Chontal Mayan Birds in Tucta

On our second day in Tucta we connected with Eusebio De La Cruz Hernández, a local school official, and spent the afternoon getting local Chontal Mayan bird names and info, as well as learning a lot more about the local area. Tucta is a small village of just over 1500 people near Nacajuca, about 45 minutes north of Villahermosa. It is mostly savannah, with lots of rivers and flooded areas and scattered trees. There aren't a lot of forests or forest birds around, but lots of herons and egrets and other water birds.



One fun thing we learned was a local tradition that if a baby is colicky and won't stop crying, you can take a hummingbird nest and burn it as incense all around the baby and that will cure it. We also heard a local tradition about crows--but more on that later!

Eusebio also showed us his traditional drums and masks used in Chontal traditional dances. Great info and thanks to Eusebio we made more contacts for our work in the area.