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ICH Materials 164
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Mongolian Culture and HeritageThe 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 ChoijiljavYear2020NationMongolia
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Embedding the Intangible Heritage and Knowledge Systems in Heritage Management Education: Towards an Integrated ApproachThe Masters Degree Programme in Heritage Management at Ahmedabad University is open to students and practitioners from any discipline but with a demonstrated interest or experience, in any sector of heritage. Since its launch in 2015, the disciplinary backgrounds represented so far include arts, architecture, archaeology, commerce, conservation, engineering, geography, history, international relations, literature, museology, and planning. Such a diverse group of students spend two years in this journey together learning from peer group interaction and experiences, regular class room sessions, seminars, field visits, projects, immersion, practicum and research. The programme is designed to pursue heritage as an everyday concept, and heritage management as an opportunity of enhancing and enriching livelihood and ecosystem. This way, the canvas of heritage for us seems full of more intangibles than tangibles because heritage is essentially defined through values, knowledges and cultural practices. Hence, there are milestones in the programme that highlight these interconnections, and bring a holistic heritage idea to the forefront. It has to be noted that there is no explicit course for ICH convention but it does gets referred in multiple courses – sometimes explicitly and at length, sometimes as an integrated concept and a tool. \n\nIn fact, some of our discussions focus on critical reflections on the ICH convention too. This paper will discuss the concepts of the programme and how it integrates ICH across various aspects of heritage – not just the intangible and knowledges, but also tangibles and other standard fields of practices. Such an integrated approach is at the core of the programme, and the ICH discourse and various tools help us achieve our goals. In doing that, we believe the programme also contributes in safeguarding of ICH as demonstrated by various theses that has been done by the graduating students.Year2018NationSouth Korea
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HIPAMS IndiaThe Heritage-sensitive Intellectual Property and Market Strategies (HIPAMS India) aims to investigate how developing ‘heritage-sensitive’ intellectual property protection strategies can give communities greater control over the commercialization of their heritage while contributing to its safeguarding and on-going viability.\n\nIntangible cultural heritage (ICH) practices, such as craft, dance, musical performance, storytelling, and painting, give communities a sense of identity and belonging. The sale of products created by ICH practices can also create jobs and income. However, many communities in developing countries like India experience significant difficulty preventing the appropriation of their heritage by others, for example through mechanization of production methods. Conventional intellectual property (IP) rights, such as copyright, patents, and design protection, offer limited protection to the authors of original creations or new inventions that cannot easily be used to protect cultural expressions whose authors are unknown, and that have been passed down through the generations, changing and adapting to new contexts. HIPAMS India engages with three Indian ICH practices—Baul and Fakiri music, Chau dance, and Patachitra tradition to investigate how developing ‘heritage-sensitive’ IP protection strategies can give communities greater control over the commercialization of their heritage while contributing to its safeguarding and on-going viability.\n\nHIPAMS India Operates under the Following Objectives\nAssess the impact of Contact Base’s AFL strategies on socio-economic development and ICH safeguarding in the identified communities and on market outreach.\nCo-create effective, replicable and scalable HIPAMS for use by these communities, based on this review process and research on similar case studies in other contexts.\nConsider the impact of implementing these HIPAMS on socio-economic development and ICH safeguarding and market penetration.\nDisseminate the findings in co-authored academic publications incorporating case studies from the project.\nTranslate research findings into policy briefs and workshop tools.\nThe project aims thereby to contribute to the sustainable development goals of Agenda 2030 by helping to build sustainable communities, protect and safeguard cultural heritage, enhance wellbeing, address income inequalities, promote economic empowerment (of women), and reduce poverty.\n\nVisit the HIPAMS India’s website to learn about its activities and download their marketing strategies toolkit.\n\nPhoto : Purulia mask © HIPAMSYear2020NationIndia
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TattooingThe arc of cultural heritage is far broader than many realize. For many, the term calls to mind the physical remains of the past, often in the image of ancient buildings and ruins, or the history of a collective. If prompted to define what heritage encompasses in a personal sense, one might think of their own family’s lineage and ancestry. But in either sense, many of us understand heritage to be something outside of the self rather than something that we are a living part of. We are vehicles for living cultural heritage, not just ethnically, socially, or culturally, but physically. Tangible heritage might be best understood as very much alive, close to home, and applicable to each of us when we consider the body as a context for it.\n\nFrom the way we style our hair and the makeup we paint on our faces to the clothes we choose to wear and the adornments we dress up in, we all adopt insignias of culture and express our identities on the physical plain in modes that have been shaped by heritage. Tattooing is one of these mediums. Inking the skin as to permanently brand ourselves with a visual marker communicates something about who we are or what has touched our lives, to others as much as to ourselves. In this practice, the unseen intangible heritage and identity we know and feel is transformed into something tangible and corporeal.\n\nWe are hardly the first people to manipulate the body in such a way. Tattooing has a long history, a tradition adopted from ancient cultures from the Alps to Mongolia, from Greenland to China, from Egypt to Mexico, from Russia to the South Pacific. Whether marking the skin of a newly initiated member of a group, a tribe leader, a spiritual worshipper, a loyal warrior, or an outcast criminal, tattoos carried their potential to express diverse meanings into more recent history and the modern day. We’re all familiar with the sailor’s anchor, the Indian bride’s henna, the biker’s skull and crossbones, the adoption of the tribal tattoo or Chinese character in Western popular culture. But what stands out is not so much the range of meanings and contexts that tattoos might indicate, but rather the instinct to mark one’s skin in a permanent way, a tale as old as time.\n\nIt is striking to me that no matter where in the world these practices developed, so many diverse groups of indigenous ancestors were inclined to physically demarcate themselves and others, developing a technique of self-expression that would live on. I wonder why.\n\nMaybe they all recognized how powerful the skin can be as a medium for message-bearing. Upon this visible and undetachable bodily canvas, the way one is seen by others is manipulated from the first glance. As we dance through this ancient-turned-modern ritual today, whether the symbols we choose speak for themselves or inspire questions about who we are or where we’ve been, we consider ourselves branded for life.\n\nBut ‘for life’ and forever are not the same thing. In the past and at present, tattoos represent an attempt at permanence that is almost endearing in its falsehood. Though the ink on the skin itself may be unremovable, the skin and body itself is not eternal. The corpses discovered across Europe, Asia, the Americas and Oceania that attest to the long history of tattooing remind us that ‘undoable’ physical manipulations we make will last only as long as the body does. Whatever we regard as permanent is never really such, and after a time the tangible becomes intangible, whether we are referring to body or brick. Palpable proof becomes a fairy tale, man becomes myth. The physical is not perpetual, and tangible heritage does not last forever just because it takes material form.\n\nIt’s within this ongoing cycle of permanence and impermanence that cultural heritage is situated. Though we feel compelled to preserve the flesh of the past on personal and broader scales, matter is more delicate than we often accept, and the risk of disintegration is always looming. Tattooing is a poignant example of one of the most effective ways to retain the substance of the past as centuries go by: to keep it alive in practice, even if not in the exact form it once took, with the stories of where it came from accessible for inspiration.\n\nMore of Issabella’s work is available at museandwander.co.uk\n\nPhoto : Traditional Tattooing ToolsYear2020NationPacific Ocean,China,Egypt,Mexico,Russian Federation
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ICHCAP ICH Video Documentary Series #6: Traditional Igal Dance in the PhilippinesIgal is a fast but gentle dance that is shared by the Sama people of Tawi-Tawi Island, located in the southernmost part of the Philippines, and the people of the western provinces of Mindanao. Igal is called Pangalay in Tausug and Pamansak in Yakan, all meaning ‘dance’.\n\nIgal has no specific choreography and is improvised without repeated movements. It is also rooted in the form of worship performed with the body. It expresses the ecstasy that accompanies the tauhid, that is, the manifestation of a divine being, and tries to become one with nature through dance and get closer to God. Igal is a dance of the moment. Basically, there is no song, and it proceeds in smooth and soft movements according to the sound of traditional instruments, and this music is an important element that inspires the dancer’s movements. While other dances move faster in proportion to the beat of music, the Igal dance moves slower as the music speeds up. Also, when performing the Igal dance, an ornament called Janggay is worn on the fingers, which maximizes the movement of the fingers to add elegance and artistry. The characteristic of dancing is to not stop moving the hands until the end of the dance, and to avoid excessive body movements.\n\nThe Igal dance is an important element that expresses the cultural identity of the Sama people, and it has inspired modern dance and contemporary art creations in the Philippines. In the Simunul region, local festival dances were created based on the Igal dance, and this phenomenon is an important part of the life of today’s generation, and it is an important example of vitality and reinvention handed down to tomorrow’s generation.\n\nThe Igal dance:\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eViUTF7id68&list=PLXen1g2tAaHDVurZGxieuywxmvMjFfgPZ\n\nThis traditional Igal dance of the Philippines video is one of the 10 ICH video Documentary Series, which is the result of the collaborative project between ICHCAP and National Commission for Culture and the Arts(NCCA) in the Philippines. Both organizations aim to raise visibility and strengthen the public’s access to ICH in the Philippines through this project.\n\nVideos represent the most accurate method of capturing ICH as it exists in the real world, as well as being effective tools for communicating with the public. ICHCAP will endeavor to continue vividly documenting the scenes of ICH that are hidden across the Asia-Pacific region with the aim of raising the profile of ICH elements as treasures of humanity and introducing them to the public.\n\nPlease refer to the brochure for more information on the Philippines ICH video documentary.\n\nPicture 1~6: Traditional Igal Dance in the Philippines © ICHCAPYear2022NationPhilippines
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ICHCAP ICH Video Documentary Series #5: The Moriones Festival and Traditional Mask Making Techniques in the PhilippinesThe Moriones Festival is a Lenten tradition held annually on the holy week on the island of Marinduque, Philippines. In the 16th century, Spanish missionaries brought the Roman Catholic faith to the Philippines, and since then, Christian beliefs, rituals, practices, and various related cultures have been absorbed into the Filipino culture throughout the various island regions. Catholics participate in the Moriones Festival in honor of the Passion of the Christ, asking God for mercy with their hearts and praying for their family’s well-being and prosperity.\n\nOne of the most eye-catching elements of this festival is a mask in the form of the faces of Roman military commanders or soldiers in the Bible. During the festival, people wear these masks and parade through the streets dressed as soldiers. Mask makers start making masks by taking pre-orders from November, four months before the festival. Delicately sculpting wood to express detailed features requires considerable skill, creativity, and artistry of the artisan. In the past, the mask was made in a large, crude form that covered the entire head, but as time went on, the size decreased and various flower decorations were added on to the head. In the early days of the Moriones procession, the majority of participants were local adult males. Today, it is an event in which the entire community participates, and men and women of all ages wear masks and participate in the festival.\n\n1. Moryonan Lenten Tradition\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLXen1g2tAaHDVurZGxieuywxmvMjFfgPZ&v=Ar6nKtFcZ58&feature=emb_title\n\n2. Mask Making for Moryonan Lenten Tradition\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYzJ_PXG_ns&list=PLXen1g2tAaHDVurZGxieuywxmvMjFfgPZ\n\nThis Moriones Festival of the Philippines video is one of the 10 ICH video Documentary Series, which is the result of the collaborative project between ICHCAP and National Commission for Culture and the Arts(NCCA) in the Philippines. Both organizations aim to raise visibility and strengthen the public’s access to ICH in the Philippines through this project.\n\nVideos represent the most accurate method of capturing ICH as it exists in the real world, as well as being effective tools for communicating with the public. ICHCAP will endeavor to continue vividly documenting the scenes of ICH that are hidden across the Asia-Pacific region with the aim of raising the profile of ICH elements as treasures of humanity and introducing them to the public.\n\nPlease refer to the brochure for more information on the Philippines ICH video documentary.\n\nPicture 1: The Participants Gathered for a Meal after the Moriones Festival © ICHCAP\nPicture 2: Children Enjoying the Festival in Moriones Masks © ICHCAP\nPicture 3: Child Unmasked at the Moriones Festival © ICHCAP\nPicture 4: Reproducing the Bible's Story at the Moriones Festival © ICHCAP\nPicture 5: Moriones © ICHCAP\nPicture 6: A Procession of Carrying the Statue of Jesus at the Moriones Festival © ICHCAP\nPicture 7~10: Moriones © ICHCAPYear2022NationPhilippines
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Mitigating ‘Nature Deficit’ - Indigenous Languages and Oral LiteratureLanguage is a powerful aspect of intangible cultural heritage (ICH). Along with oral traditions and expressions, language is recognized as crucial vehicle for manifestation of ICH.1 It is the gateway to a people’s culture, value systems, and worldviews. Linguistic diversity is correlated with multifarious and unexhaustive dimensions of diversity, including biological, species and ecological diversity. Despite unrelenting colonial attempts at their annihilation, Indigenous Peoples occupy about 22 per cent of global land mass where they continue to exercise their rich traditions and stewardship of nature. With their global population of about 500 million, Indigenous Peoples constitute perhaps the greatest human demographic showcase of the world’s cultural diversity, unlike any other civilization. Indigenous Peoples have retained an untapped capacity to continue to contribute as inventors, re-inventors, speakers, and custodians of a significant portion of the world’s estimated 7000 languages. Revival of Indigenous languages is an acknowledged aspect of Indigenous resurgence.2 This contribution calls attention to the untapped potential of Indigenous languages and oral traditions as vital tools for mitigating current ecological crisis.Year2020NationSouth Korea
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A six-step method to guide teachersThis booklet proposes six practical steps that teachers can follow to bring living heritage into their classrooms, beginning with finding an idea then moving on to developing a lesson plan, teaching and then evaluating the results.\nThe six steps presented in this section propose a logical progression to guide you through this process. They have been tested in several pilot projects and adjusted to best fit the needs of the teachers.\nAs for most teaching approaches, there is not a one size-fit-all way to bring ICH into your school. You are welcome to adjust the process and sequence to respond to your context and needs, and to best serve your students and your learning objectives. \nThere are many possible ways of integrating living heritage into a school-based education context. You can do it alone or together with other teachers, in the classroom or as an extra- curricular activity, as a single lesson or as a series of lessons. See the context analysis template in Booklet 8: Tools and resources, to guide you through the process.Year2023NationKyrgyzstan,Cambodia,South Korea,Kazakhstan,Nepal,Thailand
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A six-step method to guide teachers (Khmer)This booklet proposes six practical steps that teachers can follow to bring living heritage into their classrooms, beginning with finding an idea then moving on to developing a lesson plan, teaching and then evaluating the results.\nThe six steps presented in this section propose a logical progression to guide you through this process. They have been tested in several pilot projects and adjusted to best fit the needs of the teachers.\nAs for most teaching approaches, there is not a one size-fit-all way to bring ICH into your school. You are welcome to adjust the process and sequence to respond to your context and needs, and to best serve your students and your learning objectives.\nThere are many possible ways of integrating living heritage into a school-based education context. You can do it alone or together with other teachers, in the classroom or as an extra- curricular activity, as a single lesson or as a series of lessons. See the context analysis template in Booklet 8: Tools and resources, to guide you through the process.Year2023NationKyrgyzstan,Cambodia,South Korea,Kazakhstan,Nepal,Thailand
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A six-step method to guide teachers (Thai)This booklet proposes six practical steps that teachers can follow to bring living heritage into their classrooms, beginning with finding an idea then moving on to developing a lesson plan, teaching and then evaluating the results.\nThe six steps presented in this section propose a logical progression to guide you through this process. They have been tested in several pilot projects and adjusted to best fit the needs of the teachers.\nAs for most teaching approaches, there is not a one size-fit-all way to bring ICH into your school. You are welcome to adjust the process and sequence to respond to your context and needs, and to best serve your students and your learning objectives.\nThere are many possible ways of integrating living heritage into a school-based education context. You can do it alone or together with other teachers, in the classroom or as an extra- curricular activity, as a single lesson or as a series of lessons. See the context analysis template in Booklet 8: Tools and resources, to guide you through the process.Year2023NationKyrgyzstan,Cambodia,South Korea,Kazakhstan,Nepal,Thailand
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A six-step method to guide teachers (Nepali)This booklet proposes six practical steps that teachers can follow to bring living heritage into their classrooms, beginning with finding an idea then moving on to developing a lesson plan, teaching and then evaluating the results.\nThe six steps presented in this section propose a logical progression to guide you through this process. They have been tested in several pilot projects and adjusted to best fit the needs of the teachers.\nAs for most teaching approaches, there is not a one size-fit-all way to bring ICH into your school. You are welcome to adjust the process and sequence to respond to your context and needs, and to best serve your students and your learning objectives. \nThere are many possible ways of integrating living heritage into a school-based education context. You can do it alone or together with other teachers, in the classroom or as an extra- curricular activity, as a single lesson or as a series of lessons. See the context analysis template in Booklet 8: Tools and resources, to guide you through the process.Year2023NationKyrgyzstan,Cambodia,South Korea,Kazakhstan,Nepal,Thailand
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A six-step method to guide teachers (Russian)This booklet proposes six practical steps that teachers can follow to bring living heritage into their classrooms, beginning with finding an idea then moving on to developing a lesson plan, teaching and then evaluating the results.\nThe six steps presented in this section propose a logical progression to guide you through this process. They have been tested in several pilot projects and adjusted to best fit the needs of the teachers.\nAs for most teaching approaches, there is not a one size-fit-all way to bring ICH into your school. You are welcome to adjust the process and sequence to respond to your context and needs, and to best serve your students and your learning objectives. \nThere are many possible ways of integrating living heritage into a school-based education context. You can do it alone or together with other teachers, in the classroom or as an extra- curricular activity, as a single lesson or as a series of lessons. See the context analysis template in Booklet 8: Tools and resources, to guide you through the process.Year2023NationKyrgyzstan,Cambodia,South Korea,Kazakhstan,Nepal,Thailand