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funeral
ICH Materials 81
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Kyrgyz Folklore: Imagination, Orientation, and Explanation of the PastWith stupefying landscapes to explore, marked by the remnants of ancient tribes and Silk Road travelers, Kyrgyzstan is the perfect place to let one’s person and imagination roam wild.\n\nThe stunning Eurasian mountain country of Kyrgyzstan is renowned for its splendid natural panoramas and vast landscapes that, although isolated, belong to a unique cultural context. Human traces—Paleolithic petroglyphs, Saka burial mounds, Silk Road caravanserai, and Soviet-era monuments, to name a few—punctuate the mountains and valleys once roamed by the vagabonds and villagers of past centuries.\n\nTo the present day, the complex natural and historical Kyrgyz terrain elicits curiosity and wonder among those who attempt to navigate it. Furthermore, the interpretations by later ancestors of ancient remnants are interesting keystones in the development of culture. Over the decades and centuries, the distant, obscured past tends to remain a source of imagination, superstition, and inevitably, storytelling. While this reception of the past is not unique to the Kyrgyz culture, its history is characterized by many waves of migration, and thus the people who have traversed its mountains and valleys were at times vastly different to their predecessors.\n\nIt may be possible that as a result of their roaming, the ancient settlers of Kyrgyzstan felt a need to establish a sense of place within the overwhelming land they occupied, a desire to understand it and know what it had witnessed before they arrived. This attempt to fabricate a connection to the land and earlier peoples might account for the legends of Kyrgyz folklore that seek to explain the etiology of various monuments and natural phenomena, their reasons for being.\n\nCholpon-Ata\nCholpon-Ata, now a popular resort destination on the north shores of Lake Issyk-Kul, takes its compound name from the maiden of the origin myth of the lake. Legend has it that long ago lived Cholpon, a beautiful blue-eyed Kyrgyz girl who lived with her tribe near the mountains. The amoured Ulan and Santash fought and injured one another for her affections, their rivalry expanding to two groups of allied kin. In the face of a choice which would result in the detriment of one of the dijigits (horseback warriors), Cholpon tore her own heart from her chest, rendering it unattainable to either, and died on the sunrise-facing hill that commemorates her. The mourning Kyrgyz, who remained divided from the feud, filled the valley between the mountains with their tears and created Lake Issyk-Kul, which separated the bitter tribes. The two groups thus name the northern and southern banks, Kungey and Terskey while the Ulan and Santash dijigits blow as the east and west winds, occasionally grappling with one another in the form of a storm above the lake.\n\nJeti-Ögüz\nThe photogenic ridge of seven red sandstone peaks known as Jeti-Ögüz are also the setting of Kyrgyz myths. The formation’s name, meaning Seven Bulls, may reference a folktale in which the eponymous animals were petrified by the gods to protect human inhabitants of the region from their wild rampage. In another legend, a Kyrgyz khan seeks to avenge the theft of his wife by another man and is advised by an elder to do so by killing the wife as punishment. His plan is hatched at a funeral feast, when, after the sacrificing of seven bulls, he similarly stabs and kills his stolen wife. Her bleeding heart flooded the valley, the blood carrying the slaughtered bulls with it to the current position of the red rocks.\n\nTengrism and the Tien Shan\nSome of the vast mountains which Kyrgyzstan is known for belong to the Tien Shan range, also shared with China and Kazakhstan. These majestic snow-capped peaks cast upon those who face them the impression of a force that was mighty, powerful, and divine. Such mountains are held sacred in the Central Eurasian religion of Tengrism, rooted in the ancient Mongol and Turkic tradition that worshipped the god Tengri personified by the sky, whose name attests to the religious and legendary significance of the mountains. The Kyrgyz ‘Tengri’ and Chinese tian are linguistically linked, both meaning sky as well as god; the Tian Shan can thus be translated to mean ‘Sky Mountain’ in honor of the god.\n\nRecounting these ancient legends are only a small sample group of the rich folkloric tradition woven into Kyrgyzstan’s vast landscape and varied population. We can only assume there to be infinite variations to the stories that are continually told, and far more strands of the oral tradition that may survive either sparsely or not at all. But there is a timelessness about these tales of the origin of natural phenomena that continue to punctuate Kyrgyz land and something in their phrasing and rhythm that longs to be shared aloud, repeated, and remembered.\n\nPhoto : Kyrgyz LandscapeYear2020NationKyrgyzstan
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Palau’s status in the implementation of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of ICH"According to the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, intangible culture heritage (ICH) is “the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills—as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith—that communities, groups, and in some cases, individuals recognise as part of their cultural heritage” (UNESCO:2003).\nICH is found in every part of the world, whether it is in an industrialised country or a non-industrialised country. However, in many nations, especially among indigenous communities, ICH is being compromised with the processes of globalisation where ICH elements are becoming lost over generations. \n Thus, UNESCO, in its effort to protect, preserve, and continue on this vast body of knowledge, has taken necessary steps to ensure that ICH all over the world does not lose its role as part of development strategies in ensuring sustainable practices. This presentation will report on the status of the steps Palau has taken in ensuring the continuity of ICH in the community and government level in relation to the 2003 Convention. \nCurrent ICH safeguarding measures at the national level with regards to the implementation of ICH convention \nIn Palau, ICH safeguarding measures started as early as the German colonial times of \nthe nineteenth century (see for example, Augustin Kraemer). In terms of the present, \nthere is a wealth of accumulated ICH information that has been published, in which \nthe Bureau of Arts and Culture, a division under the Ministry of Community and Cultural Affairs, has been involved during the 1990s. Books about funeral and birth rituals and chiefly systems have been documented from interviews among knowledge experts in Palau. The Bureau of Arts and Culture has continuously documented ICH even before the 2003 Convention. With this said, the challenge for Palau is really establishing a strategy for indicative measures to successfully safeguard ICH. "Year2012NationSouth Korea
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Interconnectedness of Culture and Craft (Tais) in Timor-LesteCeremonial cloth known as tais (traditional handcraft) has been woven in Timor-Leste for generations. Weaving traditions are considered key social functions for strengthening familial bonds. Textiles handcrafts are an invaluable expression of traditional knowledge and East Timorese culture. The designs and techniques to produce textiles have been handed down matrilineal lines recording a woven narration of the culture, lore, paradigms, and stories of Timor-Leste’s history.\n\nTraditional textile cloths are traditionally given by one Timorese woman to another as a mark of respect or symbol of repentance. From Timorese ancestors’ time, a woman learns how to make tais so that when she gets married, she can make tais for ceremonies or to sell in the barter market. Meanwhile tais led important role for Timorese children, and the local knowledge has been transmitted across generations. In Timor-Leste, transmitting weaving knowledge from mother to daughter is interwoven within a cultural system of collaboration and respect, where women, men, and young people work together to share cultural practices in a way that benefits the entire community.\n\nTais place a significant value on the process of feto-sa and umane in Timor-Leste’s cultural context (relationships between two families having marriage, and they establish a bond of obligation between the marrying families). Tais were also used on occasions such as funerals and kore-metan ceremonies (funeral anniversaries usually held one year after death).\n\nBoth dyeing and weaving are intimate social processes, usually done by a group of women. Women who are isolated in villages both socially and economically usually work together as team to work on obtaining a common goal. This reflects a broader social structure in Timor-Leste, where people once built their societies on a system of connectedness and community, a set of values and beliefs surrounding kinship, ceremony, spirituality, and weaving. The weaving, wearing, and use of the textiles are essential to the Timorese sense of being and was a way of asserting their differences in the past.\n\nWaving Techniques\nThe designs and color used to make a tais vary. For instance, in eastern part of Timor-Leste tais is mainly woven from cotton using a combination of plain weave and ikat techniques. Ikat is a dyeing technique used to pattern textiles that employs resist dyeing on the yarn prior to dyeing and weaving the fabric. In ikat the resist is formed by binding individual yarn threads or bundles of yarn with a tight wrapping applied in the desired pattern (ikat means “to bind” in the Indonesian language). Long, narrow panels of cloth often take months or years to complete. Concern with the dyeing process, usually the giant pestle is used to pound leaves and bark for a new batch of natural dyes.\n\nIn the western part of the country, weavers have used a tapestry weaving technique called mnaisa to weave small sections of belts for the past four years, which is the overall process of using natural dyes.\nIn tradition, the colors chosen for any one cloth depend on the occasion and where it will be worn. In the villages, weavers use endemic plants to color hand-spun cotton; however, the lack of raw material for dyeing and increasing availability of polyester fibers and synthetic dyes are changing the way tais is made.\n\nThe practice of the weaving traditions have declined dramatically due to globalization and post-conflict isolated conditions in Timor-Leste. The lack of participation of young peoples on the weaving process and the lack of the society awareness and government support to enact ICH as a priority national action plan has created challenges on pursuing safeguarding implementation.\n\nPhoto 1 : The Kingcraft, Tais weaving in Timor-Leste Ⓒ i0.wp.com/thekindcraft.com\nPhoto 2 : Baucau weaver, East part of Timor-Leste Ⓒ Abraão Ribeiro MendonçaYear2020NationTimor
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Living in Harmony with Nature: Safeguarding Centuries — Old TechniquesThe yurt is not just a portable dwelling used by many nomadic peoples, but a pinnacle of nomadic creativity and a symbol of the national identity of the Kyrgyz people. Yurts have a plain construction, can be quickly assembled and dismantled by a few people, protect from the cold or from the heat of sun, and most importantly are entirely made of natural materials. This makes the yurt one of the best options for the promotion of eco-tourism and centuries-old traditions and crafts. No big life event in Kyrgyzstan goes without installing a yurt. Births, weddings, and funeral rituals are traditionally held in yurts. They are an integral part of all festivities, ceremonies, and important events from the local to national and international levels.Year2022NationKyrgyzstan
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CHANGING EXPRESSIONS OF GRIEVING IN INDIGENOUS FIJIAN FUNERALSIf there’s one thing that is sure in life, it is that death is inevitable. It happens to all regardless of gender, age, and socioeconomic status—even to the healthy and fit. In Fijian, the word for ‘sick’ is tauvi mate (tah-oo-vee mah-teh), which literally translates to ‘having contracted death.’ When death occurs, the universal Fijian word for funeral is somate (soh-mah-teh), with so meaning ‘gathering’ and mate as ‘death’ or ‘dead.’ Like other parts of the world, in this gathering, people come to offer and provide emotional, spiritual, physical, and even financial support towards the surviving family members in grieving and also in the farewelling of their loved one.Year2019NationSouth Korea
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TRADITIONAL FUNERAL RITUALS OF MONGOLSNeolithic tombs prove that humans were living in Mongolian territory around 4000 BCE. A tomb with a man buried in a hole in a sitting position was discovered in Dornod Province and provides such evidence.Year2019NationSouth Korea
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DEATH: FUNERAL AS A DEPARTURE TO A NEW BEGINNINGAccording to newa, a Buddhist belief system, death is one of the ten major events in one’s lifetime. While death is the end of a life, it is also taken as a beginning of another life, a cycle that continues until the state of Nirvana is achieved. Hence, death rituals, apart from funerals and lamentations, include rituals carried out to prepare the deceased for the journey after death.Year2019NationSouth Korea