Episode 124- Island of Dr Moreau

Episode 124 Show Notes

Source: Turtle Island/Indigenous American Folklore

This week on MYTH, we’re going to discover some ancient secrets of Long Island, New York. You’ll see why you should be careful where you put your trash, that there’s magic in art, and that even gods make mistakes. Then, in Gods and Monsters, who doesn’t love strawberries? This is the Myths Your Teacher Hated podcast, where I tell the stories of cultures from around the world in all of their original, bloody, uncensored glory. Modern tellings of these stories have become dry and dusty, but I’ll be trying to breathe new life into them. This is Episode 124, “Island of Dr Moreau”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
This story comes to us from Native American Myths, edited by Jake Jackson. It’s not entirely clear where this story originated but, based on some of the other stories in the volume, I would hazard an educated guess that it comes from one of the thirteen tribes indigenous to what is now Long Island – The Canarsee, Rockaway, Merrick, Marsapeague, Secatogue, Unkehaug, Matinecock, Nesaquake, Setalcott, or Corchaug peoples – or possible the the Wampanoag people of what is now Delaware or the Algonquin people, who call themselves Omamiwinini. I couldn’t find a definitive origin for this one. It is said that, long, long ago, Chemanitou the Master of Life accidentally created something that has been a problem for him (and everyone else for that matter) ever since. This is the tale of that accident.
Long Island was originally known as Metowac and, at that time, it was a vast plain so level and barren of any vegetation that it looked less like land proper and more like the sea had been rolled back away from the world’s largest sandbar, which isn’t far from the truth according to the tale. It was to this desolate and isolated spot that Chemanitou would come to tinker in peace whenever he wished to bring some new form of life into the world. It was the perfect place being free from any interruptions and surrounded by water to keep any unfortunate mistakes from escaping and causing mischief.
As you might guess, given how much megafauna ruled the world in the mists of time, many of the things Chemanitou created were extremely large. This in turn meant that very few of his creations could dwell in the same space without…problems. Even apart from the purely space-related issues, these creatures were also immensely strong to such an extent that even Chemanitou, Master of Life, was nervous around them. See, the creator spirit was very generous with giving his creations certain powers though he did also bind them with laws that governed said powers.
Chemanitou wasn’t totally laissez-faire about this whole creation and power thing; he did always test out a new creature with its new powers before turning it loose. He would bring them to Metowac specifically because of what a good testing laboratory it made and let them wander about. If he didn’t like how things worked out, he would just remove the newly-given life again. See, safeguards. So he would set up, say, a wooly mammoth on the island and build up the idea in his mind with great care the way a craftsman might a canoe.
Even to this very day, traces of these great beasts can be found on Metowac. You can also see how soft and pliable the soil is, prone to sinking down like a great soft plate floating on the sea. Since Chemanitou only ever meant it to be a lab and testing ground, he was fine with it all being a little shitty. The riverbank along the Chatiemac (which translates to ‘stately swan’), which you might know as the Hudson River, is much better suited for, you know, living. That platter was perfect for sculpting animals; all he had to do was place four cakes of clay on the ground, then form them up into feet and legs.
Sometimes, that was as far as it got before Chemanitou would give it up as a bad job, simply abandoning the half-formed creation. These became the huge green tussocks, the grassy lumps that dot the marshes on the island. While he worked, the Neebanawbaigs (a type of water spirit), the pukwudgies (vanishing forest spirits who we’ve encountered before), and all the other lesser manitoes (or spirits) would come out of the woodwork to watch these acts of pure creation. They would speculate on what the clay would eventually become – how it would look, how it would act. It was the best entertainment to be had for miles around.
If he did finish the entire sculpting job, Chemanitou would leave the clay to bake in the sun for many days and, when it was ready, he would climb inside through an opening he’d left in the torso. There, he would remain without leaving for many more days. When he at last emerged into the light again, the creature would begin to shiver and sway so violently that it would shake the whole island. If the finished design pleased the Master of Life, he would set it loose upon the world, usually by diving into the ocean on the north side of the island and swimming across to the mainland to disappear into the forest.
Now at the moment this story begins, Chemanitou had spent an even longer than usual amount of time on one of his biggest creatures yet. Its vast bulk loomed above the island like a small mountain, drawing all of the local manitoes to come and see what the Master of Life was up to this time. The pukwudgies in particular had a fucking blast, turning the whole thing into a wild party, climbing up onto the creature and dancing on its back, swinging from its teeth, and hiding inside the eye sockets. They weren’t exactly supposed to be doing this but they figured that Chemanitou would be too busy on other parts of the massive creature to notice. They were wrong – Chemanitou can see right through anything he’s ever made – but he enjoyed watching the little creatures scamper and play. It made his heart light to see them so happy and it gave him some new ideas about innovative animals he could try out next.
When this gargantuan beast was finally finished, Chemanitou began to have second thoughts about bring it to life. This was the biggest motherfucker he’d ever made and it might’ve been a mistake. Rather than finishing the process, he abandoned it there at the center of the island. I mentioned how soft and pliable the soil there is and, under that enormous weight, it broke through and sank into the earth until only its head and tail kept it from vanishing entirely beneath the earth. This new configuration gave him an idea. He fashioned a hatch in the creature’s still-exposed back and used it as a massive garbage bin for his failed creations going forward.
Deciding to take a break from behemoths for a time, Chemanitou focused on smaller creatures that could scamper and scurry around for his amusement. It was fun for a while but he would eventually decide that they weren’t good for much, suck the life back out of them, and then chuck them in the new beast bin. In time, the hollow beast became filled with oddly shaped discarded creations and thus it became known as Roncomcomon or the Place of Fragments. He was always very careful to make sure he’d removed the life from whatever he threw in there and reabsorbed it back into himself.
One day, the Master of Life took up two pieces of clay and molded them into two large paws like a panther’s feet. Unlike his usual work, he only made two legs instead of the typical four. Chemanitou had a bright idea and put them on his feet like shoes to go tromping around. The steps were light and springy, kind of like those moonshoe trampolines for your feet that were popular when I was a kid, which allowed him to move at great speed with very little noise. Very nice feet.
Next, he formed a long pair of legs shaped like his own. Attaching them to the feet, he let them walk around on their own for a bit to see how they looked from the outside. It was a very pleasing and aesthetic motion, so he decided to keep going. Next was a great long tube of a body with scales like that of an enormous alligator. This made the whole thing a little unsteady, so he snatched up a great black snake that was slithering by and stuck it to the clay ass, wrapping the other end around a sturdy sapling to brace it. It made a pretty serviceable tail if Chemanitou did say so himself.
He made his creation great broad shoulders like that of the buffalo covered with thick, tough hair with a neck that was short, thick, and strong. He’d been working on pure instinct and inspiration so far but, now that he’d come to the thing’s head, he needed to stop and think about what to do next. The head could make or break this creation. He formed a perfect sphere then patted the top to make a broad, low forehead (probably because he had the buffalo and the panther in mind as he worked). He remembered seeing the pukwudgies playing in the eye sockets of his abandoned behemoth and it gave him an idea. He made his new creature great bulging eyes, set out from the skull like those of a lobster so that it could see all around it at all times.
He lengthened and widened its snout to match the low, broad head, large enough to carry the wisdom of the great forked tongue of the serpent that would be in its mouth. This new thing would see all things and know all things. What could possibly go wrong? Chemanitou stopped and stepped back to admire his new creation. He’d never considered making something with only two feet before, one that would stand upright and be able to see in all directions. It was daring and exciting and new. Chemanitou was feeling more inspired than ever before and was anxious to keep going.
He made the jaws very strong with ivory teeth and gills on either side of the neck that quivered and pulsed with every breath. He set a nose like the beak of a vulture above the jaw and placed porcupine quills on its head for hair. Chemanitou held the sculpted head out at arms length to consider this new thing. He turned it this way and that to consider it from every angle. Something about it made him very sad but he still placed the head upon the thing’s neck. It was beginning to look a little like a very rough beta version of humans (who of course did not exist yet).
He looked at the whole thing together and was pleased with how each part balanced against the others. Overhead, bats were swooping and diving as the roars of wild beasts echoed across the land. The wind off the ocean was stiff and clean across Metowac, blowing the sand about in tiny dust devils. The moon hung heavy in the velvet sky above for a brief moment before it was swallowed up behind the thick cloud cover. A panther padded by on silent paws, stopping with one foot raised to sniff at this strange thing with feet so like its own. A great vulture flew by and made a dash for the familiar-looking beak and had to be intercepted by Chemanitou. Soon, the porcupine, the lizard, and the snake all came by as well, drawn by some ineffable attraction to the pieces of their own image in this strange new thing.
The Master of Life watched this unfold and considered the situation carefully. This hodgepodge creature he had made had inspired a bold new idea in his mind – a thing made not in the image of the creatures already wandering the earth but in the likeness of himself. This would be a being with a link to the spirit world fashioned in the mold of the Great Spirit so that, like the creatures that night, the powerful spirit would be drawn to his own likeness in this new creation. Long and long Chemanitou pondered this idea. Days passed, weeks, months, whole seasons. At last, he came to a decision.
Lifting up his head from his deep contemplation, he gazed up into the night sky above to find that the stars were looking down upon the image he had already completed. A bat had landed on the figure’s head, wings spread wide on either side. Chemanitou snatched up the bat and spread its leathery wings out upside down above the figure. This is why, to this day, the bat sleeps upside down. Satisfied, the Master of Life took the bat’s spark away and snapped the body off from the wings to place on the sculpted head, making wide ears and covering the forehead like a hooded serpent.
This was all really starting to come together, so Chemanitou added a chin that was strong and lips that were firm yet supple so they could shut in the forked tongue of the serpent behind those ivory teeth. In his head, the Master of Life could already see the radiant smile that this figure would beam upon being given life. It was a beautiful thought. All that was left now were the arms. This figure clearly needed hands like his own to complete the spirit-like image he was going for, but this gave Chemanitou pause. He had never given any of his creations hands before, not really. Sure the pukwudgies had tiny, clever hands, but it wasn’t the same. They were manitoes, and spirits didn’t have the same freedom and ability as an independent creation would have. This would be a huge step. After some grave consideration, he decided to move forward with his design. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?
Having placed the slender arms and the hands modeled after his own on the figure, he stepped back to look at the finished model. Chemanitou frowned. The hands were a mistake. They were too good, too like his own. If he gave this thing life, would it not be able to go on and create other things on its own with those hands? It was too much power to give to a creation; what if it started working at cross purposes with the Master of Life’s plans? What mischief could this thing cause? No, it was simply too dangerous to animate. As a creator spirit, he could see how this creation would behave and how giving it life would work out, and he didn’t care for it.
Chemanitou took fire and placed it inside the creature to bake it, since fire is not the same as life. A red glow passed through the clay giving it a rosy shine. When the clay was dry, the image had an incredibly fierce appearance, the fiery glow emphasizing the scales on its chest and emanating out of the delicate gills and bat-winged ears. The lobster eyes glowed like burning coals, radiating in all directions. He created the hatch as usual but did not climb inside. It wasn’t nearly as large as some of his behemoths but, being the Master of Life, I’m assuming he either had some size-changing capacity or it was a TARDIS situation where his clay figures somehow became bigger on the inside.
He needed to see this thing move to make a final decision, even though he was already pretty sure he was going to cast it into Roncomcomon. Taking a very small piece of his life, he placed it inside the creature along with the fire, which he had not removed. He had this new thing walk around Metowac to see how it would act. Its lips smiled like the manitoes did as it peered around curiously at the island. With life in it, he could see the terrible harm this creature could (and probably would) do, but when it smiled, the ugliness faded. Even so, Chemanitou decided that his earlier instinct had been right – this terrible creature had been a mistake. He couldn’t let it leave the island. It was such an odd thing, made from the best parts of different beasts but with the powerful hands of a spirit, a chin that raised the head up high with pride, and lips that could deceive and keep secrets. It was impressive but wrong.
Taking the creature back in his hands, he tossed it into the Place of Fragments. Unfortunately, he had been distracted by his disturbing contemplation of this creature’s potential and had forgotten to take his small spark of life (and the fire) back out of the creature before throwing it away. The creature lay where it fell in the belly of the beast for a long, long time. The fall had been very great and had stunned it, which took a lot to recover from. When it finally did stir and examine its surroundings, it found itself discarded with other half-finished and abandoned works, things without life.
At some point, Chemanitou heard strange noises coming from inside Roncomcomon. Lifting up the hatch, he spied his great and terrible creation trying to reassemble the pieces from the broken and abandoned models, the lifeless things the Master of Life had deemed worthless. Well, shit. This was a problem. He gathered up a vast heap of stone and sand (since the island is completely without large rocks, being such a flat, sandy place) and used it to block up the opening. Hopefully, that would be enough to keep anything from escaping the Place of Fragments. I don’t know why he didn’t just take the spark of life back at this point; maybe it had been too long and he couldn’t, or maybe it was against the rules. The story doesn’t say.
Days passed and the noises from inside the hollow beast only grew louder. The earth shook with fury and smoke began to billow out between the sand and gravel. All of the curious manitoes gathered around Chemanitou to see just what the hell was going on. The small spirits were excited and curious, but the Master of Life was terribly worried. He knew now that he had clearly forgotten to remove the life from his wicked creation and everything he’d feared was about to come to pass. Oops.
Sure enough, the hatch erupted in a geyser of sand and stone, blackening the sky with smoke and soot. A hot, dusty wind howled out of the earth and tore across Metowac. Fire billowed out of the exposed opening in a rolling carpet of flame followed by a torrential waterspout that hissed and steamed as it gushed high into the air. At this terrifying display, the manitoes fled, their curiosity now slaked. Whatever was going on here, they wisely wanted no part of it. The image crawled forth out of the revealed opening, emerging into the world with a palpable aura of terrible power. The fire inside it had stoked the small spark of life into a roaring flame, which was now hot and fierce and wild. As the manitoes fled, they cried out what would be this thing’s name: Machinitou, which means evil god. Things are looking a little bleak here with the birth of an evil god, but there’s one thing that can always make life a little better – snacks – which means it’s time for Gods and Monsters. This is a segment where I get into a little more detail about the personalities and history of one of the gods or monsters from this week’s pantheon that was not discussed in the main story. This week’s peace offering are the strawberries.
I found this story originally in the same Native American Myths anthology as our main tale, but I found a more complete version on the Northern Cherokee Nation official website, so I’ll be using that instead. As you might guess, this story comes originally from the folklore of the Cherokee Nation. At the very dawn of time, there was only one man and one woman in the world (a common trope in mythology). They lived together in the home they built by the side of a great, slow-flowing river. It was an idyllic life with everything they could ever hope to want readily available. They had fruit, berries, plentiful hunting for meat, easy access for fishing, lumber for building, fresh water for drinking, and, of course, each other for company.
At least, they had each other right up until their first argument. Being the first couple’s fight in existence, it was a real doozy. But, as these things often do, it started out over something very small. First Man asked First Woman why she hadn’t cooked the meat he’d brought home for dinner. He’d had a long day, he was hungry, and there was no food like he’d expected, so he asked his question with more vinegar than was strictly necessary. Today was exactly the wrong day to be up on First Woman’s shit and she snapped back with equal snark asking him why he hadn’t brought in wood for the fire so she could cook. The fight rolled on, growing bigger and uglier. “Why didn’t you tidy up the house once in a while?” “Well why are you such a slob all the time?” The rhetoric ramped up, getting uglier and more insulting until plates and bowls were flying right along with the barbed words.
Eventually, First Woman decided she’d had enough of this bullshit and she decided to leave First Man’s obnoxious ass. They both went to bed still furious with bitter promises to continue the marital warfare the next morning. First Woman didn’t wait – at first light, she got out of bed without waking First Man, slipped out of the house, and walked directly towards the rising sun. She walked and walked and walked in a perfectly straight line, never turning aside or looking back, not even once. Some time later, First Man finally woke to find the other side of his bed empty. Figuring she’d just needed some time to cool off, he decided to wait for her to come back. Only, she didn’t. Worried, he headed outside and soon found her tracks leading due east. It wasn’t hard to follow her across the valley (especially since she was going in such a straight line) but she had one hell of a head start. It would be tough to catch up to her.
The sun rose high overhead, looking down on First Woman striding eastward without slowing and upon First Man far behind her. It saw a great sadness on the face of the following man, a blemish on an otherwise pristine and perfect day. The sun called to the man and asked if he was still angry with his wife. The man looked up towards the sun (but not directly at it, because that’s a bad idea even in mythology) and said that no, he wasn’t angry anymore. The sun nodded and asked if he would like her to come back to him. Without hesitation, the man said that yes, he would love for her to return.
The sun heard the sincerity in First Man’s words and took pity on him. He thought for a moment and came up with an idea to help the poor human. The sun sent his rays down towards the earth along First Woman’s path ahead of her with all the gentleness and nourishment he could provide. In short order, a huckleberry bush sprang up beside her path. Unfortunately, First Woman was still fuming and so her eyes never drifted down to where the huckleberries grew, the fruit sweet and shiny and enticing. She did not slow and she did not stop.
The sun watched this happen and realized his mistake. He needed to make something different, something better. This new creation needed to be so vivid and fragrant and delicious that even the single-focused First Woman couldn’t help but notice, her fury and despair notwithstanding. He needed to make something that would be delicious that, no matter how foul someone’s mood, they would feel better after tasting it.
Casting his rays towards the earth a second time, he nourished the earth ahead of First Woman until the very first patch of strawberries sprang up, spreading over the earth. Her eyes didn’t waver but they didn’t have to – the delicious smell of the sweet sun-ripened strawberries wafted through the air. It buoyed her spirits and eased her mind. She slowed her stride and looked around for the source of the intoxicating aroma. Her keen eyes spied the luscious red fruit hiding beneath the velvety green leaves and it all was simply too enticing to pass up. She plucked one of the berries off the vine and bit into it.
Sweet nectar exploded in her mouth making her eyes roll back with delight. The pure bliss of it caused her thoughts to drift back to the day she had first built her home with First Man, to how happy she’d been, how hopeful. Looking down at the half-eaten strawberry in her hand, First Woman noticed that it looked like a bright red heart, which touched her own. She no longer wanted to leave. Sitting down on the ground, she considered everything that had happened and came to a decision. She munched on a few more of the absolutely incredible strawberries, intending to head back once she’d had her fill.
Before she was finished however, First Man had caught up to her. Without a word, he gently sat down across from her, giving her time to move away if she wanted but she didn’t. Instead, she offered him a strawberry. As they both ate in companionable silence, each realized how silly their fight had been and how much they still wanted to be together. Digging up a strawberry plant to relocate, they headed home together. Their new strawberry plant would be a constant reminder of today and the lesson they’d learned: do not act in haste. Instead, consider all things thoroughly and be ready to forgive the ones you love for their faults as well as working to correct your own. It’s a good lesson to learn, so think about that the next time you enjoy a sweet strawberry.
That’s it for this episode of Myths Your Teacher Hated. Keep up with new episodes on our Facebook page, on iTunes, on TuneIn, on Vurbl, and on Spotify, or you can follow us on Twitter as @HardcoreMyth, on Instagram as Myths Your Teacher Hated Pod, and on Tumblr as MythsYourTeacherHated. You can also find news and episodes on our website at myths your teacher hated dot com. If you have any questions, any gods or monsters you’d want to learn about, or any ideas for future stories that you’d like to hear, feel free to drop me a line. I’m trying to pull as much material from as many different cultures as possible, but there are all sorts of stories I’ve never heard, so suggestions are appreciated. The theme music is by Tiny Cheese Puff.
Next time, it’s our annual holiday special. We’ll find out how a creepy Lovecraftian city celebrates Christmas in the far north, how you can find the perfect gift deep in the eldritch forest, and how one politician can ruin things for everyone. Then, in Gods and Monsters, dark deeds are done in the name of Thor in the deep woods, but never fear, a saint is on the way. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.