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The Depository documents 6 techniques in Puerto Rico; by risk level: 1 critically endangered, 4 vulnerable, 1 stable. Each record opens with a public summary; the full research record is free to view once registered.
The hand-crafting of vejigante masks — horned, fanged, brightly colored festival masks worn during Fiestas de Santiago Apóstol in Loíza and Carnaval de Ponce — using two genuinely distinct regional techniques: coconut-husk carving (the…
The hand-crafting of leather saddles and equestrian tack, founded as a formal commercial tradition in Puerto Rico in 1970 by Lalin, a Cuban-born craftsman who specialized in saddle- and horse-gear-making from a young age.
The cultivation and hand-rolling of cigars in Puerto Rico, a tradition of genuinely singular linguistic significance: the word 'cigar' itself derives from the Taíno sikar, the term for the hand-rolled cured-tobacco tube Taíno people were…
A five-centuries-old form of bobbin lace-making that today exists only in Puerto Rico and Spain, worked by winding fine threads around wooden bobbins to build delicate lace patterns.
The hand-carving and painting of santos — wooden devotional figures of saints, the Virgin Mary, and the Three Kings — a Puerto Rican folk-religious tradition dating to the 16th century, practiced by santeros using local hardwoods,…
The coil-building and ground-firing (without a kiln) of Taíno-style earthenware pottery, preserved in its purest documented form by Alice Chéveres at Taller Cabachuelas in rural Torrecillas, a workshop founded in 1984 by her mother Evarín…