Ma Weixiong
Lineage & School of Heritage
In the slack seasons of farming he also continued to refine and develop the forging techniques of the Bonan waist saber, and he devoted himself to training fourth-generation heirs of the waist-saber craft.
Mastery, Signature Works & Repertoire
Male, of the Bonan ethnic group, born in 1958, a native of Jishishan, Gansu. National representative bearer of Bonan Yaodao Forging Craftsmanship (Bonan Waist-Saber Forging Craftsmanship), a first-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. From childhood he followed his father, Ma Yinusi, in practicing the forging techniques of the Bonan waist saber. By the age of twelve he had already become basically familiar with the full set of steps in the craft, and under the continual guidance of his father he had, by his youth, become a highly skilled craftsman, the third-generation heir in the Magahu line of transmission. The waist sabers he forges are novel and distinctive in form, handsome and dignified; the steel is well welded and fused, the quenching precisely timed, so that hardness and suppleness are balanced, the edge is keen, and the blade endures long use. The principal blade patterns are the "watermelon head" and the "Shiyangjin" paired sabers.
Honors & Recognition
In 1985 Ma Weixiong won first prize in a competition of smiths held in the Bonan settlement area. In 2000, at the first Bonan Art Festival of Jishishan County, his five-inch Shiyangjin paired sabers were presented by the county government as gifts to visiting guests.
References & Archival Sources
Representative Items of This Bearer
Profile
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript. Compiled from official national representative bearer archival records, organized by topic and translated into English. 阅读中文版。