UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage: Songs, Skills and Festivals, Started in 2003

Falconry, Nowruz and the Mediterranean diet are shared by several countries on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage lists. The lists cover things you cannot touch like a building: songs, dances, crafts, rituals and the skills to make them.

What counts as intangible

UNESCO began the program in 2003, the year the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage was passed, to recognize and protect cultural expressions, practices and knowledge. Unlike the World Heritage List, it does not cover touchable items such as buildings. It covers the art, the skill and the social practice. Intangible heritage includes song, music, drama, skills, crafts and other parts of culture that can be recorded but cannot be touched without a vehicle for the culture; these vehicles are called “Human Treasures” by the UN.

Three lists

A sample of what is on them

Representative. The Algerian Ahellil of Gourara (2008), Kun Qu opera (2008) and Ramlila, the traditional performance of the Ramayana (2008), Carnival of Oruro in Bolivia (2008), Mexico’s indigenous festivity dedicated to the dead (2008), Chinese calligraphy (2009), Okinawan Kumiodori theatre and Pahlevani rituals of Iran (both 2010), Flamenco (2010), Portugal’s fado (2011), Mexican mariachi (2011) and Turkey’s Mesir Macunu festival (2012).

Day of the Dead (photo: Luz er01, CC BY-SA 3.0).

Fado (photo: Nafaziram, public domain).

Safeguarding. Examples of what is at risk: the Sanké mon collective fishing rite in Mali (2009), Li textile techniques in China (2009) and wooden movable-type printing of China (2010), the Mongolian epic Mongol Tuuli (2009), Al Sadu weaving in the United Arab Emirates (2011), the Moorish epic T’heydinn in Mauritania (2011), the Kit Mikayi shrine rituals in Kenya (2019) and the culture of Ukrainian borscht cooking (2022).

Best practice. These honor the ways cultures are passed on rather than the cultures themselves: Flanders’ program to safeguard traditional games (2011), Hungary’s Táncház method of transmission (2011), Brazil’s Fandango’s Living Museum (2011) and the revival of lime-making in Morón de la Frontera, Spain (2011).

Entries shared across borders

Many entries are nominated by several countries together:

• Oral heritage of Gelede (2008) is shared by Benin, Nigeria and Togo.
• Tango (2009) is shared by Argentina and Uruguay.
• The Mediterranean diet (listed in 2010, with the 2013 entry naming Cyprus, Croatia, Spain, Greece, Italy, Morocco and Portugal).
• Falconry, a living human heritage, shared across the Gulf, Europe, North Africa and Asia: countries named in the source include the United Arab Emirates, Austria, the Czech Republic, Belgium, France, Hungary, South Korea, Mongolia, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Spain and Syria.
• Nowruz, the Persian New Year, listed in 2016 with a shared nomination that names Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan among others.

Sources

• Wikivoyage contributors, UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; the Day of the Dead photo is by Luz er01 (CC BY-SA 3.0) and the Fado photo by Nafaziram (public domain). Changed here: the long country-by-country tables of inscribed elements are reduced to this overview with selected examples, and rewritten in hubnx's own words.