Fantastic

Pentecost’S

Land Divers

Put On

Another

Show

After a lapse of quite a years, the land divers of Pente cost, New Hebrides, turned oi on Saturday, July 15, and put o

their hair-raising performance

for the benefit of an Italian filr unit and others.

The divers jump head first froi platforms erected at various heighi on a tower some 80 ft high. Stronj supple vines slightly shorter than th distance between their platforms an the ground are attached to the: ankles, and these arrest their descei within inches of the ground an without injury to the divers.

Pentecost is the only island in th New Hebrides—or in the South Ses for that matter—where land divin is to be seen.

Various legends

The ceremony apparently date back into the mists of time, as ther are various legends about its origii However, it was not until 1 when the British and French Resider Commissioners were invited to vie l it, that the ceremony was witnesse by Europeans.

One legend about the origin of th ceremony, described in David Attei borough’s book Quest in Paradis < tells of an unfaithful wife wh climbed up a palm tree when pursue by her husband, called him a weal ling and a coward, and dared him t jump from the tree.

When the husband said this was mpossible, she said that she could [o it, and he agreed to jump with ier.

They jumped. The man, of course, /as killed; but the woman, who had aken the precaution of tying the nd of a palm leaf to her ankles, ame to no harm.

This humiliated the men of the illage, so they built a tower many imes higher than a palm tree and tarted the jumping ceremony to rove to the women that they, after 11, were the superior sex.

These days, participation in the sremony is still a matter of manly restige.

The exhibition on July 15 took lace on a plateau near Singwiei r illage, about half an hour’s walk •om Nabraniut anchorage on the orth-west coast. It was the first time, xording to the local people, that md-diving had been held in the □rth of the island—the southern lost part being the usual venue for

Some dived twice

Eighteen men from the south rurneyed to Singwiei at the end of me to build the tower, which took /o weeks to construct. There were 1 diving platforms.

The task of making the platforms id attaching them to the tower was itrusted to one old man. It is an aportant task, as they must be strong lough to support a man’s weight Tore he dives, yet weak enough to eak and so serve as another “shock isorber” when the vines attached to e diver’s ankles are stretched to ieir full extent.

Sixteen men, including two from orth Pentecost, jumped in the remony. A few of them dived twice.

The participants included a num :r of middle-aged and even elderly en, who had taken part in previ is exhibitions.

As they stood poised on the end the diving platforms, they raised eir hands above their heads and oked in the direction of Ambrym land, in whose volcanoes the spirits their ancestors were previously lieved to dwell.

Several hundred people from all er Pentecost, and from Vila, alekula, and elsewhere watched e performance. The visitors had pay an entrance fee, plus a photo apher’s fee if they wished to take lotographs.

The Pentecostians have been highly nscious of the money value of eir ceremony since an Italian film mpany paid them a large sum to ige one in the early 1950’5.

This picture of a Pentecost land-diver about to take off from the highest platform of the tower was taken at a performance in 1958.