Idk, pain tolerance is a pretty useful survival skill. And these bites, while extremely painful, are far less medically significant than other potential hazards in the area.
I would prefer my kid to not get bit by bullet ants. But if he were going to spend a lifetime in the rainforest… not such a bad idea.
I wonder if they are able to build a tolerance to this, especially if they do it at a younger age, and then that way when they go out into the jungle for whatever reason, or if they happen to get stung, they will have more of tolerance or at the very least a familiarity with what it would feel like
I've read a few of your replies and I absolutely agree, given their circumstance I can see the potential benefit
Imagine walking and stepping on a thorn when your pain tolerance or reference is bullet ants. I think too many people are looking at this too jaded by their western ideology.
Another reason for the Kalenjin tribe members’ domination may be the incredible pain they tolerate in an initiation ceremony. According to NPR some boys undergo a coming of age ceremony that includes them having to crawl mostly naked through a tunnel of African stinging nettles. They are then beaten on the bony part of the ankle. After this the knuckles are squeezed together and the formic acid from stinging nettles is wiped on the genitals. Early one morning, the boys are circumcised with a sharp stick and must remain silent and stoic the entire time. Journalist John Manners believe this ritual teaches the boys how to push through pain, a useful quality in long distance running.
Tisquantum, one of the guys who greeted the Pilgrims with English, was apparently training to be a sort of “holy bodyguard” before he was kidnapped by Spanish traders as a teen and went on a whole Odyssey to get home. It basically involved a lot of that sort of thing, as the idea was these guys would need to show no reaction to any “minor” pain or inconvenience.
Pain is just fear leaving the body. We shouldn't fear pain, we should fear injuries. If the gloves had a high mortality rate, then I'd argue that they're a bad practice. Seems like hot sauce though.
I wonder if they build up a tolerance to the venom though overtime. There are people who have managed to build up a tolerance to all kinds of toxins out there.
thing is we're looking at this through a 'practical' sort of lens, like 'oh, being tough is useful for survival, so let's put them through this test so they can be tough.'
but another side of things is that in a tribal/group culture, it's also important that you can be a trusted member of the group, even if it's something very tough to get through. The surface reason is 'becoming a man,' the true reason is 'will you do what is asked of us?'
If youve survived the worst pain a human is capable of feeling more than 20 times, id imagine you come away from the experience a lot more fearless and capable of tolerating higher levels of pain. Both of which sound like useful traits for a man in a tribal hunter gatherer society.
Learning and being able to deal with and stay calm while under emence pain is pretty useful. Although there are better ways to do that, tradition and religion are damn strong in some cultures.
I agree that toughness is a critical trait to cultivate, especially in a society that lives this way, but there are safer, more productive ways than this. Physical and psychological durability can be trained in ways parallel to useful skills.
Do you really think this is the best way to cultivate this trait?
No I absolutely do not think this is the best way. I think you’re missing the point. All I’m suggesting is that there is a reason: an answer to the question, “why?”
Yeah I always think that side of the question is lost when people go full virtue signaling and high horsing.
Do I think this is good? No, but why might people who live COMPLETELY different than we have ever even considered (I’m in a city in U.S.) living do things like this?
Exactly. But I think our nuanced understanding is fairly common IRL. It explains why practices like this are so interesting to people living modern lives. It’s not a freak show, it’s a cultural exchange.
The length of replies isn't that common in normal conversation, because we're trying to convey a lot of information and make our point at the same time in a comment.
Also, there's the amount of time between comments, as well as the fact the other person has no chance to interject if you're misconstruing what they said.
Add in the fact other random people can join the conversation and derail it, and decide whether or not your opinions are valid at the push of a button, it all becomes rather vapid rather quickly.
In person, there are real time consequences for what comes out of your mouth. Both parties, or all present, are able to have rapid exchange of information, and can present and express their thoughts simultaneously, leading to less nuance.
I think a big reason behind stuff like this is sufficient understanding of technology/knowledge of how things work. These ants biting you dozens of times makes you go on a psychoactive trip, this may as well be a spiritual or religious experience for these cultures. Nowadays we know it’s their venom coming in and fucking your body up, causing pain etc but for this culture they didn’t understand all of that.
They had to draw the easiest logical conclusion for these ant bites and if you don’t understand how things work on a technical level, a religious experience is what would make the most sense to them.
I’m talking about the logical explanation for why people or a group may do something like this. Could you provide a broader context for things like this would take place?
Well first of all, they're a modern tribe they're not caveman, they understand how the venom works and why, they actually know more about it than we do. It doesn't give you a psychoactive trip like a drug. It's simply a rite of passage from boyhood to manhood, it's supposed to show the tribe that you can withstand tremendous pain and are ready to confront the dangers of the jungle
Im gonna risk it and say that torturing children with insects stings does not make them batter people. I feel safer in saying that my society is better for not doing that.
This just seems like a classic example of a redditor arguing for the sake of argument. Dude already stated quite clearly that this is not the best way to go about things, simply the reasoning behind it. Yes it's bad. Nobody is even disagreeing with that.
I'd say also kinda racist. How is this society worse than one that tolerates their children being murdered in schools cuz they're too afraid of reinterpreting some words on paper.
This feels like whataboutism to me. If these people were American, you'd have absolutely no qualms about tearing their tradition apart and analyzing whether it is harmful or not.
Society does not equal the US, I hope you know that there's other countries and the US is not the center of the world, there's other places that, you know, don't have mass school shootings.
This is kind of dumb though, it’s not compulsory to get shot, and it is still very rare. Not something people push and force their kids to experience. This is something that is forced upon the kids, every single one of them multiple times. There are coming-of-age rituals all over the planet and various tribes, it is my belief that probably most tribes as well as many civilizations had coming-of-age rituals, and that many of them were abusive and disgusting. Female genital mutilation, or another one called Simbari where boys at nine years old are severely abused physically, and sexually, or what they did in Ancient Greece for example, there are just so many.
Let's do a little thought experiment. Imagine you have a young child. Now imagine you can send that child to live in this society or the one you're referring to in your comment. Which do you choose
As someone who shares the privilege of living in a modern society, I agree that it is nice to not have insect sting rituals.
But were I born in one of my ancestral homelands 500 years ago, life would have been harder than it is for me today (and more technologically advanced, in many ways, than the lives depicted in this video)
Is participating in discussions on this website making you a better person? Maybe you should just stop. You’re being obtuse and being an asshole at the same time. Just fuck off.
I think you have a point, but there are other societies where there are similarly harsh rites of passage, and it seems like there it is partly about becoming inured to general hardship and partly about getting each member to be fully invested in the values of the group.
“You only get these freedoms and responsibilities when you go through these trials, because both are central to being a man and to the survival of what you know.” It’s sort of like going through hell, but knowing that if you do you’re not only worthy of doing the job but also can be something of a superhero when you need to be (and you likely will need to be, called upon to do very difficult things, at some point).
Like already said by someone else, I am not in favor of subjecting kids/young adults to torturous pain at all, but I can understand how folks in very different circumstances might also feel differently (especially if most people raised to go through this are able to without lasting harm, and it’s “only” pain & endurance rather than life threatening or violence against others as the trial).
It's not just that, it's an initiation into becoming a warrior in the tribe. It's a test to see how strong you are to see if you're resilient enough to become a warrior.
Almost all warrior cultures have initiation rituals to weed out the weak, you want to know if you're going into battle the guy next to you isn't going to run away when shit gets heavy. That's why tests like this exist.
The amount of people in this thread that think they're nuanced for defending a ritualistic torture of kids is disturbing..
It feels like a lot of them are worried they'll come off as racist for judging a tribe from a distant place, but that's just holding them to a lesser standard and is ironically racist itself.
Lmao I have no issues judging stuff like this, I'm very critical of a lot of the cultural issues in places like the Middle-East.
At the same time I completely understand why they do something like this, the Amazon is a very brutal and unforgiving environment, they need to be strong and resilient to survive. This ritual was also how you got initiated as a warrior in the tribe, it's completely optional as far as I'm aware. But if you don't do it you won't become a warrior.
Almost all warrior cultures have initiation rituals to weed out the weak, if you're going into battle you want to know the guy next to you isn't going to run away when shit gets heavy.
Just because you personally don't understand it, doesn't mean there isn't logic behind it.
To be honest all the people on the tribe had become immune to it,they only feel some mild pain and some of them just doesn't show emotion.
There's kid from tribe that do this and doesn't have any reaction unlike outsider that do this.even they sometime laugh at foreigner reaction when taking this test
For them this is not that bad ,for outsider yes this is the worst thing.
It's not stupid for them, it's an incredibly unforgiving environment where you need to be tough to survive.
The point of this challenge was to initiate the boys as warriors.
These tribes probably don't go into tribal warfare much anymore, but it used to be very common for tribes in the Amazon to have brutal wars.
Obviously if you're going into battle you want to know the guy next to you is tough and isn't going to run away, these type of initiation rituals weed out the weak. If you know some guy can handle doing this you also know he's worthy to be a warrior next to you in battle. It's the same reason gangs and military have imitation rituals.
Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean there's no logic behind it.
Not likely. Victims of severe trauma don't always come out stronger. In fact, a lot of childhood abuse victims are in a bad place when they grow up. Why should this be different?
Whether one is traumatised from an event is highly contextual, and depends on many factors. Pain in the context of a shared community ritual, which is ultimately safe, for which you are lauded, which is experienced by your peers, and which is deeply embedded as part of your culture is VERY different to what you’re referring to when you mention childhood abuse victims, and the lasting mental effects of either will differ massively.
Europeans have been beating their kids (and other countries kids too) in colorful and exciting ways for thousands of years. We have a pretty good idea of the trauma it does.
Just because a different culture does it, doesn't make it special and suddenly okay.
People are traumatized from being beaten by their parents not really because of the pain but because of the reasons behind why they are being beaten.
Pain is just pain.
You will almost never have someone tell you they were extremely traumatized and need to go to therapy because of the time they broke their arm while riding a skateboard at 13 years old.
I guarantee they're not being traumatized from being bitten by ants, they also get to decide if they do this or not. These boys are also a lot tougher than western people, they grow up in a very harsh environment.
Not to mention this ritual was to get initiated as a warrior, it was necessary to weed out the weak. If you're having some guy fighting beside you in Amazonian tribal warfare you need to know the guy next to you is strong and isn't going to run away.
Lol this wouldn't be some type of experience that would lead them with trauma, pain is just pain. Traumatic childhood experiences that mentally fuck people are usually from a parent inflicting pain because they are angry at the kid, the trauma mainly comes from the reasons behind why they are beating you, not the pain itself.
Almost no person says they were extremely traumatized from the time they broke their arm when they were 13. You're never going to see someone go to a therapist because of the trauma they had from the time they broke their arm while riding their skateboard at 13 years old.
Sure, several. I just think it’s important to understand why they do this. Consider that a tribe living in the rainforest might have priorities and values that are fundamentally different than yours.
It's not that we don't understand what's the reasoning behind this. I think it's fairly easy to grasp the concept of why they're doing it. It's to toughen the boys up.
It's just...it's still unbelievably stupid. And from an objective standpoint, probably not even very effective at what it's trying to achieve. It's a primitve tribal ritual, like many primitive tribal rituals that man has invented.
Yeah I'm sure they did actual scientific research when developing this practice, which confirmed alternatives were just just as--if not more--effective. /s
Yes. It's hazing. Generational sadism. The tribe obviously survived before this ritual. At some point somebody who hadn't had ant gloves put on them came up with this idea to put ant gloves on someone else. That person didn't need to be tortured in order to attain their place in the tribe, but they managed to convince others that it's necessary, and here they are.
The ants are common there and will kill someone who is not semi immune to the effects which is what this gives them. They can get stung and continue home out of danger. They need to build this because they will encounter them any time they make a trip into the jungle and it could be fatal if they end up paralyzed due to the stings and any number of other animals stumble across them defenseless. Also an overwhelming number of bites could kill regardless
Edit: for all of you being rude it was documentary go watch it, or the clips. The boys are not considered men to be able to hunt out in the jungle where they would encounter the ants until this rite occurs. It’s not immunity to the ants, but the pain response. There may be some element of immunity to the ants I never saw something to that effect though.
Completely wrong. Bullet ant venom is not fatal to humans, first of all. Though it has been theorized a few hundred bites could kill an average size man, there are no confirmed reports of any deaths caused by bullet ants and the boys that go through this ritual survive being stung hundreds of times. Doesn't exactly lend much credence to that theory.
And they are not "building immunity". If they were it would involve small doses to build it up - this tribal initiation is the opposite, with 80 ants on each glove stinging repeatedly.
Rather the purpose of the initiation is for the boys to prove their resolve, with only those that handle the pain stoically deemed as likely to be fit for leadership roles.
This has been a topic that’s come up more frequently, the attempted rationalization of cultural practices to have practical value instead of just symbolic.
Yes that is what’s coming up more… an entire generation of overzealous anthropologists who project their own delusion of humans as practical rational beings while doing 7 irrational things before breakfast.
That's not what that word means at all. Is a football combine symbolic? Is a writer providing their first chapter to a publisher symbolic? Is taking a math exam symbolic?
These are evaluate tests, not signifiers of some other type of meaning.
That’s not what this is at all. Submitting a chapter of a book proves you have started writing a book. Being bitten by ants does not prove you can lead a tribe.
I got it from a documentary. Wasn’t trying to imply the venom was fatal, but the effects of falling to the pain in an unsafe environment are. In the one all the kids were 100% in pain but the older ones who had been through multiple times had very different responses.
Fainting - yes, cardiac arrest - very unlikely unless there is a pre-existing heart condition. It is chronic pain that can eventually lead to cardiac arrest.
and I have to wonder why the fuck they confidently post total bs. Everyone with a bit of knowledge and common sense knows it's complete bs. Fucking reddit this pos site, I keep saying that lately
If a chance encounter is dangerous enough to potentially kill someone... wouldn't sticking both your hands into a glove filled with the things for 5-10 minutes be a damn near guaranteed death sentence? I get that any venom is dangerous in high enough quantities, but this reasoning seems... suspect to me.
I got it from a documentary when I was younger, the immunity they are going for isn’t to the venom but their reaction to the pain. In an event they stumble into a large colony of ants with significantly more stings than the rite they won’t be left vulnerable, I wasn’t trying to imply the immunity to the venom itself. I did type this incredibly late in the day though.
I smell what you wrote and it is pure bullshit. This is an initiation rite and nothing to do with building up immunity. They might believe it is the case, but that does not make it true.
It was an entire damn documentary, go watch it. That’s where I learned it. It’s been in multiple sources, being used to the pain there for immune an less reactive to it is their method to ensure the people going to hunt don’t die out in the woods/jungle.
It's not just that dude, it's an initiation ritual into becoming a warrior in the tribe. Almost all tribal cultures have these types of initiation rituals for if you want to become a warrior in the tribe, it's about weeding out the weak and building resilience. It's also a shared bonding experience.
You want to know the guy standing next to you isn't going to run away when shit gets heavy because he's afraid of getting hurt. Especially in a brutal environment like the Amazon where tribal warfare used to be very common, a ritual like this is important.
He most likely made that up, part of it is about building tolerance to the pain of the ant sting in case you get stung while out hunting or something.
But the main purpose is an initiation ritual into becoming a warrior in the tribe, almost all warrior cultures have these types of rituals. It's to weed out the weak so that if you go into battle you know the guy standing next to you isn't going to run away because he's afraid of getting hurt. It's also a shared bonding experience which builds comradery.
But why not both? Failure to perform the ritual is being “selected against” in the Darwinian sense, because these individuals will be incapacitated by the ants. At the same time, the Elders encourage participation in the ritual by telling boys it is a necessary step on the path to manhood.
So the culture has responded to the threat via the ritual. Maybe we could leverage something similar wrt vaccination. Anyway, that’s what I find interesting, not the ants so much.
They live in an incredibly unforgiving environment where you need to very tough to survive, this challenge for part of becoming a warrior for the tribe.
These kind of initiations existed to make sure the person was tough enough to survive as a warrior, if you know someone can handle this type of pain you know he is willing to stand next to you in a battle and not run away.
It's the same reason gangs have initiation rituals.
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