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(we are based in Southern Mexico)
AMBER
Chiapas Charm
Mexican amber mining is a cottage industry run primarily by the indigenous Maya that populate the region of the the state of Chiapas where the amber is found. Using the town of Simojovel as a hub, groups of seasonal miners show up in the center square to pedal amber they’ve extracted from their hand-dug mines. This amber is then distributed throughout the world through a network of stone buyers and sellers. Encroaching international and mafioso interests are changing the landscape but the indigeous-controlled cottage industry still dominates.
JADE
Zacapa isn’t just for rum.
The rambling Montagua river flows to the south west corner of Guatemala following a path through the famed Zacapa region where the best rum in the world is made. All along the river and throughout an area roughly the size of Rhode Island the native American people have been collecting some of the best quality jadeite jade in the world for millennia. These days the jade is extracted by local and governmental teams with tractors and bulldozers. International interests abound although the Guatemalan government has maintained relative control over this precious national patromony. Our jade is painstakingly haggled from the raucous residents of the towns along the main highway by the Motagua river. Equal parts tough and nobel.
OBSIDIAN
Volcanos and Tequila.
The ancient Tequila Mountain in Jalisco, Mexico are located in a relatively arid region where the sacred agave cactus–used to make tequila, pulque and mescal–grows in abundance. But the mountains themselves are also sacred and are made of one of the most precious materials that has ever existed. Obsidian volcanic glass