From boys to men in the most agonising way possible: World’s most gruesome initiations from ‘penis splitting’ ritual to ‘circumcision season’ and frog poison injections [Video]

09:01 EDT 29 Sep 2024, updated 09:47 EDT 29 Sep 2024

For centuries, boys around the world have had to endure agonising initiation rituals to prove themselves as men in their communities.

Tribes in the Pacific still employ graphic hazing traditions to test the will of men rising through the social hierarchy, from having their penis split open with a stone knife to daring jumps from terrifying heights with only vine leaves supporting them.

In the Philippines, schools host spectacular mass circumcisions in an annual drive funded by the government – but unlicensed doctors in rural communities often deliver excruciating procedures under limited anaesthetic.

And in the depths of the Amazon rainforest, boys bide through the world’s most painful insect sting, wearing gloves filled with venomous bullet ants to show they have reached sexual maturity. Bites, they say, feel like a gun shot.

Others inject themselves with frog poison as bitter juice is dropped in their eyes, causing temporary blindness, and …