Men and boys, some as young as seven years, leap from the platforms in a show of strength and a statement to women that they can never be tricked again. The locals execute the ceremony to ensure a good crop of yams, their stable food. As the vines stretch, the land diver's heads curl under and their shoulders touch the ground, making it fertile for the following year's yam harvest. Every year, as soon as the first yam crop begins to show its green tips in early April, islanders begin building at least one huge wooden tower in each village, often as high as 25m. The ceremony lasts one or two days from April to early June.
Only circumcised men jump from these towers with only two long, elastic vines tied to their ankles to break the fall. The divers' hair is meant to touch the ground to fertilize it. Fundamentally, all the men of the village execute the ritual.