Trinidad and Tobago · Hand-thrown and hand-built earthenware ceramics
Kohar Pottery
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 cultural and spiritual significance within the Indian caste and craft-guild system. Documented as having 'bridged the pottery gap' left after the Indigenous Amerindian ceramic tradition diminished, the craft continues in central Trinidad, where it was the subject of a dedicated two-year academic study by artist and art teacher Richard Rampersad, published as the master's thesis 'Memories in Mud: Probing the Material Culture of the Pottery Tradition in Central Trinidad' — research Rampersad undertook specifically because he found a genuine 'scholarly gap' in existing documentation of the tradition.
Risk level: Vulnerable · Not Applicable — no UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage inscription exists for this craft at time of writing
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