Beaten man

Yesterday, in Adaptaions (a film class), our lecturer showed us this picture and asked what we thought was going on.
It looked like it might have been showing a stage in an initiation rite, or the punishment of a criminal.
It was easier to recognise what was going on when the lecturer showed us the full series of paintings.
After he'd shown us the full series, he explained that a church in Lodwar, Kenya had comissioned local artists to paint a series of paintings of the Stations of the Cross. This was a better way of communicating to the 'Jesus story' to the locals than teaching them to read the Bible.