If you are listening hard at noontime in the Zona Dorada, you are likely to hear the eerily poignant notes of a wooden flute rising on the breeze. The sound is Mexico, and the tune is 4000 years old. For 37 years, Abel Ramirez de la Cruz has sat 25 meters above the earth on the top of a pole and played his flute while four young men on the high, revolving platform with him wait quietly. The young men then wrap a rope around one leg, lean over the platform backwards, and slowly descend to the ground flying in unison with the earth´s rotation. Collectively, they are the Papantla Flyers from Veracruz and the main attraction of a show specifically for cruise ship passengers which is held in an outdoor auditorium behind Av. Playa Gaviotas in the Golden Zone. The auditorium is a modern day setting for a ritual ceremony that began in 2000BC and continues today in the small indigenous towns in and around Papantla, Veracruz. According to historians, the legend of the pole tells the story of a time of severe drought in the lands of the Totanac Indians of Veracruz. Five young men decided to send a message to Xipe Totec, the God of Fertility, to entice the rains to return. They went into the forest searching for the tallest, straightest tree. When a suitable one was found, they stayed overnight in the forest, fasting and praying for the tree´s spirit to help them in their quest. The next day they blessed the tree, felled it and took it back to their village without letting it touch the ground. They dug a hole to put it upright, dressed in feathers to imitate birds,

climbed the pole, secured ropes around their ankles, and made their plea through their flight to the ground. “The flyers represent the four cardinal points of earth, water, fire and air,” explained Abel in soft-spoken Spanish. “Each man rotates around the pole 13 times. There are four men times 13 rotations which equals 52, a magical number representing 52 Sundays in a year. With my flute, I ask forgiveness from the four cardinal points and for protection of the four men because the cutting of the post is taking life from the tree, and we abstain also from sex for 12 days after we cut a pole.” Before ascending the pole, the flyers first perform a ceremonial dance, then mount a four-pronged wheel, one man to a prong. The wheel spins in perfect harmony like a waterwheel with the flyers holding onto the prongs. “In ancient times,” said Abel, “we believed that when a rainbow came it would scare away the rain. The wheel was to scare away the rainbow.” For Abel and the Paplanta Flyers, the learned dances and rituals are a gift, passed on from generation to generation. Children as young as five begin taking part in the less dangerous ceremonies, and by the time they are ten they are ready to fully partake in the rituals. Although the daring young men of the Papantla Flyers, aged between 10 and 31, now earn their living entertaining tourists, Abel believes the tradition will continue. “Even if the young people don´t want to learn,” he said, “they absorb it. Through their eyes, through their ears, through their hearts.” maureen@pacificpearl.com