Malian crafts are a legacy from the past but also very much a part of the present--and the future.

People generally think of crafts as the artistic expression of a civilization or culture, but they are much more. Crafts are an important economic resource for Malians, and in 1995 the government adopted a Craft Code to protect and develop craft activity, which the code defined as all basically manual extraction, transformation, or production of goods or services, in metalwork (such as tool-making and appliance repair), woodwork (from carpentry to paper-making), textile and leather work (such as tailoring and tanning), mining and building trades, food processing and preparation (from meat-cutting to milling grain), health and body care (from hairdressing to incense-making), as well as arts. Crafts encompass not only objects used in rituals and traditional ceremonies, but also objects used in daily life.