Futility Closet - 215-The Lieutenant Nun

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Futility Closet podcast, forgotten stories from the pages of history. Visit us online to sample more than 10,000 quirky curiosities from ghostly clothes to Fibonacci bees. This is episode 215. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In 1607, a 15-year-old girl fled her convent in the Basque Country, dressed herself as a man, and set out on a series of unlikely adventures across Europe. In time, she would distinguish herself fighting as a soldier in

Starting point is 00:00:38 Spain's wars of conquest in the New World. In today's show, we'll tell the story of Catalina de Arauso, the lieutenant nun of Renaissance Spain. We'll also hunt for some wallabies and puzzle over a quiet cat. There was nothing in the childhood of Catalina de Arauso that would lead you to expect she'd have an extraordinary life. She was born in 1592 to highborn parents in the Basque country between France and Spain. Her father was a military commander who trained his children in warfare. In time, her brothers went to South America to seek fortune and adventure, and she and her sisters entered a Dominican convent in San Sebastian, where her aunt was the abbess. She lived there until she was 15 years old, and then she did a

Starting point is 00:01:24 remarkable thing. She wrote, near the end of my novitiate year, I had a quarrel with a professed nun named Doña Catalina de Aliri. She was a strong woman and I but a girl. She beat me and I took it hard. On the night of March 18th, 1607, on the eve of Saint Joseph, the convent arose at midnight to pray. I entered the choir and found my aunt kneeling there. She summoned me, and giving me the key to her cell, asked me to fetch her breviary. I left to go get it, opened the door, and picked it up. Seeing the keys to the convent hanging there on a nail, I left her cell door unlocked and returned the key and prayer book to my aunt. By now all the sisters were in the choir beginning the matins with solemnity. After the first verse, I went to my aunt and asked to be excused because I was ill. Touching my forehead, she said, go on, go to bed.

Starting point is 00:02:09 I left the choir and, taking a light, went to my aunt's cell. There I grabbed some scissors, a needle and thread, some pieces of eight that were there, and the keys to the convent. Then I left. I went along, opening doors and shutting them, and in the last one I left my scapular. I went out into the street, which I had never seen before, not knowing which way to turn or where to go. I don't know where I headed, but I ended up in a chestnut grove out behind the rear of the convent. There I hid out for three days, tracing and cutting clothing. I made myself a pair of trousers from a skirt of blue cloth that I had, and a shirt and leggings from the green shift that I wore underneath. Not knowing what to make of the rest of my habit, I left it there. I cut off my hair and threw it

Starting point is 00:02:49 away. Catalina de Arauzo lived and dressed as a man for the rest of her life. As with Charlie Parkhurst, the stagecoach driver we profiled in episode 74, this was a practical necessity. A young girl traveling alone would have been vulnerable, and as a man she could travel and work with a freedom that was denied to most women in Renaissance Spain. Whether she felt herself to be a man is hard to judge from the little information that's come down to us. Most of the sources I've read call her she, but no one really knows how she viewed herself. In any case, she seems to have found it easy to pass as a boy. She was tall, with a sturdy frame, a strong chin, and a long nose.

Starting point is 00:03:23 Ironically, a law against cross-dressing was passed that very year, making it punishable by death, but she didn't know that. She spent three years traveling through Spain under various names, getting jobs where she could as a stable boy, a servant, or a page. But those never lasted long, as her restless, combative nature was already showing itself. She often stole from her employers, and after one street fight she was jailed for a month. In her wanderings she eventually encountered both her father and her employers, and after one street fight, she was jailed for a month. In her wanderings, she eventually encountered both her father and her mother, but neither of them recognized her. They wouldn't have seen her since she'd entered the convent at age four.

Starting point is 00:03:58 She ended up in Seville, where she got a job as a cabin boy on a Spanish galleon headed for South America. I should pause here to note how very little we know for sure about Arauzo's life. The earliest known printed copy of her autobiography appeared in 1829, almost two centuries after her death. Earlier versions have also been found, but we don't have an original penned manuscript. Arauzo lived around the same time as Miguel de Cervantes, in the golden age of Spanish literature, and the story of her life is so full of colorful incident that it is tempting to dismiss her as a fictional character. But her baptismal certificate shows the date of her birth, February 10, 1592, and her name appears in the Book of the Convent of San Sebastián el Antiguo. Her sisters, Marihuana and Isabel, professed as nuns and eventually died in the convent, but Catalina disappears from the books

Starting point is 00:04:38 in 1607, and the essential facts of her life thereafter are borne out by official documents and by the people who met her. She arrived in South America in 1610, still disguised as a man. She stole money from the sea captain who had brought her there, and began a stunningly prolific career of adventure across the continent, finding peace occasionally, but always driven to quarrel, fight, tangle with the law, and move on. For example, at age 19, she had found a job managing some shops for a merchant named Juan de Urquiza, who left her in charge of the business.

Starting point is 00:05:10 Those days were tranquil, she said, but they lasted less than three months. At the theater, she got into an argument with a man who blocked her view, and he threatened to cut her face. The next day, she saw him pass by her shop. She wrote, I grabbed a knife and went to find a barber. I had him sharpen it and file the edge like a saw. I put on my sword, the first I ever wore. I saw Reyes strolling with another fellow in front of the church.

Starting point is 00:05:30 I walked up to him from behind, saying, ah, Senor Reyes. He turned around and said, what do you want? I said, this is the face that's getting slashed, and gave him a slice across the face worth ten stitches. He threw his hands to his wound. Drawing his sword, his friend came at me, and I at him. We struck at each other. I ran him through the left side, and he fell. I ran straight into the church, but right behind me came the sheriff and dragged me back out. He took me to jail and clapped me in stocks and shackles. When she got out of prison,

Starting point is 00:05:54 the man from the theater pursued her, seeking revenge, and she stabbed him and escaped to Lima with the help of a sheriff who was a fellow Basque. That became a pattern. She'd enter into a duel with a man over some slight or insult, often killed or injured him, and fled to escape the law. The merchant fired her, so she joined up with the armies being raised to fight in Chile. In the Pacific port of Concepción, she was overjoyed to find that the governor's secretary was her own brother, Miguel. He didn't recognize her.

Starting point is 00:06:22 He had left San Sebastián when she was only two, but she enrolled in the army using a Basque-sounding name, and when he heard it, he embraced her and asked for news of his family and even of his sister Catalina, the nun. Their father had never told him what had happened, and he never recognized her. Because she was a Basque, he sought a preferment for her, and she says she even dined at his table for several years, but he never guessed her identity. That was lucky, because if he'd known she'd left the convent, he would have locked her up in a nunnery to save the family honor. Eventually, she was sent on an expedition to fight the Mapuche people in southern Chile. There, she distinguished herself in the Battle of Valdivia, in which she recaptured her company's flag.

Starting point is 00:06:55 She wrote, through the midst of a great multitude of Indians, trampling and slashing away and taking some wounds in return. Before long, one of the three of us fell dead, and the two that remained pressed on until we overtook the flag. But then my other companion went down, spit it on a lance. I had taken a bad blow on the leg, but I killed the chief who was carrying the flag, pulled it from his body, and spurred my horse on, trampling, killing, and slaughtering more men than there are a number, but badly wounded, with three arrows in me and a gash from the lance in my left shoulder, which had me in great pain, until at last I reached our own lines and fell from my horse. For her bravery, she was promoted to alferez, meaning ensign or standard bearer, and eventually even commanded the company for six months when her captain fell in battle. Altogether, she spent eight years in Chile, three with her brother and

Starting point is 00:07:42 five fighting in the army. Meanwhile, she kept up her gambling and her taste for violence led to several murders. Altogether, in her travels off the battlefield, she killed seven people and was sentenced to death twice. The most shattering incident occurred in Concepcion, when a fellow lieutenant asked her to serve as his second in a midnight duel, and she agreed. She wrote, The two men arrived, and one of them said, Don Juan de Silva, and I could tell by the voice it was Don Francisco de Rojas. Don Juan answered, and she agreed. She wrote, at the side of Don Francisco, and we parried two on two, and before long, Don Francisco and Don Juan fell to the ground. My opponent and I kept fighting, and my point went home below his left nipple, as I later learned, through what felt like a double thickness of leather, and he fell to the ground. Ah, traitor, he said, you have killed me. I thought I recognized this stranger's voice. Who

Starting point is 00:08:39 are you? I asked, and he answered, Captain Miguel de Arauzo. She had killed her own brother, who never knew her identity. Stricken with grief, she watched his funeral from a distance and then deserted the army. She went wandering again, this time down the Andes. Her autobiography is relatively short, less than 18,000 words, but it's so full of activity, warfare, mistaken identities, duels, imprisonments, and escapes, that it's hard even to summarize it. She wound up in Huamanga, Peru, where in 1620 she was accused of killing another soldier in a tavern brawl. She fought a desperate battle against the local sheriffs before they subdued her and took her to prison. She was

Starting point is 00:09:14 beginning to explain herself to the bishop of Huamanga when she wrote, I felt a calm sweeping over me. I felt as if I were humbled before God, that things were simpler than they had seen before and that I was very small and insignificant. And seeing that he was such a holy man, I seemed in that moment to be in the very presence of God, and I revealed myself to him, saying, Sir, all this I have told your lordship is not so. The truth is this, that I am a woman, that I was born in such and such a place, daughter of such and such man and woman, that I was placed at a certain age in such and such a convent with my aunt so-and-so, that I grew up there, took the habit, and became a novice, that about to take my vows I ran off, that I went to such and such a place,

Starting point is 00:09:50 stripped, dressed myself as a man, cut off my hair, traveled here and there, went to sea, roamed, hustled, corrupted, maimed, and murdered, until coming to end up here at his lordship's feet. She added, during this tale, which lasted until one o'clock, the holy lord was spellbound, which lasted until one o'clock, the Holy Lord was spellbound, listening to me without speaking or blinking, and remained so after I had finished, although shedding tears profusely. Afterwards he sent me to eat and rest. He rang a bell, which caused an ancient chaplain to appear, and sent me to his oratory, where they set up a table

Starting point is 00:10:18 and caught for me, and locked me in. I lay down and slept. When midwives examined her and found her to be a virgin, the bishop stayed her execution, declaring that because she was a nun, she was subject first to ecclesiastical law and that the viceregal court could not condemn her. He sent her to a convent, but two years later, word arrived from Europe that she had never taken her final vows there. So she was allowed to leave the convent, and in 1624, she took ship for Spain. She arrived late that autumn, famous now as the lieutenant nun. Crowds followed her everywhere she went, famous now as the Lieutenant Nun. Crowds followed her everywhere she went, curious to see the woman who had lived as a man and who had fought

Starting point is 00:10:49 for years as a soldier in the New World. She petitioned the king, Philip IV, for a military pension, which he granted, and in 1626 she went on to Rome, where Pope Urban VIII granted her an audience and a dispensation to continue wearing the clothing of a man. She was a celebrity now on both sides of the Atlantic, a cross-dressing novice who had served Spain with distinction as a soldier on the Chilean frontier. News of her exploits circulated throughout Europe and the colonies, and a play based on her life appeared in 1626. Here again, the basic facts are attested by official documents.

Starting point is 00:11:20 We have two petitions that she made to the king in which she asks for payment for her military services, and those are supported by the testimony of her superior officers. And there's a third petition in which she asked to be compensated for having been robbed while in France. Beyond those, there are affidavits, certifications, broadsides, pamphlets, and the letters of the people who knew her. She met a pilgrim monk named Pietro delle Valle in Rome in 1626. He wrote, She has the look of a Spanish gentleman and wears her sword as big as life, tightly belted. Only by her hands can one tell that she is a woman, as they are full and fleshy, although large and strong, and occasionally gesture effeminately.

Starting point is 00:11:55 In Seville in 1630, Francisco Pacheco painted a portrait of her in full armor that's inscribed the Ensign Miss Catalina de Arauzo, native of San Sebastián. In 1630, she returned to Mexico and founded a business plying a mule train between Mexico City and Veracruz, calling herself Don Antonio Arauzo. A Capuchin monk who saw her in Veracruz in 1645 wrote, She went about in male clothing and carried a sword and dagger decorated in silver. She then seemed about 50 years of age with a dusky olive complex, with a few little hairs for a mustache. After spending the last 20 years of her life there, she died, finally, in 1650.

Starting point is 00:12:31 At a remove of four centuries, it's hard even now to get a clear picture of who Arauso was. After her death, she sank into obscurity, and she was raised again only by a slender thread. The earliest known printed copy of her autobiography, which appeared in 1829, The earliest known printed copy of her autobiography, which appeared in 1829, was an edited copy of a historian's transcription of a poet's copy of the version she had originally submitted for printing into Madrid in 1625. But her deeds are attested by official documents by the accounts of those who met her and in the private correspondence of the ruling classes, who crowded the salons of Madrid and Rome to meet the famous Lieutenant Nunn. I'll put a link to her story in the show notes and you can judge for yourself.

Starting point is 00:13:05 It seems to me that even if she did only the things that we know she did, the ones that are matters of historical record, then she was an extraordinarily remarkable person by the standards of her own time or any other. Today, there's a bronze monument to her in San Sebastian, where streets, schools, and kindergartens bear her name. listeners help the show, but the backbone of our support is our Patreon campaign, as that gives us an ongoing source of support so that we can commit to the amount of time that the podcast takes to

Starting point is 00:13:49 make. Patreon also gives us a good way to share some extras with our show's supporters, like outtakes, peeks behind the scenes, extra discussions on some of the stories, and updates on Sasha, our hard-working feline mascot. You can learn more about our Patreon campaign at patreon.com slash futilitycloset, or see the Support Us section of our website. And thanks so much to everyone who helps keep Futility Closet going. Last week, I read an email from a listener who had heard our puzzle about quals the same day that he read a New York Times article on the topic. Simone Rose wrote to say, The day after learning about quals from your podcast, my mom was reading the New York Times article about quals and asked me what they were.

Starting point is 00:14:37 I knew the answer, thanks to you. Your podcast has been helpful to me in many ways, such as bringing up fun facts to make me look smart, stumping family and friends, and brightening up my Mondays. And a similar thing happened to Alison Mews, who wrote after episode 213, in which I covered wallabies, listened to your latest podcast this morning, then spotted this when checking the headlines. What a coincidence. And what Alison saw was a story on the BBC about a wallaby on the loose in North Yorkshire. On August 21st, a wallaby managed to escape from a custom-built, expert-approved enclosure in an animal park in Filey, just hours after getting there. The park said on Facebook that they realized that the animal, one of a pair, had escaped when they went to feed them in the morning,

Starting point is 00:15:22 and it became apparent there was only one in there. escaped when they went to feed them in the morning and it became apparent there was only one in there. The park was baffled as to how it had managed to escape and they've been posting that there have been many sightings of the marsupial less than 200 meters from the park in good health hopping through a field and they think he's staying in the area to be near the other wallaby who was reported to be settling in at the park. The last update before we recorded this was from August 29th, when the park reassured the concerned public that the little fellow still seemed to be healthy, was sure to be finding plenty to eat, and that wallabies can indeed survive UK winters. People seemed quite concerned about them. The BBC story mentioned that this wallaby escape came just a week after a different

Starting point is 00:16:04 one, and I found several news stories from August 16th about a wallaby escape came just a week after a different one, and I found several news stories from August 16th about a wallaby creating a stir in Staffordshire. Holly the wallaby had escaped from a local zoo the day before and was spotted near a supermarket, among other places. On August 15th, Wombourne police tweeted, currently on Bridge North Road near Sainsbury's, conducting an area check, following a call reporting a kangaroo in the road. Apparently, a few startled people called the police about Holly and the zoo posted on Facebook on August 16th, there are various press reports of escaped beast and kangaroo on the loose.

Starting point is 00:16:39 We'd just like to take a minute to clarify she's a small, friendly, grass-eating wallaby, not a kangaroo, and not a dangerous beast either. They also said that, in some parts of the UK, wallabies roam wild. Country estates often keep them, much like sheep and goats, to keep the grass down. So apparently there are lots more British wallabies than I'd ever realized. Is that true? That's what the zoo is claiming. Oh my gosh, I had no idea. The zoo posted on August 25th that keepers were going out daily and nightly to try to recapture Holly, but she's lightning fast and can cover the entire length of a field in a matter of seconds. The zoo was really going to great lengths to try to get her back, and they were concerned because she seemed to be hanging out by a road every night,

Starting point is 00:17:21 despite their efforts to get her away from it. They did manage to recover her on August 29th, but unfortunately that was because she got hit by a van in the early morning. Yeah, but the driver wonderfully took her to an emergency veterinary surgery, and when we were recording this, Holly was back at the zoo with her wallaby friends and seemed to be recovering nicely. That must be just bewildering, obviously, for them, just to escape into this world they know nothing about and get assaulted by mysterious machines. Well, it had a happy ending, at least. It seemed to me, though, that both wallabies

Starting point is 00:17:55 were kind of enjoying their freedom because they're definitely purposefully evading the capture, the keepers that are trying to recapture them. I wonder who makes wallaby enclosures. Well, the Animal Park made an expert-approved one after a great deal of research, and they still can't figure out how the wallaby managed to get out of it. So if anybody's thinking of going into that line of work,

Starting point is 00:18:18 apparently there's an opening. And some of you might be thinking that qualls and wallabies are all very well and good, but what about bears? We haven't covered bears since episode 204. Surely the bears have been doing things? Well, yes, they have. Chloe let us know about a bear that got stuck inside a truck and just demolished the interior in, not surprisingly, Colorado.

Starting point is 00:18:39 This happened back in July, and it appeared that the bear had opened the truck's door and gotten in, and then the door closed behind it. The owner of the truck said that the vehicle was rocking back and forth as the agitated bear tore it apart. As far as the owner could tell, the bear had been attracted to the truck because of a stick of gum that had been inside it. That's all it takes. Jason Cutler let us know about a Twitter thread that he thought we might like. Rob Griffiths posted several tweets on August 12th that said,

Starting point is 00:19:07 Life is different in Mammoth Lakes, and showed what appeared to be photos of police reports from a newspaper. The last tweet in the thread said, Life is different in Mammoth Lakes, and typically it seems it involves bears, which it certainly does. There was a police report about a bear in a vehicle at 3 p.m., and one in a kitchen at 1.30 a.m. That would be not very fun. And one at a campsite that refused to leave. The caller said they had blown a horn, but the bear was persistent.

Starting point is 00:19:35 The one non-bear report posted was that police received a report of someone laying in the street, which did seem a little unusual. And from what I could find, Mammoth Lakes, where life is rather different, is in California and not Colorado. Tom, a self-proclaimed reader and listener, sent an email that said, saw this photo on the web and thought of you. Keep up the good work. And the photo is of a sign for a Comfort Inn hotel that reads, now pet friendly, except for bears. We're not making that mistake again. And I have no idea where this hotel is, so I can't necessarily blame Colorado. I did a search for Comfort Inn in Bear and found a story about a quality inn in Gatlinburg,

Starting point is 00:20:17 Tennessee, where back in March, a large black bear was wandering around right outside the hotel's rooms and lunged at the son of the woman who was shooting the video of it. Moments later, the bear, whom locals call Robert, snagged a bag of French toast from a supposedly bear-proof trash can and was recorded lumbering off carrying his prize in his mouth. On August 23rd, a black bear walked into the lobby of the Stanley Hotel, which is in Estes Park, Colorado. An overnight desk employee shot a video of the Stanley Hotel, which is in Estes Park, Colorado. An overnight desk employee shot a video of the bear wandering around and getting up on some of the furniture before wandering back out.

Starting point is 00:20:51 The hotel posted on Facebook, late night visitor from the wild side visits our hotel lobby. We'll make an exception to the rule about jumping on the furniture. And the news media had some fun with the fact that this is the hotel that had been the inspiration for Stephen King's horror novel, The Shining.

Starting point is 00:21:06 I was just thinking that. Same hotel. Yep. But I couldn't find anything relating to the Comfort Inn sign. So if anyone knows what that's about, they can please let us know. Laura Gantaleth-Mentecon, who provided some nice pronunciation tips for her name, wrote, Hi, Sasha and acolytes. I got a little worried when you read a listener's email a couple episodes back

Starting point is 00:21:29 who recommended using bear bells to alert bears of your presence on a trail. I thought, what if a futility closeteer actually takes this advice to heart and goes out in the wilderness thinking bear bells are going to keep them safe? So here I am, hoping you guys will actually read this on the podcast and ease my worry. Living in Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies, which is very much in the heart of grizzly and black bear country, it is widely known and agreed upon that, contrary to popular belief, bear bells don't really work. In the words of a Banff National Park ranger, they don't make enough noise and they don't make a bear aware that you're human. A little tinkling noise doesn't necessarily tell a bear there's a person nearby. Instead, park officials

Starting point is 00:22:09 recommend making noises in other ways, such as talking, singing, or playing the latest hits on a portable speaker, as long as you're respectful of other hikers. When backpacking in Glacier National Park in Montana a few years ago, a friend and I really couldn't find anything else to talk about to keep making noise after a few days on the trail, so we resorted to trying to come up with as many adjectives beginning with B that could be applied to bears, hoping it would help us avoid an encounter with any baffling, belligerent, or bodacious bears lurking about. Keep up the good work and have a great rest of your summer. I think what Lauda is referring to was a joke that a listener sent in that I read in episode 190 about how you should wear bells to avoid surprising bears, and then you can

Starting point is 00:22:51 distinguish grizzly bear droppings because they contain small bells. But according to the news story Lauda sent, people really do try to use what are called bear bells, and they really aren't recommended. According to the article, the acting human wildlife conflict specialist with Parks Canada, and I thought that was a great job title, not only doesn't recommend bear bells, but also doesn't recommend bear bangers, which are small explosives intended to scare off bears. And that was a new one on me. Besides the potential for injuring people,

Starting point is 00:23:22 sudden explosions could actually frighten a bear into being more aggressive, so definitely not a good idea. And bells, I could see, might be worse than nothing if they lead you to think you're safer than you are. Yeah, that's a good point. If they're not helping but they give you a false sense of security. I did think that if you need to find a way to keep talking for hours on end, you could try lateral thinking puzzles. We used to do ones years ago that could sometimes take quite a while to solve. That's actually been a trick for us on the show, trying to find ones that can be solved in just a few minutes. So there are some that would be great for long hikes.

Starting point is 00:23:56 We did some that I think took days. Yeah, well, not continuous, but yes, yeah. Lauda also sent us what she called another cool bear story for you guys, and it was. Sorry, Colorado, but a black bear got into a house in Vail, Colorado last year, apparently through an unlocked kitchen window. Security camera video caught the bear looking all around and briefly standing on its hind legs to play several notes on a piano. We've marveled before at bear's dexterity,

Starting point is 00:24:27 and this one managed to open the refrigerator and freezer drawer and empty a gallon bag of frozen fruit. It drank pancake syrup, ate what the Washington Post called a Costco-sized sack of chocolate bark, and managed to twist the lid off of a jar to get to the peanut butter inside. That's impressive. No one was home while the bear was ransacking the place, managed to twist the lid off of a jar to get to the peanut butter inside. That's impressive. No one was home while the bear was ransacking the place,

Starting point is 00:24:51 but after the house's resident returned to discover the mess left behind, and of course to lock the window, she reported that she heard the bear banging on the window a few times, apparently in an attempt to get back in. The article noted that the window has been now boarded up. And we will turn from bears to brothers-in-law, or at least to my brother-in-law. Greg Hoffman very nicely wrote,

Starting point is 00:25:11 Please add my voice to the chorus in praise of your brilliant bassist, Doug. His use of harmonics and close harmonies are awesome, and his bass lines add greatly to my appreciation of the Futility Closet podcast. So we're always glad to give some recognition to Greg's brother, Doug, who does provide all the music for our show, for which we are extremely grateful. We think he's great, and we're glad to hear that others do too. Thanks so much to everyone who writes to us. We really

Starting point is 00:25:36 appreciate hearing from our listeners. So if you have anything that you'd like to say, please send it to podcast at futilitycloset.com. It's Greg's turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. I'm going to give him an interesting situation, and he has to work out what's going on, asking only yes or no questions. This puzzle comes from His Royal Majesty Juniper Beans von Fluffsen Puffsen III, known informally to his subjects, Kelly and Sherry Bruce, as Juno, with some minor edits by me. Two brothers bring home two cats from the same litter. The first brother has a black cat with green eyes,

Starting point is 00:26:19 and the second brother has a white cat with blue eyes. While the brothers are together at the first brother's house, the second brother notices his brother's cat is much quieter than his. In fact, it never meows while his own cat is extremely loud. Why is this? Wow. So you say they're from the same litter, so they're not different breeds. It's not something with some odd breed of cat that's mute. Correct. Correct. You say, sorry, one meows normally and the other is very quiet? No, one is very quiet and never meows, and the other is actually extremely loud. Okay, that's what I was getting at. But one of them just doesn't meow at all?

Starting point is 00:26:52 Pretty much, yes. Is the eye color germane? It actually is, but I don't know if that's going to help you. But it's like fundamentally a question of genetics or biology somehow, would you say? For one of the cats. Okay. There's different things going on with each cat. One cat is extremely loud and the other cat is particularly quiet.

Starting point is 00:27:14 One is black with green eyes, the other is white with blue eyes. Yes. Is the black one the quiet one? Yes. So does this have something, it must, something to do with the genetics behind that and this trait of being quiet or loud? No. No? Not for the black cat.

Starting point is 00:27:34 But for the white one? Yes. Okay, we said black is the quiet one? Yes. So the, really? So a white cat with blue eyes that's unusually vocal. Yes, unusually loud vocal has a genetic explanation? Yes.

Starting point is 00:27:49 So the blue eyes, I guess, correlate with that trait, would you say? No. The whiteness? No. Not with the trait of being loud. okay but you said we're saying that the answer to this is that the the being loud the being of a vocal or unusually meowy pussycat not unusually meowy just meowing very loudly okay is is genetic it's not genetic it's related to a genetic trait there's two different things to work out here is why is one cat not meowing and the other cat is meowing exceptionally loudly? They're two different things, basically.

Starting point is 00:28:31 And I'll give you a hint for why the one meows particularly loudly, as you might want to think of our own kitty and our suspicions about her meowing particularly loudly lately. I don't know if we've mentioned this on the show, but Sasha is, what, is she 17 years old now? Yes. And she's easier and easier to startle, so we think she's going deaf. Does that have to do with it? Yes. So the white cat in this case might be meowing unusually loudly because it can't hear itself because it can't hear. Right. And that's genetic, and I'll explain that in a minute. But why would another cat not meow? And that's not related to the genetics of the cat.

Starting point is 00:29:08 So not meow, meow less than another control cat for another litter. Yes, it almost never meows. That's very interesting. And that's related to something about its owner. Well, you've taught me that cats in the wild don't normally meow at all. Right. They vocalize because we do. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:29:27 Is this because of the owner's behavior? Yes. And the cat responds? Is responding to that in some way? Or not responding because the... Because it's not reinforced for it. Yes. Because the owner...

Starting point is 00:29:37 Oh, doesn't vocalize. The owner is mute or doesn't speak? The owner is deaf. Okay. So it wouldn't hear the cat meow. So Juno says, with Kelly's help, I believe, the first brother is deaf with a hearing cat. And as you say, cats develop meowing based on listening to humans talk. They don't typically meow at other cats. The second brother has a deaf cat. And he says deaf cats are typically white with blue eyes,

Starting point is 00:30:01 and they still meow if their owner shows reaction to the noise, but because they can't hear the volume at which they're meowing, they meow at a higher volume. And Kelly adds, yay, no one died. And I actually looked into this and found that, according to the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine website, 17 to 22% of white cats with non-blue eyes are born deaf. That percentage rises to 40% if a white cat has one blue eye and to 65% to 85% for white cats with two blue eyes.

Starting point is 00:30:32 Wow. And interestingly, if a white cat with only one blue eye happens to be deaf in just one ear, that ear will always be on the same side of the head as the blue eye. That's fascinating. So it is really genetic for the kitties. So that explains the eye colors in the puzzle statement. Yes, yes. That's fascinating. So it is really genetic for the kitties. So that explains the eye colors in the puzzle. Yes, yes. That's really interesting.

Starting point is 00:30:48 So thank you to Juno for a kitty-based puzzle. And if anyone else, furry or otherwise, has a puzzle for us to try, please send it to podcast at futilitycloset.com. Futility Closet really depends on the support of our listeners. If you'd like to contribute to our celebration of the quirky and the curious,

Starting point is 00:31:08 please check out our Patreon page at patreon.com slash futilitycloset or see the support a section of the website at futilitycloset.com. While you're at the site, you can also browse through Greg's collection of over 10,000 compendious amusements. Check out the Futility Closet store, learn about the Futility Closet books, and see the show notes for the podcast with links and references for the topics we've covered. If you have any questions or comments for us, you can email us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Our music was written and performed by the brilliant bassist Doug Ross, to whom we are very grateful indeed. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to

Starting point is 00:31:46 you next week.

Futility Closet - 215-The Lieutenant Nun

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