This tribe has a rather strange ritual to turn a boy into a man. At the age of 7, the boy is taken from the tribe to the settlement of men so that he does not have any contact with women, and is admitted to the common tribe after 10 years. For all 10 years, the future man constantly pierce the skin, bleed from the nose and induce vomiting feeding a teenager a huge amount of sugar cane. In this way, a young man is cleansed before contact with a woman at the age of 17 years. Also, the future man of this tribe is forced to drink the seed of the elders, explaining that it will help the boy grow up faster and become stronger. Even upon returning to the tribe, during the menstruation of his woman, the man must start bleeding from the nose.
2. Mardujara - a tribe that practices unusual circumcision and meatotomy
The ritual of growing up of this tribe consists of several procedures. In the first part ritual, a teenager is subjected to barbaric circumcision, after which the boy must eat his freshly cut foreskin. In the second part of the ritual, a teenager undergoes a meatotomy - cutting the lower part of the dignity along the canal up to the scrotum itself, for cleansing, the flowing blood must drip into the fire. From now on, the man will urinate through the remaining section of the urethra, which is quite far from the head of the penis. It is not clear, of course, what is so courageous in this ritual.
3. Trobriands - a tribe in which they begin to do "it" from the age of 6
The inhabitants of the island of Papua New Guinea show the sexual revolution by their own example. The girls of this tribe start making love at the age of 6-8, and the boys from 10-12, And this is considered absolutely normal. But this does not mean that they have promiscuity, to prevent this, the tribe has a couple of specially invented customs. Why not grow up so early here, because the fair sex of this tribe walk around topless. The most sacred among the Trobriands is the joint meal. It is strictly forbidden for a man to share a meal with a woman before marriage or whatever they call it.
4. The waterfalls of Sault d'Eau are a favorite place for voodoo followers to debauch
If you are on vacation in Haiti and, God forbid, you get to the Saut d’Eau waterfalls, then you can see a very unusual ritual of local voodoo followers. Every year they make a pilgrimage to these falls, to conduct a ritual of worship of the local goddess of love. Does everything seem nice and decent? No matter how! Imagine a bunch of naked writhing people in the mud and blood of sacrificed animals, also add the cut off heads of the same animals to this picture. This sight is unlikely to please a healthy person.
5. Nepalese - a people where brothers share a wife
From an article in Psychology Today: “Almost all of the few polyandrous societies practice what anthropologists call fraternal polyandry, where a group of brothers share a wife. This is common in the Himalayas where there is very little fertile land and the arrival of another son would mean the division of the land so that another son could establish himself with a family of his own. For the sake of saving space, they begin to create a family hostel with a common wife.
6. Wodabi - a tribe where men steal each other's wives, Niger
The wedding is arranged for the children of the tribe even in childhood, while the wife and husband are cousins to each other. But not everything is so sad with diversity. On the annual festival of Gerevol, it is customary for men of this tribe to decorate, dress up and steal each other's wives. If the couple managed to leave this holiday unnoticed, then their new marriage is considered completely legal, and the muddler husband is left with nothing, of course, if he has not stolen another wife for himself. These marriages are considered to be made for love.
7. Ancient Egyptian pharaohs practicing public masturbation.
Pharaohs ancient egypt there was an unusual rite when the pharaoh ejaculated into the river Nile. The fact is that in the Nile River there were ebb and flow all the time, and it was believed that such a rite would provide an abundance of water. On this occasion, in Egypt there was even official holiday the god Ming, dedicated to the potency of the pharaoh, at which all the men present had to publicly strangle the snake.
8. Ancient Greece, where homosexuality was considered absolutely normal
The ancient Greeks did not perceive sexual orientation as a social indicator. In fact, they didn’t care what gender the partner was, the most important aspect was who was who.. Being active on this issue meant higher status and masculinity, while being passive was associated with lower social status, femininity and youth, he notes.
9. Modern culture of Iran, where you can buy a temporary marriage if you have money
Muslim culture is one of the most strict in regards to sexual acts and relationships between a man and a woman. For example, Muslim couples can only make love in the missionary position. The husband's request to change his position is considered a humiliation. However, in some Muslim countries, such as Iran, a young couple who would like to make love before they are ready to marry can buy a "temporary marriage." Partners have the right to pay for a short ceremony, which results in a contract, which will indicate the exact time of marriage. After that, they can make love without contradicting Islamic laws.
Most of the customs and rituals that have been preserved in our society to this day contain fairly harmless and most common traditions, unlike other, less well-known ones that carry particular cruelty and excessive danger to human life. There are quite a lot of such rituals today, we will talk about some of them in our interesting article.
Self-mummification or suicide?
The tradition of turning your life into a nightmare originated in Japan at the end of the 19th century. People really believed that by mummifying themselves, they would achieve spiritual enlightenment and would never be reborn again in the future.
The process itself took quite a long time, about 6 years. To begin with, a person who decided to take such a desperate step sat on the strictest diet, which included only nuts and seeds. This was to last 1000 days. With the help of such nutrition, a person completely lost fat.
The next 1000 was devoted to the expulsion of fluid from the body. To do this, it was necessary to eat only the roots and bark of pine trees. If after that at least someone managed to survive, he was given poisonous tea, which was prepared from the sap of the lacquer tree. This caused diarrhea and vomiting, which contributed to the complete removal of water from the body of the “future mummy”.
After that, the “suicide” (you can’t call him otherwise) sat down to meditate in anticipation of his death in a small sealed room. Fortunately, self-mummification was banned in the 20th century, but, unfortunately, there are even more sophisticated and terrible rites, which we will discuss below.
What's wrong with babies?
In India (Maharashtra), the most terrible rituals of the world are still practiced in the Grishneshwor Temple to this day. One of them is dropping babies from a height of 15 meters. Yes, yes, you heard right, that's right. This is necessary in order for the child to have intelligence, good luck and health in the future. The ritual consists in the fact that a naked baby is lifted to a height of 15 meters and thrown. Downstairs, dad and his “inadequate successors” are waiting for him, who, with an unfolded white sheet, catch the baby. The fact remains that over the past 1.5 centuries, 3 children have crashed. Why Hindus rejoice in this is not yet fully understood. After all, the child remains with a serious psychological trauma for the rest of his life and significantly lags behind in development.
"Minghun", or posthumous marriage
In China, in the West, to this day, the most terrible customs and rituals are practiced that defy any logic and common sense. One of them is as follows: a man or woman who has never been legally married in their entire life should be buried in a pair with a dead person of the opposite sex. Horror! The Chinese believe that by performing such a ceremony, they will provide the deceased happy life with a "neighbor in the grave." The parents of the "dead bride" must be paid $1,200 (bride price). This practice has dire consequences. The trade in the dead in China has long been known, but that's not all. People began to go crazy, desecrating the graves of the dead.
Behind last years, according to the local press, the number of desecrations began to increase significantly. One such incident occurred in Yangchuan Province. A young woman tried to buy the corpse of a girl who was not picked up from the morgue. She explained this by the fact that her dead brother comes to her in a dream and demands to immediately deliver his "future wife". Agree, just a nightmare! Even worse, if for some reason the bride or groom died on the eve of the marriage ceremony, it still had to take place. Thus, the living groom had to marry the "dead bride". Horror!
Dead to be torn apart by vultures: ritual or bloodthirsty cruelty?
Another cruel tradition, included in the "most terrible rituals" section, comes from Tibet. Although it has been practiced for quite a long time in the USA (Delaver). The successors of the Buddha always believed that after death the soul leaves, and the human body does not mean anything, it is like an empty dry tree that must be removed from the world. To do this, the "well-wishers" came up with the idea of giving the "dead" to the vultures (the good should not disappear). They dismembered the body into small pieces and gave it to the birds to eat.
But that is not all. After only bones remain from the body, they grind them and make cakes from flour, which are eaten by smaller birds.
The terrible rituals of different tribes are also as follows: some, in order to always feel the presence of their deceased relative, grind his bones into flour and mix them with bananas. I think many have guessed what they are doing next with their children (for the slow-witted, they eat it).
"Dead" food
This tradition is from the category of "the most terrible modern rituals", which is practiced in India to this day. Moreover, children are also involved in this “fear”. An Indian tribe called Aghori, in order to get rid of the fear of their own death, eat dead tribesmen who cannot be cremated (saints, pregnant women, children, unmarried women who died from an insect bite or lepers). They believe that "departure into another world" is an obstacle to spiritual enlightenment. Before eating, the "dead meat" of the deceased is thoroughly soaked in river water, and then eaten.
"Terrible Legs"
The most terrible rituals are known to be performed in China. Fortunately, many of them are modern world are not practiced. One of these is "lotus feet". The thing is that in ancient China, the one whose feet resembled a lotus was considered a beauty. For this, girls at the age of 4 were tightly bandaged with bandages, which brought them unforgettable torment. So they went up to 10 years. After that, the girls were taught mincing and swaying gait (2-3 years). And then they were already ready for marriage. The most interesting thing is that the girls were proud of their legs, despite the excruciating pain.
"The Walking Corpses"
As has long been known, terrible rituals are practiced in Indonesia related to black magic. One of these actually excites the mind. The ritual is performed in a city called Toraji. No matter how strange it may sound, but there the corpses themselves go to their graves. And this happens because the cemetery is quite far away, so the locals ask for help from black sorcerers, who temporarily revive the deceased, and he independently follows his burial place. The only condition is that no one should touch the "living corpse", otherwise he will fall and never get up again.
Unnecessary old people
This tradition, according to the author, is simply the height of cruelty and insanity. And it lies in the fact that those who, to put it mildly, are fed up with old people, and caring for them is a burden to them, kill them. What do they do with those whose lives will soon come to an end? When a person reaches the peak of helplessness, the locals simply take him to the ocean and place him on an iceberg, where the poor fellow either freezes or starves to death. Some, in order not to suffer, themselves jump into the icy water. This is the attitude of the Eskimos towards the elderly.
Poison Ant Mitten
The most terrible rituals of the world are also held in South Africa. One of them is the initiation of a boy into a man. To do this, the baby must place his hand in a mitten filled with the most poisonous ants in the world. The hand should stay there for at least 10 minutes. Most often, such a ritual leads to blackening of the hand or temporary paralysis. The worst thing is that after such an initiation, most die from. If a man expressed a desire to become a real warrior, he must undergo the procedure 20 times or more. It is easy to guess that hardly anyone will live up to 20 times.
wife's devotion
Fortunately, this ritual was banned back in the 20s of the 19th century. The thing is that in India it is customary to burn the body of the deceased. The creepiest thing is that his wife had to follow him. "In what sense?" - you ask. The woman had to put on the most beautiful outfit, go around the burning husband 7 times and join him. Yes, yes, burn alive with him in order to continue to live together in the next world. Like this! I wonder if the wife was dying, would the husband follow her?
Human stupidity and cruelty do not recognize any boundaries, this is proved by some of the customs that allegedly glorify God and teach children to reason. In most cases, they are invented by mentally unbalanced people or real deceivers.
While most of the surviving modern society rituals include harmless, world-wide traditions, others, less well-known, can be extremely painful and cruel. Unusual and dangerous rituals can be found in different parts of the world. We will tell you about a few of them in this collection.
(Total 11 photos)
1. Cannibalism.
Aghori Baba who live in the Indian city of Varanasi are famous for eating the dead. They believe that man's greatest fear is the fear of death, and that this fear is an obstacle to spiritual liberation. Eating the dead - you can get rid of fear and embark on the right path of enlightenment.
There are five types of people who cannot be cremated according to Hindu rules: saints, children, pregnant women, unmarried women, people who have died from leprosy or snake bites. These people are attached to the sacred river Ganges, from where they are subsequently pulled out and ritually consumed by aghori.
2. Dance of the Sun.
Native Americans are known to have performed numerous rituals in honor of the spirits of the earth. Rituals are a means of communication with the great spirits, and sacrificing oneself means maintaining direct contact with the Tree of Life. The ritual of making direct contact with the Tree is as follows: the skin on the chest of the participants is pierced with a skewer, which is attached to a pole with a rope, personifying the Tree of Life. Participants move back and forth trying to break free while the skin of their chest is still tied to the post. Such a dance can last for several hours.
3. Self-flagellation.
Every year during holy month Muharram followers of Shiite Islam conduct a ritual of mass self-flagellation in order to honor the memory martyrdom Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. Men beat their bodies with blades attached to chains. In a state of religious trance, they practically feel no pain.
4. Jumping from the vine.
In the village of Bunlap, which is located on an island in the Pacific Ocean, a ritual called Gkol is performed. This ritual is a kind of precursor to bungee jumping. The villagers sing, dance, some beat drums, and some men prepare for dangerous jumps. They tie vines around their ankles and jump from very tall wooden towers built specifically for this ritual. Participants in the ritual do not appear to be very concerned about the possibility of breaking bones. They just jump and fly upside down. It is believed that the higher a person starts, the greater the blessing of the gods he will receive.
5. Voodoo and spiritual possessions.
Voodoo worshipers can be found in parts of West Africa. One of the rites is to take into oneself, as into a kind of vessel, some other soul or spirit. In the photograph, a person connects with the spirit of the Earth, Sakpata. The spirit takes possession of the body, but the person remains conscious. After the ritual, the spirit does not leave the person for 3 days.
6. Heavenly burials.
In Tibet, Buddhists practice a strange sacred ritual called Jhator, or sky burial. Buddhists believe in the cycle of rebirth, which means that there is no need to keep the body after death, because the soul has passed to another realm. It is customary to give the bodies of the dead to the vultures as alms. In order to get rid of the body as quickly as possible, a special person cuts the corpse into pieces, and scatters it around, to be eaten by birds.
7. Fire walks.
The festival takes place in Penang, Malaysia. One of the cleansing rituals involves walking barefoot on burning coals. It is believed that fire scares away evil spirits, enhances male power and helps to get rid of bad thoughts. For this purpose, hundreds of people walk through the fires.
8. Dancing with the dead.
Famadihana, which means "turning the bone", is a traditional festival that takes place in Madagascar. Participants believe that the faster the body decomposes, the faster the spirit reaches the afterlife. Therefore, they dig up their loved ones in order to dance with them to the music around the grave, and then reburial. This strange ritual is performed every 2 years -7 years.
9. Pricking.
The annual Vegetarian Festival in Phuket, Thailand is a highly dangerous ritual that requires participants to pierce their cheeks with swords, knives, spears, hooks and the like. It is believed that during the ritual, the gods put their bodies into a trance, protect them from evil and bring good luck in the future.
10. Mortal rites.
The Amazonian Yanomami tribe is one of the most primitive in the world. According to them, death is not a natural phenomenon. It is customary in the tribe to cremate a dead person, and mix his ashes with bananas and eat them so that the spirit of the deceased member of the tribe continues to live among their own.
11. Scarification.
The Kaningara tribe of Papua New Guinea practice a very unusual ritual that aims to strengthen the spiritual connection between the members of the tribe and their surroundings. One of the ritual ceremonies is held in the "House of the Spirit". Teenagers live in seclusion in the House of the Spirit for two months. After this period of isolation, they prepare for an initiation ceremony that recognizes their transition to adulthood. In the course of the ritual, the person is given skin incisions with bamboo shards. The resulting notches resemble the skin of a crocodile. The people of this tribe believe that crocodiles are the creators of people. The marks on the body symbolize the teeth marks of a crocodile that ate a boy and left a grown man.
In ancient times, people believed that it was possible to appease the gods with sacrifices or change fate with the help of magical rituals. It would seem that in the age of the Internet and computer technology, barbaric rites and customs are a thing of the past. However, some of them still survived.
The terrible traditions of Hindustan
The most terrible traditions are preserved in India. In this densely populated country, several religions are practiced, one of which is Hinduism. It, in turn, is divided into dozens of currents, some of which have terrible customs.
For example, in holy city Varanasi is permanently inhabited by members of the Aghori sect, which translates as "fearless". They worship the god Shiva and consider eating the corpses of dead people as their service to him. To become an aghori, one must go through several stages. The first is authad: the student must give up meat and eat only his own excrement. During the second stage, in order to satisfy hunger, it is allowed to kill stray dogs, and only then the student is allowed to participate in shav sadhana - the ritual eating of the flesh of dead Indians.
In the southwestern part of the state of Karnataka, locals believe that in order for their child to be successful in life, even in infancy, the priest must throw him off the balcony of the temple. The height of the building is about 9 meters. Under the balcony, the happy parents pull up a blanket and wait for the brahmin to frighten their heir, and then throw him down.
Every year in the Indian city of Ajmer there is a holiday dedicated to the commemoration of Moinuddin Chishti, a Sufi fakir and magician of the 12th century. During the procession, a crowd of thousands of pilgrims perform ritual self-flagellation in the form of picking out their eyeballs with sharp metal objects. Even kids do it! Being in religious exaltation, they often injure their eyes.
Pagan customs in Europe
If India is still equated with undeveloped countries, then Denmark is considered a civilized European state. However, ritual mass killings of whales and dolphins take place annually in the Faroe Islands. This holiday has been celebrated here by the whole family since 1584. According to centuries-old tradition, a boy becomes a man only after killing his first whale. The men of the Faroe Islands go out to catch marine animals, and then brutally kill them near the coast, trying to shed as much blood as possible. During each such ritual, the Danes kill 900-950 whales and dolphins, counting this important event own life.
In the villages of Iceland, where many residents still believe in the existence of elves, the custom of “baking” a child has been preserved. If a baby was born weak and constantly sick, it means that he was not “prepared” in the womb, and he needs to be “baked” at home. A sick child is wrapped in a thick layer of dough, leaving the opportunity to breathe, and placed in a hot, but extinct stove. It is believed that along with the bread, the person was “prepared” to the end and now he will be healthy.
American Native Traditions
In the United States, only a few years ago, at the legislative level, it was forbidden to perform the “dance of the sun”. But this custom is still practiced every spring on the reservations of the Lakota Indians. The bottom line is that the warrior, during the ritual dance, manages to break away from the established pole. But he is attached to it with straps, which he passes through deep incisions in the skin. Under the singing and dancing of the entire tribe, the warrior tears his chest for several hours in the name of the Sun and the Moon.
Recently, the world tabloids circled around photos from the wedding of the mayor of the Mexican city of San Pedro Huamelula. The new mayor, like all his predecessors, starting from the 18th century, got married in a local Christian temple with a female crocodile. This is the tradition of this city of fishermen. If its manager marries a crocodile, then its inhabitants will be taken to the sea with a catch. The wedding was a real one. For this, a young female crocodile was baptized, given a name, and then dressed in a white wedding dress and taken to the altar. True, the bride's jaws were still tied.
Could you, dear reader, taste the meat soup from the large pot in which the dead man was boiled? And daily give your body to be torn to pieces by monsters, ghouls and ghouls? And who among you would like to meet death in the icy embrace of the harsh Arctic desert, on the ice floe, on which your own relatives landed you?
We present to your attention the most terrible traditions and rituals of the world. Some of these dark rites have passed away and become part of history, while others are still practiced today. Warning - this information is not for the faint of heart! (18+).
The sinister mystery of "Tshed"
Let me briefly take you, dear reader, to the harsh Land of Snows, anchorites and powerful magicians. Welcome to Tibet! Local mystics still practice one very unusual rite called "Tshed". To conduct it, the ascetic must go to some deserted place. A gloomy gorge, a forest thicket or an abandoned old cemetery is ideal.
Terrible evil spirits appear at the call and devour the body of the student, which he voluntarily offers them as a sacrifice. Of course, demons exist only in the head of the unfortunate, 
they are invisible to outsiders. But that doesn't make it any easier for him.
Are you familiar with the concept of psychosomatic or phantom pain? So, a person who performs the Tshed ritual actually experiences a real pain shock. He physically feels how his flesh is torn, ligaments and tendons are torn off. Ultimately, he "dies" in order to "resurrect" in the morning and continue his strange practice.
Terrible rituals "Tshed" had a chance to see the famous French traveler David-Neel (author of the book "Mystics and Magicians of Tibet"). According to her, after performing several dozen Tshed rituals, the Tibetans lost weight dramatically and looked more like living skeletons than people.
Aztec blood sacrifices
The Aztecs believed that a new day would not come unless fresh blood was offered to the sun god. Moreover, the ritual blood must certainly be human. Therefore, most of the captives that this warlike tribe captured in battle were erected in honor of the cruel god.
According to the manuscripts that have come down to us, the victim was first made drunk with a certain drink, the recipe of which, of course, was kept by the priests in strict confidence. After that, the captives could not resist, they were hardly aware of the reality surrounding them. However, it is not known whether the mysterious drink had an anesthetic effect...
The terrible rite, which was supposed to propitiate, began at exactly noon, when the sun was at its zenith. The priest opened the chest of a living prisoner and threw the still trembling heart onto the altar of his god. After that, it was supposed to light a ritual fire, from which they kindled every hearth in the city where the ceremony was held.
Dead man for a snack
A very sophisticated kind of cannibalism is practiced in some regions of India today. In particular, the adherents of this "glorious" tradition are representatives of the Aghori religious sect. They eat the bodies of dead tribesmen in order to own death. Moreover, even small children take part in this ritual!
In Tibet, the dead are supposed to be cremated, for digging 
graves in frozen ground is very difficult. However, there are very few trees in the mountains of the Land of Snows, so only wealthy people can afford this luxury. Tibetans "easier" are given to be torn to pieces by wild animals and vultures. Specially trained people crush the bones and muscles of the deceased with stones, and then leave the body not to be eaten.
The rich dead are washed in large cauldrons before cremation, in which meat and other treats are then cooked for those who come to the wake. I must say that there is no shortage of those who want to taste the food. Meat is a real delicacy for many Tibetans.
In the arms of "icy" death
Not all the most terrible rituals have completely outlived their usefulness. Some Eskimo tribes have preserved a rather creepy ritual that demonstrates their attitude to old age and death. When a person becomes incapacitated, his relatives leave him on a floating ice floe. Cold or hunger will inevitably finish off their victim, forced to face death all alone.
However, one should not prematurely accuse the Eskimos of disrespectful attitude towards the elderly. It turns out that their custom is dictated not only by mercantile motives and the desire to get rid of the burden. The Eskimos believe that in this way they help the elderly with honor.
Initiation by poison ants
Let's mentally move from the cold North to the hot South 
Africa. Many tribes inhabiting this continent have preserved rather strange customs of the initiation of a boy into a man. Let's talk about one of them.
To prove his right to be a warrior, to take part in the hunt and in the tribal council, the young man had to put his hand into a vessel filled with the most poisonous ants for 10 minutes! Biting insects cause hellish pain to the test subject, but this is far from the most serious problem.
Under the influence of large doses of poison, the skin on the arm can turn black and partially die. Sometimes there is temporary paralysis, and the nerve endings are restored over the course of many months. Some subjects died because their immune systems were unable to cope with the action of the poison.
