Juyuanhaogongjian Making Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
Juyuanhao was an arsenal specially established by the Qing imperial court; its bow and arrow shop stood at the Bow and Arrow Compound near Dongsi in Beijing. In 1957, after being reorganized, Juyuanhao was moved to the Beijing No. 1 Sporting Goods Factory, becoming a district-level unit of what is now Chaoyang District, located near the site of the present-day China World Trade Center. In 1998, Yang Wentong, the ninth-generation inheritor of Juyuanhao, opened a shop in the Tuanjie Lake residential quarter of Chaoyang District, reviving the old trade. Out of his love for the traditional craft of bow and arrow making and his consciousness of cultural inheritance, Yang Fuxi resolutely gave up his former job and instead learned the craft from his father Yang Wentong, fully inheriting the complete set of techniques of Juyuanhao's Qing-dynasty imperial bow and arrow workshop.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Juyuanhao bow and arrow making craft carries on the fine tradition of Chinese double-curve reflex composite bows: the bow's core is a bamboo belly, with ox horn applied to the outside and ox sinew to the inside, and wooden nocks fitted at both ends. Bow making is divided into two stages: the plain work of the bow itself and the decorative painting work. Bowstrings are generally of two kinds, oxhide and cotton thread; Juyuanhao mostly uses cotton thread. Arrow making consists mainly of such steps as adjusting the shaft, applying the hide, scraping the shaft, and fitting the arrowhead and the fletching. In its early years the Yang family of bow makers at Juyuanhao won an award at the Panama Pacific International Exposition. The raw materials, tools and techniques Juyuanhao uses in making bows and arrows are close to those recorded in the Kaogongji (Records of Trades), the Mengxi Bitan (Dream Pool Essays) and the Tiangong Kaiwu (The Exploitation of the Works of Nature). The bows and arrows it produces are of fine quality and have won wide acclaim; the workshop has been invited to Hong Kong to take part in Asian archery exchanges, and its work has been reported by China Central Television and many other media outlets.
The laminated recurve bow
Bamboo for spring, horn for hardness and sinew for recovery, laid on a wooden bow's core with recurve tips.
The white work and the painted work
The white work shapes and tunes the bow itself; the painted work skins it, inlays horn and applies lacquer.
Straightening, feathering and scraping arrows
Arrows are straightened, feathered, scraped, then fitted with heads and vanes; the cotton strings of Juyuanhao are tested on a bow press before being set.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Juyuanhao bow and arrow making craft is transmitted in the area of Chaoyang District, Beijing, and has been handed down from generation to generation by the Yang family of bow makers; it became known early on for winning an award at the Panama Pacific International Exposition. Bow making is divided into two stages: the plain work of the bow itself and the decorative painting work. Arrow making consists mainly of such steps as adjusting the shaft, applying the hide, scraping the shaft, and fitting the arrowhead and the fletching. The Beijing Chaoyang District Publicity and Culture Center is the project's protecting unit.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Bow and Arrow Making Craftsmanship · Bow and Arrow Making Craftsmanship.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The transmission and development of the Juyuanhao bow and arrow making craft now faces great difficulties: Yang Fuxi lives in straitened circumstances, his working conditions and environment are very poor, and he has no apprentices to inherit his skills. Without timely protective measures, the loss of this craft is only a matter of time. Yang Fuxi (from the official archive of the associated inheritor): male, of Manchu ethnicity, born in 1958, a native of Beijing. He is a representative inheritor of the Juyuanhao Bow and Arrow Making Craft, an item of the first national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage. Yang Fuxi enjoyed making things with his hands from childhood. When he turned 13, it was the period of the Cultural Revolution, and he could not study bow and arrow making, so he learned carpentry from his father instead, laying a solid foundation for his later formal study of bow and arrow making. The traditional Chinese double-curve reflex composite bow making craft of Juyuanhao that he inherits has two basic formal characteristics: first, once the bow is strung, the grip section recedes backward, the upper and lower limbs form symmetrical arcs, and the two tips of the limbs turn in opposite directions; second, when the bow is unstrung, the entire limbs bend in reverse while the grip protrudes forward. Yang Fuxi's representative works include fine foot bows, heavy bows, crossbows, and eagle-feather arrows.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Yang Fuxi 01-0166
- Yi Chunguang 05-2756
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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