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The Depository documents 21 techniques in Guatemala; by risk level: 1 critically endangered, 8 endangered, 10 vulnerable, 1 stable. Each record opens with a public summary; the full research record is free to view once registered.
A backstrap-loom weaving tradition practiced continuously since before the Spanish invasion across more than twenty-five distinct Maya language groups in Guatemala, producing the huipil (women's blouse) in a visual vocabulary so specific…
A treadle-loom wool weaving tradition documented in Momostenango since at least 1770, distinguished by a finishing process found nowhere else in Guatemala: freshly woven blankets are carried on foot to natural volcanic hot springs, where…
A backstrap-loom brocade technique developed in the 1930s in which supplementary weft threads are worked with a wooden needle to build patterns identical on both faces of the finished cloth, so densely covering contemporary huipiles in…
A backstrap-loom brocade technique distinguished by weavers' use of multiple heddles made from simple sticks — each lifting a different combination of warp threads in a specific raising order — to build dense horizontal bands of tiny…
A hand-built, matrilineally transmitted pottery tradition of the Poqomam Maya community of Santa Cruz Chinautla, using clay dug directly from the banks of the Chinautla, Zapote, and Las Vacas rivers to produce vessels using pre-Hispanic…
Two related dark-material craft traditions of the Achi' Maya town of Rabinal: the hand-carving of geometric designs into polished black jícaras (dried gourds from the calabash tree, Crescentia cujete, also called guacales) to a…
A hand-thrown and hand-painted pottery tradition using distinctive volcanic riverbed clay from Lake Atitlán, transformed in the 1990s when American potter Ken Edwards — who had trained in Japan and previously established himself in Mexico…
A brocade-and-embroidery tradition of Santo Tomás Chichicastenango centered on the k'ot, a double-headed eagle motif understood by K'iche' Maya weavers as representing a great god of two natures — one face turned toward good, one toward…
A K'iche' Maya ceremonial huipil embroidery tradition of Nahualá sharing the double-headed eagle (k'ot) and zigzag feathered-serpent motifs documented elsewhere in K'iche' territory, but distinguished by a technique unique to this specific…
The hand-building of Guatemala's national instrument, a genuinely Afro-Indigenous syncretic tradition in which enslaved Africans introduced the sub-Saharan xylophone-and-gourd-resonator concept to Central America from the 16th century…
The making of the paired garaón hand drums — primero (tenor) and segunda (bass) — central to Punta and Paranda music of Guatemala's Garifuna community, concentrated in the Caribbean coastal town of Livingston.
A pre-Hispanic palm and rush mat-plaiting tradition so central to Maya political authority that pop, the word for the woven mat itself, names the first month of the traditional Maya calendar — rulers historically sat upon woven mats as a…
A family-based palm hat weaving and shaping craft of K'iche' Maya communities in which braiding and design work, hat shaping and tailoring, and the business itself are shared across parents, spouses, children, and multiple generations…
A twenty-five-step resist-dyeing technique in which cotton warp (and, for the most complex double-jaspe pieces, weft) threads are tied into precise bundles and dyed before weaving, so that patterns — figures, animals, butterflies, flowers…
A complete, from-scratch textile tradition unique among Lake Atitlán's weaving villages, in which Tz'utujil Maya women grow their own organic cotton in four native colors, hand-harvest and hand-spin it (traditionally spun up to seven times…
Barriletes gigantes are the colossal tissue-paper-and-bamboo kites constructed annually by community teams in Santiago Sacatepéquez and Sumpango, Kaqchikel Maya towns roughly 30–40 kilometers from Guatemala City, and raised each All…
The carving of jadeite, the material the ancient Maya valued above gold, using a technique unique in the archive: not just the craft but the raw material's own geological source — the Motagua River Valley jadeite deposits — was completely…
The hand-carving, in family workshops called morerías, of cedar and other hardwood masks worn in highland Guatemala's syncretic festival dance-dramas — among them the Danza de la Conquista, Baile del Torito, and Baile del Venado — in which…
The shade-grown cultivation, hand-picking, and wet-processing of Arabica coffee across Guatemala's volcanic highlands, sustaining over 125,000 farming families and declared Guatemala's intangible national heritage in 2018.
A self-taught, untrained painting tradition rendering Kaqchikel Maya daily life, religious festivals, and community history in small, detailed, brightly colored canvases, founded by Andrés Curruchich (1891–1969) in the town of San Juan…
The hand-crafting of custom leather goods — bags, belts, shoes, backpacks, wallets, and knife holders — at Lake Atitlán, centered on La Cueva Leather in San Juan La Laguna, run by self-taught leather craftsman Nicolas Pop.