[return to Contents Page]

Bruce Ross

The Voladores

     I realized the Voladores were enacting some ritual. Now in Veracruz I watched as four of them climbed up a towering pole, each trailing a long loop of rope they wound around the pole. At the top one of them played a simple wood flute and beat a hand drum in what seemed a prayer to the four directions and their spirits. Then the Voladores slowly lowered themselves on the ropes, twirling around the pole. Their heads and arms were thrown backwards as if in a Sufi trance dance. Had they just visited the heavens?

                                                          El Tajin heat
                                                          before the Voladores
                                                        a lone vulture