In just six years, an important element of intangible cultural heritage went from being an element in need of urgent safeguarding to being an active part of the lives of Vietnamese people. The Hat Xoan Phu Tho tradition, a distinctive call-and-response musical genre of Phu Tho Province in northern Vietnam, was inscribed on the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding in 2011, and as a result it became the focus of an extensive revitalization program to ensure its survival.\n\nA unique blend of song and dance performance, xoan originated in the upland region of Viet Tri in Phu Tho for the people to express the richness of their community lives. Some of the performances are to venerate ancient kings while others are expressions of the people’s skills and artistry or their knowledge of farming, fishing, hunting, weaving, and other rural crafts. xoan is considered the core and essence of the social and cultural identity of the villages of Phu Duc, Kim Dai, Thet, and An Thai.\n\nSince 2011, the state and local communities have been supporting a project to revitalize xoan. A series of creative collaborations between knowledgeable elder practitioners and a nucleus of over sixty younger artists have committed themselves to xoan practice and dissemination and have subsequently secured xoan transmission to future generations. Training classes are held monthly and weekly within the communities. An active set of xoan guilds with as many as a hundred members of three or even four generations of practitioner families are successfully recruiting new adherents.\n\nTo generate an audience for the genre, xoan has been introduced into the regional school curriculum as a reference point for teaching on issues of heritage and local history. Demonstration activities and social events outside the xoan communities, have attracted young people and increased their understanding and enjoyment of xoan.\n\nWithin the xoan communities, many of the temples and shrines used for performances had deteriorated because of war and time, becoming unusable. The state, however, has allocated priority funding to restore these performance areas. Through the government-funded program, community members are fully involved in the restoration and have been empowered to manage their own cultural spaces. On 28 March 2017, the country’s largest site for xoan practice was inaugurated in Kim Duc, a commune of Viet Tri. Legend has it that this space, within the Lai Len temple in Kim Duc, was the first site of xoan performance in Vietnam.\n\nThrough these unique programs, xoan communities have become vibrant places of practice and the transmission of xoan.\n\nPhoto : In marked contrast to the traditional past, Xoan is now widely performed by young practitioners © Le Thi Minh Ly

Afrikan combat arts and sciences are the very oldest in the world as Afrikan people are the first human beings in the world. According to Hamblin, “the oldest discovered cemetery in the Nile Valley at Jebel Sahaba in Nubia (northern Sudan)—broadly dated to roughly 12,000– 9000—provides the earliest evidence of tribal warfare, for roughly half of the 59 skeletons at site 117 had flint projectile points among the bones, probably indicating death in battle; some had evidence of multiple healed wounds, perhaps indicating repeated fighting” (2006, p. 32). This site has since been more accurately dated to between 13,140 and 14,340 years ago (Graham, 2016). At another massacre site at Nataruk in contemporary Kenya were found a mixture of people killed with blunt instruments, sharp pointed weapons, projectiles, and so on. According to Lahr , “Ten of the twelve articulated skeletons found at Nataruk show evidence of having died violently at the edge of a lagoon, into which some of the bodies fell. The remains from Nataruk are unique, preserved by the particular conditions of the lagoon with no evidence of deliberate burial” (2016, p. 2). Researchers at Nataruk also found:

The Loden Foundation has identified ten ICH elements of Bhutan that are on the brink of disappearing as time passes. To preserve records of these cultural traditions and raise awareness of them among the people, the foundation aims to make documentaries about these elements with support from ICHCAP. \n

Folkland, International Centre for Folklore and Culture is an institution that was first registered on December 20, 1989 under the Societies Registration Act of 1860, vide No. 406/89. Over the last 16 years, it has passed through various stages of growth, especially in the fields of performance, production, documentation, and research, besides the preservation of folk art and culture.Since its inception in 1989, Folkland has passed through various phases of growth into a cultural organization with a global presence. As stated above, Folkland has delved deep into the fields of stage performance, production, documentation, and research, besides the preservation of folk art and culture. It has strived hard and treads the untrodden path with a clear motto of preservation and inculcation of old folk and cultural values in our society. Folkland has a veritable collection of folk songs, folk art forms, riddles, fables, myths, etc. that are on the verge of extinction. This collection has been recorded and archived well for scholastic endeavors and posterity. As such, Folkland defines itself as follows

Annually, from 13 to 15 April, the people of Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia celebrate their traditional New Year—Paveni Pi Mai Muang or the Songkran Festival, which is also known as the Water Splashing Festival. According to Northern Thai or Lanna culture, Songkran is traditionally celebrated during the seventh lunar month of the Lanna calendar. Establishing April as the first month of the year coincides with the movement of the sun through the zodiac, a pattern that reflects the changing seasons and accords with the natural rhythm of nature and the universe. This time of year provides an opportunity for family members to gather and make merit through traditional rituals, such as washing Buddha images and other water blessing ceremonies. Each day of the New Year festival serves a particular purpose as outlined in this article.

These are strange times in India to discuss and evolve strategies for safeguarding the genuine shamanistic heritage of India. Let me begin by narrating two isolated but weird incidents, which generated a great media backlash against shamanistic traditions and the practices in the Indian public sphere in the last two months. Describing them would outline the cultural struggles, shamanistic healing traditions face in India today. It is only a coincidence that the assassination of anti- superstition activist Narendra Dabholkar1 was followed within a fortnight by the arrest of a self styled god-man Asaram Bapu2 on charges of sexual assault on a 16-year-old schoolgirl. But both the incidents were earily connected a s if they were episodes in a novel o f Haruk i Murak ami because Asaram Bapu’s criminal misconduct closely fits some of the offences defined under anti-superstition and anti shamanistic ordinance Dabholkar was campaigning for.

The Masion des Cultures du Monde (World Cultures Institute) The Maison des Cultures du Monde (“World Cultures Institute”), has been founded in 1982 in Paris by Chérif Khaznadar and Françoise Gründ with the support of the French ministry of Culture. Its goals, the promotion and the enhancement of world performing arts - as witnesses of human inventiveness, \n\n- as landmarks of a historical continuity - as factors of cultural diversity \n- as sources of inspiration and creative renewal. Its method: the on-stage presentation of musical, dramatic, choreographic and ritual expressions from all over the world and mostly unknown to the French public. Since the creation of the United Nations, a new vision emerged that international solidarity should be based on the knowledge of other cultures and on a “dialogue of cultures”. In France several initiatives were conducted such as : - the Theatre of Nations with the support of UNESCO\n- foreign cultural seasons such as the Year of India, the Year of China, the Year of Korea, the Year of Vietnam etc. \n- a Traditional Arts Festival which promoted world traditional arts in a spirit of open-mindedness, awareness raising, aesthetic pleasure and cultural enrichment.

UNESCO’s Intangible Heritage Convention, which was adopted in 2003 and entered into force in April 2006, highlighted “Recognizing that com-munities, in particular indigenous communities, groups and, in some case, individuals, play an important role in the production, safeguarding, mainte-nance and re-creation of the intangible cultural heritage, thus helping to enrich cultural diversity and human creativity.” Articles 1 and 15 on purposes of the Convention make further references to issues relating to the participation of communities, groups, and individuals. By respecting and empowering practicing communities to define, desig-nate their intangible heritage, and engage in protecting ICH, many states have come to acknowledge community as one of the central goals of the convention. In fact, the interrelationship between community and heritage seems to be inseparable. Valdirmar Tr. Hasfstein pointed out that “At closer inspection, intangible cultural heritage is practically synonymous with community” and therefore “the purpose of the conven-tion is not only to safeguard traditional practice and expressions, but also, and just as importantly, to safeguard communities” (Valdirmar Tr. Hasfstein 2004, p.212)

A shaman, known as a jhankri or dhami in Nepal, is a part of a unique tradition that is based on spiritual belief. Nepalese society, with its deep-rooted religious faith in supernatural powers, still believes that miseries, illnesses, and bad luck are caused by evil powers and that these ill effects and consequences of evil can be removed or treated by evoking divine power. It is believed that a properly trained jhankri is gifted with the ability to gain intimate knowledge of supernatural beings—their whereabouts, desires, dislikes, and requirements—and drawing out their divine spirit to remove evil and thus cure the inflicted.

During the Khmer Rouge regime, 90 percent of Cambodia’s artists were killed; centuries of artistic traditions, passed through generations were in danger of being lost. In 1998, Cambodian Living Arts (CLA) began working in the country with a mission to revive and develop traditional arts. Today, our aims have broadened—CLA operates as a cultural agency supporting the development of the arts sector, from education, to policy, cultural exchange, and festivals. We have two centers, one in Phnom Penh, from which we operate national programs and have a strong focus on leadership and creativity. Our second center is in Siem Reap, and we position this as the Heritage Hub.

Folkland, International Centre for Folklore and Culture is an institution that was first registered on December 20, 1989 under the Societies Registration Act of 1860, vide No. 406/89. Over the last 16 years, it has passed through various stages of growth, especially in the fields of performance, production, documentation, and research, besides the preservation of folk art and culture.

Venerated from a time before antiquity as life-giver, water has been held in the highest esteem in all cultures and eras. Water-related mythologies show as much the divine character associated with it, as its qualities that lie beyond the material. In our time, the intangible cultural heritage (ICH) and traditional knowledge that surround water still give us an entryway to a fuller understanding of the great life-giver.