SACRED MONKEY RIVER: A Canoe Trip with the Gods

New York/London: W. W. Norton & Company, (2000).. (2000).. Very good. - Octavo, boards in a dust wrapper. The rear panel of the dust wrapper is lightly rubbed & the bottom corner of its front panel is lightly creased. 316 pages. Illustrated with black-and-white maps and with blue-and-white endpaper maps. Near fine. <p>First edition.<p>From the library of Peter Matthiessen. Laid is a typed letter signed by Charlie Ritchie of Saranac Lake, New York, sending him this book which is "the work of a good friend Chris Shaw". He writes that the book reminds him of Matthiessen's deceased father, architect and conservationist Erard Matthiessen, who had been a valued friend and had taken an interest in a lawsuit Ritchie had instigated against New York State over pollution of Upper Saranac Lake.<p>Broadcaster, canoeist and former whitewater guide Christopher Shaw made a canoe trip along the Usumacinta River. The river's basin lying on the border between Mexico and Guatemala was the cradle of the Mesoamerican civilizations. "The man-made vehicle of the region's culture and civilization was the canoe, the medium for the "Watery Path" connecting the sacred world with the earthly face of the cosmos...." [From the dust wrapper copy].