English
If you thought your family was weird, try going to a wedding in Scotland, where the bride is saturated in tea, eggs, custard, tar, anything gloopy and disgusting, and then paraded through all the local pubs. You may also attend the birth of a Masai baby in Kenya, when the newborn is passed around all the other women in the birthing hut so they can spit in its mouth.
Here you can enjoy a few of the other strange and wonderful customs from around our tiny planet.
Cheese-Rolling in Gloucester, England
This particular oddity has been held for the last 200 years. On the last Monday in May, contestants stand at the top of Coopers Hill and wait for an enormous wheel of Double Gloucester cheese to be rolled. The idea is to race the cheese to the bottom of the hill. Weirdly, the cheese almost always wins, sometimes reaching speeds of over 100 km/h.
´Burial´ in the Amazon
The Yanomami tribe doesn´t believe in digging holes for their dead – or in wasting anything. When a Yanomami dies, their body is burned and the ashes & bone fragments are grinded into powder. Then the family members eat the remains.
Bouncing babies in India
In Solapur, a yearly non-religious festival is held in which babies are thrown from a 15-meter tower. They don´t really bounce – waiting catchers hold a sheet below for the babies to land in. Nobody really knows how this tradition came about, but luckily they haven´t lost one yet.
Spitting in Greece – for luck
Don´t be too offended if an old-timer in Greece spits at your baby, three times. This is a traditional way to ward off evil spirits and bad luck.
Christmas in Catalonia
El Caganer
This guy is a little doll or model who has his pants down to er… take a dump… somewhere in the Nativity scene. This particular tradition has been around since the 18th or 19th century, and he´s a bit like the ‘Where´s Wally?’ of a Christmas scene in the Northern region of Spain.
Caga Tio
If one Crapping Christmas tradition wasn´t enough – Caga Tio is a log with a painted face that brings presents to kids in an unusual way. The idea is that kids spend the whole day waiting for Caga Tio to drop presents from his rear end. This gives the grown-ups plenty of chances to make farting noises and tease the kids that Caga Tio is nearby, while everyone gets on with the business of eating and drinking way too much.
Even though there´s a bit of poop involved in a Catalonian Christmas, it is still one of the most fun holidays in Europe – the celebrations are endless. Get away from the normal Christmas routine this year by renting apartments in Barcelona, and go hunting for the Caga Tio!
