Young men prove their masculinity in the Amazon by wearing gloves full of stinging bullet ants.
For many adolescents around the world, their journey into adulthood is marked with a party or other celebration. But for young men in the Sateré-Mawé tribe of the Amazon, adulthood comes with a barbaric price.
The young men gather to partake in the truly painful ritual. They collect giant tropical bullet ants from the forest, and secure them inside specially constructed gloves with the stingers facing the inside.
When initiation begins, the boys, some as young as 12, wear the gloves while performing a ritualistic dance.
The entire rite of passage lasts for 11 hours, with each young man donning the gloves 20 different times, for ten minutes each.
The ant's sting is considered to be 30 times worse than a bee's, and there are dozens of them inside each glove.
After the gloves are taken off, the real pain from the stings set in, and the neurotoxic venom begins to take its toll.
It's only after a male succeeds in the repeated wearing of the gloves that he can be considered a true warrior.
According to the tribe's chief, the ritual is meant to convey that a life lived "without suffering anything or without any kind of effort" isn't a life worth living.
