--- title: QUETZAL AND MAN IN GUATEMALA date: 2006-06-28T08:45:37Z source: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DE4DF153EF93AA35750C0A960948260 tags: literature, books, reviews --- BIRD OF LIFE, BIRD OF DEATH A Naturalist's Journey Through a Land of Political Turmoil. By Jonathan Evan Maslow. 249 pp. New York: Simon & Schuster. $17.95. ''I F the Quetzal is confined in a cage, it dies. The Quetzal cannot live in captivity,'' says a poster quoted by Jonathan Evan Maslow in his second book, ''Bird of Life, Bird of Death.'' He then proceeds to document his uneasy, stubborn search for the legendary bird in the midst of Guatemala's past and present pain and violence. Bird of life and bird of freedom, familiar to the ancient Mayan kings and Guatemala's national symbol, it was the resplendent quetzal that drew Mr. Maslow into the ''wonder voyage'' recounted in this fine book. His fascination with the creature is palpable. Crimson, white and brilliantly green, with a fabulous elongated tail, not only is the quetzal possibly the most beautiful of birds, it seems to possess, by all accounts, an elegant exuberance, almost a joie de vivre. Inhabitant of the high cloud forests, which are themselves ecologically threatened, the quetzal inspired such reverence that in the 17th century, 600 years after the mysterious collapse of classic Mayan civilization, it was still a capital offense to kill one. In ancient art and legends, the quetzal glitters, a spiritual protector, over the heads of kings. Once its feathers were preferred to gold. Even now, when the bird is endangered, Guatemala's money and its highest civic honor bear its name. In his introduction, Mr. Maslow suggests the book is ''a kind of essay in political ornithology.'' While correct in believing this is ''a field that does not quite exist, at least yet,'' he demonstrates why naturalists have had to become politically engaged: increasingly, it seems, everything is in peril. In his first marvelous book, ''The Owl Papers,'' he is quite specific: ''The most important work for naturalists, professional and amateur alike, is as much the preservation of life forms as the discovery of natural processes.'' In pursuing the quetzal, in interposing himself between the natural and unnatural histories of the region, Mr. Maslow discovers just how many and varied are the Guatemalan life forms in need of preservation. Significantly, the vulture, the title's ''bird of death,'' is not among them: ''Sad truth is the stock in trade of the Central American intelligentsia.'' However, the depredations he found in Guatemala, while often extreme, are not unique. One of his great set pieces - a visit to the Guatemala City dump, with its Dantean scavengers - has, as its equivalent in ''The Owl Papers,'' the garbage dumps, the animal carcasses and toxic wastes he encountered while searching for short-eared owls in the Jersey Meadows. Among the great pleasures afforded by this book, albeit sometimes a melancholy one, is the detail and control of Mr. Maslow's information. Whether musing on ''the dark maw of the death squads,'' the history and impact of volcanic activity around Antigua or the relationship of the tortilla to the spirit of Central America, his touch is sure and his control admirable. Furthermore, he is telling in his depiction of Pedro de Alvarado and his campaign of butchery against the Indians in the 1520's. What an appalling man he was, this conquistador who, in a fury at some perceived slight, personally beat an aged Mayan chief to death. Nor are they pointless anecdotes: ''In the very act of founding the Guatemalan nation, Pedro de Alvarado introduced the practice of war against the civilian population, initiating the tradition of genocide that has bedeviled Guatemala as its greatest shame down to the present day.'' Set against this fanatic, there is the compelling figure of Friar Bartolome de Las Casas, who preached, wrote and tirelessly lobbied for a ban on violence and the return of stolen Indian lands. Astonishingly, he succeeded in having all secular Spaniards banned from entering Tuzutlan province for a period of five years. The authorities also agreed that the Indians ''he converted [ would ] not be divided among the Spanish as slaves in the usual fashion.'' For his pains and, one suspects, for his successes, Las Casas' life was threatened by local Spaniards, so he fled to Nicaragua. But what about Guatemala's 660 species of birds, the emerald toucanets, gray silky flycatchers, turquoise-browed motmots, not to mention the resplendent quetzal itself? The fact is, oppressed and menaced as he was by the Guatemalan political situation, Mr. Maslow did not have much heart, or time, for birding in the lowlands. Once in the highlands, the shrinking cloud forest home of the quetzal, where ''botanically, at least, Central America seemed eminently free,'' he was finally able to engage himself with the natural world. Given the context, the relief he feels at finding the birds, his delight and awe are not only understandable but enviable as well. Tragedy remains, of course, with its atrocities, and the forests are being destroyed. But for the moment we can pause, with Mr. Maslow, in contemplation of the world as it might have been. ''Bird of Life, Bird of Death'' is a wonderful book. Furthermore, it amply supports Mr. Maslow's contention that ''in the short run, ecology is natural history; in the long run, it's more like prophecy.'' Drawings of exotic Guatemalan birds (The Bettmann Archive/Culver Pictures)