Yi Lacquerware Decoration Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
The origins of lacquerware around Xide can be divided into several layers: at first wood was simply carved into containers to meet the needs of cooking and storage; later a coat of black lacquer was applied to the surface to prevent the wood from rotting; only after that were cinnabar and orpiment mixed with raw lacquer to paint red and yellow patterns over the black ground. Each shift corresponded to a change in way of life—from the camp-cooking utensils of hunting-gathering societies to the household wares of settled farming, and the number, forms, and decorative density of objects grew accordingly. The more than 1,700 years were not a straight line: works before the Qing dynasty were mostly plain lacquer with sparse patterns; only after modern times, when wedding rituals and festival gift wares increased greatly, were the stronger red-yellow contrasting patterns used repeatedly, and painted lacquerware took shape in the everyday wares of the Xide area. The practice of using black lacquer as a ground with added red and yellow painting is precisely the result left after this stage of selection.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Xide County, the 'home of Yi lacquerware,' lies in the north-central part of the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan Province, where lacquerware making has a history of more than 1,700 years. From making the crude wooden household utensils of ancient times, to lacquering daily articles with black lacquer, and then to using natural raw materials such as raw lacquer, cinnabar, and orpiment to make exquisite painted lacquerware, the Yi lacquerware decoration craft has continuously developed and improved through its long evolutionary history. Yi lacquerware selects high-quality azalea wood, rosewood, camphor wood, and the like as raw materials, and involves more than forty process steps—selective felling of logs, drying, blank forming, sanding, ash filling, water polishing, grounding, decoration, cleaning, and shade drying. Decoration generally uses black lacquer as the ground color, over which yellow and red patterns are added to form various designs; the strong color contrast displays a distinctive ethnic style. The Yi lacquerware decoration craft of Xide County, Liangshan, has many advantages: the lacquerware it produces is finely worked, varied in form, and elegant; it is non-toxic, odorless, resistant to acid and alkali, high-temperature resistant, and non-deforming.
Documented Process Record
Yi lacquerware selects high-quality azalea wood, rosewood, camphor wood, and the like as raw materials, and involves more than forty process steps—selective felling of logs, drying, blank forming, sanding, ash filling, water polishing, grounding, decoration, cleaning, and shade drying.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The transmission of Xide lacquerware centers on Yiluo Village, Yiluo Township, and the Ji Wu family has transmitted it continuously for nineteen generations there, forming a pattern in which the full set of steps from selective log felling to shade drying is not passed outside the family. In recent years, driven by prefecture- and county-level protection units (such as the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture Civil Affairs Ethnic Handicraft Factory), the local practice has begun to spread from within the family to surrounding villages; the azalea, rosewood, and camphor woods used are mostly taken from local mountain forests, and the material-selection habits are directly tied to the mountain vegetation conditions, which also makes it hard to replicate the same set of steps elsewhere. In terms of transmission form, Xide Yi lacquerware is still mainly family oral transmission supplemented by workshop production; the division of labor in the process steps is not fine—selection, blank forming, and decoration are often done by one person from start to finish, so the finished style varies by person, and the same wine bowl shows differences in different craftsmen's hands. The black-ground with strong red-yellow contrast coloring, the varied vessel types (wine bowls, dining plates, crucibles, tobacco pipes, quivers), and so on also constitute the recognizable shared features of this school.
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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Yiluo Village, Yiluo Township, Xide County is a widely known place of origin and transmission of Yi lacquerware. The Ji Wu family living here is a Yi lacquerware clan; the lacquerware decoration craft has been transmitted in this family for a full 19 generations. At present this precious ethnic-minority folk handicraft is gradually declining and on the verge of extinction, urgently needing rescue and protection. (Photo of Yi lacquerware by Yu Mengyi) Ji Wu Wuqie (per official inheritor archive records): male, Yi, born in May 1953, a native of Xide County, Sichuan Province. Representative inheritor of the Yi lacquerware decoration craft, a national-level intangible cultural heritage project of the third batch. The lacquerware he makes preserves the traditional style in everything from the wooden-body material and the lacquer pigments to the lacquer patterns; he developed Yi lacquerware products from the traditional dozens of types to nearly a hundred today, took traditional utilitarian goods to modern handicrafts, and extended the craft to decoration, architecture, and other fields. At the same time, he broke the Ji Wu family's traditional rule of 'passing within but not without, passing to daughters-in-law but not to daughters,' teaching the craft to his own daughter and other women of the family, and trained more than 120 apprentices including those of the Apo, Jike, Jiguo, and Ayu clans.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Jiwuwuqie 03-1391
- Gao Guangyou
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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