The Tree of Life
odd: label: Local Numbers
content: HSFA 2004.14.1
name: label: Collection Creator
content: Lane, Bruce, 1938-
setName: label: See more items in
content: Pacho Lane films
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 1 Film reel (30 minutes, color sound; 1,055 feet, 16mm)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1988
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Human Studies Film Archives
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Film reels
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: Edited film by Pacho (Bruce) Lane documents preparations and performance of "Los Voladores" (men who are suspended from and "fly around" a tall pole made from a selected tree in the nearby forests), a 1500 year old ritual performed by the Totonac Indians of eastern Mexico that lies at the spiritual heart of Mexico. Sacred to Quetzalcoatl, the ritual is at the spiritual heart of Mexico and combines Mexican Indian dance, music, poetry (from the "Cantares Mexicanos, a collection of pre-hispanic Nahuatl verse from Texcoco) and art in a meditation on our place in nature, on how to keep the world in balance by our lives. Originally filmed in 1973? in Huehuetla in Sierra Norte de Pueblo in the Nuasteca region of Mexico.