Saturday 17 June 2023
The big day had arrived for the last week we had been making our way to Pentecost Island to attend the 'Nagol', the land diving festival in the Kastom village of Ratap. According to Lonely Planet this is the most remarkable custom festival in all of Melanesia.
We headed into the beach to meet the Chief's spokesman Bartholomew Garae and Lucy & John from Broadsword who were joining us. We piled into the back of a ute and we were off.
I made a video of the pictures and video taken during the amazing day as there was a lot to take in. There were 4 yachts in the bay, each with two people aboard and we were the only foreigners present, people had travelled from other villages and the Chief's son in law had come with us to experience the event from Santo.
So what is Nagol all about......
Here's the background from wikipedia and the link if you want to ready more...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_diving
The origin of land diving is described in a legend of a woman who was dissatisfied with her husband, Tamalie (or some variation of the name).[6] It is sometimes claimed that the woman was upset that her husband was too vigorous regarding his sexual wants, so she ran away into the forest.[6]Her husband followed her, so she climbed a banyan tree.[6] Tamalie climbed after her, and so she tied lianas to her ankles and jumped and survived.[6] Her husband jumped after her, but did not tie lianas to himself, which caused him to plummet and die.[6] Originally, women did it in respect to the original woman who did it, but husbands were not comfortable with seeing their wives in such positions, so they took the sport for themselves, and it gradually changed from trees to specifically designed wooden towers. The men performed the original land diving so that they would not be tricked again.[7]
The land diving ritual is associated with the annual yam harvest.[6] It is performed annually in the months of April, May, or June.[8] A good dive helps ensure a bountiful yam harvest.[9]
The villagers believe land diving can enhance the health and strength of the divers. A successful dive can remove the illnesses and physical problems associated with the wet season.[9] Furthermore, land diving is considered as an expression of masculinity, as it demonstrates boldness that was associated with the bwahri or warrior.[9] Nevertheless, the men who do not choose to dive or back out of diving are not humiliated as cowards.[9]
The diving only takes place on Saturdays in May and June so we were keen to make sure we got here as soon as possible as the anchorage is an open roadstead and we were advised it could become untenable if the wind was anything other than East or South East
Injuries do occur, however there is only one reported death, and that was when a jump took place for Queen Elizabeth's visit in the 70s and it was out of season and reportedly the vines were not elastic enough. We were a bit anxious about how we'd feel if someone got hurt as we had paid to attend, so would we feel complicit. However it became obvious to us during the day that we were totally ancillary to the whole event, that was attended by about 200 people and just 8 paying foreigners.
The experience at the Kastom village, where there is no school church or healthcare and very basic shelter has stayed with us in the week since and I think we are still processing the experience. It really was one very special day.
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