Wanaragua (mask, dance, and dancer, Garifuna); máscaro (Spanish)
The construction of the pink- or white-faced wire-mesh masks worn in Wanaragua, the Garifuna Christmas-season dance whose costume and choreography satirically mock colonial slave masters — a craft built from wire mesh, metal strips, paint, and cloth through a documented fourteen-step process, and one whose deepest layer of meaning traces back further still, to Garifuna warriors on Saint Vincent who dressed as women specifically to deceive British troops who assumed only women were present in Garifuna villages.
Risk level: Endangered · The related 'Language, Dance and Music of the Garifuna' tradition, of which Wanaragua is a component, was proclaimed a UNESCO Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2001 and inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2008, jointly recognizing Belize, Honduras, and Nicaragua; this record covers the mask-making craft specifically, which supports but is distinct from that inscribed performance tradition. Honduras ratified the UNESCO 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2006.
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