Singapore · Basketry / Straw and Rattan Ritual Craft
稻草香火龍 (Cai Cao Xiang Huo Long — "straw incense fire dragon")
The Singapore straw fire dragon is a ritual object built once every three years for Mun San Fook Tuck Chee Temple in Geylang, the only temple in Singapore to perform this dragon dance, held on the second day of the second lunar month to celebrate the birthday of the Earth Deity (Tu Di Ye Ye). The dragon's body is a rattan frame, roughly 60 meters long and 65 kilograms once complete, over which bundled straw is plaited and hooked into place by hand over a construction period of up to six months. The straw itself is specially sourced from farmers in Xiamen, China. On the night of the festival, the dragon is danced through the streets bristling with lit joss sticks pushed into its straw body, and the performance ends with the dragon itself set alight and burned — a ritual object built specifically to be destroyed. The dance traces its origin to Guangdong province, China, and the temple has performed it since the late 1980s.
Risk level: Critically Endangered · Not UNESCO-listed
Chinese seal carving (zhuan ke) is the ancient practice of carving Chinese characters in reverse intaglio into stone, ivory, jade, or wood to create personal name seals (chops) used for official signatures in Chinese cultural practice.
Singapore's rattan furniture tradition is one of the last surviving furniture-making craft practices in the city-state — a tradition of constructing chairs, tables, and storage items from rattan cane using techniques brought from Guangdong…
Kolam is the traditional South Indian Tamil practice of drawing geometric and floral patterns on floors and thresholds using rice flour — practiced daily in Hindu Tamil households as a spiritual protective act and on festival occasions as…
Ketupat weaving is the traditional Malay craft of folding and interlacing fresh young coconut or palm leaves into a diamond-shaped pouch for cooking rice — the raw rice placed inside the woven pouch and boiled until the rice expands to…
Singapore's Peranakan beadwork and kebaya making tradition is the last surviving urban instance of a craft that was once practiced across the Straits Settlements.
Capal is the traditional Malay leather sandal worn as part of formal Malay dress — the baju melayu outfit worn at Hari Raya, weddings, and official Malay cultural occasions.
The hand-weaving of wool, goat hair, and camel hair into tents, furnishings, and decorative items by Bedouin women of the Arabian Peninsula, inscribed by UNESCO in 2020 as a shared element of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait's Intangible Cultural…
The hand-crocheting of garments, household linens, and decorative pieces in Macaparana, a small municipality of roughly 25,000 people in the Mata Norte region of Pernambuco, Brazil, approximately 120 kilometers from Recife, formally…
A rare, historically significant palm-leaf basket-weaving tradition unique to Amchit, a seafront town near Jbeil, directly documented as unique in the entire Mediterranean for its distinctive simplicity.
The hand-weaving of rugs from wool sheared from local sheep, produced by Bedouin women of the Negev desert on homemade looms, sustained today through the Lakiya Negev Weaving Project, a community-based initiative documented in the book…
Khmu basketry (ງານໄຂ້ ngaan kai — 'work of hands') is the woven object tradition of the Khmu people — one of Laos's largest ethnic minorities and among its oldest inhabitants.
The Lao tip khao (ຕິບເຂົ້າ) is the conical bamboo basket used for steaming and serving sticky rice (khao niao) — the dietary staple of Laos and arguably the single most culturally significant craft object in the country.