The culture of the Central Asian steppes expresses itself vividly in the lifestyle of traditional nomadic practices. Mongolian culture has been in practice in the nomadic life and the traditions surrounding the nomad’s home (ger). And it is present in religious celebrations, national festivals, art and crafts, music and dance, language and literature, which form the backbone of Mongolian intangible cultural heritage of Mongolia. Mongolia is filled with valuable cultural properties and intangible cultural heritage of humanity that have been kept or practiced for thousands of years.\n\nGer, Mongolian Traditional Dwelling\nThe traditional architecture of the Mongols differed strongly from that of the settled peoples of Asia and other continents. Centuries ago, there the ger, also known as a yurt, appeared. It still offers shelter to nomads in particular places in Central Asia. Its development and fundamental principles are determined by the specific features of the way of life of Mongol tribes, which made it necessary to evolve a light and collapsible structure to be used as a dwelling or for public functions.\n\nMongolian Language and Literature\nMongolian is the language of most of the Mongolian population and inner Mongolia. By origin, Mongolian is one of the Altaic family of languages, and the history of the Mongolian language is long and complicated. Significant literary work of early Mongolia includes The Secret History of the Mongols, which was published in 1228).\n\nMongolian Religion and Beliefs\nThe Mongols have practiced several religions, of which Shamanism and Buddhism were the most common. The faith in Mongolia is Buddhism, though the state and religion were separated during the socialist period, but with the transition to the parliamentary republic in the 1990s, there has been a general revival of faiths across the country\n\nMongolian Art and Crafts\nMongolian arts and crafts have been passed down across generations from the Paleolithic times to today, leaving behind deep impressions on all facets of life and conscious, aesthetic, and philosophical thinking. Highly developed Mongolian arts and crafts come from the second millennium BCE. The works included sculptured heads of wild animals with exaggerated features. Other items include knives, daggers, and other items of practical and religious use.\n\nMongolian Music and Dance\nMusic is an integral part of Mongolian culture. Among Mongolia’s unique contributions to the world’s musical culture are the long songs, overtone singing, and morin khuur (the horse-headed fiddle). The music of Mongolia is also rich with varieties related to the various ethnic groups of the country. Among the most popular forms of modern music in Mongolia are Western pop and rock genres and the mass songs written by contemporary authors in the form of folk songs.\n\nHorse Culture of Mongolia\nIt is famously known that horses play a large role in the Mongols’ daily and national lives. Common sayings are, “A Mongol without a horse is like a bird without wings,” and “Mongols are born on horseback” these are arguably true words. Even today, horse-based culture is still practiced by nomadic Mongolians.\n\nVisit https://www.toursmongolia.com/tours for additional information about Mongolian culture.\n\nPhoto 1 : Prairie meadow grass inner Mongolia traditional clothing © Batzaya Choijiljav\nPhoto 2~7 : © Batzaya Choijiljav

Knotting is, in essence, the act of tying a thread or a cord so that it does not come undone, while knot craft is the art of weaving together various shapes using threads or cords made through various methods in order to serve a certain physical or psychological purpose.\nThe origin of knotting can arguably be traced back to the advent of humanity itself. In primitive times, it was necessary to fashion cords and knots out of tree bark and grass for survival purposes in the context of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle; uses would have included tying or linking together hunting tools or carrying captured prey. With the advancement of humanity, however, knots surpassed their purely utilitarian purpose and evolved into craft items that are closely linked to everyday life, with the addition of various materials and crafting techniques. For example, each civilization has evolved its own knotting techniques and shapes influenced by its surrounding environment, to craft items such as belts or waist cords, baskets, and straw mats. Over time, knots have also become accessories worn for aesthetic purposes and ornamental items used to decorate the household, in addition to ritual items used in various ceremonies. In this regard, knots have surpassed their original survival and everyday life purposes to take on aesthetic and spiritual functions as well.

Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet country, lies in the heart of the Tien Shan Mountain Range and the mountains of Ala-Too in Central Asia. This small country is mostly inhabited by the once-nomadic Kyrgyz people who take great pride in their whitecap mountains and ancient culture.

Thundukuna is a special mat woven from reeds indigenous to the marshlands of Maldives. The reed is locally known as hau. Mat weaving from hau dates back some two hundred years, and this long history is mostly associated with the southernmost atolls.

The current topic of this conference is not very well studied in the Philippines. The word –shamanism- is regarded as an arbitrary umbrella-catch-all term for lack of something better because what it refers to in the Philippines is a far ranging set of practices, belief and value systems that are very specific. It is with some trepidation that these sets of practices, beliefs and value systems may not at all fit into the north-Asian concept of Shamanism, especially with reference to the structure and social organization. The latest local term used is –pagdidiwata – referring to the rituals invoking spiritual beings (diwata). The other terms used\nare bunung, baki, pagaanito, alisig, and many others depending on the culture of the some 80 different major ethno-linguistic groups in the country. Common to all is the belief in the existence of a spirit world to which the world of people should relate, through the medium of ritual specialists. There are differences, however, in the structure and social organization in the social behavior related to ethnic practice.

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 first thing I learned when I began my field work in the Province of Ifugao was that my time was not my own. Time belonged to the gods and spirits that would unexpectedly appear in dreams and give omens compelling the people to seek their mumbaki (ritual specialist) for guidance.

The Miao people are a linguistically and culturally related ethnic group who settled in the Chinese provinces of Guizhou, Yunnan, Hunan, and Guangxi. While the Miao are disbursed over a large area and are subdivided into several different branches, they share a common heritage element called the circle dance. Often accompanied by a lusheng (a bamboo musical instrument), the circle dance is the most important dance and the most popular among all Miao branches. The wood drum dance is popular among the Fanpai Miao in Taijiang County, Guizhou province.

This article briefly presents a framework designed to gauge the level of vitality or endangerment of music traditions and suggests how the tool can be used to inform music safeguarding activities across contexts. The framework is the Music Vitality and Endangerment Framework (MVEF), developed and first presented in my book Music Endangerment: How Language Maintenance Can Help (Grant, 2014). The MVEF draws inspiration from various language vitality assessment tools, particularly UNESCO’s Language Vitality Framework (2003). In the absence of any such tool for gauging music vitality or endangerment across contexts, the MVEF was developed to fill this gap.

This ancient theatre form created by Malaysia’s Malay communities combines acting, vocal and instrumental music, gestures and elaborate costumes. Specific to the villages of Kelantan in northwest Malaysia, where the tradition originated, Mak Yong is performed mainly as entertainment or for ritual purposes related to healing practices.

The circle dance, where people dance in a rotating formation, has appeared in many cultures since ancient times. The form and structure of the circle dance reflect the aesthetic concepts of mysteriousness, the incessant generation of filling and emptying, eternal return, unity, and defense. While there are various kinds of circle dance forms in Korea, the grandest one, with more than 250 dancers, is the yeowonmu.

The Yap State Historic Preservation Office (YSHPO), located in Yap State in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), operates under the Department of Youth and Civic Affairs of the Yap State Government and has a regular budget funded by the local government and the National Park Service (NPS) and the United States Department of the Interior (DOI). YSHPO also receives occasional funding assistance for projects, technical or capacity building, and training and workshops from esteemed regional and international organizations—such as UNESCO, ICHCAP, and CRIHAP—and various national governments, including those of Australia, France, United States, and the FSM. YSHPO also collaborates and networks with other regional organizations, universities, and other bodies. To name a few, they include the University of Oregon, the University of Guam, Queens College, La Trobe, and others by conducting field schools in Yap during academic breaks.