Li Yuanshi Pottery Making Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
For instance, the "Records of Various Barbarians" (Zhufan Zhi) of the Song dynasty, in its lower volume, recorded the Li people as "using earth for cauldrons and gourds for vessels," and Gu Yanwu's "Treatise on the Advantages and Disadvantages of the Provinces" (Tianxia Junguo Libing Shu) of the Qing dynasty likewise recorded the Li as: "they spin tree bark into cloth, and mold clay into earth-cauldrons."
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Hainan Island has a long history of pottery-making; pottery shards have been found at prehistoric sites in Li-inhabited areas, and documents are not lacking in related records. Li pottery tools include wooden pestles, wooden mortars, wooden beaters, wooden scrapers, bamboo knives, clam shells, bamboo sticks for drilling, and bamboo mats, among others. The pottery process consists of twelve steps: digging clay, carrying clay, sun-drying clay, crushing clay, sieving clay, kneading clay, shaping the body, drying, preparing for firing, lighting the firing, retrieving the pottery, and reinforcing. Finished products are mainly of forms such as fu (cauldron), zeng (steamer), weng (urn), bowl, jar, liquor-steamer, and rice-steamer. The body-shaping technique reflects the level of Li primitive pottery-making from one aspect; it includes pinch-forming, coil-building, and fast-wheel pottery-making. The slab-pasting method, the coil-building method, and the fast-wheel throwing method, among other body-forming methods, are still preserved in Li areas to this day. Among them, coil-building is characterized by the absence of tempering admixture, simple pottery tools, open-air firing, no potter's wheel or turntable, and few vessel forms—simple and practical. However, with social development, rising living standards, and the convergence of social culture, porcelain, glassware, metalware, and plasticware have entered daily life as substitutes for pottery, and Li pottery-making has gradually shrunk; especially during the "Cultural Revolution," production nearly ceased entirely.
Digging and carrying the clay
The first two of the twelve stages: suitable clay is dug nearby and carried back to the working place in baskets, with no dedicated kiln workshop involved.
Drying, pounding and sieving the clay
The clay is sun-dried, pounded with wooden pestles, then sieved; coarse grit is discarded and only the fine powder is plastic enough to survive low-temperature firing.
Mixing the clay and forming blanks
The sieved powder is kneaded with water into clay, then formed by pinching, coiling or fast-wheel turning; few forms, all practical in the manner of early pottery.
Open-air firing
Air-dried blanks are fired outdoors over brushwood at only six or seven hundred degrees; the heat is governed by how fuel is fed, and the fired pots are then dug out and braced.
Coil-building
Coil-building uses no temper, no wheel and only paddle, scraper and bamboo knife; the potter stacks and beats coils until a pot or steamer emerges from bare hands.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The pottery techniques in Li areas are preserved in regions of the Ha, Run, Sai, and Meifu dialects, among others.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Primitive pottery processes such as the coil-building method are still transmitted today in the Dapo area of Shilu Town, Changjiang Li Autonomous County, Hainan Island, which offers important inspiration for the study of prehistoric pottery history. Today very few Li artisans still know how to make pottery; the craft is on the verge of extinction and urgent, concrete measures must be taken to ensure its transmission. Yang Bailiang (per the official archive of the associated inheritor): Female, Li ethnicity, born 1935, a native of Changjiang Li Autonomous County, Hainan. Representative inheritor of the first national-level batch of the Li ethnic group primitive pottery-making craft, an Intangible Cultural Heritage project. Li pottery uses clay as raw material, with purely hand-thrown bodies, fired at a low temperature of 600–700°C; this craft has always been transmitted by women. In 1948, Yang Bailiang began learning to make Li pottery from her mother, mastering the Li primitive pottery-making craft. Thereafter, through continuous production and everyday practice, her pottery skill matured day by day, and she became a well-known local potter. Her pottery works have simple forms, a rugged style, relatively thin bodies, and a primitive ceramic character. Having practiced the craft for many years, Yang Bailiang has made large quantities of pottery for local Li compatriots to use, some of which have been collected by the Changjiang Li Autonomous County Museum. To ensure the transmission of the Li pottery craft, since 1998 she has taken on apprentices; to this day six people, under her guidance, have become skilled potters.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Yang Bailiang 01-0124
- Liu Meizhen
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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