N'gol

She was running away from her husband, Tamale (it is sometimes claimed that the woman was upset that her husband was too vigorous regarding his sexual wants). With her husband hot on her tail, she climbed a tree. Her husband begged her to come down but she is adament to not to return to her husband. Finally the husband lost his patient and begins to climb the tree. Realizing that she got no other way to escape, she tied a tree vien to her feet and jumped off the tree. Seeing this, her husband jumped off too, not realizing his wife had tied her feet to a vien. He plummeted to his death while the wife survived the fall.

Since then, people at Vanuatu at Pentecost Island had been "land diving" or "N'gol/Nagol" off a makeshift tower, with viens tied to their feet of cause, to tell the women that they won't be tricked again and plummeted to their death.

While young men performed the land diving to show impressed certain girl in the crowd. (Oh, and only circumcised men jump from these towers).Most believed that the ritual is also to appeased the god of fertility. The locals execute the ceremony to ensure a good crop of yams, their stable food. As the vines stretch, the land diver's heads curl under and their shoulders touch the ground, making it fertile for the following year's yam harvest. Every year, as soon as the first yam crop begins to show its green tips in early April, islanders begin building at least one huge wooden tower in each village, often as high as 100 feet.

Although it might look dangerous, up to 2006, there is only one recorded death, the incident happened when the locals were persuaded to perform the "off season" jump infront of Queen Elizabeth. The viens tied to the jumper's feet snapped and he succumbed to the injury sustained.

But, if you think the jump is horrifying, you are dead wrong. The jumper's body MUST touch the gound. This will ensure the good harvest of yam.

This ritual is so popular that 'white man' copy it and introduced the bungee jump.