The Satere Mawé tribe of the Amazon has a ritual in which young men don a pair of gloves lined with giant stinging ants.
Boys as young as 12 insert their hands into a pair of gloves infested with giant, venomous, aggressive bullet ants.
The gloves are prepared by inserting the ants into a woven fabric, trapping the ants so that their stingers face the inside of the glove. After donning the gloves, the young men engage in a dance with other tribe members.
They must wear the gloves for 10 minutes, and repeat the ritual 20 times.
A sting from the bullet ant is 30 times more painful than a bee sting, and the pain from the stings increase after removing the gloves. The toxins dissipate slowly over a 24 hour period.
The ritual is seen as the young man’s entry into adulthood.
Below is a video of this ritual from National Geographic.
