The Depository · Browse · The Americas
The Depository documents 79 techniques in United States; by risk level: 9 critically endangered, 29 endangered, 35 vulnerable, 1 stable. Each record opens with a public summary; the full research record is free to view once registered.
Black Masking Indian suit-making — commonly known as Mardi Gras Indian craft — is a distinctly New Orleans African American tradition in which members of neighborhood 'tribes' hand-sew and hand-bead elaborate three-piece suits, worked in…
A Northern Plains beading tradition of the Blackfeet Nation of Montana, part of the broader Blackfoot Confederacy that also includes the Kainai, Piikani, and Siksika Nations across the border in Alberta, Canada, known for bold geometric…
Densely beaded shoulder bags and regalia elements combining fine glass-bead embroidery with geometric and floral motifs, developed as a significant Southeastern decorative art form following European bead trade and continuing today within…
A distinctive Crow beading tradition recognized for its use of overlaid ('spot' or appliqué) stitch combined with bold, large-scale geometric and floral-influenced forms and a characteristic pastel and jewel-tone palette, applied…
Densely beaded horse regalia — masks, martingales (chest ornaments), and saddle blankets — reflecting the central historical importance of the horse in Crow and Cheyenne social and ceremonial life, among the largest-scale beadwork objects…
A distinctive quilting technique using long strips of fabric, believed to reflect the influence of narrow strip-woven cloth traditions from West Africa, historically pieced from repurposed feed sacks and fabric scraps and often carrying…
A pre-contact embroidery technique using dyed moose hair worked onto birchbark, historically the primary decorative embroidery method of Northeastern peoples before European glass-bead trade, later adapted into a significant curio-trade…
A three-dimensional, raised glass-bead embroidery technique developed by Tuscarora and Mohawk beadworkers in the last quarter of the 19th century, producing floral, leaf, and bird motifs with genuine sculptural relief, historically sold as…
The cutting, drilling, and stringing of white and purple beads from quahog clam and whelk shell into belts and strings that serve as the Haudenosaunee Confederacy's living historical, legal, and diplomatic record, predating and central to…
A combined woodworking, hide, and beadwork craft producing the rigid-backed, richly decorated infant carrier boards used across Southern Plains nations, integrating a wooden frame, brain-tanned hide wrapping, and dense beaded or quilled…
The oldest Plains embroidery technique, in which softened and dyed porcupine quills are sewn or wrapped onto hide, birchbark, or sinew-strung bases in geometric and symbolic patterns, largely supplanted by glass-bead trade goods in the…
An eight-pointed diamond-pieced star quilt pattern that replaced painted buffalo-hide ceremonial robes after the near-extermination of the buffalo herds, becoming, within roughly a generation, one of the central symbols of Lakota honor,…
A distinctive Amish quilt pattern unique to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, combining a large central diamond set within a square field of solid-colored fine wool and elaborate, densely stitched quilting patterns — a deliberately…
A distinctive self-couched embroidery stitch — long laid stitches tacked down at a 45-degree angle — developed in Spanish colonial New Mexico to decorate wool coverlets, church vestments, and altar cloths, understood by scholars as one of…
A Plains-originated beading technique in which short strung rows of glass beads are tacked to hide or fabric in regular parallel lanes, producing a distinctive ribbed, slightly raised surface well suited to the bold geometric designs…
The hand-winding and stitching of dried broomcorn (a sorghum variety) around a wooden handle using foot-tensioned twine, producing functional and decorative hearth brooms and whisks in forms including the turkey wing, hawk tail, and…
Ribbed and split-oak basketry made from young white oak saplings riven by hand into thin, supple splits, brought to the Southern Highlands by English and Scottish settlers who traditionally worked in willow, and adapted to the region's…
A technically demanding basketry technique in which a single continuous length of split river cane forms both an inner and outer basket wall in one uninterrupted weave, producing an exceptionally strong, sometimes water-tight vessel…
The hand-knotting of circular weighted throw nets used by Gullah Geechee fishers to catch shrimp, fish, and crab in Sea Island tidal creeks, a foundational subsistence craft historically often accompanied by work songs sung in the Gullah…
A West African coiling technique carried across the transatlantic slave trade and adapted in the South Carolina and Georgia Lowcountry, originating as bulrush fanner baskets used to winnow threshed rice on plantations and evolving, as rice…
Basketry woven from hand-pounded black ash tree splints, a foundational Haudenosaunee craft now facing an acute, near-term existential material threat from the invasive emerald ash borer beetle, which has killed tens of millions of ash…
A distinctive rattan and cane basketry tradition woven over a wooden mold with a solid turned wood base, developed by bored crewmen stationed for weeks at a time aboard the Nantucket Shoals lightship from the mid-19th century, later…
A twining-dominant basketry tradition shared by the Yurok, Karuk, Hupa, and related peoples of the Klamath and Trinity River basins, distinguished by a single-sided 'half-twist' overlay technique in which a decorative material is woven…
Widely regarded as among the finest basketry in the world, a coiling and twining tradition using willow, sedge root, and bulrush, elaborated in its most prestigious 'treasure' or 'gift' basket forms with entire surfaces covered in…
A fine twined basketry and matting tradition using split spruce root and pounded cedar bark, producing tightly woven baskets, hats, mats, and clothing elements historically watertight enough to hold liquids, decorated with false-embroidery…
An extremely fine miniature coiling technique using horsehair rather than plant fiber for the stitching material, developed by Tohono O'odham weavers as an innovation on older willow, yucca, and devil's-claw basketry, producing baskets…
An extraordinarily fine twined basketry tradition using wild rye and beach grass, historically worked exclusively with a woman's own sharpened thumbnail as the only tool, capable of crowding over a thousand stitches into a single square…
A Washoe coiled basketry tradition originally producing simple, round, watertight utilitarian vessels, transformed by master weaver Louisa Keyser (Dat So La Lee, c.
Three-rod coiled basketry using willow foundation rods and black devil's-claw and red yucca-root splints for pattern, producing burden baskets, deep storage ollas, and trays that are among the most technically demanding coiled basketry…
A joinery-based chairmaking tradition built entirely from green (unseasoned) wood posts and rungs without glue or metal fasteners, distinguished from other ladder-back traditions by a distinctive steam- or boil-bent back post and a woven…
The construction of long hunting blowguns from hollowed river cane, paired with fletched thistledown darts, historically used for hunting small game and birds and requiring both precise equipment-making skill and specialized stalking and…
Hand-carved paired hickory sticks used in Cherokee stickball (anetso), a two-handed ball-catching game considered the ancestor of modern lacrosse and historically used both as sport and as a ceremonial alternative to settling disputes that…
The selection, steaming, bending, and hand-webbing of a single hickory branch into a traditional wooden lacrosse stick for a sport the Haudenosaunee regard as both play and sacred medicine game, now sustained by only a small number of…
Carving of cottonwood-root figures representing katsina spirits, traditionally given to children as teaching objects and today also produced as fine-art collector pieces, with the range of appropriate subjects governed by religious…
The carving and engraved-line (scrimshaw) decoration of walrus tusk ivory into tools, cribbage boards, figures, and jewelry, a long-standing coastal Alaska Native craft that occupies a distinct legal category in US federal law: walrus…
The hand-shaping and joining of curved wooden staves into watertight barrels, casks, and household vessels using no glue or nails, historically a foundational New England colonial trade essential to shipping, food storage, and the whaling…
A folk-art engraving and carving tradition practiced by 19th-century American whalemen on sperm whale teeth, bone, and walrus tusk during the long idle hours of whaling voyages, widely regarded as one of the few art forms to have…
The carving and painting of devotional wooden figures (bultos, carved fully in the round) and painted panels (retablos) depicting saints and scenes from the life of Christ, a tradition dating to the mid-1700s when Franciscan missionaries…
A technique of gluing individually split, flattened, and shaped pieces of straw onto a darkened wooden surface (typically crosses and retablos) to produce delicate geometric and figurative designs that visually emulate gold leaf, brought…
A steam-bent bentwood box tradition developed by the Shaker religious community in New York and New England, refining the older New England round pantry box into a distinctive oval form joined with a functional 'swallowtail' finger joint…
A distinctive Northwest Coast woodworking technique in which a single cedar plank is precisely kerfed (grooved) at three corners, steamed until pliable, and bent into a rectangular, watertight box with only one seam requiring fastening — a…
A steam-bent driftwood hunting visor, shaped to echo the form of Aleutian skin kayaks, elaborately painted and decorated with sea lion whiskers and carved ivory according to the wearer's hunting rank, worn by kayak hunters to deflect sea…
A flat, blunt carved knife, traditionally made of ivory or wood, used almost exclusively by Yup'ik girls to draw figures and scenes in mud, snow, or sand while narrating traditional and improvised stories — a storytelling implement whose…
Extremely thin-walled, hand-coiled pottery made from clay tempered with ground potsherds, prized for fine geometric and fine-line painted designs and for walls thin enough that a small clay impurity can cause a firing failure.
Hand-built pottery decorated by striking the still-damp clay surface with a carved wooden paddle, a technique that both compacts and strengthens the vessel wall and leaves a distinctive textured surface pattern, historically central to…
A distinctive stoneware tradition combining English, European, and Asian ceramic techniques with the skilled labor and artistic voice of enslaved African American potters in the Edgefield District of South Carolina, producing utilitarian…
Hand-coiled, stone-polished pottery painted with black and orange mineral pigments in geometric designs revived from 14th–17th-century Sikyatki ruins by the Hopi-Tewa potter Nampeyo beginning in the 1890s.
Red earthenware pottery decorated using two related techniques — sgraffito, in which a design is scratched through a white slip coating to reveal the red clay beneath, and slip-trailing, in which liquid slip is poured freehand through a…
Matte-on-glossy black pottery achieved through a smothered, oxygen-reduction outdoor firing, developed by Maria and Julian Martinez in the early 20th century after study of ancient black-on-black sherds and now a defining San Ildefonso…
Utilitarian coil-built pottery made from mica-flecked clay unique to the Taos and Picuris Pueblo area, prized historically and today for its natural non-stick qualities and even heat conduction as functional cookware, and now also produced…
Weft-faced tapestry weaving on a vertical, frameless loom, producing the geometric rugs and blankets that are the Navajo Nation's best-known textile art, still passed mother to daughter within extended families.
Kapa is the traditional Native Hawaiian barkcloth, made almost entirely from the inner bark of the wauke (paper mulberry) tree through a labor-intensive process of stripping, soaking, fermenting, and repeated beating that transforms bast…
The United States side of the cross-border Coast Salish weaving tradition (see CRAFT-1712 for the Canadian/British Columbia side), practiced by Coast Salish nations around Puget Sound and the wider Salish Sea in Washington State, using the…
A distinct Hispano weaving tradition developed by Spanish colonial settlers in the Rio Grande watershed of northern New Mexico from the early 1600s, using churro sheep wool descended from flocks brought by the Coronado expedition,…
A complex finger-twining weaving technique unique among world textile traditions for its ability to render the curved, circular formline designs of Northwest Coast visual art in cloth, using mountain goat wool weft and cedar-bark warp on a…
An older, geometric twined-weaving tradition originating among the Tsimshian and retained by Tlingit and Haida weavers, using bold black-and-white (with sparing color accents) angular patterns evoking lightning and spider webs, understood…
Hand-forged decorative wrought iron gates, fences, balconies, and window grilles rooted in a documented African and African American blacksmithing tradition brought to the Lowcountry through slavery, later transformed from utilitarian…
Hand-stamped and turquoise-set silver jewelry — concha belts, squash blossom necklaces, bracelets, and bolo ties — developed after Diné smiths learned metalworking from Mexican plateros in the mid-19th century.
The hand-hammering (repoussé) of sheet copper into hollow, three-dimensional wind-direction ornaments — roosters, running horses, ships, and other figures — for barns, churches, and civic buildings, a colonial New England tradition dating…
A 19th-century New Mexican craft transforming discarded commercial tin cans into elaborately punched, stamped, and soldered devotional frames, nichos (hanging niches), and household fixtures, adapting older Spanish leather-working punch…
A Zuni-originated lapidary tradition in which turquoise and other stones are cut into slender needle-shaped or channel-set pieces and arranged in dense, precise mosaic patterns within a silver framework, developed as a distinctive Zuni…
'Ahu'ula ('red garment') refers to the feathered cloaks and capes that stood as the most sacred and politically significant objects of pre-contact Hawaiian material culture — constructed entirely by hand from plant fiber netting and the…
PARTIAL RECORD BY DESIGN — An ephemeral healing-ceremony art form in which a hatałii (medicine person) and assistants pour dry pigment freehand onto the ground to create a large ritual image used within a specific healing ceremony and…
The construction of feathered dance bustles and associated regalia worn in Southern Plains ceremonial and powwow dance, combining regulated eagle-feather handling under federal permit law with beadwork, hide, and dyed-feather decorative…
A multi-stage hand process for turning raw animal hide into soft, supple, smoke-finished buckskin using the animal's own brain matter as the tanning agent, forming the essential material foundation for nearly every other Plains hide craft…
The painting of bold, symmetrical geometric designs onto stiff, dampened rawhide before it is folded into an envelope-style carrying case, developed to meet the portable-storage needs of horse-mounted nomadic Plains life.
A precise sewing technique using seal or other marine-mammal sinew thread stitched only partway through sealskin or marine-mammal gut, exploiting sinew's property of swelling when wet to seal the needle holes and produce a genuinely…
The design and hand-fabrication of water-resistant earrings and bangles from recycled newspaper and cardboard by American designer Luda, working under the name Alla Maude in Long Beach, New York, part of the same wider international…
A colorful illuminated folk-art tradition combining an angular German blackletter script with hand-painted watercolor motifs — tulips, birds, hearts, and scrolls — used by Pennsylvania Germans primarily to create and decorate birth and…
Carved buckeye-wood masks (also made from gourds or hollowed hornet and wasp nests) representing exaggerated, often satirical caricatures of outsiders, worn during the nighttime winter Booger Dance to comedically and protectively confront…
Dolls hand-formed from dried corn husks, deliberately made without a face, taught to children alongside a Three Sisters origin legend warning against vanity and self-regard — a distinct and openly shared craft, separate from any restricted…
A sewn-plank ocean-going canoe built without internal ribs or frame, constructed from split redwood driftwood planks drilled, sewn together with plant-fiber cordage, and waterproofed with yop (a mixture of pine pitch and natural asphaltum)…
The construction of a large, open, wood-framed boat covered with stitched bearded seal or walrus skin, historically the primary vessel for whaling and large-scale marine mammal hunting and cargo transport among coastal Iñupiat and other…
Hand-quarrying and carving of the soft red pipestone (catlinite) found almost uniquely at a sacred quarry site in southwestern Minnesota, worked into ceremonial pipe bowls used in prayer and, historically, treaty and diplomatic ceremonies…
Small hand-carved stone animal figures, often finished with an inlaid 'heartline' running from mouth to heart and sometimes an offering bundle, carved to hold and channel the spirit of the depicted animal for protection, healing, or…
Large-scale geometric star, sun, and moon paintings applied directly to the sides and gables of Pennsylvania German barns beginning around 1830, historically an agricultural and folk-artistic expression tied to farmers' almanac star-sign…
A transitional Plains narrative art form in which warrior-artists adapted the older tradition of painting personal exploits on buffalo hide to the pencil, ink, and colored-pencil pages of trade or captured account ledger books, flourishing…
The building of a fretted, hourglass-shaped lap zither played flat across the knees, adapted in the early 19th-century Appalachian Mountains from European scheitholt, langspil, and épinette des Vosges instrument traditions brought by…
A fermentation-based natural dye process extracting deep blue pigment from Indigofera suffruticosa leaves, historically one of colonial South Carolina's most valuable export crops (grown and processed almost entirely through enslaved…