Blog 41: Custom

This one time I was watching the television show Taboo, in the show they showed a native African culture that has their very strange custom of stretching their necks.  So at an early age the mothers but these brass spring around their daughters heads that stretches the neck.  In the culture a stretched neck is very prestigious and highly regarded but to me it is hideous.  I am curious as to how this custom was started and why it is still practiced.  On another episode of Taboo there was another custom in which it was called the Alligator People.  For a boy to become a man in the culture they had to have every inch of their skin sliced with a razor blade, in doing this the scars that form resembles that of alligator skin.  However, due to infection a large percentage of “boys” that undergoe this process end up dying and are considered weak.  These customs are crazy to me and quite stupid.  I do not see why you would want to send your child through these processes.  I would not want my child to die from this ritual that to me does not say anything about how the kid is.  Although I think these customs are kinda retarded I am also very interested in them.  They provide a diversity to the world that I am not used to which probably accounts for my closed view point on it.  But… I still think it is crazy.