“An extraordinary document… Ch’ul Mut is not just a fascinating study of an indigenous woman's wisdom about birds, the sacred, and their role in the workings of the cosmos. It is also an exemplary model of intercultural conversation and experimentation. Based on a friendship of decades, a Tsotsil woman and an American anthropologist manage to create together a work of great ethnographic density and expressive beauty.”

– Pedro Pitarch, author of The Jaguar and the Priest: An Ethnography of Tzeltal Souls

“Both a testimony and a warning, Ch’ul Mut represents a latent memory of a vanishing  worldview and, at the same time, a commitment to its preservation….This book reminds us that there are still other ways of understanding life, of relating to the non-human, and of constructing meaning. Ch’ul Mut is an ethnographic gem, but also an ode to life, to listening, and to the possibility of building bridges between different worlds. Reading it is a way to hear the song of birds once more, and perhaps to begin to understand what they are trying to tell us.”

– Evelia Hernández Hernández, INAH Interdisciplinary Journal

"Ch’ul Mut is an exceptional book that simultaneously explores the power and meaning of birds in Highland Chiapas through the lens of one Tsotsil Mayan woman, Maruch Méndez Pérez, and illustrates the value of distinct forms of knowledge and the connections between humans, the supernatural, and the universe. In presenting the wisdom, words, and prayers of artist and healer Méndez, it decenters and decolonizes Western worldviews and science, revealing the myriad ways that Indigenous peoples have maintained their distinct worldview for hundreds of years after the Spanish invasion."

– Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology

"This unique portrait of a highly respected woman healer from San Juan Chamula, Chiapas, sets a new standard for ethnographic practice and cross-cultural understanding."

– Stephen E. Lewis, Pueblos y Fronteras

"[Pérez and Rus] have produced an impressive ethno-ornithology of the Maya, starting with Maruch’s many stories about the powerful unseen realms from which the ch’ul mut, the sacred birds, bring crucial messages to humans."

– David Stoll, Maya America Journal

"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.'"

– Robert Wasserstrom, Ethnohistory

"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