INCANTATIONS BY MAYAN WOMEN

Chiapas Mexico: Taller Lenateros, 2005. (MEX) This is the second edition after the first edition which was limited to 200 numbered copies. No markings, a touch to rubbing to the spine edges, Near Fine; no dust jacket as published but missing the slipcase. Hardcover with 3 dimension cast of mask; 295pp, B&W silk-creened illustration by various artists. Text is in English with the poems presented in Tzotzil with the English gtranslation. These incations are from the highlands of Chiapas in southern Mexico. The Tzotzil authors claim that their spells and songs were given to them by the ancestors, the First Fathermothers, who keep the Great Book in which all the words were written down. "The three-dimensional cover, cast from recycled cardboard, corn silk, and coffee, represents the Mayan earth goddess Kaxail. Her eyes open onto handmade endpaper blackened by soot and studded with palm fronds. . . . Incantations is the product of a 20-year effort to compile a kind of modern Mayan codex in which art and language marry to commemorate the most fundamental beliefs of a culture that traces its roots back more than 1,000 years. Measuring approximately 10 inches square, the 295-page book contains dozens of silk-screen illustrations based on ancient Mayan folk-art patterns but painted by contemporary women, many of whom have never before held a brush. "--publisher's website. (4.2 JM HOJ 301/2. 2nd. Hardcover. Near Fine/No Dust Jacket. 4to - over 9¾ - 12" tall.