The Ancient Spartan Helot Killing

The Ancient Spartan Helot Killing

For ancient Spartans, becoming a soldier was the only way one could be recognized as a man. Military training began at age seven when boys would be taken from their families and placed in the Agoge system. For the next 10 years Spartan boys learned the skills necessary to become a trained killing machine.
When a Spartan youth turned 18, he completed his training. To graduate and be recognized as a man in his community, the boy had to undergo a cruel rite of passage called the krypteia. The young man would be sent to the countryside with only a knife and his wits. His object? To kill as many state-owned slaves, called helots, without being detected and return to his school in one piece. The young men would often hide during the day and make their attacks at night. In order to complete this rite of passage successfully, the young man had to call on all the training he received in the Agoge.
After successfully completing the krypteia, a Spartan man was expected to marry and continue killing for the state.

Hamar Cow Jumping

Hamar Cow Jumping

Imagine sitting down with your girlfriend’s dad to ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage. You’re nervous. Sweat gathers on your forehead. You make small talk, but finally manage to get the question out while your voice cracks.
The dad responds, “Sure! But you’ll have to jump over some cows first.”
If you’re a man living in the Hamar tribe of Ethiopia, this is exactly what you’d have to go through before you can get hitched.  To become a man, you’ll have to jump over a herd of cattle.
The ceremony starts off with the tribe’s young girls jumping in unison. Usually these girls are relatives or good friends of the boy who is about to be initiated into manhood. Their metal jewelry clinks and clacks in a rhythmic beat. The girls will jump towards the maza – men who have already gone through the rite of passage — and hand them a green stick. The men use this green stick to lash at the backs of the girls while they continue to jump up and down. The lashing continues until blood is drawn. When the men are finished, the girls bow to them and jump away. The scars that form show that the women endured pain for the initiate during his passage into manhood.
After the whipping ceremony, the tribe forms a circle around a herd of cattle. Singing and chanting fills the air. Four of the biggest bulls are lined up side to side.  In order for the ceremony to be valid, the bulls must be castrated. The initiate is brought to the cattle, naked except for a few cords he wears around his chest. The boy must jump onto the first bull and then run back and forth across the backs of the cattle three times. When he’s done, a shout is given and the boy is a maza, or man.

Mardudjara Aborigines Subincision

Mardudjara Aborigines Subincision

The rite of passage from boyhood to manhood of the Australian Mardudjara Aborigines consists of two parts: circumcision and sub-incision. Don’t know what sub-incision is? Read on. You’ll be wincing in pain.
When an Aborigine boy comes of age, usually around 15 or 16, the tribal elders will lead the boy to a fire and have him lie down next to it. Tribal members surround the boy while singing and dancing. Another group of men, called the Mourners, wail and cry while the circumcision is performed.
The tribal elder in charge of the circumcision sits on top of the boy’s chest facing his penis. He pulls up the foreskin and twists it so it can be cut off. Two men take turns cutting away the foreskin with knives that they’ve imbued with magical qualities. The boy bites down on a boomerang as the operation takes place.
When the circumcision is complete, the boy kneels on a shield that’s placed over the fire so the smoke can rise up and purify his wound.
While the boy sits there dazed and in pain, the tribal elders tell him to open his mouth and swallow some “good meat” without chewing it. The “good meat” is actually the boy’s freshly removed foreskin. After he’s swallowed a piece of his own wiener, the boy is told that he has eaten “his own boy” and that it will now grow inside him and make him strong.
Now comes the second part of the initiation- the sub-incision. A few months after the circumcision, the tribal elders take the young man again to a fire. An elder sits on the boy’s chest and takes ahold of the boy’s penis. Again, there are singers and men mourning at the ceremony. A small wooden rod is inserted into the urethra to act as a backing for the knife. The operator then takes a knife and makes a split on the underside of the penis from the frenulum (underneath the head of the penis) to near the scrotum.
After the sub-incision, the boy stands above the fire and allows his blood to drip into it. From now on the boy will have to squat when he urinates, just like a woman. In fact, some anthropologists posit that the sub-incision ceremony is done to simulate menstruation, allowing men to sympathize with the females of the tribe.
The ceremonies of the Mardudjara have slowly disappeared as contact with the modern world has increased and each successive generation becomes less willing to make a snack of their foreskin.

Vanuatu Land Diving

Vanuatu Land Diving

Bungee jumping is for wusses… at least compared to the men who live in Vanuatu, a small island nation in the middle of the South Pacific. Here the men take place in a yearly harvest ritual called Land Diving.
Around April or May, villages will build crude wooden towers reaching heights of 100 feet or more. After the tower is completed, a few men will volunteer to scale it. The men then tie a vine first on a platform on the tower and then around their ankles. Summoning all the courage they have, the men dive from the platform headfirst. The divers reach speeds of 45 miles an hour as they plummet to the ground.
The goal of the jump is to land close enough to the ground that the diver’s shoulders touch the ground. Any miscalculation on the length of the vine means either serious injury or death.
Land diving among the Vanuatus goes back nearly 15 centuries. The purpose of the ritual is twofold. First, it’s performed as a sacrifice to their gods to ensure a bountiful yam crop. Second, it serves as a rite of passage to initiate the tribe’s boys into manhood. Boys as young as five years old will take part in the ritual which is often preceded by circumcision. The boys start out jumping low, but will work their way up as they get older. The higher a man goes, the manlier he is considered by the tribe.