THE BULLET ANT

The bullet ant? Is it a normal ant? Nope it is an ant with 18–30 millimetres (0.7–1.2 inch) long and resemble stout, reddish-black, wingless wasps. It is called as bullet ant because of its powerful and potent sting due to its venom. It inhabits humid lowland rainforests from Nicaragua and the extreme east of Honduras south to Paraguay.

this is what it looks like.

Why I'm talking about this ant? Actually, today I would like to share an event or ritual that involves this kind of ant. 

The Sateré-Mawé (or Sateré-Maue) is an indigenous tribe located in the Brazilian Amazon. The Satere-Mawe people of Brazil use intentional bullet ant stings as part of their initiation rites to become a warrior.The ants are first rendered unconscious by submerging them in a natural sedative, and then hundreds of them are woven into a glove made of leaves (which resembles a large oven mitt), stingers facing inward. 

When the ants regain consciousness, a boy slips the glove onto his hand. The goal of this initiation rite is to keep the glove on for a full 10 minutes. When finished, the boy’s hand and part of his arm are temporarily paralyzed because of the ant venom, and he may shake uncontrollably for days. The only “protection” provided is a coating of charcoal on the hands, supposedly to confuse the ants and inhibit their stinging. 

To fully complete the initiation, however, the boys must go through the ordeal a total of 20 times over the course of several months or even years.

Here, we share a video at the event, a guy named Hamish experimenting himself by trying to put his hand into the glove and shared the pain to us. But he ended up heading for hospital after collapsing from the unrelenting agony.

This is what the glove looks like.

Here’s Hamish’s hands 24 hours after donning the gloves:

On my opinion, this kind of event is hilarious. It just makes you feel bad and pain. Although from their opinion, it will makes you a warrior, but for me there's many other thing you can do that are more wiser than this. Anyway, everyone has their own point of view. 

Thankyou for reading.