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Do you know the legend of the Cherokee Indian youth’s rite of passage?
His father takes him into the forest, blindfolds him and leaves him alone. He is required to sit on a stump the whole night and not remove the blindfold until the rays of the morning sun shine through it. He cannot cry out for help to anyone. Once he survives the night, he is a MAN.
He cannot tell the other boys of this experience, because each lad must come into manhood on his own. The boy is naturally terrified. He can hear all kinds of noises. Wild beasts must surely be all around him. Maybe even some human might do him harm.
The wind will blow the grass and earth, and shake his stump, but he must sit stoically, never removing the blindfold. It would be the only way he could become a man!
Finally, after a horrific night, the sun appears and he can remove his blindfold. It will then that he discovers his father sitting on the stump next to him. The father had been at watch the entire night protecting his son from any harm.
