Marcador
A backstrap-loom brocade technique developed in the 1930s in which supplementary weft threads are worked with a wooden needle to build patterns identical on both faces of the finished cloth, so densely covering contemporary huipiles in floral and animal motifs — originally adapted from European embroidery pattern books — that the garments are considered among the most technically demanding, expensive, and high-status textiles in Guatemala.
Risk level: Endangered · 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.
A self-taught, untrained painting tradition rendering Kaqchikel Maya daily life, religious festivals, and community history in small, detailed, brightly colored canvases, founded by Andrés Curruchich (1891–1969) in the town of San Juan…
The shade-grown cultivation, hand-picking, and wet-processing of Arabica coffee across Guatemala's volcanic highlands, sustaining over 125,000 farming families and declared Guatemala's intangible national heritage in 2018.
The hand-crafting of custom leather goods — bags, belts, shoes, backpacks, wallets, and knife holders — at Lake Atitlán, centered on La Cueva Leather in San Juan La Laguna, run by self-taught leather craftsman Nicolas Pop.
The making of the paired garaón hand drums — primero (tenor) and segunda (bass) — central to Punta and Paranda music of Guatemala's Garifuna community, concentrated in the Caribbean coastal town of Livingston.
A backstrap-loom brocade technique distinguished by weavers' use of multiple heddles made from simple sticks — each lifting a different combination of warp threads in a specific raising order — to build dense horizontal bands of tiny…
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…
Krama is Cambodia's defining national textile — a checked or striped cotton cloth worn universally as scarf, head covering, baby carrier and Buddhist offering.
The Hmong flax-and-indigo textile tradition of Vietnam's northern highlands is one of the most complete craft chains in the database — encompassing every stage from growing flax on mountain slopes to wearing the finished garment.
The Black Tai (Thai Den) are one of Vietnam's largest ethnic minority groups — living in the limestone valleys of Hoa Binh, Son La, and Lai Chau provinces.
The Cham people of south-central Vietnam — the descendants of the ancient Hindu-Buddhist Cham kingdom (2nd–17th century CE) — maintain a textile weaving tradition of extraordinary antiquity that was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative…
Tampuan weaving is the back-strap loom textile tradition of the Tampuan people of Ratanakiri Province — one of Cambodia's largest highland minority groups.
The Cham people of Cambodia — Muslim descendants of the ancient Champa Kingdom — maintain a distinct textile tradition separate from both lowland Khmer hol (CRAFT-0506) and highland minority textiles.