Temporary Burial

The Toraja are the ethnic group of South Sulawesi in Indonesia. They believe in welcoming the spirit of a dead person back to the village of his or her origin. As a belief, they dig up the graves of their deceased loved ones, wash them, and dress them up in fancy clothes; they also repair or fix broken and damaged coffins. They call the bizarre ritual as “Ma’nen”. Some families can’t afford an initial proper burial because it is costly. For them, a funeral is a great celebration of life like a party in which the entire family of the deceased and all residents of the village take part. As a result, they place the dead body in a temporary coffin. Funeral ceremonies are incredibly important to the Torajans and are often take long time to held after the death of a person until the family of the deceased raise enough money for burial ceremony.  They place the corps in a temporary coffin when they are able to maintain the fund, they slaughter buffaloes and pigs.  After the sacrifice, the meat is distributed among the participants of funeral ceremony. After the completion of ceremonies, the corpse is raised from the dead and walks to its new resting place.

El Colacho

El Colacho is an unusual and weird traditional festival being take place in Castillo de Murcia a town of Burgos province in Spain since 1620. To protect their children from illness, evils and adversities and to keep them devils away, families bring their newborns to participate in the festival. Infants laid in neat rows of pillows spread in street. Men symbolized as devils dressed in bright yellow costumes jumps over the newborns. After the jumping session infancies are considered absolved of man's transgression and they are sprinkled with rose petals before being taken away by their parents.

Skull Binding

Different societies around the world have different characteristics which are define as their culture. There are a number of universal customs that are practiced on each continent around the globe. They include birth, circumcision, adolescence, marriage and burial rituals and skull deformation. These traditions initiated in our past and passed from generation to generation.

The tradition of human cranial deformation started in our remote past. The old Mayan were believed that people with deformed skull to be more intelligent, of higher status and closer to the spirits. The deformation was made by the people by distorting the normal growth of the skull of a child. It was practiced to demonstrate social status.

In France, head elongation was practiced up until the late 19th century. The custom of binding babies' heads in Europe in the twentieth century, though dying out at the time, was predominant in France, and also found in pockets in western Russia, the Caucasus, and in Scandinavia. Few examples of elongated skulls were discovered in south-eastern Australia in Coobool Creek and Kow Swamp.  Mangbetu people of Africa continued the practice up until the 1960s as a mark of beauty and social status. The Vanuatu are among the few people left in the world to practice skull deformation. 

Ant sting

naturebeads.info (becaming-a-man)

You cannot become a mature man if you cannot bear an ant sting in Satere-Mawe tribe of the Amazon. To become a perfect man, each boy participates in this ritual. When a boy come to age of adolescent, he goes into the jungle with age fellows and a man with medicines to collect ants that have most painful sting in the world. The sting is compared to a bullet.

The boys collect ants and ants are put under the drugs of some herbs, which gives them the doctor. Later, while ants sleep in their state of drug-induced sleep, they are placed in a mesh glove with the spine inside. After wake up ants become angry when they find themselves bound. Boys must wear gloves and hold them for about ten minutes while they do dance to forget the feelings of pain.

Hanging Coffins

Ancient people of some ethnic groups buried dead bodies of their family members in hanging coffins. THE TORAJA are an ethnic group of South Sulawesi, Indonesia.  Toraja practiced this weird custom in which they bury their family members and hang them over some cliffs after death. Toraja are follows this culture since 2000 years. You can observe many suspended coffins from the bottom of the cliff. Coffins are generally hung 33 to 164 feet high. No one knows how the coffins were placed at such great heights. This weird ritual also took place in some parts of Philippines and china.

Hanging Coffins

Bathroom Banned for Newlyweds

Tidong community in the Indonesian has unique wedding traditions. But most weird is that the bride and the groom can’t use the bathroom for three days and nights after the wedding.

Tidong believe that ritual will save the couple from terrible luck, broken marriage, infidelity or death of their children at a young age. So the couple is watched over by their family, and allowed only minimal amounts of food and drink. After the three days, they are bathed and then they granted permission to live normal life.

Bathroom Ban

Festival of Thaipusam

Thaipusam is a thanks giving ceremony. The word Thaipusam is a combination of two words “Thai” and “Pusam”. Thai is the name of the month and Pusam is the name of a star. The festival commemorates the occasion “Parvati” (Hindu goddess of fertility) gave Murugan (god of war) a Vel "spear" so he could conquer the evil spirit Soorapadman. It is a Hindu festival celebrated by the Tamil community on the full moon in the Tamil month of Thai (January/February). It can be observe in countries where there is a significant presence of Tamil community.

During the celebration, Hindus declare their devotion to Lord Murugan by piercing various parts of their bodies. They celebrate their devotion to Lord Murugan for killing of Soorapadman with a spear. They do this with painful piercings around the body with hooks, and pull chariots or people who are hanging onto heavy rope attached to their backs by hooks.

Thaipusam-Festival

Thaipusam-Singapore

Shinto Festival

Since 767 AD, every year over 9,000 men take part in the annual Shinto Naked Festival in hopes of gaining luck for the entire year. Shinto Naked Festival, also known as Hadaka Matsuri. It is a type of Japanese festival in which participants wear a least amount of clothing; usually just a Japanese loincloth and rarely completely naked. Naked festivals are held at different places throughout Japan every year in the summer or winter. The most famous festival is the Saidai-ji Eyo Hadaka Matsuri held at “Saidiji Temple in Okayama where the festival initiated. One man is chosen as the Shin-otokoa, or Naked Man, who must shave all body hair and run through the streets unclothed while being pursued by thousands of male festival goers trying to touch him for good luck and prosperity. No one wants to stop this old tradition, so the Hadaka matsuri continues.

Hadaka-Matsuri-Japan

Spitting on Newborn

There is a strange tradition of spiting on newborn in Africa. People of Masai tribe in Kenya and Tanzania spit on one another while greeting their friends. Moreover, when a new child is born, the Masai men will spit on it and avoid praising as they believe praising will curse the child to a bad life. Before greeting, elders spit on their hand before offering it for a handshake.

Wolof people of Mauritania have belief that human saliva has the power to retain human words and feeling. Wolof women spit on the face of newborn and Wolof men spit in the ear of newborn. In ancient times mothers lightly spit at their children to protect them against evil eye or “Nazar” in rural parts of North India. Now the practice has diminished and putting black mark with kohl or “kajal” on forehead or cheek of child has taken place of it.