(Photo: Pennsylvania State University)
A chief of the Sateré-Mawé people put it like this:
If you live your life without suffering anything or without any kind of effort, it won't be worth anything to you.
It's hard to argue to argue against that point of view.
Are you ready to leave aside boyhood and become a man? If you're in the Sateré-Mawé people of the Brazilian Amazon, then you will stick your hands into gloves filled with angry bullet ants and keep them there for 10 minutes.
And you'll do this 20 times.
The bullet ants (Paraponera clavata) are appropriately named. Each sting is like 30 bee stings. To prepare for the initiation right, the men of the Sateré-Mawé gather them, drug them, then stick the ants into mittens of woven grass.
When the ants awake from their drugged stupor, they're in a foul mood. The boys stick their hands into the mittens and keep them there for about 10 minutes. It hurts a lot. But if they can do this 20 times, the tribe will accept them as men.
(Image: Universal Pictures)
So put your hand in. Remember that fear is the mind-killer. Also horrifically venomous ants.
-via Ace of Spades HQ