Uruguay · Chased and engraved silver gaucho ornament and horse-tack craft
Platería Criolla
Platería criolla — the chasing and engraving of silver into rastra belt buckles, facón knife sheaths and handles, stirrups, spurs, bit fittings, and mate implements — developed as the gaucho's own material expression of hard-won wealth across the shared Río de la Plata pampa region spanning Argentina, Uruguay, and Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Historians trace the tradition to the early 19th century, when itinerant silversmiths — some criollo, some European-born — began working in workshops concentrated in certain Buenos Aires streets, alongside a parallel, independently significant silverworking tradition among indigenous peoples of the pampa (Ranquel, Araucanian, Tehuelche), themselves drawing on metalworking knowledge carried south from Inca contact and blended with European tools and technique. Historian and craft writer Hilario has documented how a gaucho, chronically short of money, would slowly assemble a glittering silver riding kit — spurs, quirt, rastra center-plate, and knife — as both his life savings and his most visible personal display, a practice wealthier landowners later adopted from the very gauchos whose rebellious style they had once officially punished. In Uruguay specifically, contemporary specialty retailers continue producing rastras deliberately incorporating national symbols — a horse, Uruguay's coat of arms, the outline of the country's own map — finished with an artificial aging treatment to evoke antique heritage pieces.
Risk level: Vulnerable · Not Applicable — no UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage inscription exists for this craft at time of writing
Wood carved, turned and joined into figurative sculpture and household objects, often combined with other materials, as practiced in small independent Uruguayan workshops.
Utilitarian high-temperature ceramics and mosaic-style wall tiles made without highly toxic raw materials, so that durable pieces can be used without risk to health ('no incorporo materias primas altamente tóxicas').
Standing figures sculpted from leather in two 'lenguajes' (languages) of the material: fine, malleable sheep leather for softly draped figures and thick, rigid sole leather for stiffer forms.
Forging knife blades in Damascus steel (acero damasco) by pattern-welding layered steels to produce the characteristic rippled, wood-grain surface, then fitting handles of stingray leather (galuchat), bone or fine hardwood, with leather…
Carved and finished objects in Uruguayan timbers (poplar, ash, marupá and cedar, chosen for the fine finish they take), combined with cowhide leather and virgin wool whose texture contrasts with the polished wood.
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