You Can When You're Old Enough Quiz

Answer: Walkabout

The rules of the walkabout varied among villages and tribes, but involved long periods of isolation in the outback fending for oneself. The adolescent male was expected to obtain his own food and water, as well as engaging in spiritual contemplation. Successfully completing your walkabout was marked by a tribal celebration at which the young man was accepted as an adult warrior. Occasionally, an adult male would also engage in a walkabout to seek spiritual healing or enlightenment.

These usually lasted a much shorter period of time.

Answer: Cow

To be considered a man and to be of marriageable age, these pastoral people engage in a ritual of cow jumping. The initiate male must jump/walk across the backs of four to twenty cows, without falling to the ground. The number varies within villages. The ritual is done while wearing nothing but ropes around the chest which signify the bonds of childhood that are being left behind.

After a successful cow jump, the warrior's family provides feasting for others in the tribe. There is also much singing and dancing for days, as the young warrior begins his search for a wife.

Answer: Amish

While the length of Amish Rumspringa varies, the basic idea is to allow teenagers the freedom to explore the world outside their tight-knit communities. While most adolescents do not travel far from their communities, the idea behind this rite is to let them experience the values by which others live.

At the end, the adolescent must choose to remain Amish and live by their strict values or leave and become "English" by leaving the community and becoming part of the outside world. This rite of passage has sometimes been portrayed in various media as a year-long orgy of sex, drinking and other extravagances.

This is usually overstated, and the vast majority of teens choose to remain in the church and their community as adult members. The choice to leave the community, if made, is permanent.

Answer: Bat Mitzvah

At the age of twelve a girl of the Jewish faith has her Bat Mitzvah. They are then allowed to own property, and are responsible for keeping the traditions of their faith. They are also considered of age to marry, although that practice is usually discouraged in today's world.

While this is usually a time of rejoicing, feasting, and prayer, the exact practices vary from region to region.

Answer: Jimson weed

Datura, or jimson weed, is an extremely powerful, extremely dangerous hallucinogenic drug that is much stronger than LSD. Young males were fed the substance for 20 days during which they were left outside, sometimes in cages. The idea was that this ritual would erase the memories of childhood and open up the mind to the new experiences of adulthood.

While the Algonquin tribe used this plant for decades in their initiation rites, today it is only secretly used for divination. Besides the resultant amnesia, it causes photophobia, bizarre and often violent behavior, irregular heartbeat and hypothermia.

Answer: Anthills

Among the Luiseno Indians of South America, initiation into manhood was a long and painful process. One step involved lying on anthills. A variation of this was to fill a type of glove with ants and the boy/man had to put his hands in, and keep them there, for over ten minutes.

The use of toloache (just another word for the hallucinogenic jimson weed), and repeated tribal beatings were needed to assure that the boy had now become a man.

Answer: Semen

Part of the Baruya rites of manhood involves the ingestion of semen from older boys and young men. The boy also has his nose pierced with a large nose plug. The ingestion of semen is believed to help the boy grow strong and allows the boy to absorb the masculinity of those older than himself.

This is not the only tribe on the island that engages in homosexual practices in their initiation rites. There are some tribes that only sleep with their wives in order to impregnate them, as they believe that their semen (life force) is being sapped from them by the woman. Once a man takes a wife he no longer donates his semen.

Answer: Vines attached to their ankles

When Europeans discovered Vanuatu in 1605 they were amazed to see that the natives practiced a bizarre ritual that involved tying vines to their ankles and jumping from very high platforms. These vines were measured so exactly that the jumper's head would touch the ground after the jump.

At the age of about eight to ten, boys started taking their first jumps. If they survived, it was an indication that they were now adults. They did not all survive. Also, the practice did not stop: an adult male would continue to do this ritual anytime that he felt it was time to show the tribe that he was a strong and virile warrior.

There were tribal members who survived hundreds of jumps. There are those who tout this practice as the origin of modern bungee jumping.

Answer: False

Quintilian is the name of an ancient Roman rhetorician from Hispania. His real name was Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (35CE-100CE). The proper term for this rite of passage into adulthood is "Quinceanera". This practice varies widely from region to region, but usually includes very fancy dresses that are often reminiscent of modern day wedding dresses.

There are heavy Catholic overtones to most Quinceaneras. They occur when a female becomes 15, and signify that she is an adult and of marriageable age. Dancing and dining are also very important parts of this ceremony which can cost a year's salary for some families.

Answer: True

While male circumcision is practiced in many places, most western cultures perform this during infancy. In many indigenous tribes of Africa both males and females are subjected to circumcision as part of the rituals initiating them into adulthood. This practice is usually done by people with no medical training and no pain medication is used.

The incidence of infection is high and sometimes causes death.