Land Diving on Pentecost: Naghol, the Yam Harvest and the Tower

What happens

A tower of up to about 30 metres is built from timber and vines against a hillside on southern Pentecost. Men and boys jump from platforms at varying heights with two liana vines tied to their ankles, cut to a length that brings the head to brush the tilled earth at the bottom.

Why

The dive is tied to the yam harvest and is understood to secure it. The tower is built new each season and dismantled afterwards. The height a man jumps from reflects his standing, and the first jump is a passage into adulthood.

When

Ceremonies fall roughly between April and June. The exact dates are set locally by the state of the yams and the vines — the vines must hold sap, which is why the season cannot simply be extended for visitors.

The bungee question

Naghol predates bungee jumping by centuries, and the modern sport is generally traced to a 1979 jump by the Oxford University Dangerous Sports Club whose members had seen film of Pentecost. The mechanics differ: a bungee cord is elastic and naghol vines are not, which is why the tower is built to flex and the landing ground is dug over.

Seeing it

Visitors attend through arrangements made with the villages that hold the ceremony. A fee is charged and it goes to the community. Photography permissions are set by them, and the answer varies by site and by year.

The tower, in detail

A naghol tower is built against a cleared slope from timber cut nearby and lashed with vines. No nails are used. It rises in stages to around 30 metres, with platforms projecting at intervals; each platform is designed to snap as the diver falls, which is a deliberate part of the deceleration and not a failure.

The whole structure flexes under load. Construction takes weeks and is done by the men who will jump from it, which concentrates the mind.

Choosing the vines

Two lianas are cut for each diver and each platform, matched to the man and to the height. The critical property is sap: a vine with sap has some give, and a dry vine does not stretch and does not forgive. Vines are cut close to the ceremony for that reason, and this is the constraint that fixes the season.

What it is for

The dive is understood to secure the yam harvest, and the ground at the base is tilled so that the diver’s head brushes it — touching the earth is the point of the act, not a margin of error. It also functions as the passage into adulthood for boys, who begin from the lower platforms.

Women

Women do not jump. They dance at the base throughout and the ceremony does not begin without them. The origin story most often told is of a woman who fled her husband, climbed a tree with vines tied to her ankles and survived the fall while he did not — and the dive is in part a re-enactment of the men being deceived.

Going to a ceremony

Day trips run from Port Vila and Santo during the season. A fee is charged and goes to the village. Photography permissions vary by site and by year, and are set by the community that holds the ceremony.

Filming and the outside world

The ceremony was first filmed in the 1950s and reached a wide audience through a 1970 BBC documentary. That exposure produced the bungee industry, a steady trickle of visitors, and a durable tension: the ceremony is a working ritual whose timing is not negotiable, and the demand is for a scheduled attraction. Pentecost has largely held the line on that.