In modern psychology there's a term called the map of reality. Experts use it to describe the uniqueness of the perceptions and understandings of the different people in different locations on Earth. Freud said that each person has their own little Universe in their mind and is correct to a certain extent because everyone has a specific model of the world that they've constructed in their own brain. Here are a few examples:
For the Scandinavians, Eskimos, Yakuts and inhabitants of northern Siberia and Kamtschatka, Hell is cold. For the majority of Southern peoples, Hell is thought to be a burning inferno.
Members of the South American Yuki tribe, when counting with their hands, do not use their fingers but instead use the space between them - therefore counting to 4.
The numerology in Central America is not based on the constellations of the Milky Way but on the black gaps between the clusters of light. People there discover their future using the so-called Black Zodiac.
Americans count with their fingers not by flexing each one but by separating them away from the palm.
In Africa, the zebra is considered to be a black animal with white stripes.
The Japanese wear white when they are in mourning, while the Europeans wear black.
In Japan and the Anglo Saxon countries, the rainbow is believed to have 6 colors.
Unlike the rest of the people in the world, the Bushmen inhale when they speak, instead of exhaling.
In Japan, it is not accepted to give names to streets. They are simply seen as empty spaces between buildings.
We typically think of the past to be something that is now behind us and the future - something that lies ahead. But some Amazonian tribes see the future as something that is behind them because they still don't know what it is, and the past, in their view, something that is yet to come - they have seen it and know it, they can imagine it.
While in the greater part of Europe and Asia the representation of death is a grim reaper with a scythe, in Latin America it is seen as a happy, smiling skeleton who plays a guitar.
A map of the world printed in the southern hemisphere, for example in Australia, would look upside down to us.
