I came across a video on youtube that showed a group of young men from the amazonian tribe, the Satere-Mawes, going through their rite of passage. You can find out more about it here:
http://www.otithelis.com/initiation/bullet.php
It consists of the young men putting both hands into a sort of glove, loaded with "bullet ants," whose stings cause intense pain (supposedly the worst sting in the world) that can last for more than 24 hours. This is definitely an extreme rite of passage. Certainly such extreme rites of passage don't occur in the more "civilized" cultures. Or... Maybe they do. If you've heard of something crazy people have done to be an adult in more urban areas, I want to find out more about it. Urban legends or not (the more obscure and personal the better actually) if any of you have heard of something similar to the bullet glove, share the story! Actually, even it's just something funny, post it anyway.
I have heard of the bullet glove and other extreme rites of passage in rural areas. Check out this video to learn about crocodile skin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldBk4Jo6daM Ok so the most extreme rite of passage I can think of in an urban setting would be gang initiations. They are often very violent. Some of the ones I've heard about are having to fight for a set amount of time against a set amount of gang members. During this time you are expected to fight back and defend yourself. This is a way of proving you have what it takes to contribute to the gang. Another awful gang initiation I have heard of is something called "blood in, blood out" This is where you have to murder someone who the gang picks out for you. That's the "blood in" part. The "blood out" part means to leave the gang you must commit another murder or be killed by the gang you are trying to leave. I also found this article that has more info about gang initiations http://people.missouristate.edu/michaelcarlie/what_i_learned_about/gangs/join_a_gang.htm
ReplyDeleteI was also going to mention gang initiations as a twisted rite of passage. There is a song called Dancing With the Devil by Immortal Technique, it's about a gang initiation in which they kidnap a woman of the street and make the 13 year old boy rape and murder her. If you want to listen to it you can find it on YouTube:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dRgYd5Mxs0
But I have to forewarn, this song is truly disturbing and depressing for multiple reasons. Someone having to live with themselves after such an initiation, I believe, would be in far more pain than putting your hand in a glove full of bullet ants. At least pain of an ant bite would eventually fade.
Another modern rite of passage that comes to mind is entering high school. At my school, on the first day all the seniors would gather at the crosswalk and through diapers and pacifiers at the incoming freshmen chanting "FRESHMAN FRESHMAN." It was kind of messed up but we all went through it as freshmen. Not only that but the boys would also get picked up and put in trashcans. High schoolers can be pretty harsh but not nearly as harsh as gang members.
A strange and painful rite of passage that I've read about was one in Africa for girls who were to become woman. It involves cutting off the clitoris and sewing the vaginal area together to insure that the woman is a virgin when she gets married. A mother tried to perform this procedure on her daughter in Britain and was arrested for child abuse, I don't know how the trial ended but I do know this is a reoccuring thing in Britain with African mothers who are just trying to follow their religious procedures. So there's a new one for you if you hadn't heard about it.
ReplyDeleteAn urban Rite of Passage that has become a College Stereotype is the initiation into a Fraternity/Sorority. From the stories I've read, there have been frats that make their pledges go through fairly heinous activities before they're allowed to join. But as others have already shown, extreme rites of passages in the Urban, Civilized cultures today usually center around the initiation of a person into a group. Outside of that, I don't believe, especially here in the United States, there is any real cultural, ceremonial rites of passages anymore.
ReplyDeleteA strange rite of passage that I discovered is one that happens to the boys of the Quebec Algonquin tribe. The boys (their age was not specified) are given “wysoccan”, an hallucinogenic drug. The drug is said to be 100 times more powerful than LSD. The boy spends the next 20 days in a small cage, hallucinating and suffering extreme side effects like amnesia.
ReplyDeleteThe desired outcome is for the boy to forget everything about his past, and become a man. This includes language, his family; in other words, everything! If the boy shows signs of recognition, he is often drugged again
This is so sad, I can't imagine waking up and not knowing anything about my past. Crazy.
I think that the most extreme rite I have heard of is from Vanuatu, where boys build a platform, attach themselves to it by vines, and jump off. The goal is to have his shoulders touch the ground, and the jump occurs annually for most boys. I suppose this could be a way of selecting against the worst engineers, but the process seems like assigning the boy to dig his own grave (or make one by the impact. #culturallyinsensitive). I suppose the purpose of this ritual is either to make the boy appreciate his own life or learn to completely disregard it.
ReplyDeleteRites of passage in contemporary American culture seem to be dependent on the family applying them. I don't think I've ever experienced an extreme ritual that was supposed to make me a man, but I do know that some families are rather fond of the 18th birthday stripper.
I don't know of any extreme Rites of Passage, but i do know of some ridiculous ones! At my high school, every cheerleader or drill team member had to be initiated in "dawn patrol" before she could be a part of the squad. Old team members would go to the new members houses at 4 am, wake them up, dress them in ridiculous outfits and hairstyles and then make them go to school that way. Obviously this is not as dangerous or drastic as it is silly. One Rite of Passage that i find to be quite disturbing is that found in the movie A Walk To Remember. As a part of an initiation stunt, a teenager must jump into a murky lake of pipes at a cement factory. This stunt ends in paralysis for the young man, tragically. This tragic end is certainly representative of many of these types of initiations.
ReplyDeleteI seen the bullet ant ritual on television a while back and I definitely would not want to put my hand into a bullet ant glove. But going off of what Ky and Gabe said, I think that gang initiations are currently the most extreme ones. One rite of passage i find really interesting is the "Ta Moko" by the Maori people of New Zealand. It's the tattoo style that started the whole "Tribal" craze. It's just crazy how they get tattooed chiseled on their faces and are held in higher regard just because of it. The tattoos can tell a lot about them and their genealogy. This website is has some cool info http://awanderingminstreli.tripod.com/tamoko.htm
ReplyDeleteI had completely forgotten about that part of the movie Walk to Remember. I can’t exactly think of any painful rites of passage right now that were created by society, but it seems like there’s an awful lot of them built into our very biology. There are physical things like growing up and I think even emotional pains from things like first loves could be counted as in our biology. It doesn’t really matter where you grow up, everyone experiences these things before they’re really an adult.
ReplyDeleteIf anyone’s ever read the Kin by Peter Dickinson, it describes receiving scars on your face as a requirement to being recognized as a man. The scars were usually obtained as part of a ritual, but sometimes like happened in the story the boy would fight with a wild beast and get his man scars differently.
Suppose a modern American rite of passage could be getting your ears pierced. I wasn’t even two months old when I got mine so I’m not sure that counts, but I’ve known a lot of families to do it when say, their kids turn 16 or so. The same could be said of tattoos, though usually I’ve heard that as 18. Since you have to be 18 or have a parent’s permission to get a tattoo, I’ve also seen some people use it as a way of declaring independence from their parents. And especially the extremity of some of these body alterations. It seems so normal now, but gauges are pretty extreme.
-Danyelle W
Speaking from personal experience, I remember that a sort of playground gang was starting to form back when I was in elementary school. I never joined, but a lot of that has to do with what was required. In order to become a part of that gang, you had to essentially prove your worth in a fight with the leaders. Like I said, I was a wimp, so I never became a part of it, so that's about all the insight I can give. It's just weird thinking back on it now. The thought of forming brotherhoods at that age is almost startling, for even if the gang is disbanded, the friends you make, especially at such a young age, could really shape your values and decisions in the future. I guess it's not an "extreme" rite of passage, but thinking about what influences a person when they are young, and how that shapes them as they grow is somewhat frightening to me.
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