Indigenous Knowledge Systems

One of the most bizarre indigenous rituals that I have seen is the ritual featured in the Satere-Mawe Tribe, located in the Amazon rain forest, in Brazil.What a boy has to do to become a man in this tribe is painful, to say the least, he has to withstand not being stung by one, but a swarm of bullet ants. Some say that being stung by this ant is the same as being shot by a bullet, they have the same pain index, which is immense for such as small creature. In preparation for the initiation ritual, the elders go into the forest during the day, these ants are dug up and placed, stinger first, into a glove that has been woven by leaves. This is when the boy will insert his hands into the gloves for a whole 10 minutes, not less. Even though it feels like your hands are on fire, the real pain starts after the gloves come off, and the venom effect takes place. After a few minutes, the pain rises while the hands become paralysed. Usually one time is enough for a boy to become a man, however, in his tribe, in order to become a man, the boy must not shed one tear, the day not one tear is shed, the boy is officially a man. This can also take up to 20 tries.