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The Depository documents 10 techniques in Costa Rica; by risk level: 3 critically endangered, 3 endangered, 4 vulnerable. Each record opens with a public summary; the full research record is free to view once registered.
Huetar paja (reed) basketry and straw hat weaving is the signature craft of the Huetar people, documented by Costa Rican historical sources as the most powerful and best-organized Indigenous nation in the country at the time of Spanish…
The hand-spinning and knotted weaving of chácara, a natural plant-fiber bag central to Ngäbe-Buglé daily and ceremonial life, formally recognized by Costa Rica's own Cultural Information System as a documented traditional-knowledge…
The carving of jícaro (calabash) gourds by the Maleku, one of Costa Rica's smallest Indigenous peoples — roughly 750 remaining, in three villages inside a rainforest reserve near the Arenal Volcano — in which women artisans, historically…
The hand-construction of Sarchí's signature folding rocking chair — a collapsible campaign-style frame of caobilla (mahogany-family) hardwood strung with woven leather bands for the seat and back rather than upholstered padding — developed…
The hand-carving and hand-painting of balsa or cedar wood masks by the Boruca (Brunca) people of Costa Rica's Talamanca mountains, worn each New Year during the Danza de los Diablitos, a three-day ritual re-enactment of the Boruca's…
A complete field-to-cloth backstrap-loom weaving tradition of the Boruca people, who grow their own white and brown cotton, hand-spin it on drop spindles, dye it with local plant sources and, remarkably, with the secretion of the Pacific…
The making of mastate, a non-woven cloth beaten by hand from the soaked inner bark of milky-sapped forest trees, harvested by Bribri and Cábecar communities of the remote Talamanca mountains specifically during the full moon, and used both…
The preparation of ceremonial cacao by the Bribri, Costa Rica's largest Indigenous group and one of the few in Central America never fully subjugated by Spanish colonization, in which the right to grow, harvest, and prepare cacao is…
A pre-Columbian, hand-formed pottery tradition of the Chorotega people of Guaitil and neighboring San Vicente, Guanacaste province, using clay mixed with a fine river sand locally called "iguana sand" — named for the reptiles that lay…
The hand-construction and hand-painting of the carreta, Costa Rica's national symbol since 1988 and a UNESCO-recognized Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage since 2005, whose brightly colored, intricately patterned decoration began…