The world is so big that there are all kinds of strange things. Religion has a long history. However, it is unacceptable that those special and even cruel customs have been handed down to this day, and some of them are even more shocking!
Do you think you are religious enough? How do you want to prove it? These fanatical believers are willing to prove their piety or social status through extremely bloody and painful rituals.
1. God Buddha ceremony in Buddhism
This should be the longest, most painful, and bloodiest of all rituals - mummifying yourself.
The ceremony is called 'Sokushinbutsu'. For three years, monks ate only nuts and seeds to get rid of body fat and endure extreme hunger. For the next three years, they began to eat wood and drink another kind of poisonous tea, reaching a half dead state.
Finally, they will be buried in the grave (not dead at this time), with a small bell beside them. Until the moment of silence, they would ring the bell every once in a while.
2. Bullet ant gloves of Brazilian tribes
Do you think you have enough men? Try what young people in the satere MAWE tribe in Brazil are going through.
In the satere MAWE tribe in Brazil, young men have to put their hands in gloves filled with bullet ants and experience the pain of being shot (which is why ants get their name), while boys can't show any pain for 20 minutes.
At the same time, the rest of the tribe sang and danced around them. Maybe you think it's too easy to forget to tell you that everyone has to go through 20 such rituals.
3. Dabaosen festival in India
Hindus use spears to pierce the body to celebrate the birth of King Lugan and his heroic deeds of exterminating the devil soorapadaman. During the festival, these believers are covered with all kinds of things, including the tongue.
As time went on, the festival became more and more amazing and bloody, with people wearing hooks and spears on their chests and faces. Some fanatics even wore hooks on their backs and tied a cart with ropes.
4. Matasu's tongue
Stick out your tongue and say 'ah ah ah ah ah ah ah' & hellip; & hellip;
This bloody custom comes from Papua, New Guinea. Men expel Matsu, who represents the female side of the body, and becomes a real man.
To speed up the process, they do so by swallowing the stems of certain plants and constantly fiddling their nostrils with reeds.
Also, throughout the process, their tongues are punctured again and again.
5. Philippine misery
You certainly don't think there will be a bloody sacrifice like the crucifixion. But look at the Filipinos. Every good Friday they repeat the agony of the crucifixion - by nailing people.
Every year, there are men and women who go through this terrible ritual, and many people in the street will be barefoot and whip themselves. At that time, the streets were covered with blood.
6. Sun Dance Festival of piercing the living
Sometimes, we think of Native Americans as polite and peace loving people. However, the sun dance ceremony was still followed by some Indian tribes in the Great Plains, and became very bloody.
The Sun Dance Festival ceremony lasted for 8 days, focusing on death and rebirth. During a few days of rituals, men are stabbed through their skin with designated objects, which symbolize the tree of life.
The ceremony was banned by the U.S. government in 1904, but it has been legalized again today.
7. Islamic Ashura Festival
"Ashura" is derived from Hebrew, meaning 'the tenth day', generally refers to the 10th day of the month in the Hijrah. It is said that this day was the day when the prophets Adan, Nuha, Ibrahim and Musa were saved. It is also said that on this day Allah created man, heaven and fire prison. Therefore, he regarded this day as a sacred day.
In 680, Hussein, the son of Ali, was killed by the Umayyad Dynasty on that day. Therefore, this day became the mourning day of Shiites to commemorate Hussein, and later developed into the Ashura Festival.
The stoic Shia Muslims would whip themselves with chains to commemorate the death of Muhammad's grandson Hussain. The scene is really shocking!
8. Chadak ceremony in Bangladesh
A Bangladeshi Hindu hangs on a hook in Chadak, an ancient religious ceremony on the last day of the Bangladeshi new year in Gazipur, Bangladesh. In order to express the piety to Shiva God.
9. Voodoo falls in Haiti
"Voodoo" originally means "spirit". It used to be a mysterious religion popular in West Africa, Ghana and other places. In the 16th century, Haiti became a French colony. While the white French colonists sold a large number of African slaves to Haiti, they also brought the primitive religion popular in Africa to Haiti.
Later, these African slaves mixed many complicated religious rituals of Roman Catholicism with the local religion, forming a mysterious, weird and terrifying voodoo religion.
In Haiti, there is a day off every year to celebrate voodoo day. At the annual celebration of the five poisons cult, hundreds of voodoo worshippers gather under the waterfall to bathe.
The believers, almost naked, dance under the waterfall, believing that this will wash away their sins and bring good luck and health next year.
Many Haitians believe that if they do not participate in voodoo worship, they will inevitably be harmed by it!
10. Muslim circumcision
Circumcision is one of the most important life rituals in Islam. Circumcision is equivalent to the baptism of Catholicism and Christianity. Only after circumcision can the child become a qualified Muslim.
People who practice circumcision are widely distributed in the world. In the early period of circumcision, stone knives were widely used instead of metal knives. Therefore, it has a long history. As a kind of traditional etiquette, it is carried out in puberty or before puberty, and some Arab nations are near marriage.
Male circumcision is to cut off the long prepuce on a boy's penis. It is a major rite of life for all ethnic groups in Islam. It is a 'holy act'. According to the religious law, Muslim boys should be circumcised when they are 7-8 years old or 12 years old, and those who have not been circumcised can also be replaced later.
Female circumcision, in Africa and other places, all the genitals (including clitoris, labia magna, labia minora) are cut off one by one, and then the bloody wounds are sewn up with wire and plant thorns, leaving only a small hole like a matchstick outside the vagina.
Female circumcision has always been carried out in private. Except for a few people who go to hospitals, most of them, as always, are operated by folk witch doctors, midwives or relatives and friends.
11. Indian snake Festival
Snakes play an important role in Hindu culture. Hindu believers worship snakes and regard them as the incarnation of 'gods'. They believe that snakes can bring good luck, and cobras are especially respected. There are snake temples, snake villages and snake dances in Hindu culture. There is also a traditional Hindu festival snake festival every year.
Worshiping the snake god is an ancient religious ceremony in India. Many Hindus offer eggs and milk to the snake god on snake day.
Legend about the celebration: a farmer accidentally killed a small snake when he was farming. The female snake came to the farmer's house in order to revenge. The eldest daughter of the farmer was devoutly worshipping Naga, the snake god. The mother snake was moved by his sincerity and decided to let go of the farmer's family and promised to protect the family.
Every year on the snake festival in August, the citizens of shiralai, regardless of age, go to the countryside to catch snakes. They put the captured snakes in an ancient temple for 'hoarding'. After dinner, they would come to the temple, scramble to catch a snake or several snakes with their bare hands, step out of the temple and begin to revel and dance with snakes.
Although many people will be bitten and entangled by snakes, they are proud of it. These people believe that being bitten and entangled by a snake is a sign of disaster free and disease-free in this life.
12. Thai Vegetarian Festival
Every year in early October, temples on Phuket, Thailand's largest island, hold a nine day vegetarian festival.
During this period, the local Chinese residents will strictly observe the ten day fast and only eat vegetarian food to purify their souls and accumulate merits.
Various Chinese temples and temples hold religious ceremonies, as well as wonderful performances such as barefoot stepping on hot charcoal and climbing knife ladder.