Recently, I held a bit of magic in my hand. Magic that connected me
back through thousands of years of history and a sacred and fragile bit
of today’s world. All of this was handed to me at the premier Mexican
folk art festival: Feria Maestros del Arte, held every mid-November on beautiful Lake Chapala, Mexico.
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| Caracol púrpura, milked for its ink |
Purple has long been coveted as a color of beauty and a sign of royalty and wealth. The wearing of purple was often forbidden by sumptuary laws intended to regulate and reinforce social hierarchies. Interestingly, for as highly as it has been valued throughout history, the discovery of purple dye seems to have come from the whims of accident.
The primary source of purple dye has been snails which make a defensive ink, somewhat like an octopus. In Phoenician mythology, its discovery was credited to the pet dog of Tyros, the mistress of Tyre’s patron god Melqart. One day, while walking along the beach the couple noticed that after biting on a washed up mollusc the dog’s mouth was stained purple.(1)
