Member-only story
We all feel a kind of nostalgia for a time that existed well before we were born. History books teach us of the trials and tribulations of our brave ancestors, who fought in wars, built empires and did other amazing things so we can live the wonderful lives we enjoy today.
As much as the world has changed, we hold on to certain traditions as if fearful the spirits of our ancestors will get seriously pissed off if we dare let go of them.
In some cases, traditions are harmless and have the benefit of bringing people together, like parades that celebrate a historical date in time. In the US, for example, there is Groundhog’s Day, when a cute little rodent is supposed to predict an early or late spring.
The groundhog isn’t harmed, people have a few laughs, and no one takes the little beast’s clairvoyant powers too seriously.
But other traditions can be outright barbaric and harmful. Some are no longer practiced, others still are.
Many years ago, the Kaulong people of the island of New Britain, just east of New Guinea, once committed to the standardized practice of strangling widows to death. According to the book The World Until Yesterday, by renowned anthropologist Jared Diamond, “When a man died, his widow called upon her brothers to strangle her… she had grown up observing it as the custom, followed the custom when she became widowed herself, strongly urged her brothers to fulfill their solemn obligation to strangle her… and sat cooperatively as they did so.”
Why on Earth would a culture obligate a man to strangle his widowed sister to death? Perhaps there was a religious belief in there somewhere, that by not doing so he would upset some mythical being? Or maybe they were all just so caught up with doing it because “that’s just how it’s always been done”.
Whoever started the tradition managed to convince those around him that committing such an atrocity was a moral imperative because… yeah, if you really think about it, humans are weird.
“From my cold dead hands”
