Dais Slow Wheel Pottery Technology

Dais Slow Wheel Pottery Technology

Dai Slow-wheel pottery, the primitive traditional handicraft of Yunnan, is one of the national intangible cultural heritages.

Dai people like to use pottery since ancient times. Pottery making is called "plate mill" in Dai language, commonly known as "earthen pot". The biography of Baiyi, written by Qian Zuxun in the early Ming Dynasty, said that the Dai people "only use the utensils for moulding". Unlike other nationalities, Dai ceramics are handed down from generation to generation by women.

On May 20, 2006, the Dai slow-rotation pottery technology was approved by the State Council to be listed in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage, numbered -5.

historical origin

In the Ninth Section of "Making Porcelain and Pottery" of Chapter 10 of the Dai Genesis Epic "Batama Ga Pan Shangluo", God said to Sang Mudi, "People eat every day, people drink water every day, and there are no bowls and pots. What do you use to fill them? The leaves are too soft and the bark is too crisp to hold the soup. Make bowls out of soil. There is black soil beside the water, and loess, loess and black soil beside the water. They are the dirt of the earth. Where can people get them? Use them to knead `Wan'(Dai: bowl) and use them to knead `Mo' (Dai: pot). Use it to pinch "oz" (Dai: earthen basin)." After God's instructions, mulberry bottoms let people take clay to knead earth bowls, pots and pots. They are round, square and tubular in shape, but these newly made pottery products can not be used because they are "eaten by water, run with water, and carry heavy". Therefore, God again pointed out to the people: "Now the earth makes bowls, but also after drying, and then burning it with fire, so that the soil hardens, so that the bowl hardens, water does not eat, and people can use it easily. This is called"Gongwan"(Dai: bowl burning), which is called"Gongmo"(Dai: pot burning). From then on, people learned to knead bowls, people learned to cook pots, generation after generation. From the vivid description of Dai ancestors'pottery making in the epic, we can see that they began to make pottery in order to meet the actual needs of daily life in the Payasanmudi era, and mastered the pottery making technology in constant practice. Therefore, the Dai people have a very long history of pottery making, which can be traced back to at least 4000 years ago. The biography of Baiyi in the Ming Dynasty also recorded that "folk vessels, bottles, pots and the like, only Taozhi."

In the past, the inheritance of traditional pottery craft was mainly based on the family inheritance of mother-in-law or daughter-in-law. From preparation for soil selection, excavation, making pottery, firing pottery till final sale, women completed the inheritance. There is no man in the whole pottery field, and men are not allowed to see it when they burn the kiln. It is said that as long as men see it, the pottery will be cracked, leading to the abandonment of previous achievements. Therefore, we can see from these phenomena that the Dai ancestors naturally divided their labor according to gender. Today, Dai women are still carrying on this ancient tradition, shouldering the responsibility of handmade pottery technology and passing this skill on to the next generation of women, but this division of labor has no strict boundaries, and men are beginning to participate in it.

Process characteristics

The most prominent feature of Dai's pottery making technique is the slow wheel handcraftsmanship. The surface of the pottery is patted with grained wooden pats, which is consistent with the printed pottery unearthed from the Neolithic sites in South China.

Dai pottery is also fastidious in its material use, mainly by adding sand and gravel to improve its moulding performance. Its roasting method also has its own characteristics, including open-air roasting and closed semi-roasting and other methods. The method of billet forming is diversified, such as whether or not the runner is made, toe-pulling slow wheel, hand-pulling runner and so on. These ancient pottery-making techniques are still used by the Dai people.

Technological process

Dai ceramics mainly have runners, wooden rackets, bamboo scrapers, stone balls and so on. The main technological processes include scouring soil, sieving soil, mixing sand, seepage, installation of turntables, billet making, blanking, drying, preparation of pottery, pottery firing and other links.

Dai Slow-wheel pottery is a traditional handicraft of Dai people. Slow wheel is an important pottery tool invented by Neolithic primitive humans after they learned to knead pottery blanks by hand. Its base is made of wood, and then it is covered with a wheel made of stone. With the development of the times, because the fast wheel is easier to form, the slow wheel pottery is gradually replaced by the fast wheel pottery. In Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, Jinghongmandou, Menghamanluan Station, Menghai Manza Village and Menglong Village still retain relatively complete Slow-wheel pottery skills.

Inheritance and protection

Inheritance value

In addition to meeting the needs of daily life and spiritual life, Dai Slow-wheel pottery has rich social and cultural values, which are reflected not only in the ancient handicraft production methods and technological processes, but also in the production and life of the Dai people. It profoundly reflects the traditional lifestyle of the Dai people and its changes, and has been passed on from generation to generation, becoming a carrier of cultural memory, thus building the Dai people's cultural memory. The unique cultural representation system of ethnic groups.

Inheritance status

With the deepening of the modernization process, traditional Dai pottery is not easy to see in other occasions, except for a small number of decorations and Buddhist rituals for the roof of buildings. In addition, the economic benefits of pottery making are not ideal, so fewer and fewer people study and engage in pottery making. In Xishuangbanna, only a few families in a few villages still make pottery. The original pottery art is in a state of imminent extinction and needs urgent rescue and protection.

Inheriting characters

Yumeng, Female, Dai, Dai Autonomous Prefecture, Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province, Dai inheritor of slow-rotation ceramics. December 28, 2017, was selected as the fifth batch of national intangible cultural heritage representative project representative successors recommended list. In May 2018, it formally became the representative successor of the fifth batch of National Intangible Cultural Heritage Representative projects. Item: Dai Slow-wheel pottery technology.

protective measures

Since the late 1950s, archaeologists at home and abroad have made many special investigations on Dai pottery making. They believe that traditional Dai pottery making is the representative of Chinese primitive pottery art and the key to solving the mystery of Chinese Neolithic pottery firing.

In 2009, Zhang Haichao's Mandou Dai Slow Wheel Ceramics presented a panoramic picture of the intangible cultural heritage of Dai Slow Wheel Ceramics. In order to enhance readers'understanding of intangible cultural heritage and promote the extensive and effective development of protection practice.

social influence

Important activities

In September 2018, the Dai Garden Scenic Area in Xishuangbanna launched non-material cultural heritage projects such as Dai Zhangha, Dai slow-rotation ceramics and Dai brocade skills for tourists. The purpose of the exhibition is to publicize and popularize intangible cultural heritage and to raise the social attention of the protection of intangible cultural heritage projects.