11 Terrifying Ancient Rituals Still Practiced Today

While most surviving rituals in modern society involve harmless, world-wide traditions, others, lesser known, can be extremely painful and cruel. Unusual and dangerous rituals can be found in different parts of the world. We will tell you about a few of them in this collection.

(Total 11 photos)

1. Cannibalism.

Aghori Baba who live in the Indian city of Varanasi are famous for eating the dead. They believe that man's greatest fear is the fear of death, and that this fear is an obstacle to spiritual liberation. Eating the dead - you can get rid of fear and embark on the right path of enlightenment.

There are five types of people who cannot be cremated according to Hindu rules: saints, children, pregnant women, unmarried women, people who have died from leprosy or snake bites. These people are attached to the sacred river Ganges, from where they are subsequently pulled out and ritually consumed by aghori.

2. Dance of the Sun.

Native Americans are known to have performed numerous rituals in honor of the spirits of the earth. Rituals are a means of communication with great spirits, and sacrificing oneself means maintaining direct contact with the Tree of Life. The ritual of making direct contact with the Tree is as follows: the skin on the chest of the participants is pierced with a skewer, which is attached to a pole with a rope, personifying the Tree of Life. Participants move back and forth trying to break free while the skin of their chest is still tied to the post. Such a dance can last for several hours.

3. Self-flagellation.

Every year during the holy month of Muharram, followers of Shia Islam perform a ritual of mass self-flagellation in order to commemorate the martyrdom of Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. Men beat their bodies with blades attached to chains. In a state of religious trance, they practically feel no pain.

4. Jumping from the vine.

In the village of Bunlap, which is located on an island in the Pacific Ocean, a ritual called Gkol is performed. This ritual is a kind of precursor to bungee jumping. The villagers sing, dance, some beat drums, and some men prepare for dangerous jumps. They tie vines around their ankles and jump from very tall wooden towers built specifically for this ritual. Participants in the ritual do not appear to be very concerned about the possibility of breaking bones. They just jump and fly upside down. It is believed that the higher a person starts, the greater the blessing of the gods he will receive.

5. Voodoo and spiritual possessions.

Voodoo worshipers can be found in parts of West Africa. One of the rites is to take into oneself, as into a kind of vessel, some other soul or spirit. In the photograph, a person connects with the spirit of the Earth, Sakpata. The spirit takes possession of the body, but the person remains conscious. After the ritual, the spirit does not leave the person for 3 days.

6. Heavenly burials.

In Tibet, Buddhists practice a strange sacred ritual called Jhator, or sky burial. Buddhists believe in the cycle of rebirth, which means that there is no need to keep the body after death, because the soul has passed to another realm. It is customary to give the bodies of the dead to the vultures as alms. In order to get rid of the body as quickly as possible, a special person cuts the corpse into pieces, and scatters it around, to be eaten by birds.

7. Fire walks.

The festival takes place in Penang, Malaysia. One of the cleansing rituals involves walking barefoot on burning coals. It is believed that fire scares away evil spirits, enhances male power and helps to get rid of bad thoughts. For this purpose, hundreds of people walk through the fires.

8. Dancing with the dead.

Famadihana, which means "turning the bone", is a traditional festival that takes place in Madagascar. Participants believe that the faster the body decomposes, the faster the spirit reaches the afterlife. Therefore, they dig up their loved ones in order to dance with them to the music around the grave, and then reburial. This strange ritual is performed every 2 years -7 years.

9. Pricking.

The annual Vegetarian Festival in Phuket, Thailand is a highly dangerous ritual that requires participants to pierce their cheeks with swords, knives, spears, hooks and the like. It is believed that during the ritual, the gods put their bodies into a trance, protect them from evil and bring good luck in the future.

10. Mortal rites.

The Amazonian Yanomami tribe is one of the most primitive in the world. According to them, death is not a natural phenomenon. It is customary in the tribe to cremate a dead person, and mix his ashes with bananas and eat them so that the spirit of the deceased member of the tribe continues to live among their own.

11. Scarification.

The Kaningara tribe of Papua New Guinea practice a very unusual ritual that aims to strengthen the spiritual connection between the members of the tribe and their surroundings. One of the ritual ceremonies is held in the "House of the Spirit". Teenagers live in seclusion in the House of the Spirit for two months. After this period of isolation, they prepare for an initiation ceremony that recognizes their transition to adulthood. In the course of the ritual, the person is given skin incisions with bamboo shards. The resulting notches resemble the skin of a crocodile. The people of this tribe believe that crocodiles are the creators of people. The marks on the body symbolize the teeth marks of a crocodile that ate a boy and left a grown man.