Lyrically written, filled with irony, mystery, and magic, the author shows how this powerful mythic story can be a pattern for everyone's life and how understanding ancient myths can ensure our spiritual survival in the modern world.

The Toe Bone and the Tooth: An Ancient Mayan Story Relived in Modern Times: Leaving Home to Come Home

Biographies & Memoirs

Prechtel, Martín

Leaders & Notable People

Thorsons Pub.

A wonderful blend of polemic, autobiography, travel adventure, and myth.

The Toe Bone and the Tooth

Religion & Spirituality

New Age & Spirituality

Element Books Ltd.

A shaman and leader of the so-called men's movement offers a rare glimpse into the complex, joyful culture of contemporary Mayan village life and spirituality, expounding its teaching that all humans possess an innate spirit of generosity and community.

Secrets of the Talking Jaguar: A Mayan Shaman's Journey to the Heart of the Indigenous Soul

Politics & Social Sciences

Anthropology

Jeremy P.Tarcher

Twenty-five years ago, a young musician and painter named Martin Prechtel wandered through the brilliant landscapes of Mexico and Guatemala. Arriving at Santiago Atitlan, a Tzutujil Mayan village on the breathtaking shores of Lake Atitlan, Prechtel met Nicolas Chiviliu Tacaxoy--perhaps the most famous shaman in Tzutujil history--who believed Prechtel was the new student he had asked the gods to provide. For the next thirteen years, Prechtel studied the ancient Tzutujil culture and became a village chief and a famous shaman in his own right.In Secrets of the Talking Jaguar, Prechtel brings to vivid life the sights, sounds, scents, and colors of Santiago Atitlan: its magical personalities, its beauty, its material poverty and spiritual richness, its eight-hundred-year-old rituals juxtaposed with quintessential small-town gossip. The story of his education is a tale filled with enchantment, danger, passion, and hope.

Secrets of the Talking Jaguar: Memoirs from the Living Heart of a Mayan Village

Professionals & Academics

TarcherPerigee

A memoir by the author of Secrets of the Talking Jaguar describes growing up in Guatemala during a vicious civil war, his participation in traditional Maya religious rites, and the rich influence of Mayan religion and society in a world of political intrigue and social upheaval. 12,000 first printing.

Long Life, Honey in the Heart: A Story of Initiation and Eloquence From the Shores of a Mayan Lake

Community & Culture

Tarcher

Cultural Writing. Native American Studies. In a luminescent testimony to the ancient teaching ability of story, internationally acclaimed lecturer, artist and author of Secrets of the Talking Jaguar, and Long Life, Honey in the Heart, Martin Prechtel brings alive the powerful Tzutujil Mayan tale of THE DISOBEDIENCE OF THE DAUGHTER OF THE SUN. Prechtel's gripping and inimitable style gives the reader a beautifully told and illustrated tale followed by five "layers" of commentary that present the deeper Indigenous understandings buried in the story, as well as Prechtel's own thoughts for modern people, on global warming, ecstasy and time.

The Disobedience of The Daughter of The Sun

Yellow Moon Press

Martín Prechtel continues the narrative of his unique life in Santiago, Atitlan in Long Life, Honey in the Heart, an eloquent memoir replete with the subtle intelligence and sophistication of Mayan culture. Set against the dramatic backdrop of Guatemala's political upheaval in the 1980s, this heady mix of magic, humor, and spirituality immerses the reader in the experiences of Mayan birth, courting, marriage, childrearing, old age, death, and beyond, using the true story of Prechtel's own family and friends.

Long Life, Honey in the Heart

North Atlantic Books

Following the acclaimed Secrets of The Talking Jaguar and Long Life, Honey in the Heart, this is an expansive, lyrical novel in the tradition of indigenous oral storytelling. Based on the author's many years of living in a Guatemalan village, Stealing Benefacio's Roses interweaves dramatic recountings of village life and the political horrors of civil war with lyric retellings of sacred Mayan myths. The story shifts expertly from timeless, with archetypal characters like Raggedy Boy and the goddess known as the Water-Skirted Beauty, to timely in the book's striking first-person narrative set in the 1980s. Prechtel shows how ancient myths can become a part of life for everyone and help nurture spiritual survival in the modern world. Though it comes third in sequence with the author's other two books, Stealing Benefacio's Roses also stands on its own as a classic work of spiritual seeking and adventure.

Stealing Benefacio's Roses

Literature & Fiction

United States

Author and illustrator Martín Prechtel is internationally known for his explorations of ancient folklore and uncovering the lessons therein for modern readers. In The Disobedience of the Daughter of the Sun, he revives a hitherto unknown Guatemalan Tzutujil Mayan tale of the beginnings of the world with a poetic retelling of the story, 28 evocative drawings, and a critical analysis that both enlightens and entertains. Having lived with the Mayans and learned their language, Prechtel authoritatively retells the powerful tale of the Tall Girl who weaves the world in a loom, her parents the Sun and the Moon who repudiate her suitors, and the mysterious man who disguises himself as a hummingbird to lure her away. Prechtel expands this archetypal story with five layers of commentary, each teasing out a different wisdom and revealing its relevance to the world today.

The Disobedience of the Daughter of the Sun: A Mayan Tale of Ecstasy, Time, and Finding One's True Form

Social Sciences

Based on a 30-year span of fieldwork in the Lake Atitlßn region of Guatemala, this volume weaves together the voices of the authors, villagers of the area, and their oral histories to tell the story of the theft and eventual return of the Maxim=n, a wooden statue venerated since pre-Columbian times. Along the way the myths and religious and political ramifications of the crime are brought to light, and a portrait of the indigenous culture of the area emerges. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Scandals in the House of Birds: Shamans and Priests on Lake Atitlan

Tarn, Nathaniel

Marsilio Pub

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Books by Prechtel, Martín