Martín Prechtel
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Martín Prechtel is an author, painter, musician and educator. Among his writings are Secrets of the Talking Jaguar, an autobiographical account of his initiation as a Mayan Shaman; Long Life, Honey in the Heart, an account of his villiage life in Santiago Atitlán; The Toe Bone and the Tooth, an autobiographical account of how he relived an ancient Mayan myth in his own life, and The Disobedience of the Daughter of the Sun, a Mayan myth that includes Prechtel's observations of how the Mayans relate to the story. His works also include various musical recordings, paintings and an audio recording of a lecture he gives called Grief and Praise. He runs rituals and workshops around the country as well as curating his own school called Bolads Kitchen.
Prechtel was raised on a Pueblo Indian reservation in New Mexico. His mother was a Canadian Native American and his father a Swiss paleontologist. In 1970 after his first marriage ended, he traveled south through Mexico to end up in Guatemala. After a year of traveling through Guatemala, he found his home in a small villiage near Lake Atitlan inhabited by the Tzutujil (one of the numerous Mayan sub-cultures).
Upon entering the village (as portrayed in his book "Secrets of the Talking Jaguar"), a respected shaman (Nicolas Chiviliu) of the villiage approached and stated: "What took you so long? For two years I’ve been calling you. Let’s get to work!"
He married a Tzutujil woman and raised two sons (a third son had died). Prechtel was not a native by birth, but became one of the most important villiage members both spiritually and politically. When Chiviliu died, Prechtel then became acting shaman to the approximately thirty thousand people of Santiago Atitlan. Prechtel joined the Scat Mulaj (the villiage political body) and even rose to the position of Nabey Mam (the first chief), and among other duties was responsible for the initiating of the villiage's young men into adulthood.
During the Guatemalan civil war, Prechtel and his family were forced to flee for their lives. Upon returning to the U.S. Prechtel was introduced to author Robert Bly at a Men's Movement workshop. Bly was instrumental in getting Prechtel's writing published.
Prechtel once again resides in New Mexico, appearing around the world at different educational conferences and leading workshops designed to assist in the reconnection to the sacredness in nature and everyday life, and finding one's sense of purpose in the modern world. Colleagues include Robert Bly, Malidoma Somé, Michael J Meade.
Martin Prechtel also has two sons from a second wife whom he left in Guatemala. Despite his poetic endeavors to maintain an oral tradition and history that one might pass down the generations, he has been said to have deprived his two boys and grandchildren not only of a father, but of the narrative of their ancestral past.
[edit] Bibliography
- Secrets of the Talking Jaguar
- Long Life, Honey in the Heart
- The Disobedience of the Daughter of the Sun
- Stealing Benefacio's Roses: A Mayan Epic (Formerly Titled The Toe Bone and The Tooth)
- Grief and Praise (Audio CD)
