A JOURNAL: Archives for November 2008

A JOURNAL

THIS BLOG IS AN ONLINE JOURNAL OF MY EXPERIENCES PAST AND PRESENT IN THE FORM OF WORDS, MUSIC, PHOTOS AND ART

November 04, 2008

N'GOL

There is an island in Vanuatu called Pentecost.

Pentecost Island’s beaches are made, not of powdery white sand, but of smooth pebbles. The beaches are clean and free of litter. The water is crystal clear and unpolluted. It is heavily forested. Centuries-old banyan trees provide generous shade along the shoreline. There is no motel here, none at least that are immediately noticeable. The beach is communal property and therefore accessible to all. There is no electricity on the island, save what a portable generator can provide. I did not see any televison aerial or Internet cafe. It is as primitive a place as one can wish to visit on holiday.

Among the young men of this island their exists a ritual that inspired the creation in the West of that extreme sport, bungee jumping. It involves jumping off a platform while one’s feet are secured by a vine. Unlike in bungee jumping, though, this ritual poses the real risk of injury or even death.

This ritual is called N’GOL.

On top of a hill, in a clearing just outside of the main village, the men construct a high scaffold of wood and vines. On this scaffold they place a platform (or two or three), each progressively higher than the other. The earth immediately below the platform is raked to make it softer and less compact. Young men climb up to the platform, tie their legs with vines and jump down into the ground headfirst. The idea is to bounce off the earth, the shoulder just glancing off the ground. The act of touching the earth fertilizes it for the planting of crops, like yam. If the young man survives the fall, he is hailed as a hero. If he doesn’t, then c’est la vie.

Principally held to celebrate the yam harvest, n’gol has its roots in a local piece of folklore, ironically involving, not a man, but a woman.

The story goes like this:

There was once a wife who was trying to escape from her maltreating husband. In desperation, she climbed up a tree. The man yelled for her to come down or face a beating. She refused and secretly tied a vine around her ankle. When her husband climbed up after her, she threw herself from the tree. Her husband jumped after her reflexively. Because she had tied the vine round her ankles, the woman survived. The husband who did not, broke his neck and died.

Only men engage in this ritual-sport. Reportedly they started practicing it to show the women they cannot be easily tricked the way the unfortunate husband was.

Although the natives hold n’gol to celebrate the yam harvest, now, they do it for the tourists as well, irrespective of the occasion, most especially when there is a cruise ship out on the bay. There is no mass tourism in this island, so one can hardly claim that it is in danger of being spoiled. The arrival of the cruise ship has changed the dynamics of this island and like it or not, the process of making n’gol less a native ritual than a tourist attraction is already well underway.

In any case, there is no denying the bravery of the jumpers. The only ones who I think come close to matching (or even surpassing) their machismo are the divers of La Quebrada in Acapulco. As to which is more dangerous – jumping off a high cliff into the sea or off a platform into the earth, is a matter of argument. I’d say falling into the sea seems a more bearable prospect, because you can float, than falling on to the ground, because you can’t.

So here I was, just come into the island onboard the P&O ship M/V Pacific Star, making my way to the ceremonial ground outside the small hamlet by the bay.
It had just rained, so the path was muddy. The mainly Australian tourists and ship’s crew alike followed an unpaved road lined on either side by the usual tropical greenery – coconut trees, breadfruit, the prodigal pink-flowered vine cadena de amor. The place of n’gol was a grassy meadow fronted by a hillside on top of which a wooden tower had been constructed. It loomed like a pagan palisade. As a piece of monumental organic sculpture, it wouldn’t have been out of place in a great park or the garden of an art museum.

On the meadow were stumps of coconut trees laid out as seats for the onlookers. This place also served as a part-time grazing area for native buffalo, so one had to be careful where put one’s feet down. Many locals and tourists already lined up the hillside leading to the tower. A wire fence kept onlookers from crowding the tower itself. On a small clearing right beside the structure, bare-breasted women dressed in palm frond skirts danced to chants and ululations that seemed to spring from the very earth itself. They were a Greek chorus, Vanuatu-style, abetting, counter-pointing and accompanying the exploits of the n’gol warrior. I felt a deep sense of being thrust back to a primitive time when nature, and only nature, dictated the rhythms of life.

The Australian tourists, nature children in their own way, lapped all this up with glee. Some of them had their faces painted with white stripes.They took the nudity in stride. I doubt if American tourists would have been as accepting.

Each time a g-stringed man prepared to jump off a platform, the women sang and danced themselves to a frenzy. The would-be jumper would pose and preen, encouraging cheers from the crowd with the wave of his hands. This was his stage, and he made the most of it.

Just before a particular jump, the dancers would fall quiet. When a man made his jump successfully, they roused themselves to another bout of dancing and ululation. The jumping went on for an hour or so. The early jumpers usually jumped from the lower platform whereas the later ones leaped from the higher one.

I went up the hill to observe the activities first hand. The first thing I noticed was that the posts of the tower were secured by stout vines to large trees. The second thing I could not help pay attention to the was the tormenting bunch of insects that whirled above my head and face. Couple that with the warm and humid weather and you have the full flavor of a truly sweaty and buggy tropical adventure!

There were several sessions of n’gol throughout the morning and early afternoon.
I attended the late-morning jumps and spent most of the afternoon swimming in Pentecost Island’s warm, clear waters.

I have not been back to this piece of heaven in the South Pacific, but I can still recall with particular vividness the chants of the bare-breasted women, the thud of men plunging into the earth from 40 feet up and the warm embrace of the truly crystalline waters of Pentecost bay.

There is no place like it on earth, and I hope it remains that way.

Posted by manniep at November 04, 2008 1:45:49am
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