Dai People's slow wheel pottery making technique

Name of China's national intangible cultural heritage: Dai's slow wheel pottery making skills

Applicant: Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province

Project No.: 355

Project No.: VIII - 5

Time of publication: 2006 (the first batch)

Category: traditional art

Region: Yunnan Province

Type: new item

Applicant: Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province

Protection unit: cultural center of Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture

A brief introduction to Dai's slow wheel pottery making technique:

Applicant: Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province

Yunnan has a pottery making history of more than 4000 years. The traditional pottery making skills of the Dai people are well preserved in Mandou village of Jinghong, manluan station village of Menghan, manzha village of Menghai and Menglong village of Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture.

Dai people like to use pottery since ancient times. Making pottery is called "banmo" in Dai language, commonly known as "earthen pot". According to the biography of Bai Yi written by Qian Zuxun in the early Ming Dynasty, "the only thing Dai people can do is to use pottery.". Unlike other ethnic groups, Dai pottery is made by women from generation to generation. The main tools include wheel, wooden racket, bamboo scraping, stone ball, etc. the main technical processes include soil pounding, soil screening, sand mixing, water seepage, installation of turntable, billet making, billet beating, drying, preparation for firing pottery, firing pottery, etc. according to their uses, the pottery produced can be divided into living utensils, building materials, Buddhist utensils, etc.

The most prominent feature of the Dai pottery making technique is the hand-made slow wheel. The surface of the objects are printed with patterned wooden patting, which is consistent with the patterned pottery unearthed from the Neolithic sites in the south. Dai pottery also pays attention to materials, mainly clay and gravel to improve the molding performance. The roasting methods also have their own characteristics, including open-air roasting and closed semi roasting. There are many ways to make billet, such as making billet with or without runner, moving slow wheel with toe, moving runner with hand and so on. These ancient pottery techniques are still used by the Dai people. Since the late 1950s, famous archaeologists at home and abroad have made many special investigations on the Dai pottery making. They believe that the traditional Dai pottery making is the representative of China's primitive pottery art and the key to solving the mystery of China's Neolithic pottery making.

However, with the deepening of the modernization process, it is not easy to see the traditional Dai pottery in other occasions except for a small number of decorations and Buddhist ritual vessels used for the roof of buildings. In addition, the economic benefit of pottery making is not ideal, so fewer and fewer people study and engage in pottery making skills. In Xishuangbanna, only a few families in a few villages can still make pottery. The original pottery making technique is dying out and needs to be saved and protected.