Los Voladores and the Return of the Ancestors

ON The Dance of the Voladores

[Note: instead of "ghost cult" I will say that it was an "ancestor
cult" as it still is.]

Any discussion of Aztec revitalization should be kept within narrow
bounds until certain documents, still un-translated, can be made
available to scholarship. But the few remarks here offered would not
be complete without at least a brief description of the
mysterious "volador" dance, popular in the sixteenth century and
still being reported from various parts of Mexico and Guatemala.
Allowing for minor variations and despite the fact that present-day
practitioners seem to have forgotten its original meaning, the dance
remains essentially unchanged and remarkably uniform throughout the
vast area of its distribution.

Wearing bird costumes, the Voladores, or "fliers", cluster on a small
platform near the top of a pole. Ropes wound around the pole pass
through grooves in the platform and are tied to the dancer's bodies.
On signal they find themselves backward into the air, and the
platform begins to rotate. As the ropes unwind, the dancers come
whirling downward in continually widening circles until they reach
the ground. In some cases they hang upside down and spread their
arms. While the "birds" are in flight, a performer standing at the
top of the pole plays a trumpet or some other instrument [flute].

Readers acquainted with the `Cantares Mexicanos' will not fail to be
reminded of phrases such as the following (identified by folio and
line number):

I blow my conch for turquoise swans (26: 19)
And they shall appear (26: 21)
Let's have these turquoise-swanlike flowers! These are trogons that
are spinning (25: 17)
For a moment they come whirling, they the Eagles (65: 6)
Roseate swans, cornsilk flowers, are whirling (70: 31)
Moteuczomatzin spreads his arms! (15v: 12)
These nobles are bright as trogons. They are flying along like
cotingas (82v: 15)
And they come, come, and come dancing (47v: 20)
A quetzal has descended, a cotinga arrives (39: 11)
[….]

In fact, the connection between ghost songs and volador dances is
reasonably well attested. According to the Anales de Juan Bautista,
a "water flower-people piece" (axochitlacayotl) was sung and danced
in 1566 in a refectory in Mexico City and repeated outdoors with
a "volador." Chimalpain reports that a "fish song" (Michcuicatl) was
performed in 1593 in the Plaza del "Volador", and the chronicler
Perez de Ribas notes that the "Volador", or "Volatines," was
performed together with the "tocontin", a seventeenth-century
successor to the ghost-song ritual.

In a much-quoted passage borrowed from Sahagun, the historian
Torquemada attempts to explain the "volador" as a calendrical ritual
in which the unwinding of the ropes produces exactly 52 revolutions,
representing the 52 years of the Aztec calendar round. But whether
or not this was a feature of certain 16th century "volador"
performances, it hardly serves as a sufficient explanation. More
encompassing is the early 20th century analysis of Walter Krickberg,
who (without any reference to or apparent study of the "Cantares
Mexicanos") saw the descending "voladores" as ghosts returning to
earth from their celestial paradise. (Emphasis, mine)

Evidently of pre-Columbian origin, the "volador" survived the
Conquest as a bravura piece that required no further justification in
the eyes of Spanish officials. Some, perhaps, were satisfied by the
innocuous calendrical explanation passed along by Sahagun and
Torquemada. But from time to time suspicious were aroused, and on
more than one occasion the "volador" was actually banned. Whatever
the dance's political or cultural significance before the invasion,
we may reasonably surmise that during the sixteenth century it became
an instrument of revitalization.

Whether any surviving ghost-song text has the flier dance as its
program or indeed whether ghost songs were performed simultaneously
with such dances is not known. More likely the two rituals were
performed in sequence, as suggested by Perez de Ribas. Despite this
connection, it is hardly surprising that the intricately cerebral
song recitals died out, while the athletic "volador" still flourishes
in scattered locations throughout the length and breadth of the old
empire—from Mexico City east to Veracruz and south to Guatemala.
Probably these provincial "voladores" were never accompanied by texts
even remotely resembling the "Cantares." … In the "Cantares",
nevertheless, we have the supreme literary expression of a far-flung
ghost cult, which, though its symbolism may have varied over the
centuries, continues to serve as a reminder of Mexico's past and as
at least one means of keeping alive, if not revitalizing, its native
heritage.

[The verb "netloca" (to believe) in the Cantares it signifies
adherence to the ghost (ancestor) song doctrine.]

John Bierhorst, trans., Cantares Mexicanos: Songs of the Aztecs,
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985.