Oral Tradition Schools

We only protect what we love.
We only love what we understand.
We only understand what we are taught.
― Jacques-Yves Cousteau

Ancient Oral Arts—Instrumental Music, Songs, Stories, Life Lessons, Ceremonies, Spiritual Beliefs—are robust in the way they have endured through an unbroken chain of ancestors over thousands of years.  But they are also extremely fragile, for unlike material culture which is visible, tactile, and lasting, oral traditions are invisible, intangible, abstract, and fleeting.

Yet these ethereal and impermanent qualities are what make spoken words, musical tones, and chanted lyrics uniquely powerful, for they are able to inspire the body, mind, and heart in primal, even otherworldly ways, making Oral Heritage not only exceptional among all the arts, but also essential to social and spiritual life.

Under the auspices of Cultural Crossroads Asia, the Living Legacy Project heard the clarion call for action to stave off the decline of oral traditions in Southeast Asia, for should one generation fail to pass on what it knows to the next, thousands of years of knowledge may quickly, quietly disappear.

LLP’s pledge to help Sustain Intangible Culture stands as a major platform of CCA, representing the counterpoint to that of the Cultural Crossroads Asia Heritage Center, which aspires to Preserve Material Culture.

CCA is beyond thrilled to introduce you to the Akha Oral Tradition School, the first of many Living Legacy Projects to come.  Launched in July 2023 in the small Akha village, Ban Saen Suk, in the mountains of Chiang Rai, Thailand, a class of twenty-two Akha youth are enthralled each week by Master Akha Musicians, Storytellers, and Instrument Makers who impart a trove of ancestral melodies and lore they once learned from their elders in an unbroken chain.

The blueprint for the Living Legacy Project is designed as a multi-year educational initiative with a vision to safeguard age-old cultural practices in collaboration with and guided by ethnic partners in mountain villages. Emulating the traditional practices of yore, before the development of reading and writing, a team of Master Musicians and Artisans impart to a new generation the trove of age-old arts and life lessons they once learned from their elders.

Classes meet each week, as traditional vocal and instrumental music; proverbs, tales, life lessons, and history; and dances and martial arts unfold.  Each student receives the full range of musical instruments in the repertoire, many of which they, too, learn how to make. The hope is that students come away with the inspiration, skills, and sense of pride in their heritage to keep ancestral knowledge burning brightly and to pass the torch on to their own children and students.

The survival of traditional ethnic groups of Southeast Asia, those who live off the land and are at the mercy of the elements, is dependent on their time-honored skills to secure food and shelter from fields, jungles, and mountains, and on their inherited knowledge to gauge ever-changing climate conditions as the seasons circle through the year.

The accumulated lessons of living in harmony with the earth, which have been honed through the ages and transmitted in the oral canon from generation to generations, is not something to be dismissed, but rather to be respected and followed.

The Living Legacy Project, under Cultural Crossroads Asia, recognizes the present-day challenge of sustaining our planet’s natural resources and makes it a priority in the course of study. Master Musicians and Artisans of the Oral Tradition Schools spotlight the importance of ecological balance, exploring with their students the natural materials they use and the time-tested practices that replenish them. Such lessons as, ‘Where does the bamboo of your instrument come from?’ and ‘What is the best species to use?’ turn into action: ‘Today we will go to the forest to replant the bamboo we removed.’

Not only does this proactivity offer youth a new appreciation for our planet’s ecosystem, it is hoped it also seeps into the music they play and heritage they represent. Teaching the preservation of culture and the environment must go hand in hand.

The Living Legacy Project incorporates complementary classes into the core curriculm of Oral Arts, which not only offer young people a more expansive appraoch to what it means to ‘Preserve and Sustain’ their heritage, but also a range of possibilities in how they can create economic sustainability for their families and community—all while perpetuating their ancestral traditions.

Specialists are invited during the school year to introduce students to Instrument Craftsmanship, Video Storytelling, and Museum Curatorship in seminars and extended courses.  In this way, students will be exposed to fields that might not otherwise be available to them: instrument-making, photography, filmmaking, interviewing, recording, digital technology, virtual media, and museum practices. These first experiences in new media will offer students the opportunity to develop their creative skills—to innovate crafts, shape stories, care for and chronicle cultural artifacts, and mount exhibits.

From this network of actions, activities, and people, the Living Legacy Project aspires to introduce ethnic youth to a destiny that fosters pride in identity, cultural stewardship, and life-affirming livelihoods.