--- In regard to the angelic/shamanic nature of the descending and ascending Cantares ghost-warrior, it might be illuminating to consider here two quotes from Eliade, whose ideas have helped give shape to so many of the speculations in these pages. "The motifs of flight and of ascension to Heaven are attested at every level of the archaic cultures", he writes, "as much in the rituals and mythologies of the shamans and the ecstatics as in the myths and folklore of other members of the society who make no pretense to be distinguished by the intensity of their religious experience. In short, the ascension and the "flight" belong to an experience common to all primitive humanity. That this experience constitutes a profound dimension of spirituality is shown by the subsequent history of the symbolism of ascension. Let us remember the importance assumed by the symbols of the soul as a bird, of the 'wings of the soul,' etc., and the images which point to the spiritual life as an 'elevation,' the mystical experience as an ascension, etc. The amount of information now at the disposal of the historian of religions is such that any enumeration of these motifs and these symbols would be likely to be incomplete" (Eliade, Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries, 105). The universal presence of the flight scenario, says Eliade a little later in this same work, "proves that the roots of freedom are to be sought in the depths of the psyche, and not in the conditions brought about by certain historical moments; in other words ... the desire for freedom ranks among the essential longings of man, irrespective of the stages his culture has reached and of its forms of social organization. The creation, repeated to infinity, of [the] countless imaginary universes in which space is transcended and weight is abolished, speaks volumes upon the true nature of the human being. The longing to break the ties that hold him ... in bondage to the earth is not the result of cosmic pressures or economic insecurity -- it is constitutive of man, in that he is a being who enjoys a mode of experience that is unique in the world. Such a desire to free himself from his limitations, which he feels to be a kind of degradation, and to regain spontaneity and freedom ... must be ranked among the specific marks of man" (p. 106).

------Tompkins, Ptolemy. "This Tree Grows Out of Hell: Mesoamerica and the Search for the Magical Body." HarperSanFranciso, 1990.