The Island Where Women Ate Their Husbands
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- čas přidán 1. 09. 2023
- It's virtually impossible to find accurate and trustworthy information about Micronesia on the internet. But on the plus side, that meant Kata and I were able to read virtually every single bit of university-level documentation about Chuuk that currently exists online today.
Today's episode stems from perhaps the most grotesquely human story we've ever found in all our years of research. Although there was scant information from the anthropologist who recorded it all those years ago, what did exist painted a picture in my mind worthy of repeating.
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Thanks for watching! You're clearly one of the good ones.
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I don't know how the scripts could get any better!
I- What's wrong with this script??
@@davidhorizon8401 I'm sure if enough of us donate via Patreon, it'll happen. Only one way to find out. ;)
You are the best
This channel is just incredible. The way you always find the important metalevel to comment on, the lesson that can be learned in every story, the beauty to be seen in every picture. You're a priceless gift Evan.
Nah bro, pecan pie is incredible. Watching a sunset is incredible. This channel is beyond that. This is content that I would put on a golden disk and afix it to the side of a deep space mission so that when some distant alien species finds it, this is the representation of humanity that I want them to see. This is the content I want them to see as a representation of human creativity.
He has a real gift for humanizing whatever he's talking about in a way that makes everything seem to fit together into some grand puzzle, like it's all just some small piece of a greater whole. Regardless of the specific topic That's something I've always tried doing myself, but I'm nowhere near as gifted with it as he is. That's what keeps me coming back, sharing, and loving this channel so much. Even the most sensitive or otherwise shocking of topics is treated that way, and it's truly impressive IMO.
I lost most of the people I love before I reached my mid 30s, from elderly grandparents and aunts to my first husband and best friends. I studied death and culture in societies formally via university and informally, and I truly appreciate the outlook you’ve provided, and the respect you’ve shown, to their culture.
That's rough. I'm glad you survived it all.
It's amazing how far this channel has come. From a place where an astronaut posted about his experiences, to a channel that posts some of the most interesting stories about places that aren't even mentioned in history books. Keep up the great work!
I love where the channel has gone and look forward to seeing where they go next. Ngl I do miss hearing from his dad but Evan and his team took this channel to the next level and that's rather impressive since it literally started out of this world.
the idea of eating the stuff that drips off a decomposing corpse is truly horrifying
One of the most eye-opening classes I took in college was called Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion. I was an engineering student taking it for a gen ed, and I wasn't really expecting much - maybe there'd be some cute girls who really dug astrology. Imagine my surprise when it completely flipped my book on what I think "normal" culture looks like. This was one of the examples we learned about, and yeah - it's a hell of a story. The example that got to me the most, though, was luck. There's a tendency to poke fun at these societies that believed in all sorts of supernatural rules and regulations, but we all take luck for granted. Maybe you don't believe in it, but you'll feel it in your bones sometimes, this idea that you're unlucky or that someone else is lucky. It's ingrained in there - there's this magic force that controls our outcomes. We just don't think of it as strange.
Very astute and very true in my understanding of things, and my long life.
Tell me you read Witchcraft Among the Azande without telling me
Good point.
Having been unlucky from birth, I tend to agree.
The _real_ question is, how did your wife _answer_ the "do you think this is magic" question?
"Hmmm could be" maxxing
We discussed other similar megaliths and how they were built, as well as recounted what the American archaeological study of a few years prior had suggested. But we didn't pop his bubble directly, just offered alternative beliefs.
@@RareEarthSeriesyou are the best
I almost aspirated my lunch when “DAD BOD” came up on the screen…
…that said: thank you for all travel tales, your little beams of lightness ❤
This is genuinely one of the best storytellers on CZcams right here. Incredible stuff
Absolutely. Some of his older videos have stuck with me for years already, and I still think about and reflect on the stories regularly. He has a real gift IMO.
Personally, I think the best
I should have known that the Chuuk Lagoon video was not a one-time release, but the start of a new season. Series? Not sure what you’d call this, but I’m all in for it!
"Is this video about spiders ... okay, so not about spiders"
You literally have the best video series on CZcams. I love these philosophical and historical stories from places I have never been and likely will never be.
i didn't know i needed to hear it , but when you talked about how you feel when losing someone, i realized, how much i'm not over my brothers death and how you nailed exactly how i felt TY, never stop making this content . never stop talking about whats hard to talk about.
As someone who is grieving still, all of it makes sense. I would have done anything to make sure that her passage to death's door was the best it could be.
And it is really true, that when you lose something that is so extremely dear to your heart, it is difficult not to believe in any sort of magic.
I prayed to God, while my mother was dying, to take my life instead of hers.
She died anyway.
Either God doesn't exist or picks and chooses whom He blesses and whom He curses, nevermind our prayers.
If you have hope and believe in magic, I'm happy for you, and I'm not trying to piss on your parade, but my experience gave me a different feeling.
@@meisteremm i couldnt keep my angel from dying, i knew that. but i almost followed her.
some of the magic is how we deal with the loss. the cremation, for a hope of better passage. the necklace i have of her, the prayers for her happiness in afterlife
It's interesting how the idea of magic evolved in our culture over time. Up until recently, in the West, it was something strange, mysterious, and unnatural bestowed by spirits or demons. But now in pop culture, it's a physical force or substance that can be studied and shaped, something very naturalistic, almost like a technology.
I wonder what these people's subjective relationship with magic is. What does it look like to them, and how does it fit into their world?
The phenomenal writing this channel puts out gives me goosebumps
Indonesian ancient funeral rituals
or those they used to have on Phillipines
sometimes are such an interesting topic 🤓
Micronesian Melanesian and the Polynesian
culture always are outstanding fascinating
I appreciate that this video had footage of children while discussing the sombre topic of death and grief. No matter how technologically advanced a society, death still trips us up. We, in the western world have no better idea of what death is and how to deal with the fact that our time on this plane of existence is so limited. Some mysteries like death is unsolved and yet we all have to find a way to deal with the concept of death, the prospect that we ourselves will one way succumb to it and before that, experience the loss of those we knew and/or loved. If magic, magical thinking, religion, etc. is a way to confront death and help us collect ourselves so that we can live out the life that remains, I say so be it and not judge the various ways it's done.
Well done. Our magic may be more popular than their magic, but that is no license to dismiss it.
Dammit, I was sipping some tea just as the title card came on at 0:35, and I almost did a spit take onto my keyboard.
Great episode as always. I profoundly appreciate how intentional you are about remembering you are a guest in other peoples' worlds, doing your best to take in their beliefs and self-conceptions on their terms; keeping a careful eye on and naming your own; and finding the threads of human commonality. This is anthropology of the highest order. I know you would object and point me to the disclaimer in the end credits. Your insistence that you are probably getting something wrong is no doubt accurate - and your work is that much more worthwhile for you naming it. Thank you for letting us see the world through your carefully crafted lens.
“dad bod” nooo 😭 but hey, glad you’re back, Rare. You truly put the Essay in video essays!
Edit: omg those kids at the end were adorable! This looks like a lovely place… just don’t wanna die there I guess lol
Thank you Evan and team for always delivering thoughtful pieces with such stunning visuals. So many essayists here on CZcams rely on canned b-roll, but your work is fresh and it pays dividends in the final product. I've said it before, these pieces should be shown in schools. They're wonderful.
Evan, Thank you again for teaching me something I would have never known had it not been for you. Your ability to take a single fact and find the impact and the understanding of the thing is truly amazing.
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke
In my family, if there's tech we don't understand, when asked we say it's magic.We don't know how, it just works.
There were Australian aboriginals whose first contact with western society was witnessing a nuclear test. They thought it was a god rising from the ground, because, well how _else_ would you explain a sudden city sized fireball?
He said that just before he nonced a small boy
A little masterpiece! This might be the best thing I've watched in quite while, well done and thank you for the content.
When Catholicism first spread to Korea in 18th and 19th century European missionaries looked at local rituals where people serve meals to their dead families and ancestors and deemed it as superstition or worshipping false idols. Hence, early Catholic missionaries made converts stop paying respects to the ancestors through Confucian rituals, which was seen as direct challenge to the ruling social order, which led to harsh persecutions by the Joseon government. Now, two centuries later, the Catholic church sees it as benign tradition, a family gathering where the living remembers the dead. You don't need to rock the boat by calling it a superstition because what really matters is what you pray for in your mind and not how it looks like offering food to ancestors' spirits, they would now say. One interesting thing about this is that Protestant Christians in Korea usually don't agree to this idea. They tend to stick to the old "you don't make offerings to any spirits but the Lord" mantra that Catholic missionaries used to have in the 1800s.
And yes, we do eat up all those food that were technically offered to the ancestors. There's some metaphysical reasoning about how the living can take in the blessing from the ancestors by sharing the meal with them, but deep down we kinda know that this was just a good reason for people to absolutely splurge on food and enjoy fancy dishes on a handful of holidays every year. Sure, pre-modern authorities wouldn't have liked peasants wasting resource and labor to make unreasonably extravagant holiday feasts, but they couldn't have stopped them when those peasants simply said all the feast was to offer their ancestors the absolute best these peasants could prepare so that the next year's harvest may be plentiful as it has been this year.
Always excited to see another video drop from you. You show the world in a truly unique way that I've yet to find from another creator
I'm glad you're out there doing this work, and I really wish I could finish the video, but it's just making my skin crawl too much. Godspeed man
I learned about this in our first year anthropology class. Not just the women, the children and many other members of family will also participate in this, but only the wives and children would consume the brains, that’s where the parasite lives.
That's a different group in the Papuan island chain.
Love your work mate. Keep it up!
Thank you for more videos!!!! I can never get enough of your content ❤️
I've been watching this channel since the Japan series and I've loved your writing in every video. If you ever do anything in Australia I'd suggest looking into the story of the First Nations people of Tasmania. It's a tragic story.
In our island 🏝️ their are tribes tht practice canibalism but now due to missionary efforts they dont do that anymore.
And they are more happy and hospitalable towards foreigners & they have medical clinics & school near the village nowadays...
Can not express enough how happy to see the channel coming back to life. Because if it died I guess we'd have to eat it.
“Hey, Mom, where’s Dad?”
“He’s in the kitchen.”
“Okay. What’s for dinner?"
“Dad.”
I hope you'll find imterest to hop to the Kuril islands and/or Sakhalin one day - if you ever do, I'd love to provide some archeological maps from my grandfather's records who was a journalist back in the USSR!
Nah, the country are quite a danger right now for someone like this guy to go there. Needs better stability situation in there first.
Oh absolutely, I have no doubt about it unfortunately.. The war is an ongoing nightmare that I sincerely wish would come to an end as soon as possible @@shycracker
Part of me marvels at how well and thought-provokingly presented this was.
And part of me is just fighting to not make a "ground chuuk" joke.
This video could be subtitled, "A discussion of survivers guilt."
Your comment could be filed under: "Doesn't know what they're talking about."
I like to think secretly Chris is holding the camera
Excellent work, as always.
Always entertaining as well as informative.
Thank You For Sharing This Rare Earth, I Loved It!
Amazing Channel please never stop making videos ❤
Best channel on CZcams hands down. Thank you for your work. I hope you come to Aruba one day.
I now know a little bit more about our world and the people who call it home. I never tire of your work and hope it continues for a good while yet.
This was absolutely fascinating.
As a parent who has lost a child, my own death would have been a sweet release. Years later, it’s still wouldn’t be unwelcome.
Very sorry for your loss, Chris
I do wonder how close contact between the Austronesians and Papuans along the northern coast of New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago affected the oceanic Austronesian cultures. After all, that was their initial homeland, and some of these traditions seem kind of similar to some of the Papuan customs.
A lot of Papuans or Melanesians in general aren’t aware of their connections and history with Micronesians. There is a clan in Chuuk that says they come from the mountains in PNG. I’ve also seen Papuans preparing breadfruit similar to how Chuukese people prepare it.
Fantastically interesting as always 👌✌️
Thank you for this 🙂. A truly enjoyable way to start my day…listening to your content 👌.
Keep on keeping on
You do a great job of making titles that are difficult not to click.
Ooooosh, this was really moving. Thanks!
There's a certain irony in describing a pre-modern society and using the expression, "god forbid." Our magic zombie myths are no less pre-modern, and their persistence is no less inexplicable given the knowledge freely available to us.
keep on keeping on
You are incredibly amazing!
This was truly powerful
Potent episode friend!
This is a great talk.
you are awesome. amazing. such a treat for a mind. thank you
My island sister is from Piis Paneu in Chuuk. She showed me photos of her home and the family graves were in front yard - I was blown away! Love is eternal and family is forever.
I'm from Paneu too😅
Many cultures in that region ate important dead. In Fiji and Papua New Genie there are probably people alive today that as children took part in this ritual.
As for me - I prefer to be left to the carrions - at least some good use will come of me
I am so thankful for these stories. It reminds me of how small everything is. We may live on a big ball in space in a lot of nothing but there is so much in the small. So many stories. I think Rare Earth is one of the few channels on CZcams that shows how human we all are.
He has a real gift for humanizing everything he talks about. Of framing it almost like it's some small piece of this grand puzzle, this larger than life image of what humanity really is. It's incredible IMO.
This is a great job by you telling This story
0:38 The most meta Dad joke in history
This is a slam dunk of an episode/post
"I will sip my toes in hummus"😂😂 lovely video again
At first I misread the title as the island where women "hate" their husbands and I wondered what's so special about that?....it could be one of hundreds of islands around the world....then I read it more closely 😄
Well written thankyou
Very impressively put together video! Poor women! I wonder how many of them die from their “grief”😢 surprisingly almost beautiful topic though, the way we all grieve
I think in some parts of Papua there's still some partial cannibalism on death, the practice of brain eating because of prions in brains making people sick got stopped though. This is a really old practice and anthropologists have found it going back 10's of 1000's of years into the neolithic.There's also partial dismemberment of removing a finger or finger tip in some old tribal societies which is quite unusual as well for grieving widows and some other relatives.
That was beautifully told
I can't wait till you hit Yap. I'd love to see your take on their culture.❤
I wish I'd been able to go but the cost vs video ratio was too low
@@RareEarthSeries oh no you definitely have to go, my 80 year old father spent 2 years near there for Peace Corps and is counting on you for a last aventure there ! I've got a few bits of stories to share that could inspire you : like the tribal treasure under the form of monoliths and ridiculously trying to steal another islands "treasure". When he was there, late 60s, it really was first contact. he had the most unreal mission of teaching them to fish ... industrially, like they hadn't been doing that the beginning of time. At one point he was in a tribe who had too many people to fit on their tiny home island (they had people visiting if I remember well) so they'd take turns and spend days on their "boats". He also witnessed incredible navigational skills, leaving one small bit of rock in the middle of no where, on board a tiny little craft, and somehow knowing how to reach the next needle point lost somewhere over the horizon without any navigational tools ... just to go pay your respects to a "neighbour". They had literally no wood except unless drift, but made incredible fish hooks or boats and structures with shells, weeds and rocks. In fact he had brought home a huge bunch of objects that have recently been donated to a museum that is being constructed on one of the bigger islands
Solid work,
Fascinating information.
man, those credits are *chef's kiss*
Wow, ended in an emotional gut sucker-punch. Did not see that coming. 10/10 stars
Phenomenal episode title 👏
When my mom died in April, I had been praying for some time for a miracle, though switched to praying for peace after something inside of me recognized that anything the doctors seemed to be trying wasn’t effective enough against the cancer. This isn’t to say I stopped believing in anything when she died, but just that I’m not very sure about miracles, and my thoughts on magic have mostly been of doubt.
This was beyond disturbing. Hanging you child from the rafters and drinking the dripping fluids. I'll never unsee that in my head.
This was a common practice among the Amazonian Indian Tribes. The European saw them as Cannibals, obviously not understanding these cultures.
GREUSOM! thank you!
"consume anything that drips out of them". Well, okaaaay....😬
"Babe...wake up. Evan dropped a new series. "Chunnk Lagoon"
Beautiful as always, and I like your personal body disposal attitude. Myself, I want to feed wildlife.
The range of strong emotions I felt watching this is dizzying and I feel nauseous.
Thank you ❤
This is shocking to me.
EDIT: As I watch the video, it totally makes sense.
This channel the best
the jumping on a flaming funeral pyre is usually forced by the in-laws. it's horrible.
Very spooky as we are about to loose a much loved member of my wife's family the last of 13 children a much loved uncle and a great great grandfather .
Damn, that water is really putting the "pacific" into pacific ocean.
There was a similar tradition on Borneo, iirc. The relatives were expected to eat the brain of people that had died.
Problems arose with a prion disease, which got transferred by doing that...
Yep, Oceanians culture of Papuan were transferred to the Dayaks when Austronasian began to migrate to the island and assimilate/genocide the previous inhabitant.
4:40 Those clouds at the right side look like a crocodile and a dolphin
My greek history teacher told us of a Thracian tribe that would burn their dead and the offspring of the dead had to drink their ashes in wine. They postulated that what better vessel for the dead than the bodies of their children.
Always amazed that cultures that do things like eating corpse juices survived long enough to tell someone about it, especially when the part of their populace that reproduces is expected to do it.
😂😂😂 Just had to title this one "Dad Bod" eh?? 😂😂😂
Honestly, I was hoping for some epic tale of revenge.
But this was interesting as well.
Weird how i was 100% sure you were going to talk about that tribe in papua new guinea who ate also corpses, especially brains and got that prion disease from it. Doesnt seem they were only ones doing funeral cannibalism then.
I ain’t never heard of people from my island eating each other. Where did you get your info and which specific island is it?
From the rare ethnological studies on the island's history.
There's a good introduction from the University of Iowa press that outlines it here: www.jstor.org/stable/3773992
I'm really trying to find where it says women eating corpse. The article talks about the dead possess female relatives to provide comfort and guidance. Is there something I'm missing?
So that’s where the expression of “Bite me” came from