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 to put the ants asleep so that they can be handled safely. The ants are then placed into the weaves of a palm leaf glove that holds them from their waist tightly with their stinger facing inside the glove. In each of the gloves, there are over 120 ants that are agitated and ready to sting. After the gloves have been placed on the man’s hands they are then led by the rest of the tribe's spectators in a dance that helps them to take their mind off of the stinging, allows blood to circulate faster which is important when stung, as well as makes them sweat which helps release the toxins. 

I had learned about this ritual a long time ago and was very happy that I could write about it. I watched a short video which is where I got most of my information and it was a very interesting and informative video. Watching how this tribe very calmly handles these extremely dangerous animals is fascinating. I could never imagine being stung by one of these ants but the fact that the boys in the tribe are stung hundreds of times and having to do it again another 19 times is shocking as one of these ants as the potential to kill. I could never have imagined that this ritual existed, in my eyes being stung once seems manly enough but over 120 times on 20 separate occasions is mind-blowing.