Uncle John's Endlessly Engrossing Bathroom Reader

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  Up until the 1840s, the outside world had little proof that the Chachapoyas even existed. And then the fortress of Kuelap was discovered. Located on top of a mountain at nearly 10,000 feet, Kuelap once had 400 circular stone huts and buildings surrounded by a 60-foot-high wall. Built between A.D. 600 and 800, Kuelap protected the Cloud People from other warring tribes for more than six centuries before the Incas conquered them. When word of Kuelap spread, scientists, profiteers, and thrill seekers went in and removed most of the artifacts. Today, only a portion of the wall and a few structures remain.

  RAIDERS OF THE LOST PEOPLES

  Throughout the 20th century, the Chachapoyan culture was one of the great mysteries of archaeology. But in 2006 a Peruvian farmer was exploring a cave in the Utcubamba province deep in the northern Amazon jungle. About 820 feet below the surface, he discovered five mummified bodies surrounded by an array of artifacts and textiles. The farmer led a team of archaeologists to the cave—this time with a much improved knowledge of how to preserve and protect such a site. “This is a discovery of transcendental importance,” said lead archaeologist Herman Crobera. “It is the first time any kind of underground burial site this size has been found belonging to the Chachapoyas.”

  Then in 2007 a group of hikers found themselves in a jungle so thick that they had to hack their way through it with machetes. Following the sound of rushing water, they emerged into a breathtaking area: A huge waterfall plunging down a 1,500-foot cliff. Bright blankets of flowers covered the ground. And on a nearby rock wall overlooking the valley far below were some buildings carved into the stone. As the hikers searched the area, they came upon a small village overgrown by the jungle. The round buildings were all intact; the artifacts were all still there.

  When archaeologists were brought to the 12-acre site, they compared the artifacts to those from the cave. It was finally possible to start putting together a picture of how the Cloud People lived.

  • Like other indigenous peoples, they were very religious and very much interested in making art. On the walls of their huts and meeting places were depictions of gods, birds, and couples dancing. (It’s unknown whether the dancing was ceremonial or for fun.)

  • Wooden platforms found in the village were most likely used for grinding up plants for food and medicine. The pottery, though not as advanced as lower-land peoples such as the Mochica or Nazca, was skillfully made and decorated with ornate patterns.

  • The Chachapoyas revered the color red. Nearly all of their clothes were red; even the bones of the dead were painted red.

  THE SKINNY

  But the big question: Did the Chachapoyas really have light skin? Based on the Spanish accounts, it was definitely lighter than the other Native American peoples, but there’s no proof that they were pale like Caucasians. There are two fascinating theories.

  • Adaptive Indians. Before retreating to the highlands, the Chachapoyas had dark complexions. But over the centuries, the isolated population evolved lighter skin and taller stature due to the darker conditions and cooler climate. That still doesn’t explain the blond hair and blue eyes—neither of which are evident on the 500-year-old mummies.

  • Jungle Vikings. Unlike just about every other dark-skinned native culture in the Americas—who crossed the Bering Strait from Asia thousands of years before—these people may have come from Europe. This gives credence to an Inca legend that says the Cloud People arrived on ships from the east. To the east is the Atlantic Ocean. So perhaps, during Europe’s Dark Ages, Nordic tribes traversed the Atlantic and landed somewhere near the mouth of the Amazon River. Then, finding the temperature too hot and muggy, they migrated hundreds of miles into the mountains before settling in the cooler cloud forests.

  So far, there’s no conclusive DNA evidence to support either theory. But answers may be coming soon, so stay tuned for new insights into a culture whose legacy was once thought to be gone forever. Until then, if you want to see a remnant of the Cloud People, take a look at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark: The idol that Indiana Jones attempts to “collect” is Chachapoyan.

  MUSIC…WITHOUT THE MUSIC INDUSTRY

  The music business used to be simple: Singer makes an album, record company

  makes the CD and sends it to stores, people buy it, singer gets a royalty.

  But it’s much more complicated in the era of digital music. Here are

  some musicians who found new ways to get their music to their fans.

  Artist: Radiohead

  Method: Download, and pay what you want

  Story: Radiohead was one of the world’s most popular bands in the 2000s, but in 2007, having fulfilled a contract with EMI, they didn’t have a record deal and didn’t really w-ant one. They started recording, and on October 1, guitarist Jonny Greenwood announced online that the new album, In Rainbows, was done. Not only that, it would be available in just 10 days, and only via digital download directly from the band. But the most surprising part: Fans could pay whatever they felt like paying—the $15 they would normally pay for a CD, or $5, or $100…or even nothing. In the first week In Rainbows was available, it was downloaded 1.2 million times with buyers paying an average of about $6 each. The standard royalty rate per copy sold via a record label is about $1. But because Radiohead didn’t have to pay a record company to manufacture or distribute In Rainbows, the band got all the money—approximately $7.2 million.

  Artist: Danger Mouse

  Method: Buy a blank CD, fill it with a “pirated” version of the album

  Story: Danger Mouse, a DJ who is part of the popular duo Gnarls Barkley, collaborated with the singer Sparklehorse on the 2009 album Dark Night of the Soul. The record’s scheduled May release was delayed indefinitely due to a legal dispute between Danger Mouse and his record label, EMI (the details of the problem were not made public). So Danger Mouse figured out a way to get the album out while still making money for himself (and, subsequently, for EMI). Fans could buy a CD case labeled Dark Night of the Soul with a blank, recordable CD inside. The album had been “leaked” to several illegal online music piracy sites, so Danger Mouse just encouraged fans to download the music and copy it to the CD. (Who leaked the album to the Internet? Danger Mouse.)

  Artist: Jill Sobule

  Method: Defray recording costs with fan contributions

  Story: Other than a single radio hit in 1995, “I Kissed a Girl,” singer-songwriter Jill Sobule has never had much commercial success or much luck with record labels—two big ones dropped her for low sales, and two small ones went out of business. So she decided to record, release, and promote her eighth album, California Years, completely independently, with no involvement from the music industry. She set up a Web site where fans could donate money to help her make the album, with special rewards for especially large gifts. Dancing With the Stars host Tom Bergeron donated $1,000, for which Sobule wrote him a James Bond-style “personal theme song.” A British woman gave $10,000, entitling her to sing a duet with Sobule on the album. Exceeding her expectations, Sobule raised the necessary $75,000 in just six weeks. California Years was released in May 2009, to the best reviews and the best sales of Sobule’s career.

  Artist: Prince

  Method: Give away the CD to promote concerts

  Story: Most artists go on concert tours to promote their CDs, but by the mid-2000s, long past his 1980s prime, Prince was making more money from concerts than from album sales. So to him, it made more sense to use albums to promote his concerts. In 2004 Prince played more than 90 shows in the United States and Canada, and anybody who bought a ticket—about 1.5 million people—got a free copy of his latest album, Musicology. And because the cost of the CD was included in the price of the ticket, Musicology made it to the Billboard Top 10, despite little radio exposure. The promotion worked—most concerts sold out. Prince did it again in 2007, but this time, fans only had to buy a newspaper to get Prince’s Planet Earth. The July 15, 2007, edition of the British Mail on Sunday came with a free copy of the
CD as a publicity stunt to promote Prince’s upcoming European tour.

  KALASHNIKOV PAT & THE HELICOPTER JAILBREAKS

  Since 1986 there have been 11 helicopter-assisted jailbreaks from

  French prisons. Three of them involved the same man.

  BACKGROUND: Pascal Payet, a.k.a. “Kalashnikov Pat,” is one of France’s most notorious criminals. In 1997 he was arrested for armed robbery and murder after an attack on an armored truck, during which he shot a guard 14 times. Payet was sent to Luynes Prison in southeast France to await trial.

  ESCAPE! On October 12, 2001, a helicopter appeared above the prison exercise yard. A rope ladder was lowered, Pascal and one on other inmate climbed it, and the chopper flew off. The daring escape shocked French authorities and made headlines worldwide.

  ESCAPE II! In May 2003, Payet was still on the loose when he and some associates decided to go back to Luynes Prison (in a hijacked helicopter) to pick up a few friends. Two of the men belayed commando-style down to the steel net that had been put over the exercise yard after Payet’s previous escape, sawed a hole in it and dropped a ladder through, and three inmates, all cohorts of Payet, climbed up. The helicopter landed in a nearby sports stadium, and the men left in a waiting car. The three friends were recaptured a week later; Payet, some months later. In 2005 he was sentenced to 30 years in Grasse Prison in southeast France.

  ESCAPE III! On July 14, 2007, Payet escaped again—and again it was with a helicopter. This one was hijacked in the nearby seaside resort town of Cannes; it landed on the roof of a building at Grasse Prison half an hour later. Three armed men jumped out and overtook the guards, went straight to Payet’s cell, took him back to the chopper, and flew away. The chopper eventually landed at a local hospital’s heliport, and the men all disappeared. Payet was arrested in Spain two months later and is currently serving a lengthy sentence in a French prison. Where is the prison? Cautious French authorities refuse to disclose its location.

  BELLE GUNNESS: THE TERROR OF LA PORTE

  A dark tale from our “Dustbin of Gruesome History” files.

  THE DISCOVERY

  On the night of April 28, 1908, Joe Maxson, a hired hand on a farm outside of La Porte, Indiana, awoke in his upstairs bedroom to the smell of smoke. The house was on fire. He called out to the farm’s owner, Belle Gunness, and her three children. Getting no answer, he jumped from a second-story window, narrowly escaping the flames, and ran for help. But it was too late; the house was destroyed. A search through the wreckage resulted in a grisly discovery: four dead bodies in the basement. Three were Gunness’s children, aged 5, 9, and 11. The fourth was a woman, assumed to be Gunness herself, but identification was difficult—the body’s head was missing. An investigation ensued, and Ray Lamphere, a recently fired employee, was arrested for arson and murder. Before Lamphere’s trial was over, he would be little more than a sidebar in what is still one of the most most horrible crime stories in American history…and an unsolved mystery.

  BACKGROUND

  Belle Gunness was born Brynhild Paulsdatter Storseth in Selbu, Norway, in 1859. At the age of 22 she emigrated to America and moved in with her older sister in Chicago, where she changed her name to “Belle.” In 1884 the 25-year-old married another Norwegian immigrant, Mads Sorenson, and the couple opened a candy shop. A year later the store burned down, the first of what would be several suspicious fires in Belle’s life. The couple collected an insurance payout and used the money to buy a house in the Chicago suburbs. Fifteen years later, in 1898, that house burned down, and another insurance payment allowed the couple to buy another house. On July 30, 1900, yet another insurance policy was brought into play, but this time it was life insurance: Mads Sorenson had died. A doctor’s autopsy said he was murdered, probably by strychnine poisoning, so an inquest was ordered. The coroner’s investigation eventually deemed the death to be “of natural causes,” and Belle collected $8,000, becoming, for 1900, a wealthy woman. (The average yearly income in 1900 was less than $500.) She used part of the money to buy the farm in La Porte. But there was a lot more death—and insurance money—to come.

  MORE SUSPICIONS

  In April 1902, Belle married a local butcher named Peter Gunness and became Belle Gunness. One week later, Peter Gunness’s infant daughter died while left alone with Belle…and yet another insurance policy was collected on. Just eight months after that, Peter Gunness was dead: He was found in his shed with his skull crushed. Belle, who was 5’8”, weighed well over 200 pounds, and was known to be very strong, told the police that a meat grinder had fallen from a high shelf and landed on her husband’s head. The coroner said otherwise, ruling the cause of death to be murder. On top of that, a witness claimed to have overheard Belle’s 14-year-old daughter, Jennie, saying to a classmate, “My mama killed my papa. She hit him with a meat cleaver and he died.”

  Belle and Jennie were brought before a coroner’s jury and questioned. Jennie denied making the statement; Belle denied killing her husband. The jury found Belle innocent—and she collected another $3,000 in life insurance money. And she was just getting started.

  NOT WELL SUITED

  Not long after Peter Gunness’s death, Belle started putting ads in newspapers around the Midwest. One read:Comely widow who owns a large farm in one of the finest districts in La Porte County, Indiana, desires to make the acquaintance of a gentleman equally well provided, with view of joining fortunes. No replies by letter considered unless sender is willing to follow answer with personal visit. Triflers need not apply.

  The ads worked, and suitors began to show up at the farm with visions of “joining fortunes” in mind. John Moo arrived from Minnesota in late 1902 with his life savings of $1,000 in hand. He stayed at the farm for about a week…and disappeared. Over the years several more met the same fate: Henry Gurholdt from Wisconsin, who had brought $1,500; Ole B. Budsburg, also from Wisconsin, who brought the deed to his property, worth thousands, and was last seen in a La Porte bank in April 1907; and Andrew Hegelein, from South Dakota, also last seen in the bank, in January 1908.

  Andrew Hegelein turned out to be the last of the disappearing suitors, because a few weeks after his disappearance, his brother, A.K. Hegelein, wrote to Gunness to inquire about him. She replied that he’d gone to Norway. Hegelein didn’t believe her—and threatened to come to La Porte to find out what had happened to him.

  LAMPHERE

  We said at the start of the story that when the Gunness home burnt to the ground, killing the three children and, presumably, Belle Gunness, former employee Ray Lamphere was arrested. The reason: Lamphere had been hired in 1907 and, by all accounts, had fallen in love with Gunness. The seemingly constant coming and going of suitors enraged him, and he and Gunness fought about it. In February 1908, around the time of Hegelein’s disappearance, Gunness fired Lamphere. Not only that—she went to the local sheriff and told him that Lamphere was making threats against her. The day before the house fire, she went to a lawyer and made out a will, telling the lawyer that Lamphere had threatened to kill her and her children…and to burn her house down. Under the circumstances, the sheriff had to arrest Lamphere—but the focus of the investigation would soon turn elsewhere.

  THE WOMAN IN THE BASEMENT

  Lamphere denied any involvement with either the arson or the murders. Few people believed him…but there were serious questions about the body of Belle Gunness. Doctors who inspected the remains said they belonged to a woman about 5’3” (they had to account for the missing head, of course) who weighed about 150 pounds. Gunness was much larger than that. And several neighbors who knew Gunness well viewed the remains—and said it wasn’t her. Then A. K. Hegelein showed up looking for his brother. He told the police his story and insisted that a search be made of Gunness’s property. The search began on May 3. Two days later, five bodies, carefully dismembered and wrapped in oilcloth, were discovered buried around the farm.

  BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!

  The first body was determined to be that of
Gunness’s daughter Jennie, who, according to Belle, had been in school in California since 1906. The second body was Andrew Hegelein. The third was an unidentified man; the fourth and fifth were unidentified eight-year-old girls.

  Neighbors told investigators that they had often seen Gunness digging in her hog pen, so they dug up that area—and found body after body after body. Included in the group: suitors John Moo, Ole Budsburg, and Henry Gurhold. In the end the remains of more than 25 bodies (some reports say as many as 49) were found, many of them unidentifiable.

  Belle Gunness had obviously lured the men to her farm and killed them for their money. People in La Porte began to believe that if she could do that, she could fake her own death, and that the body found after the fire was yet another of her victims. It was beginning to look like A. K. Hegelein’s threat to come look for his brother made Gunness panic and come up with her bloody plan. But then a problem arose: On May 16 a part of a jawbone and a section of dentures were found in the ruins of the house. Gunness’s dentist, Ira Norton, inspected them—and said the dental work on the teeth belonged to Belle Gunness.