El Volador

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In the opposite direction from the toy vendors on Insurgentes and over by Avenida Amsterdam there was a park - officially christened Parque San Martín but which everybody called Parque México. Built in the late 20’s it had an open air theatre and water fountains in the art deco style. In a clearing of sand colored dirt surrounded by foliage and palm trees there was a children’s playground with a spiral shaped slide and a girating swing, which everyone, in Mexico at least, called a volador.

The playground was somewhat in disrepair. The slide lookd very intriguing, far more so than simple ramp slides I was used to. But not only was it rickety and unsteady, its rusted holes and cracks had been repaired poorly with bolted on tin plates that didn’t make for a very smooth slide. In fact, the end of the slide was broken off several inches before where it should have ended with a nice rounded lip.

More intriguing was the “flying pole” which at first appeared to be nothing more than a pole with a bunch loose chains hanging from the top. I soon discovered -- perhaps with the help of the lodging house maid who was detailed to look after me -- that one could grab hold of the chains, take leaping runs and fly around the pole.

It was called a volador after the Totonac fertility ritual when, seeking to get the rain god’s attention, the indians hewed the tallest tree they could find into pole from the top of which they “flew” down and around dressed as beautiful birds, blowing high pitched flutes.



Following the Conquest, on festival days when the Spaniards would hold rodeos and tourneys the Indians would erect their pole and play at being voladores. After a while the Church got suspicious and tried to ban the practice, but the new gods themselves loved to watch the perilous climb and dramatic descent of the human birds.

There had been nothing like this at Peter Cooper Village, and as all the other children were apparently at school, I had the volador to myself. I knew nothing of the Totonacs and their rain god Xipe Totec but I liked playing airplane and kicking up clouds of dust as I landed... until the maid got tired of watching and said it was time to return home.

Volador at the American School

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