Jeju is a volcanic island filled with stones. Previous eruptions have produced volcanic bombs (large volcanic rocks) scattered around, covering the whole island. This is why it is difficult to cultivate crops in Jeju. Since the thirteenth century, the people of Jeju have been making stone walls to secure farmlands. The total length of stone walls is estimated at 22,100 km. These stone walls look like they are heaped up randomly. However, Jeju people’s wisdom is time-tested, unassumingly sturdy, hidden in those walls. Because the island is prone to strong winds all throughout the year, taking note of typhoons in the summer, they built the stone walls like roughly-heaped stones with holes to let the wind pass through, weakening the possibility of structural collapse.\n\nTamna is Jeju’s old name. The beginning of Tamna is illustrated by Samseong myth. Legend has it that three demigods emerged from holes in the ground. The ground is called samseonghyeol, which is still considered as a sacred place. The emergence from the ground shows difference in cultural archetype from the birth myth of the mainland involving the egg from the heavens. There are 18,000 gods and goddesses in Jeju. Jeju people believe that god lives in everything. Such belief is shaped by Jeju’s naturally difficult tendencies. As people in Jeju battle with endless wind and water shortage due to the island’s barren volcanic environment, they rely on gods to adapt to the roughness of Jeju.\n\nThere are Bonhyangdang Shrines, the house of gods protecting people’s livelihoods. simbangs (shaman in Jeju dialect) act as intermediary between Jeju people and gods. They perform yeongdeunggut in the second lunar month for haenyeo (female divers) and fishermen who depend on the sea for a living. The Yeongdeung is the goddess of the wind, who can raise the waves, which is why she is deemed important for the safety of people pursuing the sea. Jeju Chilmeoridang Yeongdeunggut, the representative yeongdeunggut in Jeju, was listed as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity of UNESCO in 2009. There are many other rituals for gods and goddesses of the sea, which are held in roughly 30 areas in Jeju during the same month. There are many stories related to goddesses in Jeju. Different from goddesses in other countries, Jeju goddesses neither depend on nor belong to gods. This is a characteristic shown by Grandmother Seolmundae, the giant who created the island by carrying soil in her skirts; Grandmother Samseung, the goddess of babies; and Jacheongbi, the goddess of farming. Jeju women have high self-esteem unlike those in patriarchal East Asian societies following Confucian teachings. They also participate in the economy more actively than their counterparts in other regions in Korea. Jeju haenyeo is a representative example of women’s participation in the economy. In 2016, the Culture of Jeju Haenyeo was inscribed on the Representative the List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO during the eleventh Session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It shows matriarchal characteristics of Jeju. In Jeju where the soil is not fit for rice farming, many women became divers to find food from the sea and learned how to cooperate with each other.\n\nDespite the unique challenges in the island, Jeju people have used nature without destroying it, depending on 18,000 gods and neighbors. Such characteristics form the core of the Jeju culture.\n\nPhoto : Jeju haenyeo (female divers) crossing low stone walls to get to the sea © Jeju Haenyeo Museum

Jeju Yeongdeunggut is a shamanic ritual performed during the second lunar month to greet and see off the goddess Yeongdeung. Yeongdeung, the goddess of wind, is typically recognized in the form of Yeongdeunghalmang (Grandmother Yeongdeung). In winter, when the cold wind blows from the northwest, she brings prosperity to the land and sea. It was the custom for the Yeongdeung Welcoming Ritual to be performed to celebrate her arrival and the Yeongdeung Farewell Ritual to be performed fifteen days later to mark her departure.

The term Tsan-choed means invoking or appeasing the deity and making various offerings in honor of the deity. Chubja Tsan-choed is an event celebrated by the communities of Bje-shigang, Damchena, Chubja-kha and Hungrel-kha. On this occasion, people from these communities pay their respects to the deity by making offerings to it, thus asking for further protection from the deity for the following year. \n\nTsan is a local patron deity of a particular community who is worshipped by the people for their protection and welfare. These deities are often worshipped as Ke-lha (worshipped from birth as a protective deity) and Yue-lha (deity of a specific community). In addition to the specific dates designated to pacify the deity, people visit and offer prayers during illnesses, deaths, births, long journeys, or times of misfortune. The deity is also invoked by women who are barren and request the deity's blessing for a child. Often, after the woman becomes pregnant, the child relies on the deity for protection during its birth. \n\nChubja Tsan (local deity), known as Tashi Pema/Pema Dendup, is considered deaf but endowed with the power to bestow worldly blessings. According to oral sources, the reason for his deafness was that Chubja Tsan and the Tsan of Zache-kha village had conflicts and quarreled long ago (the cause is not known). The Zache-kha Tsan hit the Chubja Tsan on his ear and made him deaf, while in return the Chubja Tsan hit the Zhache-kha Tsan on his eyes and made him blind. For this reason, even today, the people from Zhache-kha light a fire during the Tsan-choed (ritual to invoke the local deities), while the people from Chubja have to make loud "oooo" sounds in front of the Tsan's home. And the people of the two communities do not visit each other's Lhakhangs (temples). \n\nThe timing of the Tsan-choed depends on the purpose of its patrons, but for Kay-lha it takes place twice a year; the first time immediately after the Paro Tshechu (Mask Dance Festival, which occurs in the third lunar month) and the second time during the autumn season. In the latter offering, a Phued (first share) of the harvest is usually offered to express gratitude for the blessing of a bountiful harvest while asking for his protection in the future.

Indigenously developed shamanism varies according to geographic location and anthropological characteristics. But all these variations share the belief that nature commands all life. So it can be said that shamanism of Myanmar originates from nature worship in which the spirits within nature govern life. Appeasing these spirits brings good to all living creatures; however, evil is cast upon those who disobey the laws of the spirits. Within the context of these beliefs, humans must soothe the spirits through rituals. However, since direct contact with deities and spirits is not possible for everyone, shamans emerged to act as agents who can communicate with the spiritual world through various rituals.

The birth of a child is considered auspicious and sacred in every culture. India, being multicultural in its beliefs and customs, has diverse traditions of local cuisines at all occasions, be it childbirth, or even death. Although the recipes have grown in number as a result of shared practices in modern times, traditional food items and their variants are still popular and can be found in almost all mandatory rituals.

Hills resembling a dragon tail, composed of arenaceous soft mud stretching for several miles, scarce but fresh and lush vegetation, springs with ice-cold water spouting from the heart of the earth, waves of the salty lake gently crashing against the shore, magnificent white clouds soaring up in the sky and the numerous pilgrims, lined up one by one, treading right upon the “dragon tail” and making their pilgrimage through the sacred site Manjyly-Ata.

Co-orgarnized by ICHCAP and Hue Monuments Conservation Centre (HMCC), this year’s Asia-Pacific ICH NGO Conference was held in Hue, Vietnam under the theme of ICH NGOs towards Sustainable Development of Communities.

In the days before modern medicine, severe illnesses were thought to be the mischief of spirits. Thus, the best way to cure a disease was to exorcise the disease-causing spirit through a byeonggut (shamanistic healing ritual). This ritual went by different names according to the region. In Hwanghae Province, it was known as the toesong-gut or hajik-gut; in Seoul and the Gyeonggi Province region, it was called chibyeong-gut; and in the Chungcheong region, it was known as the judangpuri-gut.

Food plays an important role in spiritual rituals and worship for many faiths including Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhism. The food offered to God is called prasada/prasadam, which means a gracious gift. Prasadam could be any o!ering, but typically an edible food is firrst o!ered to a deity in his or her name.

Dongjo Yoo, a renowned installation artist, focuses primarily on environmental projects, specifically projects related to water. His most notable work is the Water Performance Installation Project, an eleven-year project starting from 2014, involving eleven lakes and rivers in ten countries. Under the motto of “there is no ‘water’ in the presence of water, and there is ‘water’ in the absence of water,” the project has been a large success. To highlight the importance of the environment, Mr. Yoo is looking forward to expanding his project to areas along the Silk Roads where water is a scarce and valuable resource.

My initial research among Lach community in Lac Duong town, Lam Dong province, Vietnam started with my participation in a project entitled “Establishment of associated mechanisms for conservation of landscape biodiversity and cultural space in Lang Biang Biosphere Reserve, Vietnam,” headed by Southern Institute of Ecology (Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology) in 2016. The project was successful to some extent in documenting characteristics of cultural spaces of ethnic peoples in the region and the reality of these spaces’ conservation in close relationship with that of biodiversity. Noticeably, being a world heritage, gongs cultural space was recognized as one of the crucial elements constituting the entire cultural spaces and cultural identity of local ethnic groups in the region and thus recorded as being imperative for conservative strategies and actions. These preliminary conceptualizations attracted me as an anthropologist to explore further insights into the socio-economic and cultural life of the Lach in the context of their daily life from 2017 to 2018. \n\nAs the people have been taking more active parts in their national and international integration, their social and economic spaces get expanded, adjusted and re-created. So are their cultural spaces in general and gongs cultural space in specific. This paper is to explore local gongs clubs of the Lach in Lac Duong town and gongs culture restoration activities at the parish church of Langbiang to reveal the fact that gongs cultural spaces of the Lach are far from static, fixed and in need of reservation. Rather, they are dynamic, inclusive and on the process of continuous meaning making as the result of the people utilizing their agency in creating initiatives and mechanism to practice their culture and transfer it to next generations. It is implied that by ways of local participation and community based training, cultural heritage can be prolonged and perpetuated itself alive.

India, one of the oldest civilizations in the world, is also one among the few countries named after a river system. The Indus River gave birth to the Indus Valley Civilization from where comes the word India. India is also the only country in the world with more than seven holy rivers, frequented by pilgrims even in the present day. Thus, water plays a central role in Indian society which is perhaps also because more than 60 percent of India’s geographical area is under agriculture. However, water availability in India has always been limited by the seasonal monsoon, and this has given rise to various traditional systems of water management in different parts of the country.