During the annual Okipa ceremony among the Mandan of the Great Plains of North America, in a display of his devotion to the Great Spirit, a young man would submit himself to tortures few human beings have ever experienced.| traditionsofconflict.substack.com
There is an event recounted in the book Naven (1936) by Gregory Bateson, on the Iatmul fisher-foragers of New Guinea, that I have not been able to get out of my head since I first read it a few years back.| traditionsofconflict.substack.com