Photos from open sources
There are still untouched places on the planet where the way of life is the same as a couple of millennia ago.
Today, there are about a hundred tribes that are hostile to modern society and do not want to let civilization into their lives.
Off the coast of India on one of the Andaman Islands - North Sentinel Island - such a tribe lives.
They were nicknamed the Sentinelese. They fiercely resist all possible contact from the outside.
The first evidence of a tribe inhabiting the North Sentinel Island of the Andaman Archipelago dates back to the 18th century: navigators, being nearby, left records of strange "primitive" people who do not allow them to descend to their land.
With the development of navigation and aviation, the ability to observe the islanders has increased, but all the information known to date has been collected remotely.
Until now, not a single outsider has managed to find himself in the circle of the Sentinelese tribe without losing his life. This non-contact tribe lets a stranger come no closer than bow-shot distance. They even throw rocks at helicopters flying too low. The last daredevils to try to make their way to the island were poachers in 2006. Their families are still unable to pick up the bodies: the Sentinelese killed the intruders, burying them in shallow graves.
However, interest in this isolated culture is not diminishing: researchers are constantly looking for opportunities to contact and study the Sentinelese. At various times, coconuts, dishes, pigs and much more were thrown at them, which could improve their living conditions on a small island. It is known that they liked coconuts, but the representatives of the tribe did not guess that they could be planted, but simply ate all the fruits. The islanders buried the pigs, doing it with honors and without touching their meat.
The experiment with kitchen utensils turned out to be interesting. The Sentinelese accepted the metal utensils favorably, and the plastic ones were divided by color: they threw out the green buckets, and the red ones suited them. There are no explanations for this, just as there are no answers to many other questions. Their language is one of the most unique and completely incomprehensible to anyone on the planet. They lead a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plants for their livelihood, while they have not mastered the agricultural activity in the millennia of their existence.
It is believed that they do not even know how to make a fire: using accidental fires, they then carefully store smoldering logs and coals. Even the exact size of the tribe remains unknown: the numbers vary from 40 to 500 people; such a scatter is also explained by observations only from the side and assumptions that some of the islanders at this moment may be hiding in the thicket.
Despite the fact that the Sentinelese do not care about the rest of the world, they have defenders on the mainland. Tribal rights organizations call the people of North Sentinel Island “the most vulnerable society on the planet” and remind that they have no immunity to any common infection in the world. For this reason, their policy of driving away outsiders can be seen as self-defense against certain death.
There is, for example, in the south-west of Ethiopia, the mysterious Mursi tribe, whose representatives are easily recognizable by their protruding lower lip and ceramic plates of impressive size inserted there. According to one version, such a “decoration”, which is often found in girls and women, helped them not to become victims of slave traders and lovers of local exotics. But ethnologists do not share this view. Those researchers who studied the Mursi and even lived among them (for example, Sean LaTosca) did not meet such judgments from the representatives of the tribe themselves. Moreover, a girl who can insert a larger disk into her lower lip (their diameter can sometimes reach up to 30 cm) is considered an enviable bride and, accordingly, the ransom for her will be more than for the one who is content with a diameter of "only" 10-15 cm.
If you dig deeper, then the appearance cannot be compared with the "philosophy" of this unusual tribe. Mursi worship the spirits of death, and all his women are considered priestesses of death. And here, just in time, there is the very plate that is used for the so-called “kiss of death”. During the love pleasures, the women of the Mursi tribe offer their faithful soft drugs on a plate, which the man licks off the plate - this pastime replaces the couple with traditional kisses, after which the man plunges into an intoxicating dope.
In the next stage, called the "bite of death", it is the turn of a harder drug that is blown into the mouth of a sleeping man, which often causes poisoning. At the same time, the high priestess of the village, who is chosen among married women, brews an antidote and, entering every house, distributes it, but not everyone is lucky. It is believed that only she and the demon of death know who lives and who does not, and therefore no one is surprised by the most different outcome of the case. When a member of the tribe dies, his meat is boiled and eaten, and also used for decorations, and paths are built from human bones in especially impassable places.
As for men, a warrior is considered a real man in the tribe, whose demon of death is imprisoned in a dungeon body - and he is released into the wild thanks to such a strange rite. From a very young age, boys are prepared for constant danger and war, which is common for this tribe, and if a man does not have firearms, machine guns, which they get in various ways from neighboring warring countries (mainly Somalia), then they always have at least at hand are war clubs, with which they know how to handle masterly and often put them into action.
The number of the tribe, as noted by researcher David Turton in his work “Africa Affairs”, is about five thousand people, and it is gradually declining - constant wars make themselves felt and, who knows, maybe a strange way of life, which the Mursi themselves are not at all like that. consider.
Mursi tribe - 7,000 African demons
The average number of the Mursi tribe is 7 thousand people. However, one can only guess how these people are still alive, because the whole life of this tribe is aimed at destroying their own body.
According to their religious teachings, the human body is a shackle in which the souls of the Demons of Death languish.
Men and women of the Mursi tribe are short. They are broad-boned, have short, crooked legs, and flattened noses. They have flabby bodies and short necks. In general, they look sickly and repulsive.
Members of the Mursi tribe decorate their bodies with tattoos, however, they do it in a very barbaric way. They make incisions on the body and place insect larvae there, then wait until the insect dies, after which a scar forms at the incision site.
The entire Mursi tribe exudes a specific “aroma”. They rub their body with a special compound that can repel insects.
Mursi women
There is practically no hair on their heads. The women of the tribe decorate their hair with tree branches, marsh clams and dead insects. In general, the smell of such an intricate headdress is felt from afar.
Even at a young age, the girls of the tribe are cut through the lower lip, and then they begin to insert round pieces of wood into the hole, increasing their diameter every year. Over the years, the hole in the lip becomes simply huge, and on the day of the wedding, an earthen plate is inserted into it, which is called "debi".
The girls of the tribe still have a choice whether to cut their lips or not, but for a bride without a “debi” they will give a very small ransom.
It is believed that this custom appeared at a time when Ethiopians were massively taken into slavery, so some inhabitants of the African continent often deliberately mutilated themselves. However, the members of the tribe themselves have repeatedly rejected this version.
Mursi women wear unusual jewelry around their necks. They are made from the bones of the phalanges of human fingers. Every day, ladies rub their jewelry with warm human fat so that they shine and please the eye.
Mursi men
Men of the tribe are often in a state of drug or alcohol intoxication. The tribe has many firearms. Kalashnikov assault rifles are delivered to the tribe from Somalia.
Those men who did not manage to get a machine gun carry with them war clubs, with which they are very professional at handling. Often the men of the tribe engage in battles among themselves. They fight for leadership. Sometimes such fights can end with the death of one of the tribesmen. In this case, the winner must give his wife to the family of the defeated opponent as compensation.
Mursi men adorn themselves with fang earrings, as well as special scars that are applied to the body on the occasion of killing one of the enemies. If they killed a man, then on the right hand they carve a special symbol in the form of a horseshoe, if a woman - on the left. Sometimes there is simply no room left on the hands, then the resourceful Mursi move to other parts of the body.
The men of the tribe do not wear clothes. Their bodies are completely covered with a white pattern, which symbolizes the fetters of flesh that imprisoned the Demons of Death.
Death Priestesses
All women of the Mursi tribe are Death Priestesses. In the evenings they prepare special hallucinogenic powders based on peanuts. The woman puts the resulting powder on the debi and brings it closer to her husband's lips, then they simultaneously lick it off. This ritual is called the "kiss of death".
Then comes the dream of death. A woman throws a hallucinogenic herb into the hearth, and a man sits on special mezzanines located under the ceiling of the hut. The intoxicating smoke envelops the native, and he plunges into the realm of bizarre dreams.
The next stage is the “bite of death”. The woman rises to her husband and blows into his mouth a special powder prepared from a mixture of ten poisonous herbs.
Now comes the final part of the "gift of death" rite. The High Priestess goes around all the huts and distributes antidotes, however, she does not save everyone, someone from Mursi will surely die that night. The High Priestess draws a special symbol on the widow's debi - a white cross. The widow enjoys special respect in the tribe, it turns out that she has fully fulfilled her duty. She is buried with special honors: the body is placed in a stump of a trunk and hung on a tree.
If an ordinary representative dies in the Mursi tribe, then their meat is boiled and eaten, and the bones are laid out in their tracks.
There are more than four thousand religions in the world. Some sacred rites can safely be called strange and even creepy. We offer you a list of ten exotic religious ceremonies, but be careful - descriptions of many of them are not worth reading for impressionable people.
"Heavenly Burial"
As you know, Buddhists believe in the cycles of rebirth and reincarnation, so they do not see the need to preserve the body of the deceased after death. Moreover, some followers of the teachings of the Buddha believe that the faster the body turns to dust, the sooner the next life begins for a person. In Tibet, this belief was embodied in a ritual called "jator". During the burial ceremony, the body of the deceased is taken to the top of the mountain and left as an offering to the vultures.To speed up the procedure, sometimes the body is even cut into pieces and laid out in several places. Vultures are called the word "dakinis", which translates as "heavenly dancers." They play the role of angels, carrying the human soul to heaven for the next incarnation. In the 1960s, the Chinese authorities made "jator" a criminal offense, calling the practice "barbaric."
However, the ban was strongly opposed by the Tibetans, who believed in the sacred necessity of this rite, and starting in the 1980s, sky burial was again legalized on the condition that it be carried out only in a few specially designated places.
Thaipusam
Thaipusam is a Hindu holiday celebrated in various countries around the world, including Sri Lanka, India, South Africa and Malaysia. For many thousands of participants, the celebration consists of nothing more than a procession where people carry pots of milk as offerings to the gods. Only a few especially pious Hindus perform a special ritual on this day. 
They pierce their cheeks and skin on their bodies with needles and hooks, to which they attach jewelry that can weigh more than 30 kilograms. The participants of the ceremony claim that they fall into a kind of trance and do not feel discomfort or pain. The meaning of the Thaipusam holiday is in the veneration of the Hindu goddess Parvati, who gave the god of war and hunting Murugan a wonderful spear to fight demons. By piercing their flesh, Hindus protect their body from the penetration of any evil.
solar dance
Many indigenous tribes of North America profess totemism and perform rituals dedicated to various spirits of the earth. One of the most common rituals among the Indians is the sun dance, designed to bring health and a rich harvest to the tribe. And totemism is one of the oldest religions. 
These days, usually the ceremony only involves drumming, singing and dancing by the fire, but in exceptional cases it is a cruel test of human endurance. The skin on the chest of the dancer is pierced in several places, a kind of weaving shuttle with a rope is threaded through the holes, and then it is tied to the Tree of Life deified by the tribe. The main participant in the rite begins to move back and forth, trying to free himself from the shuttle.
Of course, this practice often resulted in serious injury or death, which led to its prohibition from the end of the 19th century. However, official American authorities rarely interfere in the life of Indian reservations, and the "sun dance" in its full version is periodically performed today.
"El Colacho"
Christians around the world believe in the dogma of original sin. According to him, every person is born in sin because of Adam and Eve's disobedience to God in the Garden of Eden. It is believed that a Christian can atone for this guilt by leading a righteous life. However, the inhabitants of the town of Castillo de Murcia in northern Spain perform the rite of cleansing newborns from this sin - "el colacho", also known as the festival of jumping over children. 
All children born in the last year are placed on mattresses along the street, and men dressed as devils jump back and forth over the mattresses to cleanse the babies from original sin. Although no incidents have been documented during the holiday, the Pope has written to the local Catholic Church demanding that they disassociate themselves from such a dangerous practice.
Some Hindu communities practice a similar rite of cleansing children, when babies (more than a hundred a year) are thrown from the roof of the temple onto blankets stretched below. It is believed to bring good luck in life and fertility.
self-torture
Self-torture - the act of cutting oneself with blows of a whip - has existed as a religious ritual for as long as religions have existed. Most often, self-torture was carried out as a voluntary penance to appease the gods. Now you can not only read about this action in books on the history of religion, but also see it with your own eyes. 
In the Philippines and Mexico, on Good Friday, true believers beat themselves with whips in order to get rid of sins and, upon death, take a place in paradise next to God. Many Shia Muslims in India, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran and Lebanon also torture themselves during the holy month of Muharram.
The purpose of the ceremony is to honor the martyrdom of the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed Hussein ibn Ali, who was killed by the cruel caliph of the city of Kufa. Self-torture is very dangerous, because it can lead to death from loss or infection of blood.
"Tinku", or "hit your neighbor"
The indigenous inhabitants of the South American Andes revere the goddess Pachamama, who, according to Inca mythology, is the patroness of hunters and peasants, can cause and prevent natural disasters. It is believed that she sends a generous booty and a rich harvest, while plentiful blood sacrifices are made to her. Since the 17th century, the Bolivian Macha people have been celebrating a holiday called “tinku”. 
Simply put, this is a brutal fistfight, in which many people participated, intending to shed as much blood as possible for the glory of the goddess. Huge crowds flocked from all over the area to take part in the annual mass brawl. Nearly every year, deaths have been reported during the Blood Festival.
"Tinku" is held to this day, however, the fights are held in a one-on-one format. In recent decades, the number of deaths has declined sharply, and there have been none in the current century.
"Famadihana"
The inhabitants of Madagascar believe that the spirit of the deceased cannot join the ancestors until the body is completely decomposed. They lead a ritual that accelerates the transition of their beloved relatives to another world. This ritual is known as famadihana, or bone-rolling. On the site you can read about other strange funeral ceremonies. 
Living family members remove the dead from graves or family crypts, dress them in new clothes and dance with them to joyful music. The holiday is held once every two to seven years. Such intervention in the afterlife helps the bodies decompose faster. Although such an action seems intimidating from the outside, the Malagasy themselves consider the ceremony fun and helping to keep the connection between generations.
human sacrifice
When our contemporary thinks of human sacrifice, he imagines ancient Egypt, where many servants of the pharaoh accepted death to accompany their master to the land of the dead. It is hard to imagine such a thing happening in our time. Nevertheless, people are still sacrificed to the gods, most often in the Indian and African outback. 
For example, in 2006, Indian police reported "dozens of victims within six months" in the city of Khurja, killed by worshipers of Kali during religious ceremonies. Many of the victims were children no more than three years old. The worshipers of the goddess of death hoped in this way to expel poverty from the city.
In recent years, ritual killings have been reported in Nigeria, Uganda, Swaziland, Namibia and many other African countries. In Uganda, for example, there is a whole underground market of services where you can order a service from a shaman with a sacrifice that brings success in business.
female circumcision
There are approximately 140 million circumcised women in the world. Female circumcision involves the partial or complete removal of the external female genital organs. In most cases, this happens in unsanitary conditions, without the consent of the victim and without anesthesia. Basically, the procedure is common in eastern, northeastern and western Africa and in some parts of Asia and the Middle East. Female circumcision is a pointless and traumatic procedure.It is believed that circumcision can protect women from dissolute behavior and adultery. Female circumcision is not characteristic of any one religion, but it is necessarily practiced by followers of teachings that postulate the subordinate role of a woman, her secondary role in relation to a man. In some cases, circumcision plays the role of an initiation ceremony into a member of a religious group.
Cannibalism
Classical Hinduism forbids cannibalism, and devout Hindus strongly condemn the aghori. The Indian Aghori tribe is known for their religious activities, which include the eating of dead bodies. Aghori believe that the fear of death is the greatest obstacle to spiritual enlightenment. Confronting the fear of death by eating the flesh of the dead, a person can overcome this barrier. 
However, Aghori are not the only ones who eat their own kind for the glory of higher powers. The Amazonian Yanomami tribe believe that death is not a natural phenomenon, but a disaster sent by the gods. When a member of the community dies, his body is cremated and the ashes are eaten so that the spirit of the deceased can remain with the tribe.
Once upon a time, most of these rituals (except, perhaps, female circumcision and beating themselves and their neighbors) had a practical meaning - for example, it is more convenient for Tibetans to “dispose” their dead in this way because of the climate. But today, the bloody rites you read about are dangerous relics of the past that often result in human casualties, intentionally or accidentally. The editors of the site invite you to read about the deaths that occurred due to an absurd set of circumstances.
Subscribe to our channel in Yandex.Zen
Could you, dear reader, taste the meat soup from the large pot in which the dead man was boiled? And daily give your body to be torn to pieces by monsters, ghouls and ghouls? And who among you would like to meet death in the icy embrace of the harsh Arctic desert, on the ice floe, on which your own relatives landed you?
We present to your attention the most terrible traditions and rituals of the world. Some of these dark rites have passed away and become part of history, while others are still practiced today. Warning - this information is not for the faint of heart! (18+).
The sinister mystery of "Tshed"
Let me briefly take you, dear reader, to the harsh Land of Snows, anchorites and powerful magicians. Welcome to Tibet! Local mystics still practice one very unusual rite called "Tshed". To conduct it, the ascetic must go to some deserted place. A gloomy gorge, a forest thicket or an abandoned old cemetery is ideal.
Terrible evil spirits appear at the call and devour the body of the student, which he voluntarily offers them as a sacrifice. Of course, demons exist only in the head of the unfortunate, 
they are invisible to outsiders. But that doesn't make it any easier for him.
Are you familiar with the concept of psychosomatic or phantom pain? So, a person who performs the Tshed ritual actually experiences a real pain shock. He physically feels how his flesh is torn, ligaments and tendons are torn off. Ultimately, he "dies" in order to "resurrect" in the morning and continue his strange practice.
Terrible rituals "Tshed" could be seen by the famous French traveler David-Neel (author of the book "Mystics and Magicians of Tibet"). According to her, after performing several dozen Tshed rituals, the Tibetans lost weight dramatically and looked more like living skeletons than people.
Aztec blood sacrifices
The Aztecs believed that a new day would not come unless fresh blood was offered to the sun god. Moreover, the ritual blood must certainly be human. Therefore, most of the captives that this warlike tribe captured in battle were erected in honor of a cruel god.
According to the manuscripts that have come down to us, the victim was first made drunk with a certain drink, the recipe of which, of course, was kept by the priests in strict confidence. After that, the captives could not resist, they were hardly aware of the reality surrounding them. However, it is not known whether the mysterious drink had an anesthetic effect...
The terrible rite, which was supposed to propitiate, began at exactly noon, when the sun was at its zenith. The priest opened the chest of a living prisoner and threw the still trembling heart onto the altar of his god. After that, it was supposed to light a ritual fire, from which they kindled every hearth in the city where the ceremony was held.
Dead man for a snack
A very sophisticated kind of cannibalism is practiced in some regions of India today. In particular, the adherents of this "glorious" tradition are representatives of the Aghori religious sect. They eat the bodies of dead tribesmen to their own death. Moreover, even small children take part in this ritual!
In Tibet, the dead are supposed to be cremated, for digging 
graves in frozen ground is very difficult. However, there are very few trees in the mountains of the Land of Snows, so only wealthy people can afford this luxury. Tibetans "easier" are given to be torn to pieces by wild animals and vultures. Specially trained people crush the bones and muscles of the deceased with stones, and then leave the body not to be eaten.
The rich dead are washed in large cauldrons before cremation, in which meat and other treats are then cooked for those who come to the wake. I must say that there is no shortage of those who want to taste the food. Meat is a real delicacy for many Tibetans.
In the arms of "icy" death
Not all the most terrible rituals have completely outlived their usefulness. Some Eskimo tribes have preserved a rather creepy ritual that demonstrates their attitude to old age and death. When a person becomes incapacitated, his relatives leave him on a floating ice floe. Cold or hunger will inevitably finish off their victim, forced to face death all alone.
However, one should not prematurely accuse the Eskimos of disrespectful attitude towards the elderly. It turns out that their custom is dictated not only by mercantile motives and the desire to get rid of the burden. The Eskimos believe that in this way they help the elderly with honor.
Initiation by poison ants
Let's mentally move from the cold North to the hot South 
Africa. Many tribes inhabiting this continent have preserved rather strange customs of the initiation of a boy into a man. Let's talk about one of them.
To prove his right to be a warrior, to take part in the hunt and in the tribal council, the young man had to put his hand into a vessel filled with the most poisonous ants for 10 minutes! Biting insects cause hellish pain to the test subject, but this is far from the most serious problem.
Under the influence of large doses of poison, the skin on the arm can turn black and partially die. Sometimes there is temporary paralysis, and the nerve endings are restored over the course of many months. Some subjects died because their immune systems were unable to cope with the action of the poison.
