cuapatlanalizcuahuitl.

Headword:

Principal English Translation:

the head-flying pole; a reference to the pole used by those who are known today as the voladores de Papantla (the flyers of Papantla) (see attestations); in some records there is a confusion between the term starting with cua- (head) or cuauh- (eagle); if eagle, then perhaps the flyers are imitating eagles in flight. (SW)

Orthographic Variants:

quapatlanalizquahuitl

Attestations from sources in English:

yn Sancto Domingo teopixque yquac motlallique yn quapatlanallizquauhtitlan. calnacazco = the Dominican friars established themselves near to the head-flying pole, at the corner (early seventeenth century, central New Spain)
Annals of His Time: Don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, James Lockhart, Susan Schroeder, and Doris Namala, eds. and transl. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), 76–77.

quapatlanaliztli = "head-flying" or "descending on spiraling ropes from a high pole"
James Lockhart, The Nahuas after the Conquest, 399.

themes:

Religion (Indigenous)