Ecuador · Backstrap-loom textile weaving
Ahuano / Telar de Cintura Cañari
The weaving of clothing — most distinctively the cushma, a poncho-like garment with colorfully embroidered contours — on the ahuano, a specific backstrap loom developed by the Cañari people of Ecuador's southern highlands, a millennia-old technique for which the Cañari were historically renowned. As of the most recent available documentation, this ancestral technique survives with a single named living practitioner: Juan Tenesaca Aguaisa, a Kichwa-Cañari weaver from Manzanapata, Cañar province, who both builds his own looms from wood poles and has attempted to teach community members, none of whom has yet reached his level of mastery. Tenesaca has been internationally recognized, alongside fellow Ecuadorian weaver José Jiménez (CRAFT-2135), as one of 200 Ibero-American artisans named a 'Gran Maestro del Arte Popular' (Great Master of Popular Art) by Mexico's Fondo Cultural Banamex — while, in Cañar itself, the community preserves examples of the ahuano loom in two dedicated museums, in Quilloac and Azogues, a documented civic response to concern over the tradition's survival.
Risk level: Critically Endangered · Not Applicable — no UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage inscription exists for this craft at time of writing
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