United States · Textile / Weaving
Tejido de Chimayó
A distinct Hispano weaving tradition developed by Spanish colonial settlers in the Rio Grande watershed of northern New Mexico from the early 1600s, using churro sheep wool descended from flocks brought by the Coronado expedition, encompassing several regional visual styles (Rio Grande, Saltillo, Vallero, and the now-dominant striped Chimayó style) and today sustained almost entirely by a small number of multi-generation weaving families in the Éspanola Valley.
Risk level: Endangered · Not Applicable — the United States is not a State Party to the UNESCO 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage; no US technique can be formally ICH-inscribed regardless of significance.
The design and hand-fabrication of water-resistant earrings and bangles from recycled newspaper and cardboard by American designer Luda, working under the name Alla Maude in Long Beach, New York, part of the same wider international…
A steam-bent bentwood box tradition developed by the Shaker religious community in New York and New England, refining the older New England round pantry box into a distinctive oval form joined with a functional 'swallowtail' finger joint…
A steam-bent driftwood hunting visor, shaped to echo the form of Aleutian skin kayaks, elaborately painted and decorated with sea lion whiskers and carved ivory according to the wearer's hunting rank, worn by kayak hunters to deflect sea…
The cutting, drilling, and stringing of white and purple beads from quahog clam and whelk shell into belts and strings that serve as the Haudenosaunee Confederacy's living historical, legal, and diplomatic record, predating and central to…
A flat, blunt carved knife, traditionally made of ivory or wood, used almost exclusively by Yup'ik girls to draw figures and scenes in mud, snow, or sand while narrating traditional and improvised stories — a storytelling implement whose…
An extraordinarily fine twined basketry tradition using wild rye and beach grass, historically worked exclusively with a woman's own sharpened thumbnail as the only tool, capable of crowding over a thousand stitches into a single square…
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The making of burel — a dense, felted wool cloth traditionally woven by shepherds in the Serra da Estrela region of Beira Baixa for cold-weather capes and blankets, and now revived as a contemporary design material.
Atayal backstrap loom weaving is the defining craft tradition of Taiwan's Atayal people — the largest indigenous group occupying the central mountain range — producing red-and-white geometric supplementary weft textiles historically worn…
Hol is the Khmer weft-ikat silk tradition, historically associated with court and ceremonial cloth.
Pidan is Cambodia's large-format Buddhist temple hanging silk (1.5m x 3m), woven with figurative Buddhist narrative scenes using supplementary weft tapestry technique — small color bobbins passed through specific warp areas to build each…
Paiwan complementary weft weaving produces the ground textiles onto which bead embroidery (CRAFT-0567) is applied, but is also a significant tradition in its own right — producing the distinctive black-and-red woven textiles of southern…