Guatemala · Pottery / Ceramics
Alfarería de Chinautla
A hand-built, matrilineally transmitted pottery tradition of the Poqomam Maya community of Santa Cruz Chinautla, using clay dug directly from the banks of the Chinautla, Zapote, and Las Vacas rivers to produce vessels using pre-Hispanic techniques essentially unchanged since before the Spanish conquest, today directly threatened by six licensed sand- and mud-mining operations extracting and privatizing the very riverbank clay deposits the potters depend on.
Risk level: Critically Endangered · Not currently inscribed on a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list; Guatemala is a State Party to the UNESCO 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ratified 2006) and could nominate this technique in the future.
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