With gestures, the messenger explained, "The paddlers from the wrecked canoe tied vines under her arms and pulled her up the gullies.

We will tie vines to it and drag it along from either side, loaded.

The Bunlap people perform an ancient ritual called the Gkol (Bislama nanggol) or "land diving", in which men tie vines to their ankles and jump headfirst from platforms jutting out from a tower.

By dint of hard work and sweat, she had used the useful tools from the kit on the ffitter to tie vines to trees that led to and from her favourite food-browsing spots and to the river.

Tying vines in a vineyard some 30 miles north of Stockton, Florencio Tapia, 20, from Guerrero, along Mexico's Pacific coast, has no idea what the money being withheld from his paycheck is for.

Sometimes the men and women tied tough vines about the bundles of ferns and branches that they carried to the caves to sleep upon.

What he didn't know was that she had tied vines to her ankles.

"Tie vines together, as many as we can muster," Father Alex commanded.