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Merchant's House & Mummy Juanita
20 Plays5 years ago
This week Felicia discusses the Merchant's House, the most haunted building in New York City. Lauren covers the discovery of Mummy Juanita, an Incan girl sacrificed to the gods.
If you have requests for future episodes or just want to hang out follow us on Instagram @sinistersisterspodcast
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Format
00:00:12
Speaker
Welcome to the Sinister Sisters podcast. I'm Felicia. And I'm Lauren. And we're best friends. And we talk about spooky stuff. It's true. And now we're really into this new format. Three weeks in. I feel like much more like research science girl. Oh my God, yeah. I also just feel like I'm enjoying the research a lot more than I was earlier.
00:00:40
Speaker
Yeah, I, I totally hear you. I, I feel like I'm going to be like an even more avid girly gore fan because of our change in format. Like now I'm going to need to be constantly watching your YouTube because I need. Yeah, exactly. Or
Movie and Series Discussions
00:00:59
Speaker
I'll start. I still, you know, I always tease I'm going to start a rival YouTube channel, which I never will, but I love the idea of it. I really want to make like one parody.
00:01:09
Speaker
And then we make a whole separate channel that's a drama channel that just talks about the beef between us. I think that's so beautiful. We probably need like a third person to be like, oh my God, did you see this new account? I think it's Joe and Andrew probably, right? Oh my God, it is definitely Joe and Andrew.
00:01:28
Speaker
They would love it. Let's see. So what have you watched this week or listened to or read or anything like that? So I forgot until you just asked me, but guess what I watched for the first time? Actually, I texted you. I watched Teeth for the first time ever, and I loved it.
00:01:48
Speaker
It's I I thought it was gonna be like much worse Acting or like or like just like more poorly done. Like I actually thought it was pretty great Yeah, like the concept makes you think it's gonna be like very like lowbrow low budget, but then it's actually like a pretty sick cool movie
00:02:09
Speaker
Yeah, and the special effects were honestly better than I thought they would be. Yeah. Like all the bitten off penises. Oh my gosh. So good. Although I am sad that you like never see the vag in all its glory. I know. But I think it, I mean, that's something that I just...
00:02:26
Speaker
I wonder if it's just a budget thing where it's just like they couldn't make a version that looked good enough. Good enough. Yeah, I'm sure you're right. But I really enjoyed it and I thought it was like smart and funny. Oh my God. And her doing it to her brother? Sorry, spoilers. Oh my God. I know. It's so crazy.
00:02:46
Speaker
Just wild. And the dog, the dog was like, I didn't want, I don't know. I was really worried something was going to happen to the dog, but it didn't. We always. But it was good. That's amazing. But then I also watched The Pale Door last night, which is a shutter movie. Yeah.
00:03:06
Speaker
Yes. Or I think they put it out, but yeah. They put it out. But I thought it was a very interesting concept. It's witches in a Western film setting. I mean, that sounds like it would be amazing. Exactly. Like I really thought that was just like such an interesting thing that hadn't been explored and like I loved Westworld and like I love like that kind of like
00:03:30
Speaker
You know, like it's a bunch of like saloon girls basically are the witches. And I was like, that's such a cool concept. And, um, I just felt like, I don't know. It just like didn't really do it for me. I can't tell if it was like, there was some acting stuff that was weird. I'm, I'm like the biggest stickler about accents.
00:03:50
Speaker
And it's like they're kind of all over the place with their southern accents. Like it's like some people are doing like old timey southern and some people are doing like more of like a modern southern accent. The other thing that's wild about it is that one of the witches is the girl that played Britney Spears in the lifetime biopic. Which, what? Britney Spears is lifetime biopic.
00:04:17
Speaker
Exactly. Should I watch it tonight? I think I will. I think yes. I'm going to send you the second we are off of this. I will send you a picture of her as Brittany because it cracked me up. It's like a picture of her as Brittany and somebody playing JT. And it's so funny. Oh, my God. I'm thrilled. So we have to check that out. Yeah. Top of the list. Top of the list. Forget horror movies. We're into
00:04:44
Speaker
biopics about celebrities. Yeah, if you guys would like us to start a separate podcast about celebrity biopics. But I did feel like the witch, like the witch design was really cool. And there were a couple shots that like really made me gasp. They look kind of like the witches in the witches, the original. Yeah, the original. But yeah, it was for me, it was just like, I don't know, there's a lot of like,
00:05:15
Speaker
emotional scenes that I didn't really feel anything. They were kind of soap opera-y. Did it feel like the writing was the core of the issue? I think so. Or it's hard to tell. Sometimes it's hard to tell. It's hard to tell if it was acting stuff or writing stuff. And then I think too, it's just like,
00:05:30
Speaker
It's hard to make a low-budget Western movie because everything is so stylized and specific that it's like the second you see a cheap saloon dress, you're like, I don't know. It feels cheap in a way that I feel like you can make a low-budget horror movie in modern times much easier.
00:05:50
Speaker
Yeah, that's definitely true. Yeah, there are parts that I liked for sure, but I didn't love. Yeah, that's okay. Anyway, what did you watch this week? It was so funny when you just mentioned teeth and biting off penises, because I just started watching a movie. I'm only halfway through, so I really can't speak fully to it, but I'm going to watch it and review it later.
00:06:15
Speaker
But it's called Thirst and it is an Icelandic horror film, which I've never heard of him be from Iceland before, no offense. And it's about this vampire that's
00:06:30
Speaker
lures men, it's a male vampire, lures men into like, you know, a sexual interaction then bites their dick off and basically likes to eat them. And it is totally outrageous the way it's filmed. It's so shocking and stylized and amazing. Once again, I'm not done with it yet. Is it in another language?
00:06:58
Speaker
Yes, it is, but they're subtitles, obviously. But actually, one character that just came on is speaking English, but most of it is in the middle. Fascinating. But it is kind of amazing and horrifying and sometimes it makes you want to gag a little, but it's like you can't look away because it's just so artfully and
00:07:22
Speaker
It's like it's a comedy, but like it feels like so stylized. I don't even know how to say this, but I'm not done yet. I'm gonna have to check it out. Is it streaming somewhere?
00:07:32
Speaker
It's on Amazon. It's really hard to find because it turns out there's like a thousand movies called Thirst. But it's the Thirst from 2020. It just came out. The other thing that I was going to ask you if you watched yet is tiny, pretty things on Netflix. It's like top of my list. I haven't started. I texted Joe about it and was like, we have to watch this. I mean, it's made for people like us. It's made for us.
00:07:59
Speaker
X dancers. X dancers. Not that we were at all to the point of these people. No, to be clear. This show is about people that are trained to work as professional ballerinas. We were in casual dance studios in our respective hotels.
00:08:19
Speaker
But it is just so good. There is one line that really made me laugh so much that she's like, this one girl is trying to shake things up at this ballet school. And the prima girl who's the top of the school is just like, if you want change, go do contemporary. She's like, oh.
00:08:44
Speaker
Okay, so I have to watch. What's the vibe? It's like pretty little liars. Okay, that's what I was like. It seems like teen drama. It's like CW-esque. So there's murder drama, classic, teen partying, casual drama,
00:09:04
Speaker
relationships. But then you have these amazing dance sequences. Yeah, because all the people they cast are actual like trained ballet dancers first. I love that. And the dancing is just out of this world. Like there are no people that are pretending to be dancers like these people are freaking dancers. I love when they do that. It's amazing. You're gonna you're gonna love it. I'm not saying I'll start to like, I'm like halfway through the first season. Are they 45? Yeah.
00:09:38
Speaker
I'm so thrilled to start that. Thank you for the recommendation. Of course, of course. Really, really good. And that's, I mean, I probably watched other things. I don't really remember. Always watching Loud Order SVU. I'm on season like 20 right now. Oh my God, you're doing so well. I know, I'm almost done. I did skip like
00:09:56
Speaker
a couple seasons I think at some point, but I kind of forget even what that was. Yeah. I don't blame you. But it's a lot of episodes. It's a lot. But yeah, so I think that's probably it for recommendation corner. I'm just stealing things from other podcasts by saying corner. Let's say recommendation
Ghost Stories and the Merchant's House
00:10:17
Speaker
closet. Ooh, I like it. Recommendation closet. Or recommendation shelf. We're putting them on a shelf. I don't know.
00:10:26
Speaker
I like that too. We'll keep workshopping. Yeah. Recommendation shelf, I like. Okay, so we are going to bring you some stories today that I'll say I think are quite different from each other. Yeah, I think so. Which will be fun. I can't remember what we said we were going to do last week, but I'm sure we changed it.
00:10:47
Speaker
I really actually said I was going to do a mummy, but not... Oh, yes, you did. We will get to it. I lied. It's not an Egyptian mummy, so... Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I lied. I think I said I was going to do that really haunted alien house, and instead I'm going to do
00:11:08
Speaker
a New York City ghost story or haunted house, if you will. And I decided to do this because Laura and I back in, oh God, October of 2019. Is that right? I was just about to say right before the city shut down.
00:11:27
Speaker
Actually, it wasn't October. Wait, maybe it was. I can't remember. I felt like it was like, like weird, like January or February. Maybe it was January, February. Time doesn't exist anymore. But we thought it was off season. Maybe it was off season.
00:11:43
Speaker
I think you're right, actually. I don't know that to be true. I think you're totally right. But we went on this trolley ghost tour of Brooklyn, which was so fun. I can't remember what it was called, but once COVID's over, you got to go do it. It's super fun. They just drive you around this spooky trolley with this spooky host that tells you all the ghost stories of the areas, and it's amazing.
00:12:06
Speaker
It was so fun. I feel like I did a ghost tour in Nashville as well, and I was like, I don't in pandemic times even, but I was like, I don't know why we aren't going on ghost tours. That's how I felt on the trolley thing. I was like, wait, why are we not doing this all the time? Constantly.
00:12:27
Speaker
It's also like outdoors. Yeah. And New York is like a super old area. So it's like it makes sense. And so from that tour, I just kind of realized I didn't know any of the ghost stories from New York, even though we've lived here for basically almost a decade or getting close to it in like a year or so, which is but we somehow are still 21. It's so I'm only 21. I can finally drink, though. So that's really nice. They still check my ID, but, you know,
00:12:57
Speaker
Yeah. Every day they check my ID. Every day they check my ID, no matter what. So I actually picked one from Manhattan and it is a house called the Merchant's House and it's still standing and it is the oldest and only preserved New York City 19th century home.
00:13:19
Speaker
So there has never been any updating to the interior or exterior. It is just like, it's been frozen in time basically, which I think is freaking spooky to begin with. But it's also known as one of the most haunted places in New York City.
00:13:37
Speaker
And so I was like okay well like is there anything about this like what like what is the story and at first I was like oh I can't find like that much information about like why it's haunted like there's not any huge like horrible events there's not any huge like scary story associated with it.
00:13:55
Speaker
that we usually think of when we think of haunted houses, because of course we're watching a lot of movies. But it's a little more casual, but still really interesting. So I'm excited to talk about it. Did you look at pictures of the house? Yes. So I'm going to tell you the address. It's on 29 East 4th Street in New York. So it's in Noho, but like right next to the East Village.
00:14:22
Speaker
Okay, so this house was lived in for over 100 years by the same family. And that is the Treadwell family. So this family has been in America basically since colonization started in the 1640s. They came over and the main family that we're gonna be ending up talking about, the head of that family is named Seabury Treadwell or Seabury.
00:14:51
Speaker
Like Seabury is apparently a first name, which I can't understand. Oh, you know, that's a character in Hamilton too, right? No, I don't remember that. Well, it's Samuel Seabury. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So no.
00:15:07
Speaker
I've never heard of his first name, but apparently that was it. So we're going to be focusing kind of on his family and actually mostly his daughter. But I will say his descendants on his mother's side literally came over on the Mayflower. So they've been here the whole time. And so Seabury was born in 1780 on Long Island, casual.
00:15:34
Speaker
And he did the classic New York City dream. Around 18 to 20 years old, he was like, I'm going to move to New York City to find my fortune, to find myself, to find my success. Whatever. Classic story. Which was so funny to hear. It was already happening in the year 1800.
00:15:54
Speaker
And so over the next 20 years, he basically did. He worked in the hardware business. I don't really know what that means, but he was really, really successful, made a ton of money.
00:16:05
Speaker
And at 40, he finally decided to settle down. And so he's a real New York boy. I know. It's nothing. New York men now. 40 seems like the right time to settle down. Nothing. It's hilarious. So he at 40, he marries this woman named Eliza Parker.
00:16:27
Speaker
who was 23, but I feel like for the time, that's pretty classic. She's an old maid. Yeah, she's an old maid at that point. And over the next 15 years, they have seven children. So yeah, also classic oldie times, lots of kids. They have Elizabeth, Horace, Mary, Samuel, Phoebe, Julia, and Sarah. And that year, Sarah was born, which was 1835.
00:16:55
Speaker
They bought this house on East 4th Street.
00:16:59
Speaker
And at this point, which I think is also crazy, Seabury Treadwell retired. He was 55 years old, seems pretty young. He said, I'm good. He's like, I'm good on money. And he bought this house and I think he also bought some property out in New Jersey, like a country home, but we're not focusing on that. I mean, also to be like, that is crazy that he started having kids at 40 and retired at 55. Yeah. He had seven kids in those 15 years and then retired.
00:17:27
Speaker
Can you imagine our parents retiring when we were one year old? No. Oh my God. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. It's wild. He retired, bought this house. I can't remember the name of the builder who built it. Someone built it. In 1840, they had a surprise last child. Surprise, it's Gertrude.
00:17:53
Speaker
Amazing Gertrude. Amazing Gertrude. She's the last child. She is born in that house on Eastport Street. And just to set it all up, she lives there until the day she dies. So she is born and dies in the same house. And a real baby too.
00:18:12
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Oh my God. Classic. Never leaves. But so Gertrude, and she is the main person of the story because she is the ghost that is most frequently seen at, and once again right now it's called The Merchant's House Museum is if you want to look it up, that's where we're going to find all the history.
00:18:34
Speaker
And she is the ghost that everyone talks about, that they see the most often. There are some ghosts that they see of like servants and some other people doing like daily tasks, which is interesting. But most of her afterlife was like sweeping. I know, it's so sad, right? It's awful. But most of our story now is going to focus on Gertrude.
00:18:59
Speaker
So she had a really great childhood because she was wealthy. She grew up in this family. Her dad had already retired. They're just all chilling, having a great life. They have servants. At this point, their house was pretty modern. Their backyard had this huge rainwater situation that pulled rainwater into their house. They were doing great.
00:19:27
Speaker
And when she was around, I think she was like in her early 20s, of course she was still at home and she fell in love with a man named Lewis Walton. He lived just a few blocks away from her. He was a doctor. I mean, it seems like the dream, but he was Catholic.
00:19:48
Speaker
Oh. I am Catholic. I was going to say it's funny because my dad is a Catholic and his name is also Lewis. So it was probably him. Just kidding. But the Treadwell family was Episcopalian.
00:20:03
Speaker
Oh, I see. And very, very religious, particularly Seabury. So Daddio was like, no. No. You're not going to marry Louis. Absolutely not. And they kind of, I mean, they were sort of this like forbidden couple. They couldn't be together. They couldn't get married. And so she looked at her dad and she said, I swear, if you don't let me marry Louis, I will never marry and I will stay in this house to the day I die.
00:20:32
Speaker
All right. And he was like, fine. You're not marrying him. And you have to think about the time, too. It's like you can't really. Her father, you know, that is her life. That is her livelihood. That is her inheritance. She's not going to have a job. She's not going to have an income. And also there's like that whole like weird ownership thing, too. Right. Like, was that at the time of Dowry's? I mean, I don't know. But it's like, yeah. Yeah.
00:20:56
Speaker
If the dad says no, it's like that's my property. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my God. Totally. So that was kind of the end of the conversation, unfortunately. Something so sad is that so both Gertrude and Lewis never married. Both of them really did love each other. Yes, they did. I don't think their relationship continued through their lives, but I do think it's interesting that they both never married.
00:21:23
Speaker
Dang, that's something they were just having some like hot sex in the backyard. I know. I'm unclear. Those are the secrets that are left buried. I'm spreading that. I couldn't find it on the internet. If we run into her ghost, we'll ask. Yeah, but I hope that for her. I really do. But probably not because over time, so obviously as she was never married, she never moved out of the house. And over time she became more and more of a recluse.
00:21:51
Speaker
and stopped leaving the house at a certain point and was just always there. And at age 69, she was the last Treadwell sibling left. So when she turned 69, at this point, of course, her parents had died, all of her siblings had died, and she was the last one.
00:22:12
Speaker
And basically she spent, oh, I should say this, she lived to be 93 years old. Wow. So from 69 to 93, she was basically alone in this house, which is a lot of years that you kind of forget. You're like, once you're old, you're old. But no, that's like a lot of years left. A lot of years. Yeah. And she basically spent her entire adult and older life
00:22:38
Speaker
dedicating herself to keeping the house exactly as it was in her childhood. Fascinating. Which is very strange. She would not update anything. She seems like she had a lot going on. I think she had a lot going on. She would not update anything. She would not change anything. She wanted to be exactly how it was when her parents were alive, when her siblings were alive. Nothing ever changed. She didn't buy new things.
00:23:01
Speaker
everything was exactly how it was. And at this point, as she got older and older, she ran out of money. Yeah, so she did have an inheritance, I think, when her father died of like $10,000.
00:23:17
Speaker
But by the time she was older, that money was gone. She was at a ton of debt. And by the time- She probably also wasn't planning on living to 93. If you're in that time period, you're probably like, okay, I have to financially allow for- But you know what? She was self-isolating.
00:23:35
Speaker
She was. She self-isolated for her entire life and so she got to live to be almost 100. That's crazy. Nothing could kill her because there was snow. She wasn't coming in contact. No contact. So she died in the front bedroom of the house.
00:23:50
Speaker
in 1933, once again, penniless and a ton of debt. And when she died, they, I think, I can't remember who bought it. Somebody, I think, bought it and they decided to turn it into a museum because it was perfectly preserved. Wow. Exactly how it was in the 19th century. Right. Which is unheard of in New York because especially in this city,
00:24:19
Speaker
Every building you see changes every few years. Wherever there was a store, the next year is a Dunkin Donuts, 10 years later is a Target. It's just everything is always changing here, every building. And so the idea of having a building that has never changed for 100 years is totally unheard of here.
00:24:39
Speaker
Well, that's I'm like, I wonder if we've walked by it and like, I'm sure we have. I'm sure we've noticed it. I don't, I don't know. I don't know. But now I have to go. Obviously we have tours. Yes. And they do tours. That's obviously the museum. So they do tours. We must, we must. Something else I just found interesting is so with Gertrude, there were eight children, only three of them ever married.
00:25:05
Speaker
Which I found a little strange. Especially for that time feels really weird. Yeah. And there's a lot of girls. I think there was only two boys. And so most of the girls never married. And I think they all lived in the house. They all just lived in the house their whole lives. So that is certain. I hope they were having something fishy with the dead.
00:25:24
Speaker
I don't know. I don't know. I wondered that as well because all I do is watch Laundard SVU. Right? So I was like, he wouldn't let them marry anyone because he wanted them by himself. You're sleeping with all of them. Yeah. Oh my God. But then you start to think about it and you're like, Oh, right. Like even when these women in their thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, they're all still living in the house together. That's so weird. Yeah. It's just something that it's not very
00:25:52
Speaker
Normally, it was like a big house and they had like a lot of servants and so they were just like living a cush life, but like but then they were a lot of their life, but as they got older and older, that money started to run out and then there were no servants. It almost made me think of like a Grey Garden situation, but it's not that at all. Oh, man. I like the idea of it. Yeah. Instead, it was like instead of letting things deteriorate, they just kept everything exactly the same. So a different kind of crazy. Yeah. So.
00:26:20
Speaker
Now I guess let's talk about the spooky occurrences. So as Gertrude said, if she couldn't marry Lewis, she's never going to get married and stay here forever. Apparently she did. She never left the house even after death. Something else to note in this house in terms of spooky stuff is a lot of people died in this house. Most of the people that lived in this house died in this house because and all the funerals were hosted in the home.
00:26:49
Speaker
Oh, okay, that's weird. Well, in the 19th century, funeral homes, that wasn't as much of a normal thing. And they lived in a big, nice house, so they would just have the funerals in the home. And maybe for all those old broads that couldn't leave the house anyway. Yes, they're like, just bring the casket in here, that's fine. We're not going anywhere. And so that's something else just to think about is the amount of death that did happen in the home.
00:27:20
Speaker
And so the most thing is that there are just countless reports of Gertrude as this kind of ghostly figure going up the stairs, through the halls, people catch glimpses of her. One of the things that I really liked is that she was a piano player.
00:27:40
Speaker
They sometimes you can hear clear notes coming from the houses, very broken piano, because it's never changed since the 19th century. And apparently you can even hear it from the street sometimes when you're walking by. Whoa. I was like, hey, Crimson Peak. All right. I like it. I like it.
00:27:58
Speaker
So some other things, teacups have been known to move themselves from the shelves to the kitchen to the dining room. Things will move around. There'll be random cool breezes, you know, classic ghostly stuff. One that I really liked that I was listening to an interview with one of the it seems like the lady that kind of like is in charge of the tours.
00:28:22
Speaker
She talked about how there is an indent in Gertrude's bed that will be there. And then they always fix the bed. And then sometimes when they come in the next day, the indent will be there again. And I was like, Oh,
00:28:37
Speaker
my god. That's spooky. That's very spooky. Because this is, of course, known as one of the most haunted houses in New York City, there have been plenty of paranormal investigators, psychics, all kinds of people that have come through here. And there's one I want to mention because they did an episode on this on
00:28:58
Speaker
bustle. I don't know who this girl is, but I found it on YouTube. She basically has a series about going to haunted places and then like consulting psychics and paranormal investigators about it, which I found very fun. But like she's like a normal girl or no.
00:29:16
Speaker
I can't tell. I'm not sure. She's like a pro. But they had this paranormal investigator in the house named Dan Sturgis, and this is his job, and he recorded a lot of stuff there with EVP, which is electronic voice phenomena.
00:29:34
Speaker
And there's two instances he caught that are really, really clear because sometimes they say, like, if you talk to her, she'll talk to you. She'll talk back to you. So one is that you hear this woman saying, I am not afraid. And it is very clear. Like, it's so clear. It's insane. And then another one that's a little less clear but still very there is they had the girl talking into the mirror.
00:30:02
Speaker
And she asked if it was OK to use the mirror to check her makeup or something. And actually, OK, so I've read this part of the story on two different articles, and it was a slightly different telling. So I'll tell both. One is that she said, can I use your mirror? And then the other one was asking if she thought she was pretty. And the ghost says, pleasant enough.
00:30:30
Speaker
in like a very old school, like high brown New York kind of accent, which is just so fun. I also looked at an interview with Denise Fryberg, who was a museum volunteer who had worked there for a very long time. And she said one time, she like heard some stuff. She asked if anyone was there and then she just hears, hello.
00:30:59
Speaker
I like your ghost impression a lot. I hope that's actually what it sounds like. Hello. How you doing, honey? She said sometimes you can smell perfume or something burning, perfume around the house as though it's a lady's perfume. And then sometimes in the kitchen, it'll smell like something's cooking in the oven, which has not been used for, of course, a bajillion years. And something that she said that I thought was interesting is she mentioned it being
00:31:29
Speaker
she believes these ghosts are sort of caught in a time loop because nothing in the house has ever changed. And so the spirits don't know anything has changed because, remember I said they had their servant ghosts that they can just be seen like carrying something from one room to another doing random tasks. It's like these ghosts are just like caught in a time loop because
00:31:51
Speaker
since the space has never changed, they don't understand that it's not the same time, which I think is cool. And yeah, and the ghost stuff, you know,
00:32:04
Speaker
There's just, I mean, as we stated a couple of episodes ago, I'm a believer, Lauren's a skeptic. But for this particular spot, there's just so many people that are like, yeah, I heard it. Yep, I saw it. Yep, I felt it. And I'm just like, I believe. We gotta go check it out.
00:32:24
Speaker
Yeah, I think we have to. It looks really cool. And there's a lot of videos on YouTube. You can see the inside of the house, what it looks like. Oh my God. One thing I love is they have apparently a wax figurine of Seabury Treadwell that they bring out for Halloween that they put in his bed.
00:32:42
Speaker
And then they do the ghost tours and they have this wax figure of him in his bed. And they do fun stuff like that. So obviously, if we're all vaccine up by October, I would love to do a ghost tour there. Yes. And so once again, after 1933, it was eventually turned into a museum. And then it was declared a national historic landmark in 1965. So it's not going anywhere. It has to be there. And it's really cool.
00:33:13
Speaker
And yeah, so the theories basically are of why Gertrude has stuck around. One is that she never got to find the love of her life. And so she's stuck there out of like, you know, bitterness and I'll say a real stubborn energy of like, I told you I'm never leaving. So I'm not. Or the idea of everyone because they never changed anything in the house.
00:33:42
Speaker
throughout 100 years, everything stayed the same every single day. They're just stuck in a time loop. So wild. Yeah. And that is the story of virtue. I kind of like that. Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:33:55
Speaker
No, I was going to say I kind of like that. But then I'm like curious about all the preserved houses and like and locations like that. I'm like, I wonder if it's I don't know. And then I'm like, should they should they switch out some stuff so the ghost can move on? Maybe, maybe. I mean, it's just it's really wild to look at the the pictures and every and all the video because it's just like, yeah, it's just frozen in time.
00:34:18
Speaker
And the fact that somebody lived there frozen in time like that for 100 years, I mean, she lived for literally born in the house, died at 93 in the house. It's just that's just wild. That is wild. Yeah. But that is the story of Gertrude Treadwell and the Merchant's House Museum in New York City, baby.
00:34:43
Speaker
Since we don't have official ads for the podcast yet, we'll do one for ourselves. We would love if you could subscribe to us and leave a review. Also, if you want some pics to go along with the episodes, follow us on Instagram at sinister sisters podcast. And now on to the next story.
00:35:02
Speaker
Yeah, that was so good Felicia. I liked that a lot. Thank you. I really liked that story because it's not like it's not a scary ghost story. It's kind of a gentle ghost story. Yeah, I know nothing vicious has happened. See those I will say as as we said, I don't I don't I'm a skeptic. But like I do think those are more believable than like, you know,
00:35:28
Speaker
They threw me across the room or something. Yeah. Wow. Depends on the story. Let's see. I know. I know how you feel. I'm like, I feel like though I always get like, yeah, like there are cool breezes. Sure. But the voices are cool. I have to voice. I'll watch them. I'll watch them YouTube. I'll look into it. I'll send you the bustle video that has the voice recordings on it. It's pretty good. Yes. I want to hear the old timey voice.
00:35:57
Speaker
So mine is a mummy story. So this is, so it's either mummy Juanita or the Spanish version.
Discovery of Mummy Juanita and Incan Rituals
00:36:10
Speaker
Wow, the Spanish version is mommy Juanita. But she's also known as Lady of Empato or the Inca Ice Maiden.
00:36:23
Speaker
I should have sent I know I should have sent you a picture ahead of time because I feel like you might I don't know I felt like I might have seen her image before but she's basically the very well preserved frozen body of a 12 to 15 year old Inca girl who was killed as an offering to the gods sometime between 1440 and 1480.
00:36:50
Speaker
We're going way back. She was discovered on Mount Empato, a dormant volcano in southern Peru in 1995, so not so long ago.
00:37:02
Speaker
which is sort of the other crazy part of the story, but she was discovered by anthropologist Dr. Johan Reinhard and his climbing partner Miguel Zarate. I don't know if that's how you say those words and I'm sorry. That is really good. I'm just going to be confident and just go with it.
00:37:21
Speaker
but she's now on display in the Catholic University of Santa Maria's Museum of Andean Sanctuaries in Arequipa, Peru. So she's been there since 1996, but she does like get pulled out for different, you know, other things. She went on tour. Yeah, she went on tour of Japan in 1999. She's a busy lady.
00:37:50
Speaker
But as I said, she was discovered in 1995. And how she was discovered was this. So Dr. Reinhard and Miguel were ascending this mountain and basically found this bundle in the crater that had fallen from an Inca site on the summit due to the ice melting and also erosion from a nearby volcanic explosion eruption.
00:38:18
Speaker
which is crazy. She had been there for 500 years, I guess. Basically, she had been frozen in her tomb and then volcanic ash and ice melt caused the burial site to collapse. That's the only reason that she was discovered. But inside this bundle, they found the frozen body of a young girl
00:38:42
Speaker
And since she was almost entirely frozen, her internal internal organs, hair, blood, skin and contents of her stomach were all preserved. No, the contents of her stomach.
00:38:56
Speaker
Yes, it's so wild to me. So she actually isn't a real mummy by the standards that we know. So she wasn't, there was no non-intentional process. Not intentional, but because she was in this ice, she was so intact. They also found many items strewn about the mountain slope that had been left as other offerings, including llama bones,
00:39:25
Speaker
small figurines, statues, food items, shells, pottery pieces.
00:39:32
Speaker
Um, the cool part is so her clothing resembled fabric from the elite people. So she, so this kind of suggests she came from a noble family. Um, and they quickly transported the body, sent it over to, um, Eric keep up to prevent thawing and like put her in her refrigerator at the Catholic university where she's now in display, but, uh, they put her in her in the refrigerator and then they like, they briefly sent her to the U S for a CT scan.
00:40:02
Speaker
But anyway, they also discovered, so they, she was discovered, then Dr. Reinhard came back and found two more ice mummies in the same area. I know in like, in 97, so I guess two years after he had found this one, he found two more young children's bodies. And to date, 13 mummies have been discovered in the area of small children. A perfect sacrifice spot.
00:40:30
Speaker
It's so, it's so scary to me. And it's also like, I just can't imagine like climbing the mountain and being like doo-doo-doo and then just finding like, like a frozen 12 year old girl. You know what's so interesting is that you said she's like probably of noble family. So it was probably, I mean, I don't know much about, you said Incan, right?
00:40:51
Speaker
Yes, I don't know much about Incan history, but the idea of it being an honor to be chosen to be sacrificed, probably, I assume, versus them just trying to sacrifice someone from a lower economic level or something like that is very interesting.
00:41:08
Speaker
Totally. I'll get more into it, but it's very fascinating. As they were carrying her, her body was heavier because she was frozen, so they had to carry her down this mountain, and she was over 90 pounds.
00:41:24
Speaker
So what else so she was wrapped in a brightly covered burial tapestry which is called an axe sue and her head was adorned with red macaw feathers and she wore a wool alpaca shawl fastened with a silver clasp.
00:41:39
Speaker
So she was very preserved, very stylish. I don't know, I'm about to speak so out of turn, but I feel like I've never seen a mummy in clothing like that. No. It's very interesting to me that she, I guess because she was frozen, it's like all of this remained.
00:42:00
Speaker
And they could, so as we said, her stomach was intact. So they could tell that she had eaten a meal of maize and animal protein, which is like, you know, fancier, elite food. But they actually believe that she was selected for sacrifice a year before her actual death.
00:42:22
Speaker
and that at that time switched from the standard diet of potatoes and vegetables to this more fancy animal protein and maize, which is also interesting that you could know a year in advance. I'm going to be sacrificed in a year. I'm going to die. That's crazy.
00:42:42
Speaker
So they think she's noble, like is it possible that they had just dressed her up in a noble way and she wasn't noble? It seems slightly possible. The sort of like the research into the ritual which we'll talk about makes me feel like it's less likely that she wasn't always noble, but I'm like maybe she was like
00:43:05
Speaker
I don't know if it's like they never give noble kids fancy food until they're about to be sacrificed. I don't know where the cutoff is for actually eating this nice food. The closest genetic match that they could find to her was related to people in the Andes. That's just a fact. I have nothing else to add to that.
00:43:35
Speaker
But scientists were also able to figure out, this is the part that I really like, they were also able to figure out through her DNA, which they could get at because her hair was preserved. They were able to figure out that she was given coca, which is a plant that contains cocaine, or maybe where cocaine comes from, sorry. But so it was relatively like a low amount of the drug, but the native people did use it like as an upper.
00:44:03
Speaker
like people use cocaine, but she was also given alcohol prior to her death. So they feel like this was part of the ritual, like this is apparently a common practice. So basically in the final six to eight weeks of this child's life of an Incan child that's going to be sacrificed, they were given heavy amounts of drugs and alcohol, including this coca plant and then something called chicha alcohol, which is like a corn beer.
00:44:34
Speaker
But it was basically to kind of, they like eventually got better and were able to have the child be unconscious or like have them are not unconscious. I mean, they were able to like kill them this way, eventually, just to like, you know, give them enough drugs and alcohol that they just like go to sleep dead, basically. God, it's awful. But unfortunately, our sweet Juanita did not have this experience.
00:45:02
Speaker
They were able to tell by looking at her body that the cause of death was blunt trauma to her head. So I know, I know. So the damage done is like she has a cracked right eye socket and a two inch fracture on her skull. So these like the radiologist looking at it kind of compared it to being hit with a baseball bat.
00:45:27
Speaker
Yeah. So the blow caused a massive hemorrhage, filling her skull with blood and pushing her brain to one side. And it's so sad that this was a common technique for sacrificing children, was blunt, you know, blunt trauma to the head. But another, they also used strangulation and sometimes suffocation by being buried alive. Okay, couldn't it come up with faster techniques? Like, I mean, I feel like in all the movies, it's like a casual throat slit. Quick. I know.
00:45:57
Speaker
I felt very confused. I felt like I had every single child sacrifice that I've heard about as a throat slice. Something very bloody, but all the things you said are not bloody at all, which is interesting. I know. I was wondering about that too if there was something about not being able to spill blood, but I guess being hit in the head was definitely bloody. Yeah, I guess that's true.
00:46:18
Speaker
Oh, suffocation. I know. Very sad. Also just like the idea of like drugging and alcoholing up a kid for like weeks to make them not care so they won't like run away. It's just like so sad. And then it was so funny when you said the cocaine thing, I was just like, Oh my God, at least give her a downer. Like don't give her an upper. It's crazy. I feel it feels weird to have, yeah, just like be giving this child cocaine and
00:46:46
Speaker
alcohol is very sad before they get hit in the head on top of this mountain. Awful. So now we're going to talk a little bit, or I'm going to talk a little bit more about the actual ritual. So it's called, I'm going to try my best, Capacocha. So that translates to royal obligation.
00:47:06
Speaker
Oh and it was a I know right so it was a key component to the Inca Empire which like truly what I know about the Inca Empire is that it was an empire is what I have taken away from my history. I know nothing but
00:47:24
Speaker
It usually involved the sacrifice of children for celebratory events. So that could either be like an annual or biennial event in the Inca calendar, just like a holiday, the death of an emperor, the birth of a royal son, a victory in battle, or sometimes they were used to prevent natural disasters like volcanic eruptions, droughts, earthquakes,
00:47:54
Speaker
epidemics, maybe if we had sacrificed a child, we would not be here. I'm just kidding, that's a bad joke. That's interesting though that it's a thank you and a please don't hurt us. It's like, I mean, that's kind of interesting. Yes, I know. I thought very interesting. And then sometimes it's also used as like a tribute payment, which is basically like when, you know, when the Inca empire is like,
00:48:24
Speaker
conquering a nation, the nation will give them a child to sacrifice as we are submissive to you and also we'd love to be part of the Inca empire now. It's sort of like when you think about giving a bride, but it's like- Exactly. Exactly.
00:48:41
Speaker
Yeah. So the research has shown that the children that have been found, those like 13 mummies or whatever, were picked from several different geographical areas and then taken to this capital and underwent months of travel to get to this sacred location for them to die in.
00:49:05
Speaker
which somehow also feels worse, like they traveled there to just be- I'm also like, how were they chosen? Like, ugh. So we actually- Oh, no. I'll just say that next. Oh, please. I'll say that next. So the children chosen were supposed to be, or however they determine this, were supposed to be the healthiest, strongest, and most attractive child, like from the pool that they were picking.
00:49:29
Speaker
which also makes me feel like maybe that wasn't the most noble child. Maybe that was if they were going for healthiest and most attractive, but I just think it's interesting.
00:49:44
Speaker
They were often sacrificed at a ceremonial shrine in a significant spiritual location, which in this case was Mount Empato. They used children because they were considered pure beings and worthy of giving to the gods.
00:50:01
Speaker
that classic virgin thing. But the cool part is that they believed that these children, after they were sacrificed, became messengers to the gods. So after they sacrificed, they were sort of looked at as like the negotiators between the people and the gods. So the people would still worship, they would like worship the sacrificed children as well as the gods.
00:50:29
Speaker
Oh, interesting. Which is, yeah, kind of a cool thing. I'm at least in your after life. It's still sad, but it's like they're honored in this way. And obviously, don't sacrifice children. It's horrible. But the idea of them being messengers, they're sending the child's spirit up in this way. It's interesting versus killing something on earth. It's like they're trying to send something up.
00:50:52
Speaker
Right. Yeah. And I feel like I don't really hear, um, in other sacrifice stories that there's like, uh, you know, like the children have jobs after. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. Um, but anyway, uh, the thought is that, so there are a couple of different theories for why Juanita in particular was sacrificed, just like looking at the timeline and stuff.
00:51:15
Speaker
But they think that she might have been sacrificed to appease the gods after volcanic eruptions, to like make them stop in the area that were on like the nearby, it's just like the two volcanoes are Misty and Sabancaya, two volcanoes. Or they think it was possible that she was sacrificed due to a drought.
00:51:40
Speaker
to ask for a return to water. So I think this is kind of cool. So at that time, they believed that the mountains controlled weather and water, I guess just because they couldn't see any higher. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Right. So they thought the mountains.
00:51:56
Speaker
and their spirit sort of controlled the weather and water. And since water is a life-giving source, they connected it with femininity and fertility. So they thought that the mountains were attributed to be female deities. And so sacrificing a young female was like directed at the female gods that provide water basically. I see. Which I just kind of like, I don't know, anything with like Mother Earth and like female energy being like the
00:52:26
Speaker
So all the sacrifices were female children? Not all of them, which I think does have to do with the reasons that they were sacrificed. I see. Yeah. So that's why they're thinking I guess Juanita is more likely to have been a natural, whether it was volcanoes or drought.
00:52:44
Speaker
instead of maybe political control or any of those other reasons that the kids were sacrificed. But the craziest part too is that, so that's sort of all I have about Juanita, but as the ice caps or as ice continues to melt, more bodies might be found.
00:53:06
Speaker
Oh, uh, weird. So there might be more children's bodies in our future, but that's more bodies in general, like in other parts of the world as well that are like melting. Like I'm like, what bodies are going to be found? Right. Which I didn't really think about, you know, we hear about
00:53:26
Speaker
ice caps melting, sadly, so much. And erosion, I know, is a huge issue in so many places, but it's like thinking about bodies just tumbling out of tubes. Oh my gosh. And especially because the frozen stuff, the so well-preserved body is something that's just so
00:53:47
Speaker
but cool because it gives such a more clear picture into what their lives were. You know, as you said, like 500 years ago, like that's so wild. Oh, okay. I can relate our stories together.
Conclusion and Reflections
00:53:59
Speaker
Preserved house, preserved body, preserved. And ladies. That's the name of the episode, preserved.
00:54:07
Speaker
preserved. I like it. I like it too. I will really try to find a picture for our Instagram because she is very cool looking and I'll show you after this. I'm so excited. I'm so excited. She looks similar to Egyptian mummies honestly, but like not quite. Are there colors in her clothing?
00:54:26
Speaker
Yeah, at least for my memory. I feel like they were definitely. Yeah. Can you hear me? I mean, I know they had like dyes and stuff, so it's like, but I just wonder if the color is preserved as well. Relatively. Nice. Like not anything crazy, you know, it's sort of a rust color vibe, but
00:54:49
Speaker
Anyway, the hair freaks me out for some reason. I don't know why preserved hair. And like how hair keeps growing after you die. It's like, oh, it's too much. Okay. Well, that was good. That was cool. Yeah. Right. Very different. Very different. And truly with this style of the podcast, like I actually feel like I'm like learning something cool every week, which is nice. And, and it's like the world is our oyster.
00:55:17
Speaker
Yeah, there's just so much. There's so much. So much. Cool. Well, thank you for listening. Have a great week. If you haven't yet, subscribe to the pod. Follow us on Instagram, et cetera, et cetera. We hope you're enjoying this new thing we're doing. Yes. Let us know if you are. Let us know if you aren't. Yeah. And have a sweet nightmares. Bye.