Moreria (workshop); máscaras de madera
The hand-carving, in family workshops called morerías, of cedar and other hardwood masks worn in highland Guatemala's syncretic festival dance-dramas — among them the Danza de la Conquista, Baile del Torito, and Baile del Venado — in which masks depicting animals, spirits, and historical figures are carved and painted using hand tools and techniques substantially unchanged for generations, with some designs, including pink-faced, mustached figures representing the conquistadors, deliberately created to mock the very colonizers whose arrival the festivals nominally commemorate.
Risk level: Vulnerable · 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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