Guqi Making Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
Bone material came on the one hand from hunting and on the other from bones deliberately kept back when domestic animals were slaughtered. Besides serving as practical tools in production and daily life, bone implements also retain a fairly rich cultural content in decoration and belief; the custom of the human-figure hairpin, for example, derives from ancestor worship.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Baisha Li bone-implement craft is a traditional technique handed down among the Li people of Hainan that uses animal bone as its main material to work up various items for production and daily life. Hainan lies in the tropics and is rich in natural resources. The Li ancestors engaged here in gathering, hunting, fishing and making, creating the traditional Li culture, of which the bone-implement craft is an important component. In production and daily life the Li people put animal bone to every possible use. The types of Li bone implement include bone spades, bone knives, bone scrapers, weft-beating knives, bone shuttles, bone darts, bone hairpins, bone combs, neck ornaments, ox-horn horns and powder flasks, among others. Li bone-working relies mainly on chopping, with scraping also used. Making tools and utensils for work and daily life from animal bone was an essential life skill for local men. A man skilled at carving fine bone hairpins as women's hair ornaments could give such a hairpin to his sweetheart as a token of betrothal. The Baisha Li bone-implement craft is fairly complex. Taking the carved human-figure bone hairpin as an example, its process steps are washing and degreasing, drying in the sun, cutting the material, trimming into shape, grinding, drawing the design, drilling or carving, and decorating or colouring. The body is relatively small, in proportion with the head; the figure wears armour, carries a sword at the waist and bears a crossbow on its back. The lower end bears patterns of flowers and fruits, fish, beasts and insects. Bone implements are another important invention of humankind after wooden and stone implements, and occupy an important place in prehistoric culture. According to modern ethnographic surveys, comparatively ancient bone-working techniques survive in the Li areas of Hainan Island. The Li bone-implement craft is an important vehicle of Li history and a living fossil for the study of ancient bone-working; it embodies strong ethnic characteristics and has considerable social and cultural value.
Archival Records of Process Steps
The Baisha Li bone-implement craft is fairly complex. Taking the carved human-figure bone hairpin as an example, its process steps are washing and degreasing, drying in the sun, cutting the material, trimming into shape, grinding, drawing the design, drilling or carving, and decorating or colouring.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Most bone implements are plain and generally unadorned. Only the bone hairpins worn as head ornaments by Li people of the Run dialect and by some of the Ha dialect are carved art forms using animal bone as the medium; they are treasures among Li bone implements and fine works in Li plastic art. The finished hairpins are mainly incised, with incised and raised carving alternating, and the design falls into three parts. The top represents the high hat or tall coiled topknot worn on the figure's head, with holes pierced along the edge through which strings of beads, bells and tassels are tied as ornament. The middle part is the image of a hatted chieftain in profile (in single-figure and double-figure versions), the facial features strongly emphasized: thick brows and stern eyes, a nose like an eagle's hook, a beard like curling waves, and an extraordinary bearing.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
In recent years, with strong government support, the inheritors have relied on one transmission hall, three transmission centres and the platforms for the revitalization of traditional crafts and for rural revitalization, holding skills-training classes to keep expanding the channels of transmission and steadily advancing protection of the project. Protecting the Li bone-implement craft well is of positive significance for the study of the history of human civilization and of ethnic development, for displaying ethnic wisdom and for achieving cultural identity.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript; it mirrors the bilingual dossier. 阅读中文版，或返回 英文名录。