Museu Casa de Nhozinho, museum in São Luís, Maranhão

Museu Casa de Nhozinho is a museum in a historic house from the early 1800s in central São Luís, preserving the work of a local artisan. The building spans multiple floors with exhibits of handmade dolls, ceramics, textiles, wood carvings, and objects that show how people lived and worked in Maranhão.

The four-storey mansion was built in the early 19th century. The museum opened there in 2002 and is named after Antônio Bruno Pinto Nogueira (1904-1974), known as Nhozinho, a master of buriti carving born in Cururupu. Its collection gathers objects of daily life in Maranhão, from fishing gear and ox carts to charcoal stoves and the cofo basket woven from babaçu palm leaves.

The museum shows how local artisans of Maranhão worked with natural materials like plant fibers and clay to create objects for daily life. These pieces reflect the traditions and customs of São Luís residents and remain part of the region's living culture.

Three of the mansion's four floors are open to visitors: a shop with regional products, a room for temporary exhibitions and one for the permanent collection. The top floor holds Nhozinho's own carvings, including bumba-meu-boi dancers, buriti boats and nativity figures, along with the tools he worked with.

What makes the collection notable is Nhozinho's masterful work with buriti, a local plant fiber he transformed into artistic pieces that are rarely seen elsewhere. This traditional technique has largely faded from practice, but the museum preserves examples of how he shaped this material into detailed sculptures and functional objects.