Satere Mawe Ritual
I have chosen to talk about the Satere Mawe people and their coming of age ritual. The Satere Mawe people are native to the Amazon and have lived there for thousands of years. Satere Mawe has one of the most painful and difficult coming of age rituals. Every man in this tribe will go through this ritual 20 times in their life. This ritual consists of first capturing Bullet ants that are known for having a sting that is 30 times more painful than the sting of a wasp and is the highest on the insect pain scale. The men of the tribe go looking for the ant's nest to start preparing for the ritual. When they find the nest the men provoke them with smoke so that more ants will rise to the surface for them to capture. When the ants are captured they are brought back to the tribe where the women of the tribe have been gathering leaves from the cashew tree that contain special properties. The leaves are ripped up and soaked in water creating a natural chloroform. This chloroform is used t...