The Surprising Weapon That Shocked Columbus
195,205
Published 2023-10-09
In honor of Columbus Day, I recreated the ancient weapon first used by the Taino people against Christopher Columbus's men, and tested out just how powerful and effective this "Columbian Exchange" was.
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All Comments (21)
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just imagining the neighbors being like " why is the air spicy"😆
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"I made this thing which ended up too powerful so we won't use it" means you're doing something right.
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It's very likely that the "gourd" they used was probably a "higüero", a fruit not related to gourds but with a very similar in that the shell hardens and they used it extensively as a reciepient, plates, cups, maracas, etc. Given it was so easily accesible to them and a higüero tree produces so much fruit, probably that's the one they used
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The German traveler, soldier and chronicle Hans Staden recorded the Caeté people, natives of today’s Brazil, more specifically Pernambuco, adding chilies to big bonfires, using the wind to blow the toxic smoke in the direction of the Portuguese
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I've grown ghost peppers and reapers, and whatever the growing instructions say, add a month to that. When it says 90-120 days from seed to ripe pepper, give yourself six months. Seriously, in a zone 6 you should start them in March, and transfer outside about late May. They like hot weather but not constant full sun, and they will ripen around September.
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You can use your capsaicin concentrate to make old fashion pestcide for plants. About a tablespoon or so of capsaicin concentrate in a gallon of water which was often applied with a watering can and later with a sprayer. That was used before there were chemical pestcides.
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It does seem strange you would try to use ghost pepper/carolina reaper, two peppers that are way more spicy than the varieties back then, so I'm glad you used a mystery pepper instead.
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An important note: the Taino peope were not fully annihilated and are indeed still around. Just saw a tiktok with a member of the tribe yesterday.
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A sling (which would have been one of their weapons they'd have used) would really have made this a fierce multiplier. There would have been minor injury from the impact of the gourds on the foe and metal armour would have guaranteed it shattering from being cast from a sling. The psychological factor isn't to be underestimated either. This would have been originally made with malice towards the invaders on their homelands, they would have made the mix as harmful as possible.
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I've been growing peppers in Minnesota for a few years. You need to start from seed in January/February and some grow lights to start. Then slowly move outside to adjust to real sunlight, then move to garden in May once it stays above 50 at night. This will give the plant the best chance to have proper sun and temps to quickly go to flower and get ripe red peppers ready to harvest in September. Our window to grow is just too short for most spicy pepper varieties.
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I heard a story that early into the colonization of Brazil, the Portuguese were seriously outnumbered and hid in a fortification close to shore. The indigenous people gathered loads of wood, made a giant fire between the fortification and the sea, and threw a load of whole chilli bushes into the fire. The green bushes made a ton of smoke with a lot of vaporized capsaicin in it that was blown into the fortification using the constant sea breeze. Pretty genius if you ask me.
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For future reference, capsaicin is fat soluble, which is why milk is the drink of choice for reducing spiciness over water - which just sort of pushes the surface carrier around the tongue and spreads the spice. So if you are suffering from too much heat, rub some butter on the affected area, rinse and repeat. You could also swish oil and spit it out.
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When you mentioned the Japanese method of stuffing eggshells with blinding powders (which also utilized powdered glass sometimes) the eggshell was not thrown but crushed in the hand before the powder was thrown like pocket sand
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That capsaicin extract in ethanol reminds me of NileRed's trials of pure capsaicin where, if I remember right, dissolving the stuff in ethanol made it way worse than just putting the powder on your tongue.
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Harvesting the gourd while it is still green and then scoring it deeply (sequence so that the gourd doesn't form a calluse around the score line) helps with fracturing containment vessel on impact.
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I remember in navy boot camp, we all got exposed to cs gas after taking off our gas masks. They called it the confidence chamber 😅so you would have confidence your gas mask worked. Later in my career I got pepper sprayed for security training. Both experiencs I could have gone without
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Please STOP STOP STOP getting sponsored by better help! They have multiple law suits against them for privacy violations and have had to pay a few millions in fines for having unlicensed therapists!!
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Note that the soldiers were probably already bit out of breath before getting exposed to the "tear gas", which made it a lot more effective.
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Organic, hand-crafted chemical weapons!
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you can also use ethanol to extract the itchy part of poison ivy if you want to give that a go!
