Coming of Age Ceremony
This tribe’s coming-of-age ceremony might be one of the most intense and painful I've ever heard. A tribe living in the Amazon performs a ceremony to all the boys ( starting as young as 12) before they can be considered ‘men’. During the ceremony, they fill gloves full of bullet ants, and the young man has to put his hand inside for 10 minutes. The bullet ants sting is said to be 10 times worst than a bee, and being stung by hundreds is an unimaginable pain that goes on for 24 hours (that’s when the toxin fully leaves the body). Just doing this once already seems extreme but they have to take part in this 20 times before becoming a man. This is certainly an extreme ceremony, but also just shows just how strong each member of their tribe is. Although this seems very foreign to me it’s still impressive that they are all able to undergo this kind of pain, even the kids. They are truly strong people for willingly facing this ritual, and I admire that. At first, I t...