Pangi (also kosoe, from the Saramaccan word for cloth); the men's diagonal shoulder wrap is called bandja-koosoe, and the men's loincloth kamisa; a garment made of elongated fabric strips more broadly is called aseisente
A women's textile tradition among Suriname's Maroon peoples in which a rectangular wrap cloth, the pangi, is constructed and decorated using techniques that have shifted across recognizable historical style periods — patchwork assembly (popular by the late 19th century), sewn narrow color-striped construction (fashionable from the 1920s), and non-linear cross-stitch embroidery (introduced from the 1970s after younger women learned the technique in mission schools). A woman's first pangi traditionally marked her passage from girlhood to adulthood, and finished pangis are ceremonially exchanged at holidays, births, weddings, and deaths, with color, stripe, and diamond-pattern choices each carrying specific meaning tied to the occasion.
Risk level: Endangered · Not UNESCO-inscribed; Suriname is not documented as a State Party to the 2003 ICH Convention in available sources for this record
The carving, skinning, and tuning of the apinti, a single-headed conical membranophone central to Suriname Maroon communities (Ndyuka/Aukan, Saamaka, Paramaka, Aluku, Kwinti, Matawai), paired with the intensive oral training required to…
The carving and painting of the maluwana, a large decorated wooden disc cut from the sacred Ceiba pentandra (silk-cotton/kapok) tree and suspended at the central peak of the tukusipan, the traditional round community house of the Wayana…
A women's carving tradition among the Ndyuka Maroon people of Suriname, in which the dried shell of the calabash fruit is cut, hollowed, and carved into spoons and dishes bearing distinctive curvilinear designs.
A distinctive timber-frame carpentry tradition that produced the plain, symmetrical, white-painted wooden buildings of Paramaribo's historic inner city, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2002 specifically for representing the…
A palm-fiber basket-weaving technique of the Kalina (Carib) people of Suriname's north-central interior, producing square, loosely woven sifter baskets set within a wooden frame, used to process cassava into fine, lump-free flour for…
A hand-built pottery tradition of Kari'na (Kalina/Carib) women, consolidated as a distinct ceramic style over at least 200 years across Suriname, Guyana, French Guiana, and Brazil.
A wooden-bobbin lace tradition of Vologda, 300 miles north of Moscow, built around a single continuous, never-crossing braided line — the vilushechka — that winds through the entire pattern over an openwork grid, sustained by up to 100,000…
A brocade-and-embroidery tradition of Santo Tomás Chichicastenango centered on the k'ot, a double-headed eagle motif understood by K'iche' Maya weavers as representing a great god of two natures — one face turned toward good, one toward…
The braiding of decorative embroidery from cotton or silk threads interwoven with fine metallic strands of gold or silver, practiced by Emirati women across the United Arab Emirates and inscribed by UNESCO on the Representative List of the…
A knitted lace shawl tradition of the Orenburg steppe, developed in the second half of the 18th century by combining a warming Kalmyk goat-fleece undergarment with Ural Cossack fine lace technique, worked from down hair so exceptionally…
Maidani (میدانی) is the silk embroidery tradition of the Hazara people of central Afghanistan — one of Afghanistan's most distinct ethnic groups, whose craft traditions have been particularly targeted in the current conflict.
An eight-pointed diamond-pieced star quilt pattern that replaced painted buffalo-hide ceremonial robes after the near-extermination of the buffalo herds, becoming, within roughly a generation, one of the central symbols of Lakota honor,…