Yi Lacquerware Decoration Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
The Yi lacquerware of Dafang County belongs, together with that of the Sichuan-Yunnan area, to the lacquerware tradition of Yi-inhabited regions; its origins can be traced back to the Yi ancestors' practice of lacquering wooden vessel surfaces to prevent insect damage. The transition from plain to painted lacquer went through a considerable period of accumulation: the method of using black lacquer as a ground and then painting patterns with pigments such as cinnabar and orpiment was gradually fixed by Yi communities everywhere through long use. Inferring backward from the seasonal festivals and wedding-funeral customs of the northwest Guizhou area, lacquerware was at first mostly for storage and cooking vessels, and only later became vessel types serving both sacrificial and wedding display and daily dining; the patterns grew from simple to complex, related to the Yi traditional preference for the colors black and red—a color-choice judgment that also holds for Yi lacquerware in southern Sichuan and northern Yunnan.
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
Dafang County's protection unit is the Dafang County Cultural Heritage Protection Center. Local Yi lacquerware production proceeds from the raw-material conditions of northwest Guizhou and the living needs of Yi-inhabited villages; steps such as material selection, drying, blank forming, ash filling, and decoration are mostly completed in farmers' slack seasons, and craftsmen often combine farming with vessel making; compared with Yiluo Village of Xide, where transmission is through nineteen family generations, the Dafang practice is closer to oral transmission among villages, hard to map one-to-one onto specific family lineages. In terms of vessel types, the Yi people of northwest Guizhou daily use mostly practical wares such as wine bowls, dining plates, and crucibles—finely worked, varied in form, non-toxic and odorless, acid- and high-temperature-resistant and non-deforming; precisely for this reason, lacquerware there is not a substitute for ritual vessels but a household article that has long coexisted with food and drink life.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Yi Lacquerware Decoration Craftsmanship.
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)
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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