Nicaragua · Pottery / Ceramics
Cerámica de San Juan de Oriente
A kick-wheel-thrown, mineral-oxide-painted, sgraffito-carved pottery tradition of San Juan de Oriente — originally Villa Namotiva, "old town" in Chorotega, later San Juan de los Platos for the ceremonial plates once made there — whose pre-Columbian Chorotega/Nicoyan style was deliberately recaptured in the 20th century by a single master, Gregorio Bracamonte, subsequently named a National Hero of Nicaragua for the achievement, with his own student Helio Gutiérrez going on to receive a UNESCO cultural-artist award in 1999.
Risk level: Vulnerable · Not currently inscribed on a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list under this specific technique; Nicaragua ratified the UNESCO 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2004 and could nominate this technique in the future.
A self-taught, brightly colored folk-painting style founded in 1965–66 by the Catholic priest, poet, and liberation theologian Ernesto Cardenal, who settled on the Solentiname archipelago in southern Lake Nicaragua and, together with…
A freehand, entirely ephemeral street-art tradition of Barrio Sutiava, the Indigenous quarter of León, in which colored sawdust is laid directly onto bare earth to form elaborate devotional carpets the night or early morning before a…
A family-workshop hammock-weaving tradition centered in the Barrio de San Juan and Monimbó neighborhoods of Masaya, Nicaragua's "Cradle of Culture," refined in the 1960s when a group of independent weavers replaced the coarse, waterproof…
The hand-carving and papier-mâché construction of festival masks in Masaya's Indigenous Monimbó district, made from paper or from jícaro (calabash gourd) and worn during two annual processions honoring the city's patron saint, San…
The hand-crafting of leather saddles (monturas), pack saddles (albardas), reins (riendas), belts (fajas), chest straps (pecheras), and machete and knife sheaths from tanned cowhide, centered on Estelí's long-established talabartería…
The cultivation, curing, fermentation, and hand-rolling of premium cigars centered on Estelí and the surrounding Estelí, Condega, and Jalapa valleys of northwestern Nicaragua.
The Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad) porcelain tradition — the hard-paste porcelain production of the Karlovy Vary region that made Bohemia, alongside Meissen and Sèvres, one of the three great European porcelain centers.
The making of the decorative bas-relief sprigs (individually applied relief elements) for Wedgwood Jasperware — the unglazed fine stoneware with colored body (the iconic Wedgwood blue, sage green, or black) and applied white relief…
Two related dark-material craft traditions of the Achi' Maya town of Rabinal: the hand-carving of geometric designs into polished black jícaras (dried gourds from the calabash tree, Crescentia cujete, also called guacales) to a…
A pre-Columbian, hand-formed pottery tradition of the Chorotega people of Guaitil and neighboring San Vicente, Guanacaste province, using clay mixed with a fine river sand locally called "iguana sand" — named for the reptiles that lay…
The hand-building of clay pots and utensils by Macushi artisans of Toka village in Guyana's North Rupununi, using only the hands and small stones as tools, without wheel or machinery.
A pre-Columbian hand-pottery tradition of the Lenca — Lepa Wiran, "Descendants of the Jaguar," Honduras's largest Indigenous group — practiced by women in and around La Campa, Lempira department, using a stone-burnishing technique for…