The Artifacts, The Community and Their Story: An Exploratory Analysis

World heritages face diverse threats from several factors including environmental and technological challenges, extremist movements and wars, uncontrolled urbanization, predatory exploitation of natural and cultural objects for commercial purposes, and rapid development of international tourism. This study explored on the practices and experiences of the community in Sorsogon about the cultural artifacts peculiar to their locale. The informants in this study are natives of the different municipalities of Sorsogon who are knowledgeable and/ or with first- hand experience with the cultural artifacts. These were chosen through the guidance of municipal administrators. This study utilized the qualitative-narrative method of research and used thematic coding in analyzing the raw data. The data revealed that the practices of the community are: Religious Practices; Spiritual Practices; Livelihood Practices including a.) Farming and b.) Crafting; Burial Practices and; Defending and Protecting the land are reflected in the cultural artifacts present in their locale and at the same time reflect the values and attitudes of the people in the community. The community employs different ways of preserving cultural artifacts as a way of valuing, protecting, commemorating, and honoring cultural artifacts. These ways were: conducting festivals and feasts; building museums and keeping records; supervising through local government unit initiatives and safeguarding privately. The stories and information about the cultural artifacts gathered by the researcher with the incorporation of her experiences and observations during the conduct of the study are creatively written through narratives. It becomes a story within a story.