5. The Satere-Mawe bullet ant glove
via gezimanya.com
The Satare-Mawe tribe lives in the Brazilian Amazon, the biggest rainforest in the world. Among them lives the bullet ant, an insect whose sting is so painful is has been likened to a gunshot, hence its name. To initiate their male members, the Satere-Mawe embed dozens of sedated bullet ants into a glove and make a boy put it on both hands. As the ants regain consciousness, they struggle to escape the glove and sting its fleshy core. The boy must quietly endure for ten minutes. After this is done, he must repeat nineteen times until he becomes a bone fide man. The pain lasts for months.
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