In 2003, we spent two weeks in Vanuatu, an island nation in the South Pacific.
On Pentecost island, the locals practice a ritual consisting of jumping from tall bamboo platforms with vines attached to their ankles. Children begin to train at a young age by jumping from their fathers’ shoulders, while dad holds their ankles; participants’ leg and hip muscles are very strong by the time they graduate to the towers. At that point, jumpers build their own platforms and tying their vines, meaning they are responsible for anything that might go wrong. The platforms are wedged into the tower, with higher jumping-off points being more prestigious. The platforms partially collapse when the vines are fully extended, adding some elasticity; should anything go wrong, the area below the tower is set at a downhill slope, and the dirt is loosened to a depth of about 20cm.
The whole affair is a fertility ritual; jumpers’ hair is supposed to graze the dirt below, We saw more than one faceplant due to miscalculations in the length of the vines used, from which the slightly dazed gravitationally challenged victims soon emerged without a scratch. After each man jumps, he joins his village mates in a dance below. Villagers wore numerous articles of WWII-era US military surplus gear (hats, web belts, etc.), as Vanuatu was one of the centers of the postwar Pacific cargo cult. The last kid to jump spent about 15 minutes showing off for the girls down below — and, we assumed, convincing himself that what he was about to do really was a good idea. All the while, I was cussing out my dinky little pocket Canon, trying to coax another few milliseconds of battery life out of it so I could catch the spectacular last jump (the lighting’s terrible as the sky was bright grey with what sun there was shing right at us — I didn’t bother dodging the light spot on that photo, as I couldn’t get it to not look goofy and artificial). I’ll live.
Antony Baker Photography
Paper Shadows Photography
Peter Norby Photography
In Focus
The Big Picture