The world is home to an extensive array of festivals celebrated by different people for different reasons. And while festivals like Christmas and New Year etc. are known the world over, there are certain rather bizarre festivals that are celebrated at certain parts of the world, and are relatively less known to the common man.
So if you are really interested in these weird festivals, here is an interesting list to start with.
1. The Baby Jumping Festival
Celebrated in Castrillo de Murcia in Spain on the 6th of June every year, the Baby Jumping Festival finds its roots to the 1600s and involves plenty of newborn babies.
These newborn babies are placed on mattresses spread on the ground while several men dressed like devils apparently jump over them. That’s right! These men literally run a short distance and then leap over the squealing tots. The act, they say, would purify the souls of the newborns and prevent them from becoming sinners when they grow up.
2. The Monkey Buffet
Celebrated in Lobpuri, Thailand on November 30 every year, the Monkey Buffet honors Hanuman the Monkey King who was apparently gifted this land by Lord Rama for his services. Celebrated with great pomp and splendor, the festival involves the inhabitants of Lobpuri arranging a lavish buffet for over 600 monkeys who come in hordes from the nearby forests to dig into the fruits, delicacies and other goodies laid out for them by the locals.
3. The Boryeong Mud Festival
Come July and the Daecheon Beach area in Boryeong, South Korea would become a spectacularly muddy sight to witness! Every year in July (19th – 28th), over two million individuals flock to the Daecheon Beach which would be literally covered in mud transported from the nearby mud flats.
The reason? To let people play in it of course! The festival involves plenty of fun in the mud, with regular mud fights, mud wrestling contests, mud skiing, mud slides, mud sculpting contests and even live music organized for visitors.
4. The Baby Cry Sumo Festival
Celebrated annually at popular temples all over Japan, the Baby Cry Sumo Festival (or NakizumuMatsuri) is a 300 year old festival that takes place throughout the month of April. The concept of the festival is pretty simple! Hand over little toddlers to giant sumo wrestlers who would raise them in the air and try to make them cry.
The wrestlers would do everything in their might (not physically of course) to make the infants cry. This includes making weird faces at them, letting out weird noises and even donning scary face masks. The aim is to make the babies cry as loud as possible in order to be blessed by the Gods. Accordingly, the louder a baby cries, the more blessings he (let’s presume the baby is a boy here) would get from the Gods.
5. The Tomato Fight Festival
Although quite a popular festival, the Tomato Fight Festival is still considered as one of the weirdest festivals on the planet. Celebrated in a small town called Bunol near Valencia, Spain; the Tomato Fight Festival (also called as ‘La Tomatina’ by the locals) dates back to the 1940s and involves one basic ingredient; the tomato, and one basic rule; throw it at any one in sight!
The streets of Bunol actually fill with thousands of locals and tourists who throw tomatoes at each other and dance atop tomato pulp filled roads even as more and more truckloads of the vegetable get emptied onto the streets at regular intervals. And apart from all the tomato dancing and fighting, you can enjoy the paella cooking contest that is held the night before the festival, several Tomatino parades, live music and plenty of fireworks to light up the night sky.
6. The Baby Throwing Festival
More of a custom than a festival, the Baby Throwing Festival is celebrated with great fervor in several parts of South India, and is currently facing the threat of being banned, owing to the barbaric nature in which it is carried out.
The festival is most prominent in an Islamic shrine in Solapur, Karnataka. Accordingly, the festival involves throwing a baby from a height of about 30 feet to a blanket below held by several individuals.
The babies are either wrapped in shawls before being dropped on to the blanket or are tossed without any protective wrapping around them. The fall would be enough to make the infants scream out in fright, and make their mothers wait with bated breath until their babies reach them safely. And the purpose of this all? To make sure the infant enjoys a healthy, active life free of sins and evil influences.
7. Cheese Rolling Festival
Celebrated in Gloucestershire in the United Kingdom, the Cheese Rolling Festival is an annual event that has spanned several years and has seen more than its fair share of controversies, thanks mainly to the dangerous game of running behind a cheese which in turn is rolling down a hill at breakneck speeds.
The rules of the game are simple. A huge ball of cheese is let down a steep hill and several individual run after it. If you catch the cheese, you win. You also win if you reach the bottom first. And the grand prize? The cheese itself!