Vanuatu Events List
Event
- Title:
- All Saturdays Nagol/Pentecost Land Diving
- When:
- 03.04.2010 - 24.04.2010
- Where:
- Pentecost Island, land dive sites -
- Category:
- Cultural
Description
The nagol or Land Diving festival takes place every Saturdays only, from April to June. The awe- inspiring ceremony celebrates the yam harvest and is a fertility rite for men. The story of the festival tells of a woman who ran away from her husband and hid in a tall tree. The husband, Tamale begged her to say sorry and come down but warned he may beat her a little. She refused so he climbed the tree after her and as he reached the top she jumped. In his anguish Tamale jumped after her, only to realise that she had tied liana vines around her ankles. The woman survived while Tamale perished. To this day, men jump from the tower as a show of strength to women in the village and as a statement that they cannot be tricked again. When the vine stretches at the end of the dive the land divers head curls under their shoulders and touches the earth, making it fertile for the following year’s yam crop.
Dates for April 2010 are: Saturday 3,10,17, and 24.
Venue
Description
Pentecost Island has become famous throughout the world for the land diving ritual (Nagol or N’gol) which occurs every Saturday between April and June.
The ritual, which influenced the invention of bungy jumping by New Zealander AJ Hackett, sees local men and boys as young as seven jump from a 20 -30 metre high manmade tower with only a vine attached to their legs. The tower itself takes locals five weeks to build using materials from the forest. The vines are carefully selected by jumpers who know that just 10 centimetres may be the difference between life and death. Read more.
The ritual, which influenced the invention of bungy jumping by New Zealander AJ Hackett, sees local men and boys as young as seven jump from a 20 -30 metre high manmade tower with only a vine attached to their legs. The tower itself takes locals five weeks to build using materials from the forest. The vines are carefully selected by jumpers who know that just 10 centimetres may be the difference between life and death. Read more.