Little-known, poetic, and unusual, the one-of-a-kind Unesco Intangible Cultural Heritage list tells humanity's story from the dawn of time.

Hear children whistling in the mountains deep in the heart of Turkey. Watch old Korean women snorkel for shells and an ethnic group from Zambia go into a trance to the sounds of percussion. All over the world, people have their own ways of eating, dancing, singing, entertaining, talking, drawing, writing, hunting, healing… This book is a grand tour of all these beautiful and different ways of experiencing the world and of living in a community. UNESCO has classified and protected these traditions because they are endangered, overlooked, or in the bigger picture, threatened with extinction.