Mandan torture
The Mandan Native Americans of North Dakota held a religious ceremony each summer called the Okipa, in which the entire tribe celebrated the creation of the Earth. We say the entire tribe: not so much the young boys. Any aged around 8 would be made to fast for four days, before being tortured. Long wooden skewers were inserted into cuts on their backs, chests and legs and then they were hung in the air by ropes and weighted down with buffalo skulls. As with many of the rituals in this article, the idea was to test the boys’ threshold for pain. Those who endured it with the most bravery were made into Mandan leaders. All of which puts being made to down a few pints on your 18th birthday into perspective.
Vanuatu Land Diving
Every April, the men of the small South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu gather watch their young men quite literally leap into adulthood. First they build a wooden tower of 100 feet or so, then boys as young as five are encouraged to climb to the top, tie a vine rope around their ankles and plummet headfirst towards the floor. The idea is to get as close to ground without hitting it as possible – something that, if misjudged, will result in terrible injury or death. This is basically bungee jumping without any experts or safety procedures, and it has been going on for almost 15 centuries.
Spartan Serf-killing
The Spartans were a tough bunch. And sadly for them and people they subjugated, you don’t become a killing machine by training alone. After being schooled in fighting between the ages of 7-17, Spartan teenagers were inducted into a group known as the Krypteia. For a period every Autumn, the Krypteia were granted impunity to kill any helots (slaves) they could find. For the young Kryptes, this was their chance to prove their worth as men. So they stalked the Laconian countryside with knives murdering as many serfs as they could before being detected. The successful were fully-fledged serial killers before their 18th birthday. The failures were, naturally, whipped.
The Fula whip battle
The Fulani of West Africa become men only after they’ve prevailed in a painful whipping battle with a rival from another tribe. Each boy must make a weapon by taking a long stick and sharpening it to a point. They are then both given three blows each. The boy who hits the hardest, and endures his own pain the most bravely, earns the right to be called a man. The other is trapped in boyhood until next time.
The Satere-Mawe bullet ant glove
This one is so harrowing, we had to watch several videos before we believed it wasn’t a hoax. The Satere-Mawe tribe in the Brazilian Amazon live alongside bullet ants, insects with a sting so painful it has been likened to being shot which, when inflicted, lasts for 24 hours. Rather than avoid these creatures at all costs, the Satere-Mawe use them to initiate their boys into manhood. First, they use a natural sedative to knock the ants out. Then they insert dozens of them, stinger first, into a pair of gloves. The boys are then challenged to insert both hands into these gloves and endure the searing agony for ten minutes while making as little fuss as possible, 20 times. Once the pain has subsided, they are considered warriors of their tribe. How that works with not being able to hold a weapon for several months, we have no idea.
Algonquin Indians Journey to Manhood
Algonquin Indian trip is a rite of passage in which boys going into their teens can choose to partake in.
It marks their stage of life evolving from a boy to a man.
Many boys choose to partake in this dangerous right of passage to impress the others in his society, and to truly feel that he has become a man.
Young men of the Algonquin Indians would be taken to a secluded area to imbibe a plant mixture called wysoccan (derived from Jimson Weed), which is a powerful hallucinogen intended to remove memories of childhood.
This was administered over a period of 20 days.
For the Algonquin, it would have been a powerful experience to mark the separation between adulthood and childhood. As well as suppressing memory and creating vivid hallucinations, it is a potentially lethal plant.
Those who survived occasionally forgot who they were or how to speak. Surviving such an ordeal intact was as much a test of strength as a rite of passage.
Culled/Titilayo Kupoliyi
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