Formally becoming a man is made so much of in early society, because it is on this occasion that fitness for activity is put to the test.  Initiatory ceremonies fall at the time of puberty in the candidate, and consist of instruction and trials of fortitude.  A certain show of the proceeds of activity is also exacted of young men, especially in connection with marriage, and the youth is not permitted to marry until he has killed certain animals or acquired certain trophies.  The attention given to manly practices in connection with marriage is seen in this example from the Kukis: 

When a young man has fixed his affections upon a young woman, either of his own or some neighboring Parah, his father visits her father and demands her in marriage for his son:  her father, on this, inquires what are the merits of the young man to entitle him to her favor; and how many can he afford to entertain at the wedding feast; to which the father of the young man replies that his son is a brave warrior, a good hunter, and an expert thief; for that he can produce so many heads of the enemies he has slain and of the game he has killed; that in his house are such and such stolen goods; and that he can feast so many (mentioning the number) at his marriage.[189]

Occasionally the ability to take punishment is even made a part of the marriage ceremony.  At Arab marriages

there is much feasting, and the unfortunate bridegroom undergoes the ordeal of whipping by the relations of his bride, in order to test his courage.  Sometimes this punishment is exceedingly severe, being inflicted with the coorbatch, or whip of hippopotamus hide, which is cracked vigorously about his ribs and back.  If the happy husband wishes to be considered a man worth having, he must receive the chastisement with an expression of enjoyment; in which case the crowds of women in admiration again raise their thrilling cry.[190]

A very simple record of successful activity is the bones of animals.  McCosh says of the Mishmis of India: 

Nor are these hospitable rites allowed to be forgotten; the skull of every animal that has graced the board is hung up as a record in the hall of the entertainer; he who has the best-stocked Golgotha is looked upon as the man of the greatest wealth and liberality, and when he dies the whole smoke-dried collection of many years is piled upon his grave as a monument of his riches and a memorial of his worth.[191]

And Grange of the Nagas: 

In front of the houses of the greater folks are strung up the bones of the animals with which they have feasted the villagers, whether tigers, elephants, cows, hogs, or monkeys, or aught else, for it signifies little what comes to their net.[192]

The head-hunting mania of Borneo is also a pathological expression of the desire to get approval of destructive activity from both the living and the dead: