Search results

It was only used for the special gatherings to taste the fruit of the harvest. The pot was made of dark clay and decorated with intricate light-blue lines. Each line, the elders explained, told a story. And in those gatherings everything was solved—the hurricane was tamed and the absence of rain was given a name and the dead were given a meaning. The pot was eventually broken. For decades people tried to remake it: they used dark clay and light-blue paints, they dug deeper than a goldmine for the right consistency; they even used twigs, sackcloth and diamonds; they even stole old pots from museums. They failed. The hurricane lifted cows off the ?elds, the drought parched the soul, the dead were meaningless. The new pots were wonderful to look at.