One thing is sure, culture is an integral part of people, and it is what binds and ultimately determines how lives are lived.
Every culture has practices passed down from generation to generation; of course, some of these practices may come as a cultural shock to others who do not understand beauty and value in such cultures.
The more attention paid to a particular culture, the more fascinating or (shocking in some cases) it gets.
The cultural lens is shone on two particularly strange cultural practices;
This is a practice common in Maharashtra, a small settlement in India. In this culture, newborn babies are thrown off a high foot tower with the people at the lower end holding a blanket below to catch them. It is believed that tossing the babies over the high foot tower will bring good luck, healthy life, and protection from the evil eye. This ritual dates as far back as 700 years ago when a priest convinced the people to throw down their babies off the roof of a shrine as a show of faith in God, and he(God) would catch them with a magical blanket. Although, these days, people decide to take extra precautions by having a group below catch the babies with a sheet. This is usually a traumatizing experience for the babies.
In this tradition, the dead do not ultimately rest in peace. The people of Toraja of the southern Sulawesi Island, one of the many islands in Indonesia, exhume the dead remains of their loved ones after shortly burying them. This practice is called ‘ma’nen’; ma’nen takes place every two to three years depending on the arrangements with the family. The grieving family proceed to preserve and exhume these corpses rather than leave them buried. After exhumation, the coffins are cleaned, and the bodies are sun dried and dressed in special clothes and paraded around the village as the living worship and merry with them. It is believed in the Toraja culture that death doesn’t ultimately mean goodbye forever but more of a ‘see you later.’ They believe that the spirits of the deceased are always near; keeping watch over the rest of the families and taking care of the corpses will bring a better harvest in the coming year. This cultural practice helps people to better deal with and cope with grief.
All in all, every culture has its distinct features; although some may think it weird, the owners of these cultures hold sentimental value to their practices.
