Tz'ikin Jaay (Tz'utujil, "House of Birds," the town's original name)
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 zigzags and checkerboard patterning depicting the many resident and migratory bird species of Lake Atitlán, worn openly as daily dress by the Tz'utujil Maya of Santiago Atitlán even through the 1960–1996 civil war, when women's continued weaving became a documented act of cultural survival under threat of violence.
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.
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