As the vast majority of Bhutanese in the past were illiterate and passed down their worldview, values, principles, knowledge, skills and practices orally, this project aims to record and document the oral intangible cultures and traditions of Bhutan, which are fast vanishing or changing. The traditional world of Bhutan is vanishing fast as global influences reach even remote corners. The Loden team, mainly through funding from Arcadia Fund and in collaboration with University of Virginia, documented the oral traditions, religious practices, cultural events, arts and crafts, folk knowledge and customs, games and sports, and languages and dialects.

We are in the process of building a database for some 3300 hours of audio-visual data we have. Meanwhile, most of the recordings can be viewed.