10 strange traditions (1)

What is strange often depends from which perspective you look at certain matter. Different societies have many different traditions. In this article I tried to describe 10 strange traditions.

1) Cooper's Hill is a place near Gloucester, the city in the southwest of England. The fascinating event held at the hill is actually organized by people of village Brockworth. The full name of the event is Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake. It is held on Spring Bank Holiday, which is on the last Monday in May. The event is more than 200 years old.

Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake

The event starts when from the top of the hill huge piece of Double Gloucester cheese is rolled. At the moment cheese for the event is supplied by local cheese maker Diana Smart. Competitors then run down the hill trying to catch it. Well, that's only a theory because the rolling cheese can reach speeds of up to 112 km/h.

Sheep race on the island of Sark

2) For the next event let's move to the island of Sark. It is a small island in the southwestern English Channel. The island belongs to the Channel Islands. Each July local people organize rather unusual race. The race include sheep running down the track. Sheep have jockeys riding on them. Jockey are actually animal toys like rabbits, bears.

3) The Hoche people live in in Raohe and Fuyuan Counties in Heilongjiang Province which is located in the far northeast of China. The Hoche are known for their fishing skills. The fish is not only main dish appearing on their tables. They also use fish to build houses, boats, make clothes of fish skin. Having clothes made of fish skin. That sounds quite strange to me. The Hoche use different fish for different clothes. For example, skin of fish like pikes is the most suitable for fish skin threads and pants.

Vegetarian festival in Phuket, Thailand

4) The Vegetarian festival is organized on the island of Phuket in the south of Thailand. The festival is held during the ninth lunar month of the Chinese calendar. In the Gregorian calendar it is between the 18th and 26th October. During the festival members of local Chinese community are on a strict vegetarian or vegan diet. They believe that by observing the diet they clean themselves spiritually.

At the processions organized devotees walk barefoot over hot coal, slash themselves with swords, pierce their cheeks with sharp objects etc.

Yanomami people

5) People of the Yanomami (Chiriana, Yanonámi, Yanoama) tribe live in parts of the Amazon rainforest belonging to Venezuela and Brazil. They do not keep any part of the deceased. The body of the deceased is burned. Bones are crushed and mixed with the ashes. Everything is then given to the family which eats it! The Yanomami believe that when someone dies it is because shaman or member of another tribe sent evil on the person.

Bullet ant (Paraponera clavata)

6) Let's stay in the Amazon region. It is a home of the Satere-Mawe people. Their initiation ritual for boys is rather unique. To reach manhood the boy has to put his hand into woven glove full of Bullet ants (Paraponera clavata). These ants are known to have extremely painful stings. The gloves must be worn for 10 minutes. That's not all. The ritual has to be repeated 20 times during several months period.

7) Many people in Greece believe that by spitting you can fight the devil and turn the bad luck away. So, you must not find strange the fact when see Greeks spitting three times and saying “ftou, ftou, ftou” when someone in their company is speaking of bad things like accidents, death etc.