The Importance of Safeguarding Malay Traditional Craftsmanship: A Review of Literature

Safeguarding the intangible cultural heritage is essential as it is presenting the authentic and unique culture of people. Among the valued intangible heritages, traditional craftsmanship is a type of heritage that is dealing with the skills and knowledge of a particular people that can only be inherited through people too. In Malaysia, traditional craftsmanship is popular with the Malay ethnic. The Malay traditional craftsmanship can be seen through the skills in wood carving, batik sarong painting, keris making and songket weaving. However, the extinction of expertise in this sector caused the knowledge of making the traditional crafts cannot be sustained. Therefore, this paper aims to highlight the importance of safeguarding the Malay traditional craftsmanship from the review of literature. The secondary data from books, journals and conference proceedings are among the primary sources that are reliable in order to clarify the importance of preserving the traditional craftsmanship. Through in-depth reading, the importance of sustaining the Malay traditional craftsmanship can be divided into three main reasons namely it is presenting an age-old tradition, to acknowledge people about the richness of Malay cultural heritage and to encourage the Malay traditional craftsmanship to sustain the precious legacy.