Author: Cultural Desk

Light soup is one of the most loved soups in West Africa, known for its thin, fiery, deeply savoury broth. It goes by many names depending on the country and the ethnic group cooking it, and versions of it exist far beyond its home region. This guide explains where light soup comes from, the food science behind a truly clear and flavourful broth, and how to build one step by step. It also separates the documented facts about this soup from the popular beliefs surrounding it, since a lot of what people say about it online blends the two together.…

In parts of rural China, and among Chinese communities across Taiwan and Southeast Asia, there is a practice of arranging weddings in which one or both parties are already dead. Known in Mandarin as mínghūn (冥婚), literally “netherworld marriage,” and sometimes called yīnhūn (阴婚) or “yin marriage,” the custom rests on the belief that an unmarried person who dies is left spiritually incomplete, and that finding them a spouse, living or dead, restores balance to both the family and the afterlife. What the practice actually involves A ghost marriage follows the outward form of an ordinary Chinese wedding. Families exchange…

In the highlands of South Sulawesi, Indonesia, a person’s death does not end their presence in the household. Among the Torajan people, a body may remain in the family home for weeks, months, or years after the heart stops, spoken to, fed, and referred to not as a corpse but as someone who is ill. Only when the family can gather the resources for a funeral befitting the deceased does the person, in the Torajan understanding, actually die. Who the Toraja are The Toraja are an ethnic group native to the mountainous interior of South Sulawesi, numbering roughly 1.1 million…

At a Korean baby’s first birthday party, after the cake and the photographs, there is a moment the whole room waits for. The child is set down in front of a table of small objects, some traditional and some invented for the occasion, and everyone watches to see which one the baby reaches for first. That reach is called doljabi, and it is treated, half seriously and half in fun, as a preview of the life ahead. What doljabi is, and where it fits in the day Doljabi is one ritual within a larger celebration called dol or doljanchi, the…

Every year, at the ragged edge of the Sahara, hundreds of Wodaabe herders converge after the rains to trade cattle, settle disputes, and take part in something rarely seen elsewhere in the world: a week-long courtship contest in which men, not women, paint their faces, dress in ornate costume, and dance for hours in the hope of being picked by a woman. Who are the Wodaabe The Wodaabe are a nomadic subgroup of the Fula (Fulani) people, and by some accounts the only fully nomadic branch of that ethnic group left. They are a subgroup of the Fulani, also called…

Deep in the Brazilian Amazon, along the border of the states of Pará and Amazonas, the Sateré-Mawé people practice one of the most physically extreme initiation rites documented anywhere in the world. To pass from boyhood into manhood, young males must slide their hands into gloves woven with live bullet ants, insects whose venom produces what entomologists consider the most painful sting of any insect on Earth. This article separates what has been documented by scientists, journalists, and medical researchers from what circulates online as embellishment or rumor. The people and the ritual The Sateré-Mawé are an Indigenous group of…

In the central highlands of Madagascar, when the dry season arrives between June and September, families gather at ancestral tombs for one of the most striking cultural practices in the world. They open the family crypt, lift out the remains of relatives who died years or even decades earlier, rewrap them in fresh cloth, and carry them through a crowd of singing, dancing kin before returning them to the tomb. This is Famadihana, commonly translated as “the turning of the bones.” To outsiders encountering photographs or short video clips, it can look startling, even macabre. To the Malagasy families who…

Imagine sitting down while another person places a piece of wood against your mouth, positions a chisel against one of your healthy front teeth, and begins tapping it with a hammer. There is no dental drill. No modern cosmetic equipment. Traditionally, there may be no anaesthetic. The aim is not to remove a diseased tooth. It is to deliberately reshape healthy teeth until they become pointed. For generations, this extraordinary form of body modification has been associated with the Mentawai people of Indonesia, particularly Mentawai women. Known as Pasipiat Sot, the tradition has been connected with ideas of female beauty,…

The Maasai of Kenya and northern Tanzania are known across the world for their rich heritage, striking visual identity and centuries-old cultural traditions. Yet among their many practices, one stands out as both surprising and deeply symbolic. In a world where spitting is usually seen as rude or disrespectful, the Maasai view it as a gesture of goodwill, blessing and profound respect. Although the Maasai make up less than 1 percent of the population in their region, their influence on East African culture and global anthropology remains strong. Their vibrant red garments, known as Shuka, and their intricate beaded jewelry…