1. Satere-Mawe Bullet Ant Gloves
I'm sure you've heard tales of tribes, secret societies and
fraternities that have strange, humiliating and sometimes
painful initiation ceremonies. Well, for years the Satere-
Mawe tribe of the Amazon rainforest have been looking
down at such rituals and thinking "that's cute". Because
no other society, tribe or civilisation has as painful an
initiation or coming of age ritual as these guys.
When a young boy comes of age in the Satere-Mawe
tribe, before he can become a man in the eyes of his
fellow tribesmen and women, he must prove himself. To
do that he must insert both his hands into specially made
gloves containing an angry hive of the most painful
stinging animal on earth, the bullet ant. This little
deviant's sting is 30 times worse than a bee sting, in fact
they are called bullet ants because the pain of their sting
is said to be similar to a bullet hitting your flesh.
Justin Schmidt, an expert on insect stings, and author of
the 'Schmidt sting pain index', ranked the sting of the
bullet ant as the most painful in the world. Schmidt
described the pain as "Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like
walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch nail in your
heel." Just imagine that for a second - ouch. Now
imagine sticking your hands into gloves filled with
hundreds of these little devils whilst they repeatedly sting
you for 10 minutes.
But apparently even that's not man enough for the chiefs
of the Satere-Mawe tribe, the poor boy has to repeat this
agonising ritual 20 times, over the course of an entire
day, before he is truly considered a man. Never mind a
"man", anyone who can withstand that deserves to be
king of the bloody Amazon in my opinion.

2. Kanamara Matsuri
Next we go to Japan. Come on you knew the Japanese
were going to be somewhere on this list. Specifically to
Kawasaki, where, on the first Sunday of April, every year,
the locals host a Penis Festival. Known to the Japanese
as Kanamara Matsuri.
This festival is meant to celebrate fertility and the power
of the penis. The festival started in 1977 and was
relatively small but it has enlarged significantly in
popularity in recent years, and has become somewhat of
a tourist attraction. During the event there are a whole
range of phallic activities to participate in, you can make
penis candles, enjoy a penis shaped lollipop, try your
hand at carving a penis out of a radish, or just pose with
a giant penis on your head.
The highlight of the festival is a parade in which a giant
pink penis known as "Elizabeth" is carried around the
streets by trans-gender and cross-dressing Japanese
festival participants. Of course there's plenty of penis
related merchandise available to purchase as well. It may
look silly but it's all for a good cause. As well as its
symbolic meanings, in recent years all the proceeds from
the festival have been donated to HIV research.

3. Bride Kidnapping
Remember that person you had a crush on in school,
whom you dreamt of eloping with? Well Romani gypsies
do more than just dream about it, if they like a girl they
simply take her. It's a very old and highly illegal tradition
known as "bride kidnapping" and it's practiced frequently
in Romani communities all around the world, where it is
seen as completely normal and acceptable, even by
today's standards.
Basically the rules are as so, if a man likes the look of a
woman, even if he has never met her before, he can
forcibly kidnap her. If he can then keep her by his side for
three days without her escaping, she officially become
his wife, at least in the eyes of the Romani community.
This practice is more formally known as "marriage by
abduction". The practice is also carried out by some
tribes in Central Asia and Africa. But surely the bride and
her family don't approve of this new union between
woman and her possibly psychopathic new husband who
just subdued her with chloroform only three days earlier?
Well, since the tradition is so deeply imbued within the
community the bride and her family usually accept her
new fate and she simply has to learn to love her new
partner. Kidnapping is 100% illegal but most governments
never prosecute individuals for bride kidnapping because
it is a cultural tradition of an ethnic minority, and
outlawing cultural traditions is not an easy thing to do
and often results in somewhat of a PR nightmare.

4. La Tomatina
Most traditions have a purpose to them, some kind of
hidden meaning. Not this one, I present to you the
world's most pointless tradition, La Tomatina, an annual
Tomato fight in the Valencian town of Buñol in Spain.
On the last Wednesday of August every year, a huge
crowd gather's in the town, and then comes the most
bizarre initiation ceremony to ever begin a food fight. A
huge greased up pole is erected with a ham on top. The
tomato fight doesn't officially begin until someone is able
to climb to the top of the pole and knock the ham off. You
couldn't even make this stuff up.
Once the ham is dislodged from it's greasy pole all hell
breaks loose and the contestants lob tomatoes at each
other whilst spectators shower them with water from
hoses. But how did this sheer lunacy originate?
The story goes that in 1945, a group of young people
went to a parade in the town and were so excited that
they knocked a parade participant off their float. The
participant was so enraged that they went to a nearby
vegetable stall and threw tomatoes at everyone in a fit of
rage.
Chaos ensued and eventually the police had to break up
this mass vegetable fight. But they enjoyed it so much
that they returned on the same date the following year
and once again had a food fight of epic proportions. So
yeah, there really isn't any point to it, but who cares it
looks like fun.

5. Baby Tossing
For the past 500 years Indians have been chucking
babies off the top of 15 metre high temples, in a ritual
known as baby tossing or baby throwing. But don't worry
they're not complete psychopaths, the baby is caught at
the bottom in a large cloth. Okay it's still insane, but
there is some method behind the madness. The ritual is
believed to bring luck, prosperity and health to the new
born baby.
Most babies are under two years old when they undergo
this barbaric treatment. The ceremony starts with the new
born baby's parents saying a prayer at the temple. A
large crowd then gather's and a priest, stood at the top of
the temple, shakes the baby before throwing them onto
the cloth below. The crowd then cheers and the baby is
passed around before being returned to the parents.
Child's rights campaigners have been trying to get this
tradition banned for years.

6. Walking With the Dead
Funerals can be expensive and families don't always
have the funds available to pay for a burial when a loved
one passes away. So what do you do? Well the Toraja
people of Indonesia have a very unique way of dealing
with this. If they can't afford a burial, the corpse is
instead dressed in garbs and placed in a temporary coffin
inside the family's house.
The family lives with their dead relative until they can
save up enough money for a proper burial. When this
time comes do they simply pick up the coffin and carry it
to it's new resting place? Oh no! That's no fun. They
instead raise the corpse from it's temporary coffin and
ceremoniously walk the cadaver to it's final resting place,
which could be miles away. Giving a whole knew
meaning to life after death.

7. Finger Cutting
The Dani tribe, also from Indonesia, have a less
disturbing but more gruesome way of dealing with the
death of a loved one, they amputate their fingers. Or get
one of their family members to amputate it for them.
When a loved one passes away, relatives of the dead cut
the upper part of their finger or sometimes multiple
fingers off. This is meant to be a physical manifestation
of the emotional pain that the mourner is feeling. It is
their way of showing their grief for the deceased.
The amputation is done by first tying a piece of string
tightly around the finger for 30 minutes, to halt the flow of
blood. A relative of the mourner then snips the top half of
the finger, or fingers, off. The new ends of the amputee's
fingers are then burnt in a fire to create scar tissue and
prevent infections.
It is usually the women in the tribe, more so than the
men, who undergo this barbaric treatment. I bet the
mother's in the tribe are extra careful not to ever lose
sight of their children, because if anything unfortunate
does happen to them, daddy's going to cut mummy's
fingers off. The practice has been banned in recent years,
nevertheless it still goes on.

8. Carrying the Bride Over Hot Coals
The Chinese have a peculiar wedding custom. Before a
newly wed couple can cross the threshold of their new
home for the first time, the husband must carry his wife,
on his back, over a smouldering bed of hot coals. This
ritual is meant to ensure that the wife will have an easy
and successful labour.

9. Drinking the Ashes of the Dead
Next up I'm afraid is another macabre death ritual. The
Yanomamo tribe of Venezuela and Brazil believe that
burying a body after death and leaving them to decay is a
truly horrifying prospect. So corpses are cremated as
quickly as possible after death. Okay that all seems
pretty normal! Well I'm afraid this is where things get
weird.
The tribe believe that by ingesting the remains of a loved
one, their spirit will live within them forever. Yes I did just
say "ingest" - that's right the Yanomamo tribe consume
the ashes of their dead relatives. After cremation, the
corpse's ashes and bones are crushed into a powder and
mixed into a plantain soup. Chowder anyone? The ash
and bone soup is then shared around the tribe and eaten.
Yum!

10. Man Down
And finally, I wouldn't leave you on such a macabre note,
would I? Let's cheer ourselves up by going to Russia,
obviously. It's no secret that the Russian's love vodka.
Former Russian leader Peter the Great who reigned in the
1700s used to greet every foreign diplomat with a 1.5
litre jug of vodka and required that the diplomat finish the
entire thing to prove their trustworthiness.
So it will come as no surprise that the Russian's have
their own traditional drinking game, that involves - you
guessed it! Lots and lots of vodka. The game is simply
called "Man Down" and participants must stand in a circle
each wielding a bottle of vodka. The goal is simple, keep
drinking until someone falls over or passes out - and you
must drink! Refusing to drink is considered an insult.
Sounds like a super fun way to get alcohol poisoning!

SOURCE: http://thoughty2.com/p/96/10-most-bizarre-traditions-from-around-the-world/

can't just our senate pass that bride kidnapping into law

What is the meaning of the 'O' that this one wrote now

#3.

#3. hehehe i love that
i for don kidnap ………

#9 ...I bet the wicked ones taste good

1. Satere-Mawe Bullet Ant Gloves 2. Kanamara Matsuri 3. Bride Kidnapping 4. La Tomatina

5. Baby Tossing
6. Walking With the Dead
7. Finger Cutting
8. Carrying the Bride Over Hot Coals

9. Drinking the Ashes of the Dead
10. Man Down