STAMP STORY

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32460, 21 November 1970, Page 11

STAMP STORY

by tying a vine to her ankle so that she was not hurt as she landed.

The husband, however, was killed in the fall—whereupon the men of the island, not to be outdone by a woman, built a tower much taller than any tree, and started the jumping ceremony which has continued for generations.

The tower stands more than 80 feet high, with a separate platform for each diver. These platforms are deliberately built with weak supports as they are meant to collapse when the man leaps, helping to break his fall.

The diver’s safety, of course, depends on the vines, gathered from the jungle shortly before the jump. If a vine should break, or if the diver misjudges its length, he would almost certainly be killed. It says a great deal for the divers’ skill that the real experts can actually land on their feet in the soft earth at the foot of the tower. The three stamps of the set, issued in October, 1969, show a diver at different stages of the death-defying leap. One shows his standing aloft on his platform; the second depicts him in the act of hurling himself into space. On the third, illustrated here, he is seen about to land and the vines attached to both ankles are clearly shown.