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Culture

Language, religion, craft traditions, music and etiquette explained by the people who practice them.

Inside the diwaniya, Kuwait's evening gathering

Inside the diwaniya, Kuwait's evening gathering

The Kuwaiti diwaniya, a house's dedicated reception room where guests gather nightly, runs discussion, politics, and hospitality in one sitting, and it grew out of the Arabian majlis tradition that received international heritage recognition in 2015.

What Finnish sauna etiquette asks of a guest

What Finnish sauna etiquette asks of a guest

Finland keeps around three million saunas for five and a half million people, its sauna culture received international heritage recognition in 2020, and the etiquette that governs the steam is quiet, specific, and learnable in an afternoon.

In Teotitlan del Valle the red comes from a bug

In Teotitlan del Valle the red comes from a bug

The Zapotec weaving village of Teotitlán del Valle dyes its wool with cochineal, the crushed scale insect that was New Spain's second export after silver, on pedal looms whose arrival dates to the sixteenth century.

The potters of the pueblos kept their clay

The potters of the pueblos kept their clay

Pueblo pottery survived conquest, prohibition, and the curio trade, and its twentieth-century revival, led by Maria Martinez of San Ildefonso and Nampeyo of Hopi, made the coil-built jar the signature art of the American Southwest.

The order of a Georgian supra

The order of a Georgian supra

The Georgian feast runs on a structure older than its toasts: a tablecloth laid, a tamada appointed, wine from qvevri poured, and a sequence of speeches that turns a long dinner into the country's working model of friendship.