What the fuck’s land diving?

Land diving is the tribal version of bungee-jumping. In fact, bungee-jumpers stole this extreme sport from the indigenous people of Vanuatu.

The principle is pretty much the same. Your feet are tied securely together. You wait on a platform, absolutely shitting yourself. Then you jump.

But with land diving your feet are tied with vines. You actually shit yourself while balancing on a rickety, creaking tower 30 metres high. Then you jump head first, straight to the ground. The only clothing required is a leaf, deftly wrapped around the penis. Oh, and there’s not a hint of safety equipment involved. Nuts.

As the diver jumps, the vines and tower crack. Badly enough to make anyone watching shit themselves too. The vines are selected according to the diver’s weight, but never mathematically calculated. So, if they’re too long, the diver will smack into the ground, pretty damn hard. If they’re too short, he’ll crash into the tower, pretty damn hard.

Supposedly, diving improves health and strength and can cure illness. Now, I’m no expert, but I fail to see how jumping off a tower with just a vine strapped to my ankles would achieve anything, other than possibly breaking my legs or snapping my neck.

And this is how you land

Diving is also an expression of masculinity (or insanity, whichever way you choose to look at it). Even young boys jump from the very top to prove their courage and fearlessness, qualities associated with warriors.

There is a reason these men have to prove themselves. As with many indigenous rituals, it’s all about sex.

Legend has it a woman ran away from her husband because he was too sex-crazed. He chased her up a tree, she jumped off with vines tied to her ankles and survived. He jumped after her, but didn’t even stop to think about tying himself to the tree, and died. Therefore, men now jump with vines to show they can’t be tricked again. Bit of an extreme way of proving a point.

Karl, stripped

If you’ve ever seen An Idiot Abroad, you’ll have seen Karl Pilkington attempt a land dive. Normally, tourists aren’t allowed to jump due to safety fears. And Karl was no fool, choosing to dive from a platform less than two metres high. More of a flop than a dive, he landed like a sack of potatoes, face planting the mud. It wasn’t graceful, but fair play to the guy for not risking life and limb.

Now, I’m all for immersing myself in indigenous cultures, but I think I’ll give this one a miss. On the bright side, despite a distinct lack of safety and accuracy when diving, only one person has ever died from land diving in living memory. And that was while our Queen was watching.