Chuantong Incense Making Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
From the Tang dynasty, Guanxiang incense became a royal tribute. According to the Qing-dynasty Dongguan County Gazetteer (Zhou's edition), 'all products of Dongguan are no different from other counties, except that its incense is extraordinary,' and at one point it suffered utter devastation due to the exorbitant levies and extortions of the imperial court. Lu Bingnan (born 1855), on the basis of earlier documents and family oral traditions, restored and developed the Guanxiang incense-making craft, transmitting it by family inheritance to the present day—now four generations.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Guanxiang incense-making craft is a traditional incense-making skill passed down through generations in Dalingshan Town, Dongguan City, Guangdong Province. Guanxiang incense has a long history and is a treasure among agarwood, with 15 categories such as huangshu, shengjieshen, sishen, and yousu. The Guanxiang incense-making craft has more than 30 process steps, spanning over ten years or even decades from the cultivation and harvesting of raw incense material to the refined extraction through processing. The cultivation of Guanxiang incense requires human intervention on specific incense trees, with different techniques adopted according to the required category. After a long gestation, it is finally harvested at the right time according to the solar terms, giving rise to incense products such as huangqinan, shengjie, and maweishen. The harvested incense material must go through processes such as lixiang (sorting), jianxiang (selecting), xunxiang (aging), and hexiang (blending). Lixiang means using traditional tools to remove wood and retain the incense. To ensure quality, the tools selected differ according to the different grain and wood, and the force applied also varies. Jianxiang means classifying the sorted material into the ancient categories according to differences in shape, quality, color, aroma, and essence. Hexiang means blending various Guanxiang incenses of different categories according to ancient formulas, making the aroma richer and more layered. Xunxiang is the process of 'maturing' the Guanxiang incense—removing the woody miscellaneous odors so that the aroma becomes mellow and full-bodied; secret transmitted skills may also be used to control the richness and penetration of the incense. After xunxiang is complete, the resulting incense can be used directly for fumigation; the ground incense powder can be used for seal incense, or made into stick incense, tower incense, basin incense, etc., according to ancient methods. Overall, the Guanxiang incense-making craft emphasizes human understanding of and experience with natural substances. During the Yongzheng reign of the Qing dynasty, few Guanxiang incense trees remained, and the making craft was on the verge of being lost.
Documented Process Records
The Guanxiang incense-making craft has more than 30 process steps, spanning over ten years or even decades from the cultivation and harvesting of raw incense material to the refined extraction through processing.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Guanxiang incense-making craft is concentrated in the Dalingshan area of Dongguan, because the Guanxiang incense tree only suits the local soil and water, and transplanted elsewhere it is hard to regain its aroma; the line in the Qing Dongguan County Gazetteer (Zhou's edition)—'only its incense is extraordinary'—expresses precisely this territorial exclusivity. Lu Bingnan rescued the craft on the basis of earlier documents and family oral traditions, and it has been transmitted to the present day over four generations. In xunxiang, removing the woody odor and making the incense full-bodied, each household applies its own measure.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Chuantong Incense Making Craftsmanship · Chuantong Incense Making Craftsmanship · Chuantong Incense Making Craftsmanship.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Because the value of different categories varies enormously, the ancient method serves only as a reference for appreciation. At present the inheritors have broken through the family-inheritance model and continue to develop and refine the Guanxiang incense-making craft. Guanxiang incense has always been an important medium for royalty, nobility, scholars, and literati to cultivate cultural temperament, and is also an indispensable element in religious rites and folk activities. Around the making, processing, compounding, and use of Guanxiang incense, a Guanxiang culture has gradually formed that embodies the spiritual temperament, aesthetic concepts, and values of the Chinese nation; it has high artistic and humanistic value and plays an important role in promoting national cultural identity and international cultural exchange. Huang Ou (from the official archives of the associated inheritor): Male, Han ethnicity, born in April 1968, from Dongguan City, Guangdong Province. Representative inheritor of the traditional incense-making craft (Guanxiang incense-making craft), a fifth-batch national-level intangible cultural heritage project. Guanxiang incense-making technician. Since childhood he was immersed in Guanxiang incense making, studied under his great-aunt Huang Shouzhang, and knows the Guanxiang incense-making process thoroughly. He emphasizes the combination of theory and practice; on the basis of inheriting the family's traditional incense-making craft, he devoted himself to studying various ancient texts, constantly practiced the techniques of Guanxiang incense in the details of processes such as planting, harvesting, and knotting, and summed up Guanxiang incense-making experiences such as the soil-identification method, the starvation-planting method, the natural-knotting method, and traditional processing techniques. In 1999, he founded the Shangzhengtang Guanxiang Science-Popularization Plantation, covering 200 mu, in Dalingshan. He has played an important role in excavating, organizing, protecting, and transmitting the Guanxiang incense-making craft. Starting in 1990, he began searching everywhere for old Guanxiang trees scattered among the people; based on protecting the Guanxiang tree species, he has protected more than 300 century-old wild Guanxiang mother trees within Dongguan.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Li Shiliang 05-2901
- Huang Ou 05-2902
- Lin Wenxi
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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