Land diving on Pentecost Island, known as Naghol or the “land diving ritual”, is a culturally significant tradition practiced by the people living on an island in Vanuatu, located in the South Pacific.
Land diving is a ceremonial rite in which men leap headfirst from tall wooden towers (ranging from 20 to 30 metres (65 to 100 feet) high, with only vines tied to their ankles. The goal is to dive as close as possible to the ground without touching it, an act of bravery and skill. The ritual has been practiced for centuries and is considered the precursor to modern bungee jumping. (See postscript.)
The ritual is deeply rooted in the traditions of the Sa tribe and is associated with the Yam Festival, celebrating the harvest. It is believed to ensure a bountiful yam crop and to appease ancestral spirits.
For young men, successfully completing a land dive is a rite of passage, symbolising their transition to adulthood. The men who choose not to dive or who back out of diving are humiliated as cowards. [Ed: That would make me a coward in this particular community.] Also, in some interpretations, the dive is performed to bless the land with fertility.
The villagers build the tower using local materials like liana vines and wood, ensuring it is sturdy and safe. The vines are chosen carefully to ensure they are strong enough to support the diver without breaking but also elastic enough to absorb the shock of the fall.
The jumping tower is a sight to behold. Its construction typically takes around twenty to thirty men between two and five weeks to construct. According to Margaret Jolly (Kastom as Commodity: The Land Dive as Indigenous Rite and Tourist Spectacle in Vanuatu, 1994), the tower: “symbolically represents a body, with a head, shoulders, breasts, belly, genitals and knees. The diving platforms represent the penises and the struts beneath represent the vaginas”. [Ed: If you say so.]
The land diving ritual typically takes place between April and June, during the yam harvest season. This period is chosen because the vines are at their most elastic after the rainy season.
Although the practice is meticulously planned, land diving is inherently risky. According to the Guinness World Records, the g-force experienced by those at their lowest point in the dive is the greatest experienced in the non-industrialised world by humans.
Sometimes people die, like one time in 1974 when both of a diver’s vines snapped. He broke his back from falling, and later died in a hospital. Unfortunately this all happened in front of the late Queen Elizabeth II while paying a visit to the island. The issue here was that the vines were not elastic enough because it was the wrong season, the middle of the wet season. Unfortunate.
Land diving remains an integral part of the cultural identity of Pentecost Island, and has actually become a tourist attraction for the villagers.
Lindblad Expeditions guests were witness to the rare ceremony during the inaugural expedition of National Geographic Orion. Check out some of the video by Jim Napoli HERE.
Postscript
An adventurous New Zealand entrepreneur by the name of A.J. Hackett heard about the Naghol ritual and was instantly obsessed with the idea. He hired a team of scientists to develop a strong elastic cord equivalent of the Naghol vines, flew to France, climbed up the Eiffel Tower at night and jumped off the following morning. He was arrested for his unauthorised jump but the publicity stunt immediately caught the attention of the global media and commercial bungee jumping quickly took off, with the first dive site opening shortly after on the Kawarau Bridge in Queenstown, still a popular bungee site to this day. The A.J. Hackett Bungy company today is still busy throwing people off bridges and buildings.
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References
wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_diving
takingthemike.com/blog-1/land-diving-bungee-origin
Images
1. Land diving on Pentecost Island. Photo credit: Mike Kingdon @taking_the_mike
2. Map of Vanuatu showing location of Pentecost Island
3. The Tower. Photo credit via flickr: Paul Stein, New Jersey, US
4. A village elder begins the intricate process of weaving the finely frayed ends of the vines firmly around a boy's ankles. Photo credit: Mike Kingdon @taking_the_mike
5. Photo credit: Mike Kingdon @taking_the_mike
6. Queen Elizabeth II about to witness the death of a land diver, 1974
7. Video: Land Diving at Pentecost Island in Vanuatu, Lindblad Expeditions, National Geographic, 2014
8. A.J. Hackett leaps off the the Eiffel Tower in 1987
9. A. J. Hackett ONZM at Government House, Wellington on 30 August 2017
10. Modern bungee jump. Credit: klook
