Hey guys, we are at the Ripley's Believe it or not museum in Key West, Florida.
Let's go inside and I'll give you complete tour of everything in it.
This is the skeleton of the Fiji Island Mermaid, you can see the body of a fish and the skull
that looks humanoid.
A man by the name of Barnum charged 25 cents per head to view this in 1842.
Now, is it real?
No, when he was about to die, Barnum revealed the secret; he had fused the skeletons of
the upper half of a monkey with the lower half of a fish.
This is world's greatest hoax by the way.
This is a human Shrunken Torso: The Jivaro Indians of Ecuador were the only people on
earth to have practiced the ancient craft of head shrinking.
The heads of slain enemies were carefully preserved in a week long ritual and shrunken
to a quarter of their normal size.
This shrunken torso was originally purchased in Panama by author Ernest Hemingway.
Next is a Naga Mask, the Nagas are a reptilian race who lived underground and their sculptures
are found in many Asian countries.
This mask was used to help exorcise evil spirits from people who are believed to be possessed.
Robert Ripley bought this mask from the island of Sri Lanka in 1936.
Here you can see a Native American ritual called Okipa practiced by a tribe called Mandan
in North Dakota.
There are three stages of self-mutilation in this ritual; warriors were first hung from
rafters with ropes attached by pegs inserted under their flesh.
Buffalo skulls would be skewered to their legs to weigh them down.
Their flesh would tear after a few minutes and they would fall.
This is the West African Hate God used as a Voodoo doll to hex the enemies.
The Kondes people of West Africa brought this culture into America in 1809 when they came
in as black slaves.
Nails would be inserted into the doll slowly; day by day which is supposed to inflict painful
mental and physical suffering on the enemy who would be tortured by an invisible spirit.
Speaking of torture, the medieval Germans used a more direct technique to torture women
who were unfaithful.
This device called the Iron Maiden has 14 spikes that are aligned to pierce the eyes,
the throat and the heart.
The victims, who were put inside, were so mutilated by this device, that it was often
set on a drawbridge over water.
The mangled body could then be released into the water without having to be handled.
Here is a coffin with a bell attached to it and you can see it ringing.
In the early 19th century, because of medical misdiagnosis, being buried alive by mistake
occurred with alarming regularity.
To prevent premature burials, coffins were designed with alarm bell attachments.
If a "dead body" awoke within the coffin, the attached bell could be rung from inside
the coffin to alert gravediggers or other passerby.
This is where the phrase "saved by the bell" came from.
This is a model of a human unicorn who lived in Manchuria, China.
His name was Wang and he had a 13 inch horn growing out the back of his head.
He was a normal human being in all other aspects and was photographed by Robert Ripley in 1931.
What we see here is the Garuda's Talon.
Used throughout India, these fingernail daggers are often worn by a group called Thuggees.
This group gave rise to English word word Thug.
These guys would make befriend innocent travelers, and would then rip the throats of their victims
from behind with one slash of these deadly talons.
This is a rare example of erotica in the Ripley collection.
This statue was actually worshiped by natives of New Guinea as a good luck fertility statue.
This was acquired by Robert Ripley in 1932.
Here we have the African Ibeji Idols.
The Yoruba people of Nigeria refer to twins as Ibeji.
In this culture, twins are honored and worshiped as people with special powers.
These 2 statues are kept by the twins' mother in the belief they can influence the work
of the twins and bring prosperity to the entire family.
The carved statues are honored regularly with offerings of food and are decorated with cowrie
shell ropes.
Believe it or not, the Yoruba give birth to the highest percentage of twins of any peoples
in the world.
How about a Bad to the Bone Motorcycle?
This is a unique motorcycle made entirely from the bones of dead animals.
Most of the parts are from cows that died naturally, but the feature pieces like the
alligator fender, and seat, and the turtle shell headlight, were made from bones of road
kill found on Florida's country roads.
Can a woman deliver a baby in her 40s?
How about in her 50s or 60s?
This woman by the name of Felipa Grijalba in Columbia was married at the age of one
hundred.
She gave birth to a child at the age of one hundred and one.
This was verified by Military Surgeon, Lt. Robert Wesselhoeft Junior and she died at
120.
Here is a necklace made entirely from interlocked snake vertebrae.
The snake is one of the world's most universally feared animals and Indian warriors believed
that they could scare their enemies simply by wearing clothing and jewelry adorned with
parts of snakes.
The people of Tibet took these scary costumes one step further.
This is the Tibetan Human Bone Rugen made entirely of carved human bones.
This was worn by Lamaist Shamans when exorcising demons and is believed to be possessed with
the spirit of the deceased.
Here we can see a beautifully painted 19th century cart called "Carretto" which is a
Sicilian Donkey Cart.
The finest workmanship on a "Carretto" is always on the axle where no one can see it
without crawling underneath the cart.
You can see the reflection on a mirror at the museum.
Up next is a Dance Dress from New Guinea.
This was worn by a chief during a ten-hour dance ceremony prior to a hunting expedition.
The dress represents an evil forest spirit.
In the same Island, a tribe called Asaro wore these masks called "Mud Men" masks and believed
that whoever wore this would become an invincible spirit.
The masks have unusual designs, like long or short ears either going down to the chin
or sticking up at the top, long joined eyebrows attached to the top of the ears, horns and
sideways mouths.
This is the Astrological Chart from the country of Nepal.
The horoscope used in Nepal and Tibet dates the beginning of the world in 27th century
B.C.
Based on a complex system with twelve animals and five elements, it is common practice to
have horoscope, cast by a shaman at the birth of each new child.
These charts are then consulted and interpreted at important moments of the child's life,
such as puberty, seeking a job, and prior to marriage.
These are the Rama Rice Field Statues from Thailand.
The Hindu God Rama is associated with both fertility and protection in this country.
Believed to be able to protect crops while assuring a bountiful harvest, statues of Rama
are set in the ground at opposite ends of rice fields to act as divine scarecrows.
Here is strange artifact called the Indonesian Demon Table.
Look carefully and you'll learn that it is carved from a single tree root.
In the Hindu pantheon, the demons are usually shown at the bottom which are shown here as
the legs of the table.
It is unknown how the wood was died pink.
Standing here is a modern day Giant, Robert Wadlow.
He started his abnormal growth at age 2, following a double hernia operation and at age 8, Robert
was already 6 feet tall; by the time he was 13, he was over 7 feet tall and considerably
taller than his older brother.
In 1940, at the age of 22, he had an arm span of nine and a half feet, wore size 37AA shoes,
weighed over 440 pounds and was 8 feet 11 inches tall.
Finally this is a demon mask from Bali, Indonesia.
Brightly painted to terrify viewers the mask features nine demon faces of importance to
followers of the Hindu religion.
This mask was not meant to be worn but rather to be hung from a doorway in order to prevent
evil from entering.
This practice of hanging demon masks still exists among the followers of Hinduism.
I hope you liked this video, I am finding a lot of intriguing places like this, so please
do subscribe to my channel.
Thank you for watching and talk to you soon.