Ch'ul Mut

"To my knowledge, Ch’ul Mut is only the fourth book about Chiapas written from a woman’s perspective, alongside a groaning shelf of conventional ethnography. It’s a gift of many colors. It gives us an intimate account of Maruch Méndez’s extraordinary life. It provides a firsthand account of how traditional knowledge is acquired and transmitted—not someone’s field notes about what other people said. And in a remarkable set of notes and color plates, Rus makes a compelling case for the preconquest roots of these beliefs. The book thus shines new light on one of Mesoamerica's enduring mysteries: how Indigenous people preserved and modified their unique worldview under fifteen generations of grinding Spanish rule. 'Maya and other original Mesoamerican peoples have never stopped having their own Native view of the universe,” she says. 'Maruch’s text demonstrates the continuity of this grand pan-Mayan intellectual tradition over time and space.'"

This book is a masterpiece. Méndez Pérez has not only given us a narrative of inestimable importance, but Rus has enabled us to compare her understandings and knowledge of birds with those of other Maya peoples in Mesoamerica.--Christine Eber, author of Women and Alcohol in a Highland Maya Town: Water of Hope, Water of Sorrow