Bolivia · Mask / Carnival Craft
Caretas / máscaras de la Diablada; artisans are called careteros
The sculptural mask-making trade behind Oruro's Diablada (Dance of the Devils), the centerpiece of the UNESCO-inscribed Carnaval de Oruro. Careteros build elaborate horned, fanged devil masks — originally plaster-on-felt or tin, now predominantly fiberglass — through generations-deep family workshops, with the trade's most consequential 20th-century innovation credited to a single named master, Mario Molina Quiroga.
Risk level: Vulnerable · The Carnaval de Oruro, of which the Diablada and its masks are the central element, was proclaimed a UNESCO Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2001 and inscribed on the Representative List in 2008
Two distinct pictorial weaving traditions from south-central Bolivia, produced on backstrap and vertical looms by Jalq'a and Tarabuco (Yampara) weavers of Chuquisaca and Potosí departments.
The lapidary technique of cutting ametrine — a naturally bicolor quartz combining amethyst (purple) and citrine (yellow) within a single crystal — sourced almost exclusively from Bolivia's Anahí mine, the world's only significant…
Colonial-rooted Bolivian silversmithing centered on Potosí, once the Spanish Empire's principal silver-minting city, historically practiced through forging, filigree, and lost-wax casting workshops.
A masonry technique unique to the Salar de Uyuni, the world's largest salt flat, in which compacted salt is cut directly from the salar's surface into brick-like blocks and built into complete structures — walls, domed ceilings, furniture…
An ancestral Aymara boat-building technique from Suriqui Island, Lake Titicaca, in which bundles of totora reed are shaped by hand and foot into Viking-canoe-silhouetted vessels without nails, adhesive, or powered tools — reeds alone,…
A distinct Andean weaving tradition of the Kallawaya people, itinerant herbalist healers of Bautista Saavedra province, La Paz department, whose textiles are woven with detailed figurative motifs of regional flora and fauna reflecting the…
The carving of entertainment masks by the Baule people, roughly 400,000 strong in central Côte d'Ivoire, whose rich carving tradition produces two recognized categories: Goli, a sequential four-mask dance series adopted from the…
The Abelam people of the East Sepik Province produce the nggwalndu — an extraordinary combination of woven fiber mask face and painted fiber conical superstructure that can reach 3-4 meters in height.
The making of costumes, symbolic props, calligraphic elements, and musical instruments supporting Ta'zieh, Iran's ritual dramatic art form reenacting the events of the Battle of Karbala (680 CE), centering on the tragic death of Husayn ibn…
A wood-carving tradition specific to the small Lake Pátzcuaro-area village of Tocuaro, producing elaborately carved and painted ceremonial masks — devils, animals, and human figures — used in Purépecha ritual dance, with the village so…
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…
The construction of the shatweh, a distinctive conical headdress shaped like an upturned flower pot or a man's tarboosh, worn exclusively by married women of Bethlehem and the neighboring villages of Beit Jala, Beit Sahur, Lifta, and Ayn…