Top 10 Strange Traditions
Local tradition
In what follows I am going to present you some of the most absurd traditions from the world. You should know that most of them are no longer used, because the reality is that if they would be use, they would break numerous laws and would be considered too immoral. So, let’s take a look at the top 10 strange traditions.
The traditions related to the Geishas have been replaced with more modern customs. The Geishas were very popular back in the days, and there were very many of them. In the 1900s for example there were more than 25,000 geisha. In the 1930s, there were more than 100,000 of them. Most of the Geishas could be found in Tokyo, to capital city of Japan. There are 100 hundred Geishas left in Tokyo, but they are very different than the ones who existed in the early years. Nowadays, the Geishas are no longer bought from poor families, and they are no longer brought into the house from a very young age.
Nowadays a woman can choose if she wants to become a Geisha, and she can become one even if her mother and grandmother did not have this distinction. The training of a Geisha has not been changed though, as they still have to pass rigorous tests in order to be accepted. They have to know how to sing, dance, and talk, and so on. It has been said for a very long time that Geishas are prostitutes, but the truth is that the original ones did not engage in such activities.
The act of dueling was practiced from the 15th century all the way to the 20th one. You should consider yourself lucky that it is no longer used, because they were quite frequent, and one could challenge another person to a duel for various reasons. In most of the cases one challenged another person to a duel in order to defend his honor. If the person refused the duel he would have to live in shame, being considered a coward. If he accepted the duel, which happened in most of the cases, then the two had to work on the details. They had to choose the place, and the time (which was at dawn in most of the cases). Then they had to choose the weapon, whether the sword, or the pistol.
A witness had to be present to the duel, and he had the task of making sure that the rules are not broken. It is said that in most of the cases the duel was not about killing the one you challenged, but about proving that you are willing to take such risks. The gentlemen got involved in such practices very often for the slightest offenses. There was a ritual in challenging the other person, as the challenger would throw his glove in front of that person. Despite all the movies and TV shows about the Wild West which present numerous duels, the reality is that there were very few of them. It seems that the settlements from those periods of time were not as gruesome as the movies portrayed them. The highest death rate seen in a Wild West town in a single year was five, and that is extremely low.
A eunuch is a man who has been castrated. The process was much spread back in the days, as a man needed to be castrated in order to be given a certain job. In case you believe that they sacrifice too much in order to receive the job, you should know that they did not have a choice. Many of them were chosen by the rulers in order to take care of the harem. The practice was very widespread in Ancient China as well, as it was a form of punishment until the Sui Dynasty.
The custom of concubinage involves a woman in an ongoing, quasi-matrimonial relationship with a man of higher social status. That man usually has an official wife, but besides the wife he also had numerous concubines. Think about them as mistresses, only that everyone knew about them. They gave birth to children, and those children which came from concubines had lower rights than the ones which came from the wives.
The concubinage was voluntary in most of the cases, as it meant that the family of that girl will not have financial problems. In most of the cases the women were obliged to do certain things, as they were often considered to be some sort of sex slaves.
The act of seppuku or Hara-Kiri was performed by the samurai warriors. They did it when they were in great shame, or in order to escape from the hands of the enemy. Sometimes, their lord ordered them to perform seppuku, and they had to do it. There were also cases when the samurai was allowed to perform it in order to be spared of being executed, which was a very shameful deed. The process was related to honor, and because of that, the people who were not samurais were not obliged to do it. The samurai women had to get permission from the samurai men if they wanted to do it.
The process was done in a very minute manner. The samurai bathed, dressed in white robes, he was fed his favorite food, and then the instrument was placed in front of him. He prepared for death by writing a certain kind of poem. He would then take a knife and insert it into his abdomen making a left-to-right cut. His assistant would then cut most of his throat, leaving a slight band of flesh is left attaching the head to the body.
