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The Kingdom of Mescal, a legend from the Indians of Central America, told by George Schafer and illustrated by Nan Cuz, herself an Indian, the pictures with their brilliant colors and simple lines and the patterns of speech with their engaging spontaneity combine to make a remarkable document of human belief, a book which is also a work of art.
The text is based on ancient Indian symbolic forms and tells the story of a boy who longs to get behind the appearance of things. A magic drink given to him by a medicine man sends him on a wonderful journey to a place where "the tongue forms no more words," into the depths of himself and to the heights of sheer wonder at the brilliance of the absolute.
The legend of mescal says that there was once a very cold but generous goddess whose body was like the trunk of the agave but instead of leaves, she had 40,000 breasts.
From her breasts flowed the elixir drunk by those who venerated her; she was Mayatl, Zapotec goddess of mescal.
Cold and untouchable, she first came in touch with her feelings when some worms burrowed into her breasts and were trapped forever.
She fell in love with a brave warrior but he did not feel worthy of her favors.
In desperation the goddess offered him the most beautiful and luxuriant of her breasts for him to drink the elixir that poured from her heart.
He drank and drank until in a drunken despair begged her to “make me a god or become a woman”
CONDITION: Hard Cover, 38 pages, used with moderate wear to decorative boards but pages within are in nice condition Galleria Panajachel, text in Spanish. Guatemalan legend illustrated in full page plates by Nan Cuz, plates suitable for framing.
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