Here are the most bizarre rituals from around the world!
9- Dancing with the Dead
Here in the U.S we have some pretty nice ways of remembering the dead.
We have funerals, we erect monuments, we keep photo albums and cherish the memories of those
we have lost.
I'm sure they do that to some degree in places such as Madagascar, but they also have
a weird ritual that involves dancing with the dead.
Every seven years, the people of Madagascar hold a ritual known as Famadihana.
This ritual involves opening up family crypts and dancing with the remains of ancestors.
Of course there's a method to the perceived madness here.
The reasoning for this is that Malagasy believe that people are made from their ancestor's
old bodies, so in holding them in high regards, they ensure that really good people are born
in the future.
Plus they believe their spirit lingers on until the body decomposes completely, so this
is a chance for them to communicate with their deceased loved ones.
Famadihana is quite the affair.
There's music, elaborate food, family reunions, and of course...dancing.
The deceased are dressed in new clothes as well.
Also known as 'the turning of the bones", the practice dates back to around the 17th
century, though in recent years it's become less common due mainly to Christian missionaries
who discourage the practice.
For the most part, it seems like a way to honor the dead as well as an excuse for the
family to get together.
8 - Aghori
To say the Aghori are an interesting group of people would be a dramatic understatement.
As a subset of Hindus, the Aghori are known for their astonishing post mortem practices
which involve smearing human ashes all over their body, and using the bones of corpses
to make skull cups.
If you're unfamiliar with skull cups, they're pretty much what they sound like...cups made
from human skulls.
In some cases, they're even rumored to practice cannibalism and have sex with corpses.
Just to give you an idea what we're dealing with here.
From what we were able to glean, the Aghori have kind of a mixed reputation in India.
While they're respected by some for their supposed healing and spiritual powers, they're
also feared and avoided for obvious reasons.
I mean who really wants to f*ck with a dude having sex with a corpse while crafting cups
from a human skull?!
Aghoris worship a Hindu God named Shiva.
They're under the impression that by performing these bizarre acts, that they're curing
themselves of "evil bonds" such as sexual pleasure, anger, hatred, fear, greed, and
obsession.
The weird thing is that these guys don't really want any kind of recognition or social
standing, so the remain a secretive and mysterious bunch.
But if you wanna learn more, they usually dwell near cremation sites in India, Nepal
and rural Southeast Asia.
Let us know how it goes!!
7 - Jhator
Typically, humans go to great lengths to ensure that their dead are buried with dignity.
We bury them next to deceased family members, or we cremate them and scatter their ashes
somewhere of significance.
But in some cultures, they practice Jhator….or sky burials.
Practiced in Tibetan societies where Buddhism reigns supreme, Sky Burials involve laying
the corpse on a mountain top where it's decomposed by nature or eaten by birds.
The majority of Tibetan people and many Mongols adhere to Vajrayana Buddhism, which teaches
the transmigration of spirits.
There's no need to preserve the body, as it's now an empty vessel.
Birds may eat it or nature may cause it to decompose.
The function of the sky burial is to simply to dispose of the remains in as generous a
way as possible.
In much of Tibet and Qinghai, the ground is too hard and rocky to dig a grave, and, due
to the scarcity of fuel and timber, sky burials were typically more practical than the traditional
Buddhist practice of cremation.
6 - Land Diving
Well if you were ever curious about the historical precursor to bungee jumping, let us quench
your thirst for knowledge.
Chances are you've never heard of the nation Island of Vanuatu.
I don't know, maybe you're very geographically aware and you know all about it.
But anyways it's a series of islands located in the South Pacific Island.
On one island in particular, called Pentecost, the practice of "land jumping" is a very
real thing.
It's an odd and seemingly dangerous practice that involves men jumping from wooden towers
that are sometimes close to 100 feet tall, with vines tied around their feet.
That's it, no harnesses, no helmets...nothing!
Land Diving has ancient roots, as it allegedly started when an unhappy wife jumped out of
a tree to escape her sexually demanding husband.
But she faked him out by tying vines to her ankles.
When he jumped, he didn't have anything tied, soooooo he fell to his death.
Men began performing the ritualistic jumping to avoid being outsmarted like that ever again.
Confused?
Me too.
But these days the ritual is something of a spectacle for tourists.
It's done each year during the island's yam harvest, and now the men jump from great
big wooden towers rather than trees.
It's believed that a good dive will lead to a good harvest.
Practitioners also maintain that Land Diving can improve their health and prevent illnesses.
5 - Baby Throwing
Generally speaking, it's good to handle babies with care.
Not that I claim any expertise in toddler care, but I feel safe in saying that dropping
them from 50 feet might raise a few eyebrows.
Well that's exactly what they do in a few small villages in India.
Dating back some seven centuries, this dangerous ritual is performed in both Hindu and Muslim
cultures, though it wouldn't appear to be mainstream at all.
I should note that they don't just drop the baby from 50 feet up onto a sidewalk or
something.
What happens is that these tiny little humans are taken up to the roof of a mosque or shrine
while a bunch of guys stand below with a giant bedsheet to catch the baby.
Assuming they have good aim, all ends well, and according to the practitioners, this practice
provides good health and fortune for the families involved, although Human Rights Groups disagree.
Meh!!!
4 - Senicide
Once practiced in several cultures, such as the Eskimos, Senicide refers to killing or
the abandonment of the elderly.
While this sounds disgraceful and inhumane, certain cultures don't see it this way.
In Eskimo cultures such as the Inuit, for instance, where survival was a daily battle,
elderly people sometimes weren't able to contribute to the village the way they once could.
So sometimes they were set on an iceberg and drifted out to sea, or abandoned in the forest,
where they either starved to death or were killed by the elements.
But keep in mind, this hasn't really been a thing since the 17th century and even then
it was usually only when times were really bad, such as during a famine or something
of that nature.
That being said, there was a known case of it in 1939, but that was so remarkable because
it had been such a rare thing for ages.
Of course this seems totally taboo to us, because when we want food, we just open up
an app on our phone and can have a pizza delivered within minutes.
And it wasn't just the eskimos.
There are historical references to Senicide in Ancient Rome, Greece, India, Japan and
Serbia.
So while it's understandable why the practice has existed in the past, it's still an odd
concept.
"Okay kids wave goodbye to Grandpa...you'll never see him again."
3 - The Nine Emperor Gods Festival
To celebrate the the 9th lunar month on the Chinese Calendar, certain people in Singapore,
China, Thailand, Myanmar, and Malaysia observe the Nine Emperor Gods festival.
This nine day Taoist celebration involves all kinds of unusual rituals, such self mutilation,
body piercing, climbing up bladed ladders, running over hot coals and vegetarian diets.
Dating back to 1825, this festival is derived from Taoism and the Nine Emperor Stars, which
are formed by the seven stars from the Big Dipper and two other stars.
But we'll skip the history lesson here and cut to the chase.
In a display of religious devotion, participants of this Festival will push all kinds of objects,
such as blades, axe handles, or whatever else through their faces!
This supposedly is a test of their faith.
According to some participants, they don't even feel the pain because they work themselves
into a trance of sorts, so that's good...I guess!
In addition to these painful rituals, observers also adhere to a set of rules such as abstaining
from sex, wearing all white clothing and adopting a vegetarian diet during the nine day celebration.
As legend has it, the celebration dates back to 1825 on the tropical island of Phuket.
When performers from a traveling Opera visited they all got sick.
So they adopted a vegetarian diet and paid their respects to the Nine Emperor Gods...and
amazingly, they got all better.
Now how that evolved into what it is today, I'm still really not sure!
2 - The Sale of Indulgences
There're a lot of schemes out there.
Pyramids schemes, Ponzi Schemes, mail-order brides, the list goes on and on.
Scammers obviously go back a long ways in human history, and they'll always be around
in the future.
And long ago, the Catholic Church was one of the worst culprits.
During the Middle Ages the church went a little crazy with the Sale of Indulgences.
Now, an Indulgence is an odd ritual in and of itself.
It's a belief that by performing some kind of good deed or service, one can reduce the
punishment in the afterlife either for themselves or of a deceased loved one.
In many cases, these good deeds were supplemented with monetary donations, which were used as
the Church saw fit, often for both religious and civil pursuits.
But by the Middle Ages, some people within the church began to abuse this ritual.
Professional pardoners, as they were known, often demanded huge sums of money in return
for promising eternal salvation.
In return the churches were able to fund massive projects, such as cathedrals that took decades
to build, or crusades into foreign lands.
By the early 16th century, the Church was basically promising salvation in return for
donations to rebuild St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.
The abuse became so blatant that it was one of the reasons that Martin Luther wrote his
95 thesis, which was essentially a list of grievances against the church and spawned
the protestant reformation.
1 - Self-Flagellation
Ashura is a way for Shia Muslims to commemorate the death of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson,
Husayn ibn Ali.
In some cases, things get a bit crazy though.
In a public display of mourning, some muslims indulge in the practice of self-flagellation.
As you can see from these photos, people attach knives to chains and whip themselves in the
back.
This guy is even taking a knife to a baby's head!
This painful ritual is a way for people to not only pay their respects to Husayn ibn
Ali, who was killed during the Battle of Karbala some 1,300 years ago, but also as a way for
people to cleanse themselves of their sins.
Okay, so observing the death of an important religious figure seems pretty normal.
But whether or not it's necessary to whip oneself with knives and chains, or to cut
a baby's head, is a matter of opinion, I suppose.
It should be noted that not all muslims condone or partake in this practice.
Maintaining that it has no religious significance, many muslim leaders are afraid the practice
reflect poorly on the religion.
According to the Daily Mail, they offer up more reasonable suggestions in lieu of self
flagellation, such as simply donating blood.
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