Yes these aren't privileged experiences I have had them too. It is extremely frightening and is riskier than a lot of other activities. That's not itself evidence of how any particular culture treated people experiencing it or what they thought or expected of the experience.

This particular subject is one that has interested a lot of people, including historians and anthropologists, and there is a lot of history and anthropology on it. I'm neither, but from what I've read people who have professionally studied it mostly refrain from making generalizations of how it has been experienced through time and across cultures.

If you're going to say or imply that surviving these experiences, or being tolerated for experiencing them, was only "a small proportion" then you're making broad assertions. I'm curious what that is based on other than extrapolation from your own frightening experiences.