Jiandu Making Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
The use of bamboo slips and wooden tablets as media for written text began in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, flourished in the Warring States period and the Qin and Han dynasties, and declined in the Wei and Jin. By recording text on bamboo slips people released culture from the narrow circle at the very top of society, producing the flourishing of the hundred schools of thought in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods and enabling the ideas and cultures of Confucius, Laozi and the other schools to come down to the present day. From the Tang and Song through the Ming and Qing, the craft of making bamboo slips gave rise to bamboo couplets and Spring Festival couplets.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Chu bamboo-slip craft is a traditional technique that uses bamboo and cord as raw materials and produces bamboo slips through steps such as making the blanks, boiling and drying, writing the characters and binding them into volumes. Its area of transmission is mainly Hubei Province, with Jingzhou City as the core area and Wuhan and Jingmen as key areas. Jingzhou lies in the central-southern part of Hubei Province and has been an economic and cultural centre of the Jianghan Plain from ancient times to the present. Its terrain is mainly plains, with many lakes and also hills; the climate is a subtropical monsoon one and suits the growth of moso bamboo, wo bamboo and white bamboo. The suitable climate and cultural atmosphere provided good conditions for the emergence and transmission of the Chu bamboo-slip craft. The Chu bamboo-slip craft is one of the representatives of China's slip-and-tablet making techniques. Its main process is as follows. Curing: the round bamboo is roasted over a fire and the scorched surface scraped away so that it will not be attacked by insects later. Splitting: the bamboo is cut into sections, split into slip strips, the nodes removed and the two ends trimmed flat and even. Boiling: the blanks are boiled in a vessel with water and salt in a set proportion, then rinsed and dried. Scoring the back: a single spiral line is incised on the back of the slip. Cutting the notches: triangular notches of suitable depth are cut according to the length and form of the slip. Writing: following the character forms of the original Chu slips, the text is read through and copied from the sense of it, so that the features of the character forms and brushwork are fully grasped and written in one continuous effort. Binding: the thickness of the binding cord is chosen according to the depth of the notches, using upper and lower cords and a locking-knot method with each slip secured individually, drawn neither too tight nor too slack. The main production tools are saws, axes and scrapers and gravers of various specifications; those handed down from history also include large, medium and small bronze adzes, bronze axes and bronze gravers. To this day the bamboo-slip making craft has been kept alive by the demands of folk activities such as drawing lots for divination in temples and the reproduction of slip documents. The Chu bamboo-slip craft is a traditional skill used to carry writing and spread culture in a particular period of Chinese history, and it is an indispensable part of China's traditional craft system. It embodies the distinctive spiritual values, cultural awareness, imagination and creativity of the Chinese nation and is an important component of China's outstanding traditional culture.
Documented process steps
The Chu bamboo-slip craft is a traditional technique that uses bamboo and cord as raw materials and produces bamboo slips through steps such as making the blanks, boiling and drying, writing the characters and binding them into volumes. Its area of transmission is mainly Hubei Province, with Jingzhou City as the core area and Wuhan and Jingmen as key areas. Its main process is as follows. Curing: the round bamboo is roasted over a fire and the scorched surface scraped away so that it will not be attacked by insects later. Splitting: the bamboo is cut into sections, split into slip strips, the nodes removed and the two ends trimmed flat and even. Boiling: the blanks are boiled in a vessel with water and salt in a set proportion, then rinsed and dried. Scoring the back: a single spiral line is incised on the back of the slip. Cutting the notches: triangular notches of suitable depth are cut according to the length and form of the slip. Writing: following the character forms of the original Chu slips, the text is read through and copied from the sense of it, so that the features of the character forms and brushwork are fully grasped and written in one continuous effort. Binding: the thickness of the binding cord is chosen according to the depth of the notches, using upper and lower cords and a locking-knot method with each slip secured individually, drawn neither too tight nor too slack.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
In Hubei the Chu bamboo-slip craft has Jingzhou as its core area and Wuhan and Jingmen as key areas, spreading in a continuous belt across the Jianghan Plain in the middle reaches of the Yangtze. The bamboo used is mainly the local moso bamboo, wo bamboo and white bamboo. Each workshop's slip surfaces differ in style; in Jingzhou the characters are copied from the original Chu slips by reading through and following the sense in one continuous effort, and the depth of the triangular notches determines the thickness of the binding cord, with upper and lower cords and a locking-knot method, each slip secured individually.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The bamboo slips of the Warring States period are the earliest actual bamboo slips to have been seen in China so far. The Jingzhou Cultural Relics Protection Centre, the Jingzhou Chuyunge Slip Art Research and Development Centre and the Hubei Provincial Museum are the main units transmitting the Chu bamboo-slip craft. Over the past 30 years and more, the transmitting units have used this craft to reproduce more than 50,000 Chu slips for a number of museums and cultural institutions in Hunan, Hubei, Henan and elsewhere, and to make replica Chu slip works for the Hubei Garden of the Beijing International Horticultural Exhibition; they have also vigorously advanced the transmission and dissemination of the project by setting up teaching bases, cooperating with universities and holding academic forums.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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