Maybe you’ve been to a rock festival before. Unless you’ve been to India I’m willing to bet your haven’t been to a rock festival like this one.

It’s called the Bagwal and they do it every year in the town of Devihura in Northern India. Two teams consisting of hundreds of men throw rocks at each other. Some of them use shields but most of them don’t. You might be unsurprised to learn that a giant rock-throwing melee results in dozens and dozens of injuries. Actually, that’s kind of the point.

The Bagwal is held for religious reasons. They’re trying to appease a goddess who wants them to “shed as much blood as possible”. Judging from this video of this year’s Bagwal she must be PRETTY appeased!

We used to have dirt clod fights when I was growing up in rural Oklahoma. Some of those dirt clods could really hurt. SOME of them were actually rocks caked in dirt. If you threw a rock you committed a MAJOR breech of Dirt Clod Fight etiquette.

Now, before you start judging this as a barbaric and needlessly violent activity go over and look up what we do in U.S. cities when our sports teams win a championship. As the old saying goes “sticks and stones may break my bones but rocks never turned a police car over and set it on fire”.

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