land diving

noun

A ritual performed by the men of Pentecost Island, Vanuatu, involving a jump from a tall wooden tower with a tree vine wrapped around each ankle.

Ask AI about this wordChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

Meanings

nounland diving (uncountable)
  1. uncountableA ritual performed by the men of Pentecost Island, Vanuatu, involving a jump from a tall wooden tower with a tree vine wrapped around each ankle.

    The island of Pentecost is most famous for land-diving – the precursor to bungee-jumping. A tower is erected from trees and saplings bound by vines. It is quite high, often well over 20 metres. Before the jump the ground underneath is thoroughly softened by digging up the earth.

    2006, Ted Freeman, Doctor in Vanuatu, Suva, Fiji: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific, →ISBN, page 83
Cite this entry
APA

land diving. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/land%20diving

MLA

“land diving.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/land%20diving. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “land diving,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/land%20diving.

Source: land diving on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.