Bahamas · Crepe-paper and cardboard parade costume construction
Junkanoo
The year-round hand-construction of elaborate, large-scale crepe-paper and cardboard costumes worn by competing groups in Nassau's Boxing Day and New Year's Day Junkanoo parades — the Bahamas' signature national cultural festival. Costumes are built by pasting thousands of individually cut and fringed crepe-paper pieces onto cardboard-and-wire frame structures, with elite competition-grade pieces the product of months of group labor. Junkanoo and straw work were the two Bahamian traditions specifically cited by UNESCO in its 2014 designation of Nassau as a Creative City of Crafts and Folk Arts. This is genuinely distinct from the Jamaican Jonkonnu/Jankunu masquerade tradition already documented in this archive (CRAFT-2061) — while both share a common Caribbean Christmas-masquerade root, the Bahamian form centers on large-scale group costume and float construction using crepe paper and cardboard rather than Jamaica's hat-and-headdress-based individual masking tradition.
Risk level: Stable · Not Applicable as a direct ICH inscription for the specific costume-construction craft, though Nassau's designation as a UNESCO Creative City of Crafts and Folk Arts (2014) specifically names Junkanoo as one of its two defining cited traditions
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