Ch'ul Mut

Sacred Bird Messengers of the Chamula Maya

Maruch Méndez Pérez, Diane Rus

• Publisher: UNM Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9780826365132
• eBook ISBN:
  9780826365149
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Zoology
• Index: Social Sciences

Tsotsil-Maya elder, curer, singer, and artist Maruch Méndez Pérez began learning about birds as a young shepherdess climbing trees and raiding nests for eggs to satisfy her endless hunger. As she grew into womanhood and apprenticed herself to older women as a curer and seer, the natural history of birds she learned so roughly as a child expanded to include ancestral Maya beliefs about birds as channels of communication with deities in the spirit world who had dominion over human lives. In these testimonies dictated to her lifelong friend, anthropologist Diane Rus, Méndez Pérez describes her years of dreams, instruction, and experience. Her narrative sheds light on the basic values of her Chamula culture and cosmovision and has remarkable parallels to concepts of the ancient Maya as interpreted by scholars.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. Maruch’s Apprenticeship and Childhood Experiences in Nature
• Chapter 2. Chamula Creation Stories
• Chapter 3. How the Messenger Birds Assist the Heavenly Lord and the Underworld Pukujetik to Warn Humans about Their Future Life and Health
• Chapter 4. How the Messenger Birds Assist Our Sacred Mothers—Mother Earth, Mother Moon, and the Mother of Jesus
• Chapter 5. A Guide to Thirty-Six Birds
• Epilogue. Final Reflections on a Long Tradition
• Appendix 1. Tables Citing Other Sources of Maya Bird Beliefs
• Appendix 2. Municipalities of the Tsotsil and Tseltal Homeland of Central Chiapas
• Appendix 3. Important Archaeological Sites of Chiapas and Adjacent Areas of Guatemala
• Appendix 4. English-Tsotsil Prayers
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index