Tenango (from Nahuatl, "place of walls"); the Otomí call themselves Hñähñu or Ñuhu
A hand-embroidery tradition of the Otomí (Hñähñu) people of the Mezquital Valley and Sierra Madre Oriental highlands, rendering large-scale, densely populated scenes of stylized animals, plants, and mythological creatures on plain cotton cloth using a distinctive hidden "blind stitch," its design vocabulary traced by community legend to prehistoric cave paintings and closely linked to the amate-paper spirit-doll cutouts of neighboring San Pablito, transformed from a subsistence-linked household craft into a major commercial export art after a devastating 1960s drought.
Risk level: Vulnerable · Not currently inscribed on a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list; Mexico is a State Party to the UNESCO 2003 Convention (ratified 14 December 2005) and could nominate this technique in the future.
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