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Craft Techniques of Trinidad and Tobago

The Depository documents 5 techniques in Trinidad and Tobago; by risk level: 4 vulnerable, 1 stable. Each record opens with a public summary; the full research record is free to view once registered.

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Mask, Puppet & Costume

  • Trinidad Carnival Mas Costume MakingMask, Puppet & Costume · Vulnerable

    The design and construction of mas ('masquerade') costumes worn in Trinidad and Tobago's Carnival, ranging from traditional narrative characters developed after 1838 emancipation — freed Africans satirizing colonial planter-class customs —…

  • Trinidad Moko Jumbie Stilt and Costume MakingMask, Puppet & Costume · Vulnerable

    The construction of towering wooden stilts — traditionally up to 10–15 feet — and elaborate accompanying costumes for Moko Jumbie, a stilt-walking masquerade tradition tracing to West/Central African ancestral-spirit veneration and…

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Ceramics & Pottery

  • Central Trinidad Indo-Trinidadian (Kohar) PotteryCeramics & Pottery · Vulnerable

    A pottery tradition brought to Trinidad by Indian indentured laborers who arrived from the mid-19th century to work sugar cane plantations, carried specifically by families of the Kohar (potter) caste, whose profession held recognized…

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Food, Drink & Botanical

  • Trinidad Trinitario Bean-to-Bar Chocolate MakingFood, Drink & Botanical · Vulnerable

    The fermenting, drying, and hand-processing of Trinitario cocoa — a hybrid variety first developed in Trinidad itself, combining the fragile, exquisitely flavored Criollo cacao that Spanish missionaries cultivated in the Montserrat Hills…

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Musical Instruments

  • Trinidadian Steelpan Making and TuningMusical Instruments · Stable

    The sinking, marking, cutting, and hammer-tuning of 55-gallon industrial oil drums into the steelpan — the only entirely new family of acoustic instruments invented in the 20th century, and Trinidad and Tobago's national instrument.

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