An inventory generally refers to a comprehensive list of tangible items, such as property, goods on hand, contents in an area. So within this idea, one must wonder whether it is possible in the field of culture to inventory each item.

Marking the beginning of spring, Navruz (meaning March equinox) is one of the largest traditional holidays in Central Asia. Located in the heart of Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan has been celebrating Navruz (Nooruz in Kyrgyz) for a long time as its national holiday. When the Navruz holiday comes, Kyrgyz families gather to make holiday desserts: sumolok and boorsok.\n\nIn the old times, sumolok was a ritual dish prepared before the start of spring sowing. Sumolok is a sweet paste made from germinated wheat and stir cooked in a kazan, a large traditional pot in Central Asia. Sumolok has become an important cuisine in Kyrgyz culture since almost all of Kyrgyzstan celebrates the holiday by making it. In villages and towns, families gather around a kazan full of sumolok and take turns to stirring the sumolok. Usually it takes a whole day and night to finish the cuisine, which is why a typical Navruz scene in Kyrgyzstan is pictured as a group of families sitting around a Kazan while singing and stirring sumolok.\n\nBoorsok, on the other hand, is cooked faster than sumolok. Also a traditional sweet in Central Asia, boorsok is a type of fried dough in various shapes. Kyrgyz boorsok is typically shaped like a pressed doughnut.\n\nThis year, Boorsok National Record was held in the Arashan village near the capital city, Bishkek. The event was organized by Ethnographic Complex Kyrgyz Aiyli (meaning Kyrgyz village), successfully attracting an estimated 1,500 local residents and tourists. The main programs included making boorsok, singing songs, and competing in horse riding and other national games. The participants in the boorsok cooking competition used about a ton of flour and made more than 800 kg of boorsok. Later, boxes of boorsok were sent to nearby orphanages and the elderly in Arashan Village.\n\nMarking the beginning of spring, Navruz (meaning March equinox) is one of the largest traditional holidays in Central Asia. Located in the heart of Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan has been celebrating Navruz (Nooruz in Kyrgyz) for a long time as its national holiday. When the Navruz holiday comes, Kyrgyz families gather to make holiday desserts: sumolok and boorsok.\n\nIn the old times, sumolok was a ritual dish prepared before the start of spring sowing. Sumolok is a sweet paste made from germinated wheat and stir cooked in a kazan, a large traditional pot in Central Asia. Sumolok has become an important cuisine in Kyrgyz culture since almost all of Kyrgyzstan celebrates the holiday by making it. In villages and towns, families gather around a kazan full of sumolok and take turns to stirring the sumolok. Usually it takes a whole day and night to finish the cuisine, which is why a typical Navruz scene in Kyrgyzstan is pictured as a group of families sitting around a Kazan while singing and stirring sumolok.\n\nBoorsok, on the other hand, is cooked faster than sumolok. Also a traditional sweet in Central Asia, boorsok is a type of fried dough in various shapes. Kyrgyz boorsok is typically shaped like a pressed doughnut.\n\nThis year, Boorsok National Record was held in the Arashan village near the capital city, Bishkek. The event was organized by Ethnographic Complex Kyrgyz Aiyli (meaning Kyrgyz village), successfully attracting an estimated 1,500 local residents and tourists. The main programs included making boorsok, singing songs, and competing in horse riding and other national games. The participants in the boorsok cooking competition used about a ton of flour and made more than 800 kg of boorsok. Later, boxes of boorsok were sent to nearby orphanages and the elderly in Arashan Village.\n\nMore information about Navruz is available in ICHCAP’s e-Knowledge Center.\n\nWatch Other Navruz Videos\nNavruz is celebrated throughout Central Asia, with each ethnic group having its own take on the holiday. The videos of Tajik and Uzbek celebrations below are from ICHCAP’s Central Asia ICH Collection.

According to the oral traditions of the Cook Islands, sacred rituals were commonly performed on what is known as a marae or sacred ground. Each tribe has its own marae where ceremonies such as offerings of prayers, tributes to the gods and the induction of traditional titles on family members were once carried out. It also acted as a meeting place for important tribal matters.

In 2003, the Bose Levu Vakaturaga (Great Council of Chiefs) and the vanua (confederacies) of Fiji raised concerns about the need to safeguard the traditional knowledge systems of the iTaukei as well as the cultural expressions of the people. However, to implement legal safeguarding mechanisms, villagers needed to establish some kind of an inventory to see what rituals, ceremonies, dances, customary practices, etc. existed in their territories. Thus there was a need to develop a system by which the vanua and different tribes could freely participate and thus ensure that their stories and traditional knowledge could be documented. In other words, to satisfy their various needs in relation to intangible heritage safeguarding, the Cultural Mapping Initiative was established.

Since its establishment in 2007 and continuous operation since 2010, the Center for Research and Promotion of the Cultural Heritage (CCH) has been evaluated by the Vietnam Association for Cultural Heritage as one of the best units with the biggest number of effective professional activities among those units belonging to the Association. The two leaders of the Center are two respected scientists in the field of cultural heritage—Dr. Le Thị Minh Ly, member of the National Committee of Cultural Heritage and former Vice Director of Department of Cultural Heritage; and Associate Professor, Doctor Nguyen Van Huy, former Director of Vietnam Ethnology Museum. The number of staff working at the Center is limited to twelve, but this is not fixed. The Center expands its capacity through a strong network and mechanisms for collaborating with partners who have been working in the field of cultural heritage and community, especially in the field of safeguarding policy.

Cultural heritage is not limited to archaeological sites, monuments, and collections of objects. It includes tradi- tions or living expressions inherited from our ancestors and passed on to our descendants, such as ceremonies, rituals, performing arts, beliefs about the world, and enactment prac- tices. While these expressions may not be tangible, they are a continuously evolving form of living tradition, recreated and adapted in response to the environment around us. They provide us with a sense of identity, a feeling of belonging, and an inclusive, representative, collective way of expressing culture.

This paper presents an overview of the current situation of intangible maritime cultural heritage among coastal residents and fishing cooperative association members who work and live in the Matsushima Bay region of Miyagi, Japan. \n\nThe Matsushima Bay has a rich history of peoples living around and accessing the sea’s resources since at least the Middle Jomon Period (4000 to 2500 BC). The Bay, named a quasi-national park and known as \none of the three most scenic places in Japan, was made famous by the poet Basho who visited the area in 1690.\n\nToday, however, the area suffers from high population density in the surrounding mainland, intense industry along the coast, demographic change in the coastal communities, and the impacts of the tsunami generated by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. \n\nWith these challenges, maritime ICH is at risk, and with it, communities and ways of life since, if ICH can help strengthen social cohesion and inclusion, the loss of ICH can weaken it. Social practices, rituals, and \nfestive events structure the lives of coastal communities, strengthening shared understandings of the local culture and environment. Two communities, maritime events, “Minato Matsuri” and “Hama O-bon”, \nwill be presented to highlight the importance of such activities.\n\nMaritime ICH also provides an opportunity for environmental sustainability and resilience. The paper thus also touches upon local concepts of “fisher-forests” and “sato-umi” and presents local examples of coastal community activities which, along with fishers’ local ecological knowledge, supports resilience and sustainability goals

An indigenous oral legend copied and published without authorization… Traditional music taken from an ethnomusicological archive, remixed and sold without any attribution…

The Kakiseni Association was established in 2001 as the only online platform for artists to post information about productions and events, share news about auditions, reviews, and interviews, essentially functioning as an information hub for artists. In 2011, Kakiseni registered as a non-profit organization and expanded its scope of activities to include events and initiatives aimed at increasing audience size and appreciation for performing arts; developing the skills of Malaysian performing artists and the quality of their performances; and advocating for the arts to the Malaysian government and businesses.

"At the beginning of the workshop, I would like to introduce some of ICHCAP’s concerns and discuss our mission and tasks related to intangible cultural heritage. \n1) Introduction \nAs we are all aware, the Asia-Pacific region has very abundant and diverse cultural heritage. More than half of the world’s population, 3.5 billion people, is living in the forty-eight Member States, and they make up the diverse ethnic, traditional, religious, and cultural backgrounds that give the region such rich heritage. \nHowever, the cultural identities of Asia-Pacific people have been challenged by the long process of colonisation, westernisation, and modernisation, all of which have also changed ways of life and thinking as well as culture and value systems. Industrialisation, urbanisation, and globalisation have sped up socio-economic and cultural transformations through which many valuable customs, rituals, and norms of traditional communities, as well as a lot of their cultural heritage, have been forgotten and lost. Whereas tangible cultural heritage elements, such as towers, temples, and statues, have remained and will continue to exist as long as they are not destroyed in war or by environmental decay, the more precious intangible elements, which are created and transmitted through the spirit of humanity and human skill, have slowly disappeared, and in some countries and societies, not only has this intangible culture been discontinued but also even the slightest traces of the traditional culture have been completely lost. \nRegrettably, due to the aging of skilled practitioners and the lack of apprentices learning traditional skills, many excellent performing arts and crafts skills are in danger of vanishing. So in general, it would be fair to say that ICH in the Asia-Pacific region is very fragile and vulnerable to the rapid social transformation. \nThe sudden loss and disappearance of intangible heritage has negatively affected the moral and value systems of traditional societies and has damaged traditional "

1.0 SNAPSHOT OF FIJI \n\n1.1 The Fiji islands has a population of about 900,000 spread out over 100 islands, administered in 14 provinces or prefectures by an indigenous administration system and into four major divisions administered by Government. The 14 provinces fit into the 4 major divisions of Northern, Central, Eastern and Western. Approximately 51 % of the population are the ethnic iTaukei indigenous population, 49% are those of Indian descent and the Chinese and other Pacific islanders. Major languages spoken are English, iTaukei Fijian and Hindi.

Kalaripayat is considered one of the earlier martial art systems in Asia. Even though it had a larger geographic range at the time of its origin in South India, it is now restricted to the state of Kerala.Many terms are used in the literature to refer to Kalari including “Kalarippayattu,” “Kalaripayattu,” “Kalaripayat,” and so on. The term “Kalaripayat” will be used in this chapter. There are different theories regarding the origin of the word kalari. It is variously said to originate from the Sanskrit word khaloorika (“training ground”), the Tamil word kalam (“storage place for paddy”), or the Malayalam word kalari (“place where Kalaripayat is practiced”). Payatt or Payat may have originated from the Tamil word payil (“to become trained, accustomed, practice”) or the Malayalam words payiluka (“to learn, speak”), payttuka (“to exercise in arms, practice”), or payattu (“fencing exercise, a trick”). It may be noted that the original name of the martial style was “Payattu Kalari” and that the word “Kalaripayat” has only been used since the 20th century.