Each week, on Wednesday you’ll get a new episode of Death in the Afternoon; a podcast about all things mortal. You can listen (and subscribe!) on iTunes or Spotify.
What can I expect from Death in the Afternoon?
Our mission is to educate our audience about death in a unique, relatable, and entertaining way; to further open up conversations about death in a death phobic culture. And sometimes (ok, all the time) let things get delightfully bizarre.
From our podcast you can expect:
- The surprisingly heartwarming tale of a woman who just couldn’t say goodbye to her dead family.
- Baffling, chilling, and bizarre stories of when people die in a cult.
- When embalming goes right, wrong, and WTF.
Plus many more stories plucked from current events, our favorite historical incidents, and death folklore. You can listen to our Season One trailer here.
For each episode of Death in the Afternoon we’ll publish a blog with images, additional reading, watching or listening, and behind the scenes notes about the making of each episode.
Welcome to our third episode, Is That a…Foot?
Episode description: Generally speaking, we like our limbs in context. “The foot bone’s connected to the ankle bone, the ankle bone’s connected to the leg bone.” But what about when we encounter limbs that aren’t connected to anybody? Just out there, free and unattached? This week we talk about rogue and extra limbs that have been found by the sea, in the smoker, and in the grave as we answer the question: is that a…foot?
Just in time for Halloween, here’s Louise with a spooky good story!:
In this week’s episode Caitlin mentioned that I was a little too excited to talk about disembodied floating limbs. Maybe I was, but hear me out, there’s more behind my fascination than just liking mysterious ocean-going feet.
OK, aside from the fact that I do find this occurrence fascinating – that the Pacific Northwest authorities have just come to accept it as a part of their eco-system – part of the reason I gravitated toward this news story in the first place has to do with a story my grandmother, my Mar Mar, told me as a child.
As some of you may know, Chinese folktales and “fairy stories” don’t usually veer away from death or even what a few might call “gore”. I remember my aunties telling me about a character named Ah-Woo Dook who would come and get naughty children who wouldn’t go to sleep at night. Ah-Woo would poke you with a long, razor-sharp finger, basically tenderizing you for consumption. Then Ah-Woo would eat you and spit out your bones as a warning to the other naughty children.
Point is, disembodied limbs were long ago woven into my imagination and interests.
So this is the story Mar Mar told me. A good story for the spooky fall time season and a good folk story about missing limbs:
There was a man who worked on a small farm in a small village far away from his family.
Every month, on his one day off, he would gather up the money he earned and run all night to bring it to his wife and children in a distant village. Then he would run all day to get back to the farm where he worked. It was a hard life, but it meant food in his children’s bellies, clothes to keep them warm, and a roof over their head. Such was the life of many men in China a long time ago (as Mar Mar said).
One day, while the man was at work, he was in a horrible accident. While chopping down a tree another man swung his blade and cut the man’s legs off at the knees. The poor man fell in the field and bled to death, calling for his family.
The smell of blood filled the air and a giant wild dog raced into the field and stole one leg. A great bird with pointy talons swooped down and flew off with the other leg.
Not knowing what to do and afraid their boss would punish them, the man’s friends buried him in the field that night and divvied up his money amongst them.
When the night was at its darkest, and the clouds hid the stars, the sleeping men were awoken by a scratching sound.
Sssss-craaaaaatch.
Scraaaaaaatch.
Scratccccchhhhhhh.
It sounded like nails on the walls of their hut, nails at their door, nails under their floor.
Then a garbled voice, as if uttered from a mouth full of dirt demanded:
“Give me my money…Give me my legs…I must run…I must run…”
The men were convinced they were dreaming, that somehow the horror of the day’s events had bestowed upon them one collective nightmare.
But the next night, again when the night was at its darkest and the clouds hid the stars, the scratching sound returned. Louder, stronger.
Sssss-craaaaaatch.
Scraaaaaaatch.
Scratccccchhhhhhh.
The garbled voice was louder too, more insistent, angry.
“Give me my money! Give me my legs! I must run…I must run!”
The men were scared now, but didn’t know what to do so they just closed their eyes tighter and prayed for dawn.
The scratching and the voice came back every night for five days. Every night it was louder, every night it was angrier, every night the men feared that it would finally get into their hut and take their legs.
Finally one night the scratching was so loud it shook the hut and the voice was so angry it made the men quake in fear.
“Give me my money!! Give me my legs!! I MUST RUN! I MUST RUN!”
Afraid more of the dead man than they were of any bird or dog, the men ran into the night in search of the creatures who had stolen the man’s legs. They found a dark cave in the forest where a pack of wild dogs lived. Charging in with torches they found the man’s leg, stripped of flesh with teeth marks all over it. The dogs bit and tore at the men, but they were able to flee with the leg.
The men also found a tree with an enormous nest in it. Climbing the tree they found the nest filled with bones – both human and animal. Finding the man’s leg – all bone, no flesh – they were climbing down the tree with it when the gigantic bird attacked them. One man was carried off by the bird, another man was pecked bloody, but they were able to escape with the dead man’s leg.
Just before dawn they buried the man’s legs with the rest of his corpse, along with a bag full of the money they had taken from him.
Hoping to get a little bit of rest the men dragged themselves back to their hut and fell into their beds. Their eyes were barely closed when they heard the sound of footsteps, running footsteps, approaching their hut. Louder and louder they got, thundering straight for them. But just as they braced themselves for someone to run through their wall, the running footsteps turned and faded away. Off they ran into the night.
From then on, the men were granted peaceful nights. No more scratching at their wall, no more voice asking for money or legs. For good measure and to make sure they would never be bothered again, the men collected money for the dead man’s family every month and made sure it was sent to them.
And just as a reminder to keep up their charity, once a month when the night was at its
darkest and the clouds hid the stars, the men would hear the sound of the dead man running from his grave to his family, checking to make sure they were taken care of.
Additional Reading:
A 14th human foot — this one in a hiking boot — washes ashore in Canada
Human Feet Still Washing Up In Pacific Northwest, But Don’t Panic
In Canada, Theories Swirl With the Tide as 14th Human Foot Washes Ashore
New York’s Grim Sign of Spring: Floating Corpses
When the Waters Yield Macabre Secrets
Hi Deathlings, Sarah here. When Louise, Caitlin and I were in the writer’s room working on this story, and by “writer’s room” I mean a pizza joint off the 99 highway near an outlet mall, I intended on writing about something entirely different, but then I remembered seeing this documentary, Finder’s Keepers a couple years ago and here we are. If you haven’t seen it, stop whatever you’re doing and watch the trailer posted above.
In this episode I also talk about Kristi Loyall who lost her foot to cancer. She asked to keep it, which by the way, is completely legal, although doctors and medical staff will often claim it’s a biohazard or illegal, but neither of these is true. Order member and human remains law expert Tanya Marsh states “When they don’t want to do something, they’ll tell people it’s illegal. That doesn’t mean it’s illegal.”
Skulls Unlimited took care of defleshing Kristi’s foot with the help of flesh-eating dermestid beetles. You can follow Kristi, and her foot on Instagram.
And finally, because I’m sure you’re wondering what Leo’s leg lamp looked like, here you go:
Additional Reading
This Guy Has Turned His Amputated Leg Into A Lamp
Finders Keepers’ looks at the legal dispute over a severed leg
Finally, here’s a deep dive for true death nerds; an episode of podcast Death, et seq. on what happens to human remains in the U.S. “Death transforms a living human being, a person with rights and autonomy, into … something else. Tissue and bone, once animated by life, converted into an object of fear, a focus for grief, and a medical and scientific resource.”
You can get even more behind the scenes goodness from Death in the Afternoon over on Twitter and Instagram. Follow us – let’s be friends…’til death.
Death in the Afternoon is a podcast written, researched, and developed by Caitlin Doughty, Sarah Chavez, and Louise Hung of The Order of the Good Death.
Caitlin Doughty is a mortician and funeral home owner in Los Angeles, CA. Along with Sarah and Louise she runs The Order of the Good Death and the Good Death Foundation, orgs that spread the death positive gospel around the world through video series like Ask a Mortician, blogs, bestselling books, and now, a gosh darn podcast!
Sarah Chavez is the executive director of The Order of the Good Death. As the child of parents in the entertainment industry, she was raised witnessing choreographed Hollywood deaths on soundstages. Her work has been influenced by her unique life and weaves together the relationship between death and food, feminism, Mexican-American death rituals, and the strange and wondrous history surrounding the culture of death itself.
Louise Hung is a writer, researcher, and community manager for The Order of the Good Death. While she can usually be found hunched over her computer working on video scripts for Ask a Mortician, Louise has also been known to tap out a few words about death in folklore, history, pop culture, and Asian or Asian American communities.
Editor and composer: Dory Bavarsky
Engineering: Paul Tavener
Podcast: Death in the Afternoon
File Name: DITA_-_Episode_3_-_Final_Master_2
File Length: 00:22:38
Transcription by Keffy Kehrli
[00:00:00] [Relaxing music plays.]
Caitlin: [00:00:16] Everyone take a deep breath in. And then a deep breath out. This is a seaside meditation. Who among us doesn’t love a day at the beach. The fresh, salty sea air. The crash of the waves and the water lapping at your toes. Another deep breath in, and deep breath out. Wading a little deeper into the cool, refreshing water, you feel smooth rocks. Slippery seaweed, and oh! That’s a surprise. A small fish, brushing past your legs. Wait. That’s—that’s not a fish. Did someone lose a shoe? Oh, God, that’s a human foot. That is a human foot!
[00:01:22] [Death in the Afternoon theme plays.]
Caitlin: [00:01:30] Welcome to Death in the Afternoon, a podcast about all things mortal from The Order of the Good Death. I’m Caitlin, a mortician and educator, and as always I’m joined by my fellow researchers and writers Louise Hung and Sarah Chavez. Today’s episode: Is That a Foot?
[00:01:47] [Music plays.]
Caitlin: [00:01:55] Louise was very excited, a little too excited honestly, to base an episode around the rogue feet that keep washing up in the Pacific Northwest..
Louise: [00:02:04] I feel no need to apologize for this.
Caitlin: [00:02:07] I heard that this had been happening but I didn’t know much about it. Is the story just that there were disembodied feet washing ashore?
Louise: [00:02:17] Correction, there ARE disembodied feet washing ashore in British Columbia.
Caitlin: [00:02:21] So, they’re still coming.
Louise: [00:02:21] Oh yeah. Just this past May, the 14th foot showed up on the shores of Garibola Island near Vancouver. That’s the 14th foot to show up in either British Columbia or Washington State in 10 years. That’s like a really high foot-to-year ratio.
Caitlin: [00:02:40] Yeah. Far too high. So, we’re gonna start with the obvious theory that everybody gets excited about: is this the work of a serial killer?Is there some nefarious plot of afoot.
Louise: [00:02:53] [Groans.] No. Authorities find no evidence of foul play.
Caitlin: [00:02:59] Another theory, apparently, is that these are feet from mid-air airplane disasters that somehow RAINED BODY PARTS into the water and then the currents carry them ashore.
Louise: [00:03:11] Yeah. Yes. That’s actually a theory that’s out there. That people think there are these, like, secret mid-air collisions that happen that rain body parts down.
Caitlin: [00:03:20] How is that a theory? That’s—every plane crash that has ever happened has an entire history channel special on it. There aren’t airplane crashes that we don’t know about.
Louise: [00:03:29] Yeah, well. It’s not a like, super popular theory. I’m talking like, message boards and forums and stuff. But, people do like to speculate about these midair collisions that are happening. But, really it’s all about just these floaters are finding their way into the water and they are subject to the currents and wind in the Salish Sea between Seattle and Vancouver. And these feet end up coming to shore in athletic shoes which are essentially disarticulated foot floatation devices.
Caitlin: [00:03:58] I heard you use the term “floaters,” which is a term we use in the funeral industry, not with the families, mind you, but we do use it for bodies that are found in the water. And, you seem pretty casual about all of this, but I maintain that there is something bizarre about these feet just showing up. JUST the feet.
Louise: We’ll get to why JUST the feet in a second. But, really, it turns out the feet are simply the result of people dying in or around the water. Drownings, accidents, suicides. It’s sad, but it’s not sinister.
Caitlin: [00:04:36] Yeah, I think people forget that Seattle and Vancouver are densely populated areas. So, there are lots of deaths in that area. And, obviously some of those deaths end up in the water. So I think about it like the desert in the SouthWest. There are thousands of unaccounted for bodies in that desert. So, the sea is like desert of the north! Does that make sense?
Louise: [00:05:01] Sure.
Caitlin: [00:05:03] See, that’s my senior yearbook quote. The sea is like the desert of the north.
Louise: [00:05:07] Yeah. Sure. Okay. But, that being said, I thi the that a good number of the feet have been connected—okay, well…not…connected—
Caitlin: [00:05:17] [Groans.]
Louise: [00:05:17] –to a missing person. The King County Medical Examiner’s office has even advocated that shoe size be included in all missing persons reports to aid in identification.
Caitlin: [00:05:29] But this is an epidemic, right? Where else are we seeing these “floaters?”
Louise: [00:05:33] Well, actually, in New York—it’s not spring unless you’re pulling floaters out of New York Harbor.
Caitlin: [00:05:40] But again, I have to ask: why feet, Louise? Why just the feet?
Louise: [00:05:45] All right, for those of you just tuning in, this is not a podcast about foot fetishes. Which is fine if that’s your thing. No judgment.
Caitlin: [00:05:52] I’m sure there’s a podcast about that.
Louise: [00:05:54] Oh yeah. You can dream it, it can pod. But anyway, the feet. Back to the feet. Basically, feet easily disarticulate from water corpses when they decompose—especially when they have their own lil’ footie float coat, like a running shoe.
Caitlin: [00:06:11] What, their little float coat?
Louise: [00:06:13] Lil’ footie float coat yes, Louise Hung ™.
Caitlin: [00:06:15] Feet—lil’ footie float coat. Feet in their lil’ footie float coat, and when they have that around them, they end up bobbing to the surface?
Louise: [00:06:23] Yeah, right. And the waters of the Straits of Georgia in the Salish Sea, are so well oxygenated that a body can actually skeletonize in as little as four days.
Caitlin: [00:06:32] I feel like a I have add this, in defense of corpses, as I am always their greatest defender, that even if you found this rogue, partially skeletonized foot, it’s not going to hurt you. You’re not going to catch Hepatitis or Ebola from the foot. Bacteria just doesn’t live that long. It’s a safe skeleton foot.
Louise: [00:06:51] Yeah. I mean finding a rogue foot on the beach during your morning swim or run or meditation or what have you could be gruesome, but it’s not gonna hurt you. Unless you trip on it.
[00:07:03] But the real question, to me, is—and maybe you can answer this—is why do people get so freaked out by out of context body parts? I mean, aside from the blech factor.
Caitlin: [00:07:14] Well, it’s a jarring reminder of your own mortality! Somehow even more than a full corpse. Just the foot is somehow that much more terrifying.
Louise: [00:07:24] Yeah. I guess. One day your foot too shall decay.
Caitlin: [00:07:28] It’s footmento mori.
Louise: [00:07:31] Ugh.
[00:07:34] [Music plays.]
Louise: [00:07:44] A common experience among amputees is something called Phantom Limb Syndrome. A sensation that the missing limb is still there. For some, the experience is a painful one. Researchers believe that in cases like this, the brain has trouble rewiring itself to understand that something important which was once there, is…gone. Somehow, we’re all haunted by the pain of the things and people we’ve lost. We know how to medically heal from the amputation of a limb, but how does a person mentally heal? Sarah now, with some novel ideas.
[00:08:23] [Music plays.]
Sarah: [00:08:27] In 2004, John Wood lost his leg in a plane crash. Over the next several years, the leg would gain notoriety popping up in a Hardee’s freezer, in a BBQ smoker in an abandoned storage unit, as a carnival attraction sans carnival, and even on tee shirts.
[00:08:52] You see, John Wood’s leg was amputated following a plane crash that led to his father’s death—a father John idolized. As a way to work through his grief, John convinced the doctors to let him keep it, so he could create some kind of folk art memorial to his dad.
[00:09:15] Things didn’t go as John had planned.
[00:09:18] The leg was delivered by Duane, a local mortician. John met him outside in the driveway of his house where Duane handed him a garbage bag, and then quickly drove off. As John slowly begins to open the bag, he can tell something isn’t quite right. This was not the cleaned, de-fleshed and articulated, skeleton leg John had had in mind.
[00:09:43] He now had to figure out a way to store the leg. As there wasn’t room in his freezer at home, he swung by the local Hardee’s and asked his friend to put the leg into one of their freezers, which she did—right on top of the sausage biscuits during breakfast rush hour. Once the manager spots it, John heads back to the Hardees drive through window, where his friend passes the leg back to him.
[00:10:09] So, maybe the freezer wasn’t the best idea. John decides it’s time to think outside the box—he’s going to mummify it. He acquires a bottle of embalming fluid and places the leg in a roasting pan. He proceeds to baste the leg with the embalming fluid, roll it up in a piece of mesh screen he’s cut out from his front screen door, and then goes outside to hang the leg up in a tree. The plan was to let the leg dry out on the tree there for the next six months, but then, John got evicted.
[00:10:46] He quickly packs up all his belongings, including the leg, which he’s placed inside a BBQ smoker for safekeeping, and puts everything into a storage unit.
[00:10:58] A few months go by and rent on the storage unit goes unpaid.
[00:11:06] Shannon Whisnant, a man who, when he talks, sounds a lot like Billy Bob Thornton’s character in Sling Blade. He’s known around town to be a “wheeler dealer” type of guy, buying and selling junk at garage sales and second-hand stores to turn a profit. One day, Shannon attends an auction at a storage facility, and when John’s unit, with the leg inside, goes up for auction, Shannon places the winning bid.
[00:11:35] He describes opening the lid of the smoker and seeing the leg, which at first glance, he thought was driftwood. But then, Shannon picks it up; it isn’t driftwood. “My hand was dripping with cholesterol, what done run out of it,” he says. Shannon believes some divine intervention brought him and the mysterious leg together, and he intends to use it in every way he can, to bring him the fame and fortune that he believes he’s destined for.
[00:12:12] Shannon wastes no time in telling everyone about his macabre find, and soon not only are local media all over the story, but so are police who confiscate the leg. That doesn’t stop Shannon from turning his garage into a local attraction, charging $3 for adults, and $1 for the kiddies to get a glimpse of the smoker that housed the leg. He even makes tee shirts and bumper stickers that feature his face and the amputated leg on them that read “I am friends with the Foot Man.”
[00:12:45] Shannon laments the lost money and opportunities by not having the actual leg in his possession for people to see, “People would want to come see it, and watch the cholesterol drip out of it,” he reasons. Meanwhile, John, the guy whose leg was amputated, the real foot man, just wants his leg back, so he can honor his dad.
[00:13:12] And so begins an epic custody case, over an amputated leg.
[00:13:19] The two men decide to settle their differences on TV—on the Judge Mathis show to be exact. Shannon invokes the old playground adage, “Finders keepers. Losers, weepers.” Judge Mathis does not agree, and the leg is returned to John.
[00:13:40] Stories like this aren’t all that uncommon. I follow a girl on Instagram @onefootwander, that had her foot amputated last year. She sent it away to a company that does articulations, and now travels with it and shares photos of the leg—visiting the beach, shopping, and celebrating Christmas. She even inspired a recent amputee to do the same with his own foot.
[00:14:08] Sometimes the stories don’t have such a happy ending. In 2014, Leo Bonten, a man in the Netherlands, suffered an accident in a pool which later led to his leg being amputated. In order to raise money to pay for a portion of the prosthetic leg his insurance didn’t cover, Leo decides he’s going to make a lamp out of his leg, and sell it on eBay. “How more useful can an amputated leg be, if it can give me a step into the future?” he says.
[00:14:43] Once made, the leg lamp looks nothing like the one out you’re probably picturing from A Christmas Story. It almost looks part DIY wedding table centerpiece, and part modern day Frankenstein’s lab prop. The leg, which is whole, complete with skin, tendons, and muscles, is showcased in what appears to be a transparent acrylic vase, decorated with river rocks at the bottom. Above it, is a large teardrop light bulb, with some abstract, wavy metal pieces behind it.
[00:15:18] Leo hopes an eccentric billionaire will want the leg, citing its uniqueness, but eBay promptly removes the listing, pointing out their policy prohibiting the sale of human body parts.
[00:15:33] A common platitude offered to amputees is that “You aren’t your limb—it doesn’t define or change you.” But, in a society that often celebrates or demonizes others for their physical attributes, our identity is often tangled up in the limbs of our own bodies. Are you more than the sum of your parts? Or do the sum of your parts add up to YOU? What makes you, you?
[00:16:08] [Music plays.]
Caitlin: [00:16:15] For our last segment we are in the Virú Valley, on the West Coast of Peru, 1500 years ago, and at the time, there was this very sophisticated small fishing village.
Louise: [00:16:26] Until one day, threatening feet began washing ashore…
Caitlin: [00:16:30] No, that is—No. That is not what is happening in 600 AD Peru, but, to be fair, I am interested in a compendium of all the feet that have washed up through history.
Louise: [00:16:41] Well, I will get on that.
Caitlin: [00:16:42] Well, we know that it’s your great life passion, so.
Louise: [00:16:44] Yeah it is, kind of.
Caitlin: [00:16:44] Carry on. So, this area is still a little seaside town today, and the plan was to modernize the town by doing sewage and water work, basic infrastructure stuff. So, they brought some archeologists in to do “rescue archeology.” Have you heard of this?
Louise: [00:17:02] I think so. It’s when come in and they work with a commercial company, right?
Caitlin: [00:17:08] Yeah. For people not familiar, it’s when archeologists are hired to survey and preserve sites where they’re planning to build a shopping mall, for example, or tear down old structures in town, or in this specific case, upgrading the sewage and water systems of this ancient village.
Louise: [00:17:26] And what do they find?
Caitlin: [00:17:28] Well, right off the bat, they find all of these burials from what is known as the Virú culture, which not much is known about at all. It’s a pre-Incan culture. And from the grave goods that are buried with the bodies, such as huge 4-inch copper fishing hooks, the archeologists believe they were SHARK HUNTERS.
Louise: [00:17:50] Oh my God. Is that a thing? I love the sound of that. Shark hunters.
Caitlin: [00:17:54] Well, apparently this particular region of Peru is known for its ancient shark hunters, going back 4,000 years. They’ve found shark hunter temples, ritual offerings for shark hunts, and other burials with shark remains in them.
Louise: [00:18:11] That is so badass.
Caitlin: [00:18:13] And even more, and this is—okay, that’s not even why we’re talking these people, by the way. What’s more is theyuncovered 54 or so burials, mostly adults, complete adult skeletons. And, in 30 of those graves they also had… drumroll please.
Louise: [00:18:31] [Rolls tongue.] Random limbs?
Caitlin: [00:18:34] Random extra limbs, buried alongside the body, arms and legs.
Louise: [00:18:40] Okay, so if this were my burial it would be my complete body, all my shark catching hook and trophies and what not, and then finally my like, neighbor Bob’s legs tossed in?
Caitlin: [00:18:51] You’re joking, but that’s exactly it, and they still don’t even know why because this discovery is fresh. It was only made a few months ago.
Louise: [00:19:00] So, do they have any theories?
Caitlin: [00:19:01] They do have theories. First off, this is very rare around the world, to find burials like this with unknown extra limbs. I think we all know about cases in other cultures where enslaved people or wives are buried alongside powerful men, and that was even happening in related nearby cultures to the Virú. But not just a leg. Or in the case of one of these Virú burials, an adult man with two extra LEFT legs tucked up next to him.
Louise: [00:19:31] So, two legs, one grave?
Caitlin: [00:19:34] More like—well, more like four legs, one grave in this case.
Louise: [00:19:38] Okay, so, are these legs related to the full body in the grave, like maybe your dad died 30 years ago and they dig up his leg and put it in your grave when you die?
Caitlin: [00:19:49] They still have to do laboratory testing on the remains to figure out relations between the bodies, but that’s actually a much nicer explanation, that it’s just a family member than the most probable theory that archaeologists believe probably happened, which is that the extra limb was a sacrificial offering for the dead person to use in the afterlife. What you’d need an extra leg for—also unclear.
Louise: [00:20:14] I mean, I understand that that’s the most likely theory that archaeologists belive. But, I still have so many more questions, like: Why just the limb? Why not sacrifice the whole person? And if that’s the case, where are the graves of the people missing limbs? Why no lady skeleton missing an arm, or something?
Caitlin: [00:20:34] Those are all great questions, and interestingly enough, the skeletons, these full skeletons, they also show evidence of trauma, like cuts and blunt force trauma which deepens the mystery, right? Like, if a skeleton had trauma it’s more likely that you’d get some extra limbs buried next you.
Louise: [00:20:53] With every trauma, get one complimentary sacrificial arm.
Caitlin: [00:20:59] We don’t know the full story, but what I like about this is that, one, the history of humanity never runs out of fascinating, bonkers ways to bury their dead, but also, the fact that this was a village, on it’s way to modernization, and in this process, they end up finding out this rare fact about their distant shark-hunting, extra-limb past.
Louise: [00:21:22] I mean, that’s actually really cool. I hope it’s something that they can celebrate now.
Caitlin: [00:21:28] It is—well, the Mayor wants to create a museum around this, even though the archeological digs are delaying his sewage project.
Louise: [00:21:35] Yeah, well, that shit can wait. That shit—because it’s a sewage—
Caitlin: [00:21:41] Yeah, jokes about sewage.
Louise: [00:21:42] That shit can wait. Jokes: we got a million—
Caitlin: [00:21:44] Lawl. [LOL pronounced as a word.]
Louise: [00:21:45] –here at Death in the Afternoon.
[00:21:48] [Music plays.]
Caitlin: [00:22:00] Death in Afternoon was written by Caitlin, myself, Louise, and Sarah. Engineering by Paul Tavener at Big City Recording Studios. Editing and original music by Dory Bavarsky. We’ll see you next week deathlings.