Both a harvest ritual and a rite of passage amongst the tribes of the small pacific island of Vanuatu. The men who live on Pentecost Island climb a rickety 100ft tall tower, tie vines to their ankles and dive to the ground, falling at the speeds around 45 mph. When a dive goes correctly the person gets close enough to the ground that he can touch his head or shoulders to the earth. However unlike bungee jumping these vines aren't elastic and a miscalculation in the vine length could lead to broken legs, crushed skull, or death. They do this dive as a way of becoming an adult. As a boy makes his first dive, his mother holds an item representing his childhood and when he jumps she will throw the item away. Also as a kind of superstition, the divers will refrain from sex the day before the jump because legend says it will cause the jump to go badly.
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