#011 The Bear-Bundled Bigfoot Brother

This Week on Another Brother:

In episode #011, The Bigfoot Brother Bluster, the brothers recount their favorite, least favorite, and punk rock memories of Boy Scouting in Oregon? Who knew denim jeans could get a guy into so much trouble. Though Jacob should have known better than to play King Arthur with camp hatchets. Josh would not have known better than to pour honey into enemies' shoes. That was just how he do. And does Bigfoot have burly brawny bear-bundled Buryatian brothers?

Visit our website for merch and other brother goodness.

Episode Links (***Spoiler Alert***):

• BSA Camp Baldwin
• BSA Camp Cooper
• BSA Camp Meriwether
• BSA Camp Pioneer
• The Astronomy merit badge
• The Climbing merit badge
• The Horsemanship merit badge (we swear this used to be Horseback Riding...)
• The Environmental Science merit badge
• The Pioneering merit badge
• A look into BSA's Jamborees
• The Willamette Mission State Park. "Mission Bottom" was a spot on the fringe of French Prairie on the Willamette River, just North of present-day Keizer, OR. Hence the brothers fondness and oft travels there. For a history of the Methodist Mission to the Willamette River Valley, read this.
• Some light readings on Chuchunya ('Chuchuna') and Almasti ('Almast').
• A YouTube video on Яг Морт ('Yag-Mort' / 'yogmort')
• Some awesome artist's renditions of Яг-Морт.
• And don't forget there's a ballet too!

Transcript:

The following transcript was created using the OpenAI Whisper API:

[00:00:00] This Week on Another Brother

[00:00:23] Another Brother Theme Song

[00:00:42] Stewnerds Segment

Alex: okay so by this point everybody knows we've talked about Skinwalker Ranch and things did not go according to plan

Josh: now there's going to be some skeptics out there in the audience we understand but you haven't experienced what we've talked about

Jacob: like have you even watched the show

Alex: I'm talking to you Johnny yeah like I had to do two editors notes and honestly I could have done three or four because things continued to go wrong as I was trying to edit the episode and export it and everything

Josh: and it's not because we're amateurs

Alex: no and well I mean I'm not exactly a professional at this point, but I used to be you know I I worked in broadcasting for seven years granted room audio wasn't something I got to do a lot of and I didn't do anything post-production ever

Josh: but this is an extremely simple signal flow and it is an SD card for crying out loud

Alex: yeah yeah we record onto an external recorder onto an SD card I put that into my PC I use professional software, Pro Tools to do all of the editing and exporting and mastering and

Josh: so what happens you still haven't told us

Alex: so as I was about to record the second editors note to say what-

Josh: "boring alert"

Alex: no actually this was after I recorded the second editors note I was trying to grab the rest of the audio clips on the various tracks so I could slide them over because now I needed to make more room for this extra editors note it started giving me it just it gave me a dialog box that I've never seen before and I don't even know why I started selecting clips and it just said nope nope nope nope and I could I kept clicking okay and it just kept coming back okay okay okay

Josh: It's a denial of service attack

Alex: I couldn't save I couldn't save that new editors note that said by the way all the really good stuff is what we lost it didn't it's like it did-

Jacob: It didn't even want the people to know that there was good stuff

Alex: yeah I do kind of hate it when they talk like that on the show the ranch responded but-

Jacob: hey when you poke the hornet's nest-

Josh: and golly gee whiz us talking about it really must have upset-

Jacob: our four listeners know now they know

Josh: yeah dad you might want to wipe your device and clear out your hearing aids

Alex: but I wasn't the only one to have weird stuff happen after the episode-

Jacob: so real quick did we even mention that like our recorder just stopped the recording 20 minutes into us recording it just stopped. that's like that's another big thing like we talked about the ranch alone for 28 minutes only to find out it captured 20 minutes and then of that 20 minutes it was like Swiss cheese

Alex: right

Josh: yeah yeah but the second segment we recorded was fine is that accurate?

Jacob: no it was all lost too so we had to record Alex's story

Josh: that's right and hit record again yes we came back following evening to finish it off

Jacob: because we didn't even notice it's crazy

Josh: but but also I didn't even to mention this until I heard about the other stuff but so I'm a pretty fancy guy, I have, I drive a Tesla which is all you know computer brains man and for the next for the three days after we recorded that episode it was not starting up it wasn't connecting to my phone I couldn't use any of the Bluetooth capability I couldn't use my phone as a key I had to use the super dumb RFID card but I mean it's really obnoxious when you're used to a certain standard of living and now I have to put this credit card on the center console just to drive the dang car and it wouldn't drive me itself anymore either for those three days

Alex: how dare it

Josh: I had to turn the steering wheel

Alex: are you kidding me?

Josh: dude atrocious

Jacob: that sounds like something the ranch would want to happen

Josh: right? I ended up rebooting the car twice

Jacob: holy cow

Josh: and I had to restart my phone I ended up restarting my phone a total of probably three cycles and then three days later it all worked so you I mean I'm not saying it's aliens but...

Alex: Classic! okay that's it yeah the ranch for now all right please don't punish us ranch

Jacob: we'll come back to you sometime don't worry about it

Alex: yeah, punish us then. but now we're gonna talk about Boy Scout camp! different kind of nerd.

Jacob: summer, it's the season.

Josh: it is. oh so we haven't even identified that we were all Boy Scouts and stuff for the audience.

Alex: I guess not.

Jacob: well, we were all Boy Scouts.

Josh: how Boy Scout-ey were you guys? I was a life scout.

Alex: yep that's where I got.

Josh: oh I thought you got your eagle. you got your eagle?

Alex: no, I didn't.

Josh: you got arrow of light though.

Alex: I got real close but I chose to focus on band cuz at that point in time band was taking a lot of time.

Jacob: I can I can hear mom crying off in the distance.

Josh: me too. which is why I also stopped at life scout. so Jacob though I think Jacob petered out at tenderfoot. you plateaued, didn't you?

Jacob: oh come on no I was obviously life as well.

Alex: none of us got our Eagle?

Jacob: I stopped at- no I stopped at Life because I wanted to have a life.

Alex: I'm sorry mom I'm sure you blame me.

Josh: Alex set the standard.

Jacob: No, whatever.

Josh: I just didn't want to go through the pain of that-

Jacob: the board

Josh: yeah

Jacob: the interviews and the questioning. and look at us now, Josh has a Tesla.

Josh: yeah yeah.

Alex: And I edit my brother's podcast

Josh: although I learned when I enlisted in the army that had I had my Eagle Scout I could have come in as an E2 instead of an E1. that's like a hundred bucks more a month. But I mean it's a lot more credibility too. you have a rank as an E2 as an E1 you just have a fuzzy, You can't wear anything.

Jacob: oh, it's just it's just the velcro on your chest.

Josh: it's just a velcro patch, yeah with nothing to put on it.

Alex: nice

Jacob: that being said our experiences of us scouting were awesome and great and yeah especially summer camp was so much fun.

Alex: yeah yeah and growing up in Oregon there were some really cool choices for summer camp

Josh: my favorite was probably the one on the coast, I can't think of its name...

Alex: Merriweather

Josh: Merriweather thank you.

Alex: yeah right next to according to the historians of the camp, Camp Merriweather that's right next to Cape Lookout which is apparently where Lewis and Clark ended their trek west.

Josh: and they looked over the ocean and said this is the place.

Alex: now you're confusing it for church history

Josh: see I didn't care much for the history during scouting. but yeah I like Merriweather because Merriweather- my perception was that Merriweather was the like the more adult camp like you were less handheld

Alex: interesting hmm I guess I get that because this is the only camp where I did what did they call that an out something, I think out something.

Jacob: was it the pioneering merit badge?

Alex: no it wasn't a merit badge at all. A counselor of some kind at the camp would they took all of us without our leaders down the beach and said "okay see ya, survive the night" you know like "survive".

Josh: like an excursion was it called-

Alex: I don't think we called it that but we hiked a little bit further found like this little V in the side of the it wasn't exactly a cliff face but it was a pretty sheer bit of sand dunage with like grass growing in it so it kind of held its shape there was like a V in that we climbed up in there and it was a little bowl in the sand and we set up camp there made a fire just stayed the night without any leaders.

Jacob: hmm yeah I didn't have that experience

Josh: hmm yeah I can't think what that experience was called. bu yeah that was really cool. they had the astronomy merit badge.

Jacob: yes that I did do there.

Josh: yeah so there are some merit badges that only can't Merriweather offered because the locations weren't-

Alex: same with other camps right yeah I can't remember the name of that camp but-

Jacob: Baldwin?

Alex: Baldwin yeah Baldwin had rock climbing and horseback riding.

Jacob: was that was it in Central Oregon because I never went to Baldwin

Alex: I think it was I don't recall very clearly though

Jacob: and Cooper. I never went to Cooper

Alex: you never went to Cooper? where did you go?

Jacob: only Merriweather and Pioneer

Alex: I never went to pioneer

Josh: oh so did I do pioneer? I might have-

Jacob: Pioneer's my number one.

Alex: dang it. Sad I never went.

Jacob: well so when I went to Merriweather it was it was a merit badge grind. we filled as much time as we possibly could doing merit badge. That included like environmental oh what was that- you know the one?

Josh: yeah cuz I have a story about that one-

Jacob: Environmental something

Alex: no I don't know what the is

Jacob: I can't remember the full name of it. it was more of like a study-based learning thing.

Alex: sounds very Oregonian.

Josh: it was you like you like draw pictures of palm fronds and track number of species of birds that you see in and out of a certain area you keep a journal of the environment around you.

Jacob: yes it was a lots of journaling

Alex: yeah you know what I do remember that

Josh: it was a eagle one of the requirement badges

Jacob: it was

Alex: that is a nice

Jacob: yeah wasn't fun

Alex: no

Jacob: so Merriweather was fun but yeah we were just so I mean I got like six or seven merit badges at Merriweather

Alex: did you do any like bonfires on the beach?

Jacob: no

Alex: well no wonder you didn't like it that much.

Jacob: we did the astronomy one where we had to go to the beach and observe for two or three hours just observe the stars that was cool but pioneer was more fun we we obviously still got like four or some badges but it was it was more fun

Alex: you chilled out a little more

Jacob: yeah

Alex: well, yeah

Josh: I- our thing, because again with the group that I was scouting with, my friends and I we were not all about the merit badges. we would do them because we had to justify the expense, so we would do some but most of it was just kind of just enjoying being kind of off on your own in the woods.

Alex: You didn't set off any squirrel traps did you?

Josh: we did. okay I don't want to hear about those.

Jacob: yeah that was all Josh's group.

Josh: yeah you don't want to hear about those?

Alex: no because I know what my group did for squirrel traps and that was enough for me I thought they was-

Josh: no ours weren't percussive or kinetic in any way and they never kept the squirrels in them the squirrels got out.

Alex: okay well the trap that my group set up was not animal friendly. lasting damage to the animal if it worked I don't even know if it worked.

Jacob: I'd like on record my group didn't set up a single squirrel trap. so. we did play a hatchet game.

Josh: I guess you actually learned something from that merit badge.

Alex: wait, you played what now?

Jacob: we called it the hatchet game. it was so good. our camp was right next to the mess hall and we just had us we had a stump and for some reason someone had a hatchet with them. so we would just slam this hatchet down into this stump as hard as you could and then the next guy in rotation would have to yank it out and depending on how difficult it was to yank it out you know just determined who won who was better.

Josh: it's the inverse of Excalibur. pulling out Excaliber.

Alex: it's better than the game where you like throw knives between each other's feet and try to get close to the other person's foot.

Jacob: but we like we eventually got shut down because there's a whole group of kids on the hill above us where the mess hall was just watching us

Josh: so you got reported?

Jacob: yeah so camps counselors came out you can't do that

Alex: you would think that the troop from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would be the straight shooting nerdy troop but we were the opposite every camp we went to.

Josh: every every other troop would have like the full uniform set the boots the socks, everything.

Alex: the official shorts

Josh: and so later when I did the Scoutmaster thing that would have been like $300 easy per person for those full uniforms

Alex: and I mean it's cool if you do scouts that way but for us as young men in the church it was a required thing like you you did boy scouts

Jacob: yeah it wasn't so much of a free choice that we made

Alex: they wanted to be boy scouts

Josh: and I wanted to be a boy-

Jacob: you wanted the outdoor experience

Josh: I wanted the experience I didn't yeah yeah-

Alex: yeah sure

Jacob: like I had some badges that were safety pinned on

Josh: of course

Jacob: yeah right

Alex: because you never learned how to sew them on yourself

Jacob: yeah exactly so this this kid comes up to me "why aren't your badges sewn on?" because my mom hasn't sewn them on yet. "you don't sew on your own badges?!" okay we're different we're-

Josh: you call yourself a boy scout?!

Alex: in comparison to everyone else there our troops were always basically the punk rockers by comparison

Josh: yeah and for real we kind of let the BSA down we went to camp

Alex: I suppose we did

Josh: well and you have the skits right so you always have like the end-of-camp skits and we never my group never once did one.

Jacob: no nope

Josh: but I feel like all these other groups had like a little laundry list of like choices and they were always really good and really funny and really well done and I'm like you guys clearly spend a large percentage of your time working on these skits that I just you know didn't have a-

Jacob: don't care about. that's part of why I enjoyed pioneer they actually had a relay race so you know there's like a running leg, three-legged race section, swimming, canoeing and we we did we showed up we got second place well I led out on that running leg and got us off to a good start but so that was fun that was cool.

Josh: oh was there like an a-frame where you have to lash like use your pioneering merit badge and like lash together an a-frame and then like stilt walk it over.

Jacob: probably something like that.

Alex: interesting

Josh: this sounds kind of familiar. yeah I always thought pioneer was kind of like the outdoor adventure one

Alex: like they had the ropes course?

Jacob: No. That was Baldwin I think or Cooper, ah it was one of those two.

Alex: I think Cooper- it wasn't Baldwin so it must have been Cooper

Josh: I always remember I always thought of Cooper as like the vanilla the vanilla camp. like the easy experience. you go they have the mess hall where they cook all your food for you. unlike Merriweather where they bring it out to you in milk cartons or milk crates.

Alex: Oh yeah!

Josh: Remember that?

Alex: I forgot about that!

Josh: Or maybe it was Baldwin?

Alex: No Cooper. Cooper cooked and Merriweather yeah gave you milk crates. you had to cook yeah I remember doing breakfast at the very least at camp.

Josh: yeah although I remember at Cooper we had a stew like for our first night dinner and nothing in that stew was cooked the potatoes were raw, the carrots were raw, although raw carrots are you know delicious but-

Alex: might have been the first troop of the summer so the crew was still learning how to cook

Josh: oh disgusting

Alex: that might be a fun job for me actually I think I would enjoy being a camp cook at a Boy Scout camp

Josh: I mean I think we were we were probably the boys that the other Scouts detested. for example at Merriweather like we found a group of boys that were just like obnoxious and annoying and kind of abusive like we'd go wandering the woods-

Alex: this is not where I thought this was gonna end up going, this conversation-

Josh: you'll you'll see

Jacob: that's fair

Josh: so we'd go wandering- my bad, the whole segment-

Alex: yeah yeah the whole segment. we were punks.

Jacob: hey this is how it goes right we throw it out there and-

Josh: well I mean so we would get honey in our milk crates and we'd identify where the camp where these guys were that were being jerks and we'd sneak in in the cover of night cover of darkness and they left their boots out of their tents...

Alex: Oh my gosh

Jacob: Ohhhhh

Josh: And we'd just fill them with honey...

Alex: oh my gosh!! okay, my gorup never did anything like that that I'm aware of. but we did lean into this punk identity that other people kind of seem to see us like we showed up to like the first flag ceremony in the morning on the on the first morning and you'd just tell everybody was looking down on us. so we were like okay cool well that's how you want it then that's how you're gonna get it.

Josh: yeah. because we're wearing jeans and stuff, heaven forbid-

Alex: exactly. we're wearing denim!

Jacob: yeah I've got one memory that really typifies the same thing to once and only once did we do a jamboree-

Josh: oh I never did

Jacob: jamboree is like the the embodiment of the nerdy Boy Scout cuz you're supposed to have like your own your troop cheer you make and bring a banner for your troop all this just ridiculous stuff you're supposed to be in your full outfit the entire time

Alex: Troop 87 baby!

Josh: 5-0-3!

Jacob: you do all these challenges and obstacles and things and you're supposed to have this stuff with you like there's a you've got a string 15 inches up and you got to build a fire and burn it the fastest. we didn't even have matches with us

Alex: true boy scouts!

Jacob: so we're boy scouts we got the fastest time but because we had to borrow matches we didn't win it. anyway-

Josh: you weren't prepared! you were not "be prepared"!

Jacob: not at all! we hated it it was so lame and so boring so Jason did a rain dance-

Josh: and rained them out?

Jacob: -a rain dance and sure enough a couple hours later it started to absolutely pour

Josh: that's awesome

Jacob: right this is this wasn't even summer this is Oregon springtime and it just dumps so like all right come on leaders we're not doing this you know we already think this is dumb let's go home. and we did.

Alex: wow

Josh: 87 packs up and leaves the jamboree.

Jacob: I mean it was it was just right in the valley we didn't drive far it was like Mission Bottom or something like that. it was really close.

Alex: Well if they didn't think 87 sucked before that they certainly did after!

Josh: I just you know I credit I credit the dads the fathers who were like they're not getting any value from this we have stuff we could be doing yeah we're packing up we have we have nothing to gain here.

Alex: but we got we got the real full experience like we may have looked like loser boy scouts to everybody else there but boy did we go hard in our troop with the campouts and all the high adventure activities.

Jacob: yes that's what I was gonna say our high adventures were in sharp contrast to the organized BSA summer camps

Josh: did you say "BS" A summer camps?

Jacob: yeah

Josh: but the high adventure wasn't wasn't scouting

Alex: I mean I guess not but yeah only in the sense that like had we done a service project at the end it would have been and we would have gotten a badge for it

Jacob: everyone had enough badges to get the Eagle, ya know? It wasn't about the badges anymore.

Alex: but it's not even a merit badge it's just a you completed a 50 miler okay yeah decorative badge

Josh: yeah like your goodwill goodwill badge with the things around it

Alex: right but yeah that was the only thing stopping us because you know surviving 50 miles on the river white water rafting or 50 miles up in the mountains trekking for an entire week isn't enough you have to also perform a service project while you're out there

Josh: and those were pretty legitimate I mean there were rattle snakes we came face-to-face with rattle snakes pretty frequently

Alex: You will die on the river.

Jacob: bear-droppings

Josh: lots of river deaths

Jacob: yeah the river some of those crossings were yeah they were kind of scary.

[00:21:32] Stewnerds!

[00:21:40] Cryptid Curiosities Segment

Soundbyte: Your hair stands on end at the back of your neck. Something struck the boat. I don't know what it was. It looked like a giant ape with a man's face. I don't think it is a human, I think it's a sasquatch.

Jacob: well for the first cryptid story it's only fitting that I go with a Bigfoot like creature

Josh: classic

Alex: alright, alright

Josh: oh 'like' creature?

Jacob: we're not in America so I can't say that it is Sasquatch or Bigfoot

Alex: yeti?

Jacob: dude, we're going back to Russia.

Alex: already?

Jacob: oh yeah already

Alex: okay, okay

Jacob: I can't help it. oh man I I've had the feeling in the past to say this just to get it out there I love the culture the language the people of Russia. Putin, the government, the state, hate it all. Fully on Ukraine's side. okay moving on. like if you were to look at like just Google Maps and then scan the globe of like if Bigfoot is out there somewhere dude Russia is where it would be. it is just massive right and so-

Alex: remote like a lot of it? isn't it really remote?

Jacob: yes so what's the opposite of densely populated?

Josh: sparsely

Alex: remote

Jacob: remote yeah it's so remote

Josh: so are you in the camp that Bigfoot is a single mythological creature? or

Alex: a species?

Josh: or aliens? alien visitors. prisoners that are released on earth.

Jacob: I don't think it's a single individual. I think it's a species we can get to theories later I have my own working hypothesis of alien versus-

Alex: wow you really are the Bigfoot one I do not think about this

Jacob: I am. okay, but Russia so obviously across all of Russia there are a bunch of enclaves of indigenous peoples throughout the entire land again it's so expansive and massive so with that you have lots of different oral traditions and ideas of or sightings of Bigfoot in the Caucasus region which is down by Georgia

Alex: Sure, I know geography...

Josh: Azerbaijan

Jacob: they've got a creature there that they call Almasti. that's the Bigfoot of the Caucasus region. where we're going is far east Siberia like Yakutia.

Alex: okay

Josh: that's on the risk board

Alex: yeah, that's on risk.

Jacob: yeah it sure is you know where that is

Alex: I love that country actually

Jacob: and and in my mind that's where like Russia's population sparseness that's at its height of sparseness

Josh: it's peak- it's peak sparseness

Jacob: I love oxymorons I just had to use it yeah just there's there's hardly anybody out there and it's just all forested all swampy you get some rolling hills some mountains depending on the specific region in Yakutia they call Bigfoot or their Bigfoot creature Chuchuna

Josh: oh chewy

Jacob: Chuchuna nice

Alex: Ha. Chubaca.

Jacob: some other native peoples also call it Mulienna but we're just just for simplicity we're going with Chuchuna. so Chuchuna has a lot in common with Sasquatch Bigfoot in North America. tall large human like creature extremely strong surprisingly agile for its size and quick. it's covered in everything I've read they've described it as wool. like a long wool. which again if you're in Siberia you're a creature that makes sense you're gonna need something thicker than just normal fur

Alex: your average fur? yeah sure

Jacob: so covered in a long wool and there have been reports of Chuchuna throwing rocks like at people that settlings- settlings?

Josh: That tracks.

Alex: I think I've heard that of sasquatch too.

Jacob: yeah that's a very common trait that people report for Bigfoot but prepare yourself for the differences now. I almost wanted to refer to these creatures as wild men rather than Bigfoot like creatures. here we go this is why. Chuchuna have bows and arrows

Alex: Uhoh!

Jacob: primitive bows

Josh: Oh No!

Jacob: Spears

Alex: Oh Crap

Jacob: metal knives

Josh: What?

Jacob: and they sometimes fashion rudimentary clothing out of skins of dead animals

Josh: oh not people

Jacob: no not people

Alex: oh my gosh that'd be horrifying

Josh: okay so they clothe themselves?

Jacob: they clothe themselves they fashion and they arm themselves and they arm themselves

Alex: so we're talking a technological civilization basically

Josh: primitive

Jacob: primitive but yes they they they can craft intentionally tools yeah it's believed if the blood of a slain Chuchuna lands on the clothing or on the hand of the hunter that his whole family will go insane which will eventually lead to their deaths.

Josh: the premise being that hunters are hunting these things?

Jacob: well hunters a general term here right if someone kills a Chuchuna and the blood lands on you you're in trouble. the same goes if you steal the Chuchuna's knife. I don't know what it is about that knife man but the people of Tunguska right that's where that big meteor hundred years ago exploded there's there's lots of weird stuff out there that happens too, but the people who live there they have a tradition that a Chuchuna want that a Chuchuna once broke into a barn stole all the food storage that was being stored for winter the hunters followed its tracks and found it in a mountain cave. the Chuchuna dropped down on its knees and started muttering something as if it was like pleading for like mercy it's like they're intelligent creatures like it knew it was in trouble

Alex: that's disturbing

Jacob: but without hesitation they stabbed it

Josh: and their families went crazy

Jacob: I you know I don't know what the rest of that story is

Alex: what the crap

Jacob: that's this oral tradition of those people which is another common trait I've seen the word that's been used in Russia is inarticulate I would switch it out for unintelligible they seem to have an unintelligible language that humans don't understand but it seems purposeful and what they're saying like they're trying to communicate or they have you know in- 1929 an article is published in the local Yakutian newspaper it purported that Chuchuna are real living creatures and it even included testimonies of like eyewitnesses from that time not just oral tradition but actual eyewitness reports. I couldn't find this article as hard as I tried I mean it's almost 100 years old in Far East Siberia.

Josh: Wow that is almost a hundred years ago. Wow.

Jacob: But it stated that two or three Chuchuna had been killed before and that the hunters buried the bodies and hid it from the authorities because they were afraid of being criminally charged for murder. so that shows you-

Josh: how similar

Jacob: and how intelligent these creatures did seem.

Josh: But presumably these things are still covered in wool, you know. but have the appearance and demeanor and behavior of a person

Jacob: of a man. I know so again that's that's why like I said I was tempted to class I am tempted to call them wild men

Alex: that's upsetting

Jacob: like tribes of some missing link or something you know because there are some of the articles do they just call them wild men. Diki-yudi.

Josh: I just- out of the annals- annals?

Jacob: Annals?

Josh: Anthropology. We'll not use that word because I don't know but I was gonna try to go with that one but are we are there any human tribes that are classified as wild men I mean the most like remote tribe I can think of don't you they're obviously humans, homo sapiens. they have their naked skin you know they're not covered in wool and exhibit you know really advanced language.

Jacob: Yeah fully developed languages they communicate with each other.

Josh: Culture. Art. buildings. Religion. Straw hatched stuff.

Jacob: yeah yeah so yeah I don't know of any because so that's where I'm then at my next point in 1933 a professor wrote another article about Chachunas where he called them a tribe of very undeveloped people again living in eastern Siberia who were covered in long wool like fur and that they speak a kind of language that humans can't make sense of. they live a nomadic hunter-gatherer life alone or sometimes in small groups and he says they they don't attack people unless they feel like they themselves are threatened. though they have stolen guns and clothes from people before. he ended his article with a call to action to put Chuchuna under protection by Soviet law because they had almost gone extinct by that point. so I think this guy definitely felt like there was more to them than just these wild animals like they are almost a-

Josh: but he's he's a he's seemingly tracking like population-

Jacob: yeah again I haven't read the actual article this is- so it's hard to say I'm sure for him again he's probably looking at this as more of an anthropological approach where he's talking to the locals getting anecdotal data rather than actual hard data

Josh: sure but if you compare that to other localities in other places of the world where you have similar oral traditions about Bigfoot, I doubt it's gonna be as consistent or direct in the statements and claims they're making as this appears to be. you know? where consistently here they're talking about the exact same being but anywhere else is gonna be like "yo I saw a Sasquatch. I saw a Bigfoot" it's not gonna be like persistent

Jacob: and like these cultural things like it's armed, it creates tools, it was trying to mutter something to me, it was trying to communicate.

Alex: that's really upsetting

Josh: killed it anyway.

Jacob: I mean you can't communicate with the thing it's huge it's armed you've got to protect and defend your family

Josh: until you get his blood on you, now look what you did!

Alex: Idiot!

Josh: and you probably stole his knife after the fact too

Alex: double idiot!

Josh: well this is probably how they learned not to do that stuff was that instance

Jacob: yeah

Josh: right? because they were hunters. boom.

Jacob: so yeah that's Chuchuna.

Josh: how do you- Chuchuna- are there any like roots to that name?

Jacob: it's not Russian so I have no clue yeah different language. so I mean all of them. Alamasti no clue what that's supposed to mean. Muliana don't know what that means either. they're all non-Russian languages. this one however this is a very specific event it's probably more of just I mean it's not quite folklore I don't think but it's probably more of a tradition an oral tradition rather than a what appears to be an actual population of creature that has had consistent sightings over the years. all the article said was "a long time ago" so I don't even have a date range unfortunately.

Josh: Good start.

Alex: Fabulous.

Jacob: So I'd say probably maybe a thousand years ago. but I know I know well maybe not even quite a thousand anyway I'll get into it so this is northern Russia in the Komi actually what is Oblast cry whatever Republic. in Komi back when they were just tribes of people living along the Pachauri River they hadn't even learned agriculture yet by this point so they hunted fish and they could breed cattle.

Alex: a thousand years ago they hadn't learned agriculture?

Josh: very remote remember

Alex: that's I that's note worthy in and of itself

Jacob: yeah I'd have to look more into the history of like the Slavic tribes but I think I think they were slower to get there and probably in large part because of their environment I mean it's just a lot more difficult to you know

Josh: That's why Ukraine's the breadbasket

Jacob: yeah but they had actual like permanent settlements and stuff they weren't nomads traveling they were

Josh: wow that's different

Jacob: they were rooted in their villages

Alex: yeah this is pretty different

Jacob: this giant I don't even know again I don't know what to call it this giant wild man started showing up and they called him Yag-Mort.

Alex: cool cool name.

Jacob: which literally means forest man. they said he was as tall as the trees. as tall as pines. he would prey on women children and cattle and just had the demeanor of like a wild animal.

Josh: is that because you don't prey on men cuz like this is just a masculine thing? like we're never gonna call it like you're preying on men? like because they're fighting back? this seems I don't like it. I can think of a few of our listeners that are not gonna like that.

Jacob: This is definitely a damsel in distress story right okay okay he wore crude clothing made out of bear fur okay

Josh: a lot of bears' fur

Alex: he probably smelled real bad. dead bears are stinky. living bears are stinky.

Jacob: so one point he chose a night darker than most nights and he set ablaze the trees next to the village

Josh: Why would he do that?

Alex: so he could start fires on purpose?

Jacob: yes so within this chaos that he created he stole the daughter of one of the village elders her name was Rida. Rida was betrothed to to gone so to gone he's like yo bro stealing my still my woman so he gathered all the other men in the village and they took off after Yag-Mort. to go hunt him down. giant dude so he's obviously leaving tracks.

Alex: beauty and the beast

Josh: hey

Jacob: so they follow the tracks they're obviously armed they're ready to go they find a point of hiding by the riverbank to wait for him to ambush him he comes out as soon as he stepped on the river the bank they jump out and like they just go at it man they're throwing spears, shooting arrows, throwing rocks at him, and he just like stares at them with this like just bloodthirsty animalistic stare, lets out this crazy roar, grabs his club, and just starts swinging. you know just hacking guys down. so then this battle takes place and they're just battling out like so long I don't know how many men were in this village but the battle goes on long enough that Yag-Mort eventually collapses from exhaustion after killing who knows how many men. he just tires out and falls down. so the surviving men gathered around and cut his arms off.

Josh: nice.

Jacob: You know so he couldn't do any more damage.

Alex: Sheeeze.

Jacob: So when he woke up though "all right, where is she?"

Josh: He didn't bleed out?

Jacob: it might have been 'hands'. it's the same word in Russian-

Josh: You would still bleed out from your hands. You still have those arteries that get down there.

Jacob: that's always something that bugs me the same it's the same word for a 'foot' or excuse me for 'hand' verse 'arm' oh and it's the same word for 'foot' verse 'leg'.

Josh: really??

Jacob: I hate it it's hard

Josh: that's Russian?

Jacob: yeah

Josh: get out

Jacob: it's weird

Alex: weird

Josh: how no wait how do you refer to your foot? your left foot?

Jacob: it's the same as you would say your left leg. yeah it's weird. anyway-

Josh: Russia, that's a glaring issue.

Alex: Fix your dang language

Josh: You gotta fix that.

Jacob: so Yag-Mort comes back to consciousness. tells him where his cave is. they go to the cave.

Alex: he can speak??

Josh: probably went rawr-rawr

Jacob: pointing and stuff

Josh: sprayed blood, arterial blood over in that direction

Alex: but they understood him.

Jacob: so I mean they're different accounts some accounts say he took them there let's go with that he led them to his cave. Tugan finds Rida dead she didn't she wasn't even surviving he also had a ton of just like all of his plunderings in the cave. they took those all out. burnt it all. they took Yag-Mort back to where the battle was, chopped his head off, shoved him into a grave, and drove a stake through his chest into the ground.

Alex: just to make sure

Jacob: yeah so he couldn't stand up. buried him up. and then from that point on the tradition carried whenever you passed by his grave you take a rock you put it on top and you spit on him.

Alex: okay

Jacob: and they say that now to this day a mountain stands where his grave was. It may be not a literal mountain but a mountain of rocks

Alex: oh so we don't know? that is quite a myth

Jacob: yeah I'll show you some pictures we'll have not pictures paintings artistic representations of Yag-Mort they'll be in the show notes they're actually really cool. you guys should check them out but I also found a Russian youtuber who the way to which he refers to yogmort makes it sound like he thinks yogmort is more like a Bigfoot like creature because he thinks yogmort still lives oh and so he posts videos from the Komi region going around the forest looking for him looking for things like footprints and other traces that this yogmort creature or species is still out there and still alive. so I'll stand by it. If Bigfoot lives there are definitely Bigfoot in Russia. you heard it here.

Josh: ...oh wait. How'd you end it? We have to laugh.

Jacob: Do we have to?

Josh: No, but what's your conclusion?

Jacob: Oh that was it. If Bigfoot lives, there's definitely Bigfoot in Russia.

Josh: Oh, okay. Um, yeah, great.

Jacob: Yeah, laugh at that.

[00:40:24] Another Brother Outro