THE TAJIN TOTONAC — PART 1- — KELLY AND PALERM 



221 



224) was used as sewing thread, as well as to make 

 cordage for fish nets. The flesh was removed with 

 a split bamboo, or the leaf was allowed to stand 

 in the arroyo for about 2 weeks. This fiber is 

 scarcely used today, although it is said that not 

 long ago one man had a supply reposing in the 

 arroyo, when the stream flooded and carried the 

 entire lot with it. In the early seventeenth cen- 

 tury, pita fiber is mentioned as one of the principal 

 products of Papantla (Mota y Escobar, p. 233) ; 

 and in the late sixteenth century, pita is said to 

 have been a specialty of the Zacatlan area, being 

 marketed in Tlaxcala (Relacionde Zacatlan). An- 

 other sixteenth-century source (Paso y Troncoso, 

 5 : 110) reports that the Totonac of Coacoatzintla, 

 near Jalapa, manufactured clothing of pita fiber. 



KNOTS 



We have not attempted to record all the knots 

 and lashings current in Taj in, but a few are noted 

 in figure 48; none appears to be named. That 

 shown in a generally is used to splice ropes and 

 lianas, b is used in roofing ; one end of a liana is 

 tied to a withe of the roof frame ; the knot is pulled 

 tight, following which the free end is used to lash 

 the thatch. Various ways of tying thatch are 

 shown elsewhere (fig. 20) . The manner of lashing 

 the mother beam to a house post is seen (interior 

 view) in figure 48, c. 



Several knots are used in the course of the 

 famous Flying Pole or Volador dance ; the latter 

 will be treated in detail in Part 2, which will be 

 published separately. Briefly, a tall pole (ca. 30 

 m. high) is set in the ground. On its tip is fitted 

 a spoollike attachment which revolves and from 

 which is suspended a quadrilateral frame. On 

 each bar of the latter one of the four fliers sits prior 

 to the descent. At a given signal, each ties a 

 rope about his waist and throws himself backward, 

 off the frame. As the frame and the spool revolve, 

 the dancers descend to the ground, describing 

 circles of progressively smaller diameter until 

 they land. 



The ropes which support the quadrilateral frame 

 are looped over one another precisely as shown in 

 figure 48, a. This "knot" rests in a shallow de- 

 pression on the upper surface of the spool, each 

 of the four extremities being passed through a 

 perforation in the latter and tied to one of the 

 corners of the frame. 



On the main pole, immediately beneath the 

 spool, are wrapped the four ropes by means of 

 which the dancers are lowered to the ground. 

 The end of each rope is tied to the post, as shown 

 in d, following which the free end is wrapped 

 about the pole in such manner that the coils un- 

 wind, as the frame and spool revolve. What re- 

 mains of the rope, after the wrapping, is tossed 



Figure 48. — Knots and lashings. See text (pp. 221-222) for explanation. 



