Scarification

Throughout many tribes in the world scarification is a sign of childhood, in which the face is scarred or as adulthood approaches the abodeman is scarred.

After watching a documentery on this i discovered there were many reasons why they do this, as i truely didnt want to believe to put children and adults through this pain for nothing. They do this to transmit complex messages about identity, or with such permanment markings may empahasize fixed, social, political ad religious roles. Even in some tribes around the world its a mark od someone killing a enemy in battle. 

I find this truely remarkable, but amazingly disgusting with the whole way they do this procedure. Different ways in which scarification occur is through scratching, etching, burning and cutting in the skin. The way in which they look at the body is a living canvas, and is socially valuable towards there family and tribe. 

The crocodile men 

The sepik river tribe ... they resemble the crocodile into the skin using sharp instruments to produce the looks of scales from a crocodile into their body... oouucchhhhh!!!

The meaning behind this ceremoney has deeply spirtual and symbolic connotations. The tribe believe theat the scars are crocodiles teeth that have swallowed the adolescents and morphed them into 'crocodile men'

The event culminates as the tribes celebration of the return of the ancestral crocodiles: legend has it, that when they migrated through the Sepik river, the crocdiles established a human population.

As well as a celebration, the cermony is very important in estabishing discipine and testing the strength of the young males. Their backs, buttocks and chest al recieve multiple lacerations with bamboo sticks, creating scars that when healed from eloids, 'sharply elevated, often round or oval scars due to the rich production of collagen in the dermal layer.

Heres a short video on the procedure of the 'crocdile men'