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By Tuppence Stone: Series Producer

The power of ritual is spectacular. In Papua New Guinea a rite of passage is completed after the recipient is cut 400 times to create elaborate patterns on their skin. The Torajans unwrap the remains of a dead relative for many years to keep the link with their ancestors alive. In Senegal modern wrestlers perform ancient rituals in the country's biggest sporting venues.

George Sarr whips up the crowd before his first professional wrestling bout in Senegal’s capital, Dakar.

Across the world we sought out the most remarkable rituals, always exploring why people do them and why they’re still relevant today?

So we take you into the heart of each ritual, through a personal and often hugely emotional journey.

Pride and intense rivalries are at stake at the Palio di Seina, an ancient bareback horserace between rival districts in Sienna, Italy.

Not being a football fan, I underestimated the passion of the Sienese for their Palio horserace… when rivalries stretching back over centuries are settled in the main square. The rousing singing, the heckling, the secret deals they make with their allies wind up the city to fever pitch. It’s operatic in its extremes of agony and ecstasy and it binds the community together like nothing else.

In China, girls of the Long Horn Miao people pose for a selfie wearing headdresses of their ancestors’ hair to look beautiful for a match-making ritual.

From Greenland to Japan, the Amazon to Australia we were determined to show how rituals are performed today.

In China, Long Horn Miao girls wear elaborate hair-dos – using the hair of their dead female ancestors, to look their best for the boys, but there’s time for a selfie before they go to the courtship festival.

In the Ma’nene ritual, Torajan families raise their loved ones from the grave to tend to them and remember them.

Time and again we saw traditions adapting.

To post a photo of a corpse of granddad on Facebook might be shocking to us, but for the Indonesian family it meant relatives who couldn’t make it could feel part of an important ritual.

A Japanese priest in charge of a super high tech cemetery told us: "…I think the way rituals are practised is constantly evolving.

"We shouldn't forget that our role as a temple, is to meet people's needs according to changing times."

Japan’s hi-tech Buddhist cemetery has space for 3000 souls, within a 500-year-old Bansho-ji temple.

I wanted this series to also feel like it links into your life, your aspirations.

Who hasn’t asked themselves – where do I belong? Who am I?

Novice nuns of the Jain faith in India must have each hair pulled from their heads as the final ritual of their initiation.

Extraordinary Rituals producer Tuppence Stone

Rituals help to answer such big questions.

In India we met a young woman who was cutting ties with her family and the modern world to become a Jain Nun. Through her ritual initiation she is showing the world who she is, and defining her path until death. It’s an immensely powerful moment and as a mother I cried. The mum was weeping tears for a daughter she will never hold again.

Now two years on, I’ve learnt that we all share universal hopes and fears and we turn to rituals at the most important moments in our lives, to help us understand what it is to be human.