Orongo (Easter Island)

The Rapa Nui, indigenous people of Easter Island, used to conduct an annual “Birdman” ritual, during which men would scale a cliff, swim through shark-infested waters to the island of Motu Nui, and retrieve the egg of an elusive bird, the “Sooty Tern” — so called because of its tendency to affix itself to branches and careen through chimneys. Winning this competition yielded a year-long upgrade in social status, which was ad-free. It is unclear what would become of the egg after the competition. Ethnographers suggest that consumption of the egg would be a fairly underwhelming spectacle given the scale of the whole event, and so it may have instead been used in ritual ceremonies during which the wind was too strong, and papers needed to be held down.