10.
Dental Ornamentation The Bolinao skull with its golden teeth is
one of the most ghoulish examples of a strange tradition once practiced in the Philippines.
It's called dental ornamentation, and it was incredibly painful!
This skull was discovered at the Balingasay Burial Site, excavated by the National Museum
of the Philippines back in the 1960s.
The team discovered 51 adult burials and two babies that had been interred in jars.
The remains dated back to sometime around the 14th century, with each grave marked by
a giant oyster shell.
All kinds of other cool things were found in the graveyard, such as Chinese coins from
the 11th century, pieces of bronze, glass beads, and ornaments of gold.
But the real treasure was in the teeth.
These people belonged to a group that practiced serious tooth modification and alteration.
They didn't merely sharpen their teeth into fangs like vampires, they filed them, inlaid
them, stained them, ablated them, and drilled them.
Many cultures in the ancient world practiced this, until relatively recently in some places.
But the pre-colonial Filipinos took it to another level.
The Bolinao skull is the most extreme example, with its teeth ornamented with gold plates
and rivets to create a fish scale design.
It would have been excruciating to get all that gold on their teeth – but they did
it anyway.
Eight out of the fifty-one adult burials had some sign of extreme modification to the teeth.
Experts believe it was probably a rite of passage for young men, or a sign of respect
for a dead loved one.
It may have also simply been a concept of beauty.
What do you think?
Let me know in the comments below!
9.
The Cult of the Cat The Egyptian pantheon features an almost uncountable
number of deities.
Most of these supreme beings were represented in an animal form, which shows just how deep
the connection between the Egyptians and nature truly was.
Even more interesting is that specific cults cropped up around pretty much all the Egyptian
gods, with people being attracted to whichever deity fit their purposes.
One of the most popular gods of them all was Bastet, the cat goddess of love and pleasure.
This feline deity was popular throughout most of Egyptian history.
The cult following of Bastet was so strong that an entire city ended up being built around
her worship, called Bubastis.
It was a fairly large city on the Nile Delta, where most of the residents went to altars
to leave offerings for their cat goddess.
But she changed over thousands of years.
She was first depicted as a woman with the head of a lioness, but gradually shifted to
a woman with the head of a house cat.
All of this cat worship was what resulted in the bizarre obsession with cats that the
ancient Egyptians had, revering them as sacred animals.
Now comes time for the bizarre tradition.
As you may already know, the Egyptians loved sacrificing animals and turning them into
mummies.
What a lot of people don't realize is that there was no animal sacrificed more than the
cat.
The worshippers of Bastet sacrificed and mummified cats in the millions, all as part of a sacred
tradition to the goddess.
Cat sacrifice was so huge that it became a lucrative economy.
There was a vast trading network of cat breeders, statues, and cat coffins sold at markets,
mummification experts had more work than they could handle, cat food was in high supply,
and all other things connected to the practice.
It was big, big money for those involved.
8.
Ancient Christmas Christmas is one of the biggest celebrations
globally, yet its traditional roots go very far back, to around the beginning of the Middle
Ages.
Some traditions are still practiced today, like the great Christmas feast.
Others have been left in the past.
One of the more bizarre Christmas traditions was in Scandinavia during the 16th century.
Starting on Christmas Eve and lasting for nearly two weeks, young men throughout northern
Europe would take to the streets dressed up like demons in an attempt to terrify people.
They would act like ghosts, trolls, or other demonic monsters with their only goal being
to frighten everyone they could.
Something similar happened in Iceland.
Because Christmas time in Iceland is during a period when they only get about four hours
of daylight, it's associated with an evil time of year.
It was a time when trolls and ghosts were sneaking around in the dark, and everyone
believed in them.
Throughout the Middle Ages, Icelanders feared that their houses would be taken over by trolls
or elves during the holiday season and that these monsters would hold crazy dance parties.
After Christmas, to celebrate the new year and the banishing of the elves and trolls
back to their hideouts, the Icelanders lit giant bonfires, danced together, and shot
off fireworks.
Sounds good to me!
7.
The Occult History of the Wedding Veil Weddings never used to be about romance.
A marriage between a man and a woman was meant to act as a bridge between two families, giving
each of them extra-economic and social status.
It was all about the money!
That's not to say there weren't romantic weddings, there surely were.
But most of the time it had more to do with financial gain.
One of the more interesting wedding traditions perhaps is the veil.
Going back to ancient Rome, women wore wedding veils with their gowns.
Back then, it was called a flammeum, and it covered the bride's entire head.
It was big enough to wrap around her body, and it was probably a fiery red color.
Although historians can't agree, they believe it was either bright red or a deep yellow.
One Roman historian likened it to the color of egg yolk.
Whatever the case, one thing is for certain.
The veil was designed to make the bride look like she was the flame of a candle.
This was done with the specific intention of warding away evil spirits that might want
to ruin the wedding.
The entire point of the wedding veil was to confuse and thwart evil ghosts over 2000 years
ago in ancient Rome.
The Greeks adopted a very similar tradition, and the wedding veil continues to remain an
important tradition in wedding ceremonies to this very day.
6.
The Third Eye The Hindu forehead dot called a Bindi is part
of a tradition that goes back centuries.
You can see people wearing the distinct dot on their forehead in plenty of Asian countries,
but specifically in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.
Bindi comes from a Sanskrit word associated with a person’s third eye.
Sure, the Bindi can be used as a symbol to show a woman is married, but it also represents
the sixth chakra.
The sixth chakra is located on the forehead between a person's eyebrows.
We think of it as the third eye or the inner eye.
Your physical eyes are used to look at the world outside, and the third one is used to
look inward.
This is why a dot directly over the chakra has been so important in Hindu tradition.
The color is important too.
The red dot is a traditional sign of marriage, but it's also thought to represent having
a high social status.
In modern times, women have started using a black dot to signify being single.
These days, it's more of a fashion statement a lot of the time than anything meant to have
to do with chakras.
Does your family practice any traditions that might be considered ancient?
Let me know in the comments.
Remember to hit the subscribe button if you haven't already!
5.
Wassailing Wassailing is an ancient Anglo-Saxon tradition
that started at the beginning of each year.
The local lord would greet his subjects with a toast, and everyone would drink either warm
ale, wine, or cider blended with honey.
The beverage was served in one giant bowl and passed from person to person while each
of them said the traditional wassail greeting.
This took place on the Twelfth Night, which was always the 5th of January.
The whole point was to welcome the new year with good cheer and blessings all around.
But there were two different wassailing traditions.
The first involved the people going from house to house singing carols, which evolved into
modern Christmas caroling.
And the second was the blessing of the fruit trees.
In the countryside, people would drink and sing directly to the trees in hopes that their
songs would bring a bountiful harvest next autumn.
It's a little peculiar, but everyone seemed to enjoy it.
It's still practiced in some parts of England where they process cider, way out in the countryside.
4.
Tomb Sweeping Tomb-sweeping is a Chinese tradition and a
modern holiday that goes back centuries.
It's a day on which the Chinese pay their respects to their ancestors.
But they do it in a way that might seem strange to outsiders.
They don't go and leave flowers on the gravestone of a loved one.
Instead, they take their brooms and literally go tomb sweeping.
Tomb Sweeping Day commences 107 days after the beginning of winter, normally on April
4th or April 5th.
It all depends on the lunar calendar.
It's a major holiday in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan – though most western people
haven't heard of it.
Its origins date back to the ancient Hanshi Festival, which commemorated a loyal court
official named Jie Zitui.
He fled into exile during the Spring and Autumn period of China for 19 years with his prince.
He was such a loyal official that according to legend, he would make soup out of the very
flesh of his leg to feed the prince when they couldn't find food.
The exiled prince, Chong Er, eventually came out of exile and became king.
But he forgot about his loyal official, and so Jie Zitui left and went to live in the
woods.
When the king realized he had made a mistake, he went to go find Jie, but couldn't seem
to track him down.
He decided to set the forest on fire to flush him out, which resulted in Jie being burned
alive.
To commemorate Jie’s death, the king created the Hanshi Festival and said that no fire
would be set on that day.
Instead, people would only eat cold food.
Somehow, the tradition of not lighting a fire at the beginning of April turned into a day
of sweeping graves. 3.
Pagan Rituals There is a mysterious tradition that happens
every year in Mamoiada, a small village in the countryside of Sardinia.
On this day, the men of the village transform themselves into monsters.
Men dress up like snarling beasts, villagers light bonfires, and everyone comes out to
observe the holiday.
It's supposed to banish the cold chill of winter so that the warmer air of spring can
come to the land.
It’s been going on for over 2000 years, since before Christianity.
The monsters are called Mamuthones, and they represent the inhabitants of the land of the
dead.
Men put on grotesque masks and cover themselves in thick black paint.
They also attach heavy copper bells to their clothing so that they jingle as they haul
themselves around.
But something else happens as well.
A different group of men dresses up as Issohadores, which are meant to represent the light spirits.
They dress in red tunics and black bandoliers and march in a procession along with the Mamuthones.
It's a kind of yin and yang situation, originally invented by the very old Nuragic civilization.
They started the Pagan tradition as a gesture to nature and animals, and to help protect
themselves from evil spirits.
It’s a show of unity between the forces of darkness and forces of light, thought to
keep the balance for another year.
But what's cool is that this is one of the only Pagan traditions that has lasted since
before the days of the Roman Empire and is still practiced annually.
2.
Kasivaki Kasivaki is a traditional game played in Tonga,
a sport very similar to rugby except played underwater.
They also didn’t play the game with a ball, but with a really big and heavy rock.
The tradition goes back centuries, originally used as a way to entertain the kings and chiefs
of small villages.
It was purely played for entertainment value, just so the strongest Tongan warriors could
show off their strength and stamina to their local leaders.
The Kasivaki game worked like this.
The men went down into the seabed and stood between two rows of coral.
The aim was to score at the opposite side of the bay while carrying a rock that weighed
over 77 pounds.
At the same time, the man carrying the rock had to fend off the entire other teams, who
were trying to drown him.
This was a deadly game that frequently ended with people drowning for real, sometimes with
just a few men left standing to play the next round.
According to Milika Pusiaki, a tour guide with the Tongan National Cultural Centre,
the most skilled warriors who won a match were given pieces of land and special titles.
If you could survive that game, you deserved it!
The game isn't played anymore for obvious reasons.
It's far too dangerous, too many people could die, and it would be way too controversial.
It would be like bringing back the tradition of having gladiators fight in the Colosseum.
1.
Horrible Lullabies Singing your baby to sleep with lullabies
is a tradition as old as babies themselves.
Ever since people could put together a melody, they've been singing songs to their children.
However, old lullabies weren't quite as wholesome as the ones you or people you know may sing
these days.
All over the world, lullabies were kind of terrifying.
There's one traditional lullaby from Scotland called the Highland Fairy Lullaby.
And while it sounds beautiful to hear, the lyrics are pretty awful.
It describes how the Highland Fairy would show up and snatch a baby when its parents
went out to gather fruit.
The Bium Bium Bambalo is an old Icelandic lullaby that sounds sweet and has very nice
lyrics but was allegedly first sung by a woman named Halla who was kind of evil.
She sang the lullaby to put her baby to sleep so she could throw it into a waterfall and
then run away with her husband who was escaping authorities.
In Indonesia, the Lelo Ledung lullaby tells the story of a giant who searches for crying
children, specifically little girls, and then takes them away.
If the baby doesn't stop crying, the giant will come and eat them.
What lullaby do you remember from childhood that freaks you out the most?
Let me know in the comments and thanks for watching.
Hit that subscribe button real quick before you go, and I’ll see you again soon for
another fantastic video!