It’s no secret that human beings will look for pretty much any excuse to throw a party, and every culture has its own particular reasons to celebrate. Many of these weird festivals from around the world can be described as merely quirky or maybe gross, but some of these bizarre festivals are actually pretty disturbing.
While most international festivals share similar characteristics, like food, games, music, and drinking, that’s about where the similarities end. From epic food fights, flame-throwing, and goose pulling to city-wide water gun battles and “baby jumping,” people attend some pretty strange festivals. This list contains a round-up of some of the most insane things people do in the name of tradition.

[b]1[\b]According to legend, during the Edo period (1603-1867), a sharp-toothed demon fell in love with a woman who chose to marry a human man instead of him. The demon took up residence inside the woman’s vagina prior to her wedding night. When the happy couple tried to consummate their marriage, the angry demon took a huge bite out of the groom’s penis. After the woman remarried, the demon consumed yet another penis. So a local blacksmith made a steel phallus for her. The demon chomped down on the steel penis, lost all of his teeth, crawled out of her body, and ran off forever.
Now each spring Kawasaki, Japan, hosts
Kanamara Matsuri, also known as the “Festival of the Steel Phallus.” Giant penis costumes and Shinto shrines parade through the streets as patrons stuff their mouths with penis-shaped popsicles and lollipops in celebration of fertility and safe sex practices. The festival dates back to the 17th century when prostitutes prayed at the Kawasaki Kanamara shrine for protection from sexually transmitted disease.

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Thaipusam Festival in India and elsewhere

This intense Hindu festival is a tribute to Lord Murugan, the god of war, and involves some of the most insane body piercings imaginable. Apparently, the more pain you can endure, the more blessings you shall receive. People attach heavy objects to their piercings and in some cases, they actually tow tractors from hooks embedded in their skin.
It’s typically celebrated in southern India, but since this is a religious celebration, it occurs wherever there is a large Tamil community. It’s celebrated in countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, South Africa, and parts of the Caribbean, among others. It begins the on the full moon in the Tamil month of Thai, which is around January or February.

La Tomatina in Bunol, Spain

It all began with some teenagers grabbing tomatoes and various vegetables off street stands and launching them at each other back in 1945. Now it’s a town-wide food fight, prominently featuring tomatoes as the weapon of choice (probably for their epic splattering abilities). The last Wednesday of August each year, people get to pelt each other with over-ripe tomatoes. Then the fire department steps in and hoses everything off.
No, this isn’t just a really cool way of getting through “hump day”- the town chooses to incorporate this cathartic activity as a part of their annual week-long local festival honoring the Virgin Mary and the town’s patron saint, San Luis Bertràn.

Battle of the Oranges in Ivera, Italy

Each February, Ivera, Italy, has a full-on fruit fight known as the Battle of the Oranges. The origins of this festival are a little fuzzy, but that doesn’t stop thousands of townspeople from dividing themselves into nine teams and pelting each other with oranges – and they aren’t gentle about it.
One possible origin for the festival is the story of a medieval tyrant who attempted to rape a local young woman, a miller’s daughter. The woman decapitated the tyrant; then a mob of common people stormed the tyrant’s palace and burned it down. Today, a young girl is chosen to play the part of the miller’s daughter each year at the festival, and the oranges are said to represent weapons hurled by commoners against tyrannical leaders.
The traditional carnival days are Sunday, Monday, and then it ends on Shrove Tuesday (a Catholic religious holiday) with a closing funeral ceremony. There is a silent march to close the carnival and to bid everyone farewell until next year.

Mud Festival in Boryeong, South Korea

Mud-wrestling is way too popular not to have an entire festival devoted to it. Every summer in Boryeong, South Korea, an enormous mud fight of international proportions breaks out. People from all over the world fly in to Boryeong to get in on the action. What was originally meant to be a marketing tactic for a mud-based cosmetic company turned into an excuse for adults to roll around in the muck each July.

Saidai-ji Eyo Hadaka Matsuri in Okayama, Japan

Anyone with the desire to witness 9,000 mostly-naked men battle each other over a pair of lucky, sacred sticks can do just that in Okayama, Japan, on the third Saturday in February. At the start of the event, a priest tosses the two sacred shingi sticks into a crowd of men in loincloths and the struggle begins. Whoever snatches the sticks and stuffs them into a box of heaped rice will be blessed with happiness throughout the year. This festival dates back 500 years to when worshippers gathered to compete over paper talismans.

El Colacho in Castillo de Murcia, Spain

El Colacho, also known as the baby jumping festival, has occurred each year on the feast of Corpus Christi since 1620. Any baby under a year old can be swaddled and placed on a mattress with other newborns to have full-grown men dressed as devils take turns leaping over them. This is supposed to be a blessing: it cleanses the babies of evil and guards them against illness.

Moose Dropping Festival in Talkeetna, Alaska

The state’s official animal is the moose and the people of the small town of
Talkeetna felt the best way to honor this majestic creature was by dropping loads of its fecal matter onto targets – first, from hot air balloons; then eventually, helicopters. No, really. They actually played aerial target practice with moose poop. The festival took place every July for 37 years until it was canceled in August of 2009.

Goose-Pulling Festival in Germany & the Netherlands

A disturbing event takes place each year on Shrove Tuesday in several towns throughout Germany and the Netherlands. This highly-controversial festival has made a slight adjustment since it began in the 17th century, but the overall concept remains the same: a goose is hung upside-down from a wire or strong rope and participants yank on it in an effort to separate the goose’s head from its body.
Originally, the poor animals were alive for this; now animal rights activists got the event to switch to geese that are already dead. Multiple towns practice this blood sport – some ride by on horseback and try to pull the bird’s head off; others just step right up and try to yank it apart.

Fishing Festival in Argungu, Nigeria

Every year in the town of Argungu in Nigeria, men compete to pull the biggest fish from the river with their bare hands. The festival initially began as a communal religious event, but it has undergone some changes since it first began. Now more than 30,000 fishermen participate, using their hands, nets, and gourds to scoop up their floppy contest entries. The winner takes a prize of $7,000.

Entroida in Laza, Spain

In the Spanish town of Laza, an oddly
violent festival is held each year. First, men throw mud-soaked rags at one another, then young men from the village collect fire ants from the mountains, pour them into sacks of dirt, dose them in vinegar to get them raging, and then go around throwing them into the faces of people around town. Entroida is a Galician version of the Catholic Carnival… just mixed with some mud and assault with angry fire ants.