Materials
storytellers
ICH Materials 53
Publications(Article)
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Small Epics as an Important Element of Oral Epic Creativitiy of the Kyrgyz PeopleThe rich folklore of the Kyrgyz people is an important historical and cultural phenomenon developing over many centuries and spiritually and artistically valuable. As an inexhaustible source of people’s wisdom, it reflects the history, life and social, political and spiritual ideals of the people. The oral folklore is the basis of our unique cultural heritage. Due to the harsh conditions of the nomadic life, endless clashes with enemies and invaders, and long distances of migration, the Kyrgyz people have not preserved their spiritual culture in the stone monuments of architecture, papyrus or clay writings but have preserved it in their memory for more than two thousand years of history. Memory proved to be good enough for keeping millions of lines of epic songs and works, which have been passed from generation to generation and reached the present day.Year2015NationSouth Korea
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Memory and ICH in KyrgyzstanKyrgyzstan, a landlocked country the territory of which is more than 94 percent mountainous, is among the most attractive lands located at the heart of Asia on the ancient Silk Road trade routes. The cultural heritage of the Kyrgyz people has been greatly influenced by their nomadic history. Kyrgyz people occupy a unique cultural environment and have a rich ICH. The vitality of this cultural heritage is safeguarded and transmitted from generation to generation as collective memory, orally or through practice and expression.Year2021NationKyrgyzstan
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Masterpieces of Oral Tradition and Expression Kyrgyz Epic HeritageThe oral tradition of the Kyrgyz people is the basis of a unique intangible cultural heritage that reflects Kyrgyz cultural identity. Oral heritage, developed over centuries, depicts the history and culture of the Kyrgyz people. Their creativity has been proven to survive exclusively in an oral form for many generations. This oral tradition represents a unique layer of traditional knowledge, making it a valuable source of cultural and traditional values and evidence of the development of the sociopolitical history of the Kyrgyz people. Kyrgyz oral heritage takes a wide variety of forms, including songs, fairy tales, proverbs, and riddles. These can all be different in terms of content and structure. Depending on the genre, oral tradition can reflect history, legends, fairy tales, or lore, which can be important in educating younger generations about the value of peace, attitudes toward nature and people, and love for the motherland. Many traditional oral works portray the main characters as defenders of their native land, arousing a sense of pride, and also depict the rich nature of the Kyrgyz land, nourishing love for their home. Some elements of oral tradition such as songs and folktales tell the stories or the specificities and peculiarities of the everyday life of Kyrgyz people. Folktales also reflect the esthetic views of the Kyrgyz people and teach us to recognize beauty, rhythm, and skillful use of language.\nYear2020NationKyrgyzstan
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From Micronesia to YouTube: Pasifika Renaissance on Documenting Oral TraditionPasifika Renaissance was established in September 2014 in Japan as an NGO with a mission to preserve and promote cultural and historical heritage in the Pacific Islands. The organization aims to revitalize traditional culture and empower local communities. They work in three main fields: documenting, researching, and teaching about traditional cultures and cultural heritage; providing technical assistance to relevant agencies and organizations; and promoting tourism. You can find out more at the organization’s Facebook page, where they post cultural and historical information, including historical photos and educational materials, and share updates about their activities.\n\nThey are currently engaged in a major project to document oral traditions in Pohnpei State. Many older Micronesians have fond childhood memories of listening to stories told by elderly relatives before bed. This practice, however, has been largely lost in Pohnpei due to the spread of new media such as videos and games and the decline of the younger generation’s interest in traditional culture.\n\nTo document stories from knowledgeable elders and pass them down to younger generations, Pasifika Renaissance began filming those stories in 2015 and sharing the videos on their YouTube channel with kind permission from the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) Office of National Archives, Culture and Historic Preservation. This method of documenting and sharing traditional knowledge through online media is rare in the Pacific Islands. However, we believe that it has a great potential for future applications due to the relative ease of use and the internet’s global reach. Our project has been welcomed and supported by traditional chiefs, elders, and other community members, who share our concern that traditional knowledge could be lost.\n\nTo date, Pasifika Renaissance has uploaded more than two hundred narrative videos. These stories include legends, traditional tales, historical events, customs, chants and songs from Pohnpei (9 videos), Pingelap (69), Mwoakilloa (11), Sapwuahfik (60), Nukuoro (25), and Kapingamarangi (25) as well as two island groups of Chuuk State: the Mortlock Islands (10) and Namonuito (16). They hope to add more videos from Pohnpei, where they began their work just this year in collaboration with the Division of Historic Preservation and Cultural Affairs, Pohnpei State Department of Land. The YouTube channel has attracted over 240,000 views. Of these views, 78.5 percent are from United States, where one-third of FSM citizens now reside, and an 12 percent of the views come from within the FSM. Pasifica Renaissance’s YouTube channel has now reached 640 views per day, which they believe suggests a keen interest in these stories.\n\nThey offer their appreciation to the storytellers and others who have supported this project as well as the generous donors such as the KDDI Foundation in Japan. They hope by watching these videos, people can continue to pass on these stories to their children and younger relatives. If you would like to contribute stories or know someone who is willing to share stories with the organization, please contact them at pasifika.renaissance@gmail.com or by phoning the above Division (320-2652). If you have a knowledgeable elderly relative or friend staying overseas and have the ability to record his or her story via cell phone, tablet, or digital camera, please let them know. Please follow Pasifika Renaissance on Facebook and YouTube channel to receive updates as this project develops. They plan to extend this project to other states in the FSM and other Pacific regions in the near future and hope to collaborate with researchers, government agencies, NGOs, and community members. Please get in touch, and let them know how you can help spread this “renaissance” movement.\n\nPhoto : Interviewing Mr. Rasner Elias, Pohnpei © NGO Pasifika RenaissanceYear2017NationMicronesia
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Lkhon KholInscribed in 2018 on the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding, Lkhon Khol Wat Svay Andet (Lkhon Kohl) is practiced in a community surrounding Wat Svay Andet, a Buddhist monastery located around ten kilometers east of Phnom Penh on the Mekong River. Lkhon Khol is a traditional mask theater performance of Cambodia with its origins during the Angkor period (ninth to fifteenth centuries). It exclusively is performed by men wearing masks to the accompaniment of a traditional orchestra and melodious recitation.\n\nLkhon Khol, also known as “the monkey dance,” is ceremoniously performed once a year after the Khmer New Year for ritual purposes, linked mostly to the cycle of rice farming and the needs of farming communities. A specific theatrical performance is the Reamker, the Khmer version of Ramayana, which includes an introduction by storytellers who play an important role in the performance.\n\nLkhon Khol is passed across generations orally. However, from 1970 to 1984, due to war and the Khmer Rouge regime, transmission was nearly impossible. In addition, economic factors, insufficient resources, and economic migration from the community have also limited transmission, which is what led it to be inscribed on the Urgent Safeguarding list.\n\nTwo theater groups, Kampong Thom and the National Theater troupes from the Department of Fine Arts and the Ministry of Culture and fine arts, have started performing the Lkhon Khol. In addition, the theatrical performance is also part of the syllabus at the University of Fine Arts.\n\nPhoto 1 : Lkhon Khol performance Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts of Cambodia, 2017\nPhoto 2 : Lkhon Khol Art painting CCBYSA PPPOfficial\nPhoto 3 : Cambodian dance: Reamker (public domain)Year2021NationCambodia
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Communities Connecting Heritage: From West Bengal to WashingtonCultural exchange promotes cultural diversity and contributes to cultural sustainability. This was the key learning from the Communities Connecting Heritage (CCH) program supported by the US Department of State and administered by World Learning. Learning Together for a Brighter Future was a collaboration under this program, between banglanatak dot com, an Indian social enterprise working on culture and development, and the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage (CFCH) in Washington DC. Around twenty young cultural professionals from the USA and thirty-one young tradition bearers from the state of West Bengal in eastern India had varied exchanges on art, music, food, lifestyle, and globalization as well as the use of social media in popular culture. The Indian participants included traditional storytellers or patuas, who paint stories on long scrolls and sing them; artists practicing the ancient dokra metal craft; Baul folk singers; and theatre artists. There were also in-person visits to West Bengal and Washington DC by a five-member delegation from each side. The youngsters not only shared photos and videos explaining their culture but also discussed cultural sustainability; virtual workshops were held to develop skills in interviewing and recording, and effective storytelling. Finally, the Indian and American participants paired up to write blogs on shared interests and experiences; the subjects varied from discovering common concerns on raising a child to managing heritage sites. Commonalities were also found in the traditions, for example food items like sopapilla and luchi, and painting traditions like patachitra and retablo.\n\nDuring the CFCH delegation’s tour of West Bengal in February 2018, the Americans met the artists at the World Peace Music Festival Sur Jahan in Kolkata, visited cultural and heritage landmarks, and learned about community-based cultural industries. They also participated in a round table on heritage education for youth and an exhibition titled Through the Eyes of Young Americans that summed up their experience. From June to July 2018, the Indian delegation visited Washington DC. The city’s vivid cosmopolitan character, a mind-boggling array of cuisines, and a stunning nightlife mesmerized them. Engagement of community and the larger public in a weekend drum circle, weekly jazz concerts, DC Alley Museum, and the Smithsonian Folklife Festival left a deep impression. The patuas painted a scroll on the story of rights campaigns at the National Mall; the audience loved it and the song narrating the story. On 13 August 2018, a webinar was held to share the participants’ experiences and insights. As the program drew to a close, it had succeeded in bringing the multicultural roots and ethos of America to the young Indians’ hearts and sensitized the young Americans about Bengal’s cultural traditions. For detailed information, please check the webinar below and the event’s blog.\n\nPhoto 1 : Learning scroll painting at Patua village ⓒ banglanatakdotcom\nPhoto 2 : Bauls discussing music on the move with Catalonian musicians ⓒ banglanatakdotcom\nPhoto 3 : Indian team at the Lincoln Memorial in the USA ⓒ banglanatakdotcomYear2018NationIndia
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THE GUAM MUSEUM: HERITAGE AND CULTURE THROUGH EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMMINGInside the Guam Museum’s multipurpose room, Chamorro oral historian Toni “Malia” Ramirez sits on a carpet of autumn tones along with a small group of young children. On the floor beside him are a world globe, a sprouting coconut plant, and a tray of local foods as diverse as the multicultural children seated—lumpia from the Philippines, Japanese-style omusubi, Korean kimchee, and Chamorro titiyas. On the back wall, a wire grid is covered with an assortment of t-shirts hung with plastic hangers. The t-shirts have phrases in Chamorro, the indigenous language of the Mariana Islands. In the tradition of Chamorro storytellers, Ramirez converses with the children, sharing memories he had collected over the years from Guam’s war survivors and their stories of life during the Japanese Occupation and Liberation in July 1944. The t-shirts, he explains, express cultural values that helped the Chamorros survive the atrocities of the war, values that are important even today. The t-shirt he wears is decorated with “Tåutau latti’ yu’, Guåhan, Islas Marianas,” asserting his pride as a “person of the latte,” and a native of Guam. With a song, the tray of food soon represents the cultural diversity of Guam home. As the session ends, the children and their parents wave Guam flags and sing “Fanoghe Chamorro,” the island’s territorial anthem. Ramirez has shared with the event’s participants important historical memories of Guam’s people, Chamorro cultural values, and lessons for good citizenship in a little more than an hour.Year2020NationSouth Korea
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Awang BatilIntroduction\n\nIn Malaysia, there is a living traditional art where a storyteller develops the oral tradition, otherwise known as oral literature.\n\nOral tradition is the original source of Malay literature and translated into written literature. One of the practitioners of this oral tradition is known as 'Awang Batil'. Apart from specialised storytellers such as Awang Batil, there are other transmissions of oral literature throughout the country, especially in villages through folk stories or stories of elders that are collected, rewritten and made into collections for children to read.\n\n\nAwang Batil\n\nAwang Batil is a storyteller who provided entertainment and education to the people, especially to the villagers and local community. Awang Batil entertains and educates the community through many classic stories that he inherited. Through those stories, the community is entertained and educated.\n\nOnce upon a time, Awang Batil functioned as a story book, novel, radio, television, movie or video as it is now. He would travel from house to house, village to village, state to state including the state of Kedah, Penang and some areas in the Southern Region of Thailand, especially the Setol Region.\nYear2023NationMalaysia
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Healing with Plants and Affection: José Craveiro, a Practitioner of Traditional Medicine in PortugalIn May 2007, the director of Memória Imaterial met José Craveiro. The University of Minho organised the IX Story Days, in Braga. Craveiro was one of the invited storytellers and José Barbieri was presenting MEMORIAMEDIA, a project dedicated to the study and inventory of expressions of intangible cultural heritage. During the break for lunch when the two of them went together to the university canteen, Craveiro interrupted the conversation to identify the plants that spontaneously grew in the outer spaces of the campus. It was at this time that José Barbieri realized that Craveiro was not only one of the most influential storytellers of the traditional Portuguese tales but also a specialist and practitioner of traditional medicine. The desire to work together on this subject was born there, and they promised each other that this project would happen at a future date. \nYear2019NationSouth Korea
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Patuas of Bengal: Singing and Painting NarrativesPatachitra of Bengal is a storytelling tradition of eastern India practiced by a community known as Patuas. They paint the stories in long scrolls and sing them. The Patuas used to visit rural households and sing songs from mythology, epics, and folklore. This article narrates how the Patuas community living in Naya Village of the Paschim Medinipur District of West Bengal revived their storytelling tradition. There are around five hundred Patuas spread across the districts of Purba and Paschim Medinipur.\nTwo decades ago, fewer than a score of the tradition bearers in Naya continued the practice. With the proliferation of electronic media, storytellers have lost their audience. To revive their tradition, Contact Base worked with the Patuas to document orally transmitted songs and the forgotten processes of making natural colors. Under the leadership of the veteran storytellers in the village, the Patuas started to paint and sing traditional songs as well as new ones on contemporary issues and happenings. The practitioners started painting their stories on a diverse range of decorative and utility products. Their work was widely appreciated. The Patuas started traveling across India and the globe. The recognition created interest among the youth to pursue the tradition. Currently, all Patua families in Naya are pursuing patachitra as a sustainable livelihood. The painters are regularly commissioned for wall art installations in airports, museums, and prestigious buildings. The village has a community museum. More than a decade back, a village festival was started to create awareness in the community of storytellers.Year2023NationIndia
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Next to the Old Art of Storytelling, a New One Is BornIn Lithuania, in recent decades, storytelling has been nurtured by folklore enthusiasts and individual storytellers at various traditional cultural events. \nFor a long time, storytelling has been little known to the public and was usually considered only as part of folk storytellers’ performances sharing tales and stories in various dialects.\nNow the situation in the country is changing as more and more NGOs, state institutions, and individual storytellers are involved in a wider scope of storytelling projects and activities, including various social and cultural aspects of today’s life. Not only specialized festivals and initiatives are focused on storytelling. Some other thematic initiatives also tend to include storytelling as a tool or method used to develop creative competencies in attractive, interactive ways. \nIn this article, some Lithuanian storytelling initiative examples are revealed. They cover the period from 1990 to today.Year2023NationLithuania
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GRANDMA STORYTELLERS TRANSMIT CULTURE TO FUTURE GENERATIONSThe Beautiful Story-Grandma Program (storymama.kr in Korean) is a unique program that the Advanced Center for Korean Studies began in 2009. Through the program, elderly women are given training and sent to child education facilities near their homes to tell three-to five-year-olds stories based on Korean traditions and history.Year2016NationSouth Korea