Professional Documents
Culture Documents
People of Mixed Nationality
People of Mixed Nationality
What do you
think they are
doing?
When does a teenager become an adult?
In many countries you become an adult
on your 18th birthday, but to become an
adult in Pentecost, boys have to do
something special. Pentecost is a small
island in the Pacific Ocean, and every
year in April and May, an important
ceremony is held there. The ceremony is
called N’gol.
• First, bamboo trees are cut down and a bamboo tower,
about 25 metres high, is built. A platform of leaves and
branches is made, and this is put at the top of the
bamboo tower.
• The boys then go into the forest to find lianas. Each boy
must find, cut and measure his own liana because the
older men do not help him. The boy climbs to the top of
the tower, where he ties one end of the liana to the tower
and the other end to his foot. Then he jumps from the
top of the tower. If the liana breaks, or if it is too long,
the boy might die. A boy cannot become a man until he
has jumped from the tower.
• Sometimes the N’gol ceremony is watched by tourists.
Not long ago, a group of British people watched it, and it
gave them the idea for a new sport called bungee
jumping.