of water. Yeah,
they didn't find any quote, peculiar diseases. But leprosy at
(36:28):
the time was not considered purely a specific physical ailment.
In earlier years, it was more of a umbrella or
catch all description for possibly a spiritual things. Your your
body could be fine, but you might be morally or
spiritually leprous. That's why they could go. We're also occasionally
(36:48):
called white lepers, which is just a very un appealing
name that Well, could it simply be that they were
discriminated against because as they were poor, We know that
the state of the poor in France and Spain at
the time was the social position was very very different.
(37:10):
It was considered an affront to have to see the poor. Yeah,
but then there are accounts at least from that reference
that I gave, where the poor people the peasants are
the ones who are prosecuting the could go. They're the
most opposed. So that's the chicken and negg thing. Was
(37:34):
their poverty results of this discrimination or was the discrimination
result of the poverty? I tend to think the former.
But you're right, and we see this in modern societies
today too. If you want people to be satisfied with
their position in an unfair hierarchy, all you have to
(37:55):
do is put at least one more wrong on the
ladder below them, Give them someone to look down on,
and they will stop looking up to wonder what's happening
at the top. That is unfortunate and too true, too true. Uh.
It seems that later the rise of racially based accusations
(38:16):
like oh these sworely Moorish soldiers or whatever, that they
came about after the decline of leprosy, after the climb
physical threat from disease, meaning that the racism happened afterwards
to rationalize the pre existing prejudice. You know, that's so crazy. Yeah,
(38:43):
it's so disturbing. If it's not one thing, it's another. Well,
what I found. What I found is that the way
a lot of these with these rumors that we discussed earlier,
and all these things that that could go were purportedly
to be able to do and smell like and all
these things. A lot of it was handed down through
songs that were the they called them party songs that
(39:07):
would be spread in probably a tavern where it's the
again the peasants all drinking together. And this makes so
much sense to me now, been drinking together singing about
the rung of the ladder that's below them, uh, to
make themselves feel better. I can totally see that now
as Pierre in the tavern. Uh wow, this that is
(39:30):
really disturbing. Yeah, ah, no kidding. And here's here's another thing.
Next question. Right, we were probably never gonna have an
answer about where where this group of people came from,
where they actually came from, and why they were originally persecuted.
We just have those best guesses and sadly we are
(39:55):
probably not going to find out because I know there's
so many people in the audience now who are probably
yelling at the speaker DNA, you guys, just do the
DNA tests. Fantastic point. If there were someone to do
a DNA test on you can read. Probably the most
(40:15):
recent thing you can read about this disappearing group of
people is an article in The Independent from about two
thousand and eight where one one woman from the French Pyrenees,
Marie Pierre huh MiNet Bezet, as talking about her ancestry.
(40:38):
At the time, she was a forty something mother of three,
and she was being billed as the last living Cago,
or at least the last one who will admit to
being Cago. And they say it's a bad thing. She said,
it's still a bad thing in the mountains in two
tho eight. Uh the French are a shamed of what
(40:58):
they did they could go or shamed of what they were,
and no one will confess that they could go descent.
So this means that h This means that this entire concept,
whatever was based on, is disappearing because now the conspiracy
(41:19):
has shifted. It went from mainstream French communities conspiring to
essentially make life hell and keep these people at the
bottom of the social barrel, to a conspiracy by those
people's descendants, by the could go descendants to escape and
erase their past, just like that guy in Gataga played
by Ethan Hawk. Great movie Thank you. They thank you,
(41:45):
thank you, to go back to to go back to
um rebe Pierre really fast. Yes. At the very end
of that article, she they're asking about her children, because
she has several children. And the big thing she says,
and she's like, no, I can't show you pictures of
my children because of the stigma. It remains so much
(42:09):
in this area today. You can't. You can't even know
my children. Look at just in case. And she also
says that could go. She's one of the people who
says that could go or described as swarthy or as
darker skinned. Postiferous. Yes, they called the postiferous people, which
has an unfortunate ring to it. And with this, we
(42:32):
with this, we end our narrative of the could go.
This the shifting social conspiracy first of a group of
a mainstream group too essentially enslave, socially bind a group,
and then that group's collective effort to end itself. It's
(42:56):
very successful effort to do so. But these are not
the old vanishing people in the world. We know that
there are several other examples, right, the Aromanians UH and
the Russians who are both mentioned in the article, and
the Independent UH. The Aromanians the day back to Roman colonization.
(43:19):
They're spread across the southern Balkans, but they're believed to
be almost extinct or their cultural identity and evidence of
their culture lives on with some Grecian festivals. And then
the Russians are they're around one point two million expected
(43:39):
to ar estimated to live in Europe, over half of
them or in the Ukraine. They're not recognized by Ukraine
because of the communist regime of the fifties and that's
the time their church was also eradicated. But but they're
responsible for a lot of those beautiful wooden churches that
you can see in the area. One of the points
(44:00):
here is that our species doesn't, you know, just lose memories,
doesn't just lose cities, which we've covered, doesn't just lose civilizations, No,
it also loses entire cultures, entire groups of people who
who are alike by blood, who are also alike by
(44:23):
language and by custom. You know. Then one of the
other things we lose our entire animal species. I know
that's another podcast, but yeah, that's another podcast too. Uh.
And it's true, unfortunately, but it is also true that
now in the modern age, we have the ability to
(44:44):
preserve some of this stuff, and we have the ability, thinks,
to rise of easily affordable recording technology. Two preserve some
piece of the past, some knowledge, some essence of the
days and the people that came before. And that's why
(45:06):
I would suggest this is just my opinion, but I
would suggest to all of you out there listening to this,
whether in twenty sixteen or twenty one oh six, don't
hesitate to if you have older family members, or if
you have someone older in your community and you think
that that community is not long for this world, because
(45:28):
it happens every civilization rises and falls. You can easily
take a second to just interview them and record their answers,
and it's something that you will like and and your
kids will like, and on and on on and on
and nobody has to be a cattle witcher. So with
that being said, before we head out today, it's time
(45:50):
for ours shut at corners. We have a single shout
out to give today. It is is from redacted. That's
what I'm gonna call that, uh, and here it goes.
I'm a military psychiatrist currently in residency training. So when
(46:10):
you ask for stories from people who use mind altering
drugs in the military. Well, it's kind of my thing.
Regarding drugs in general, all active duty personnel get randomly
drug tested frequently, and unless you have very good medical
reason to be on a drug, you're likely going to
be dishonorably discharged. Yeah, we're going to continue reading just
some excerpts from redacted email, which is fantastic by the
(46:33):
way he says or she says. Regarding uppers, Yes, some
are still used, but to a substantially lesser degree than
you might suspect. Uh. Provigil, which is the brand name
for modafinil, is a non amphetamine stimulant vastly preferred over
amphetamine derivatives. We still don't know exactly how it works,
(46:56):
but it seems to simulate alpha brainwave activity while decree
seen delta and data waves, effectively simulating wakefulness regarding amphetamines.
While a d h D is still probably underdiagnosed, chances
are if you've made it through basic training, you don't
need a d h D. Meads personally, I hate them.
(47:16):
I've seen several sailors and marines get kicked out of
the service after getting caught using them to try and
boost their performance. I've also seen several service members get
tipped over into a frank psychosis that appears to have
been triggered by amphetamine overdoses. It's scary, it's dangerous, and
I keep my sailors as far away from the stuff
as possible. And then about battlefield medications. All sorts of
(47:40):
really crazy stuff goes down a firefight. Sometimes you cannot
afford to lose a riflemen, no matter what the cause.
We have combinations of common medicines that can keep a
trigger puller in the fight for longer than nature would allow.
But it's last ditch kind of move and deeply frowned
upon by almost all medical professionals. That is fascinating that
that one particular he talks about new tropics, which may
(48:03):
be something that you heard from the Joe Rogan podcast
or somewhere else. That's how I heard about them. And
the person writing this email says, I have personally cared
for patients that have had substantially catastrophic reactions from trying
to get a quote Bradley Cooper in limitless unquote state,
and these people have crashed and burned on the way there.
I strongly advise the patients avoid this type of supplicant,
(48:25):
supplement or medication. So it finishes up talking about withdrawal. Said,
in the vast majority of cases, morphine withdrawal cannot kill you.
They say it's awful, it's painful, squatesque, but unlikely to
be life threatening. Nowhere nearest dangerous is opiate overdose. And
so it says, hope that helps. If you have any
other questions about medicine, psychiatry, the military, particularly military medicine,
(48:49):
I'd be happy to share what I can. Thanks so
much for writing in redacted. We appreciate We appreciate your
time immensely. Thank you. Yeah, and we'd like to hear
from um you ladies, gentlemen, other folks identifying otherwise werewolves,
which is cattle Witcher's right, definitely those. You can check
(49:10):
us out on Facebook and Twitter, where we are conspiracy stuff,
where a conspiracy stuff show on Instagram, and if you
would like to send an email to us directly, you're
in luck. We are conspiracy at how stuff works dot com.
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