Production characteristics of Li nationality's primitive pottery-making skills

Li's pottery includes wooden pestle, wooden mortar, wooden racket, wooden scraper, bamboo knife, clam shell, drill bamboo stick, bamboo mat and so on. The pottery making process consists of the steps of digging pottery, picking mud, drying mud, crushing mud, sieving mud, mixing mud, making blank, drying, preparing to burn pottery, lighting pottery, taking pottery, strengthening and so on. The finished products mainly include kettle, retort, urn, bowl, altar, wine retort, rice retort and so on.

The blank-making technology reflects the level of Li nationality's original pottery-making technology from one side, including kneading, mud lathing, quick-wheel pottery-making and so on. Up to now, there are still some blank-making methods in Li nationality area, such as sticky mud slice method, rolling mud slice method and quick wheel drawing method. Among them, the mud-grinding method has the characteristics of no mixing, simple pottery making tools, open-air firing of pottery, no use of pottery carts and wheels, and few kinds of pottery, which is simple and practical.

The specific pottery making process is as follows:

1, the method of building pottery with clay strip plates

(1), preparation work

Dig the white mud into the pit-→ Rake the mud dry-→ Put it into a wooden mortar for pulping and crushing-→ Pour it into a bamboo sieve to screen out fine powder-→ Soak it with water and mud according to the ratio of 1: 2 and knead it into a mud ball-→ Put the mud ball on a wooden bench and beat it with a mallet to increase its viscosity-→ Leave it in the shade for a few days.

(2), prayer and exorcism ceremony

Before making pottery, we sang and danced around the wooden bench in the traditional way of Li nationality, so that the gods could bless the success of making pottery.

(3) making a ceramic blank.

After the ceremony, grandma kneaded the clay ball over and over again. Firstly, a part of the mud balls are made into round mud cakes, which are used as the bottom of pottery-→ Move the mud cakes onto an inverted coarse-hole bamboo screen, cut off the bottom of the round cakes with a pointed bamboo scraper to remove debris-→ Rub some mud balls into Dorobou with a diameter of about 2 cm and a length of about 50 cm-→ Wrap the first Dorobou. Scrape the gap between the mud strips with a small wooden board with one hand, and smooth the outer wall with the other hand-repeatedly winding and pinching one by one-beat the outer wall of the ceramic blank with a small wooden board in water until the designed shape of the appliance is reached-spray the ceramic blank with water, and then smooth the inner and outer walls of the ceramic blank with wooden boards and shells, so that the ceramic blank is molded and smooth inside and outside-cut the opening of the ceramic blank with a rope-and add it along the opening of the ceramic blank.

Step 2 dry in the shade

Dry in the shade 10 ~ 15 days, and burn pottery on auspicious days.

Step 3 make saiziruo juice

Cut the bark of Saiziruo (also called Saiziya) at the edge of the village-→ Mash it, soak it in the plant of Chai Gu Ren, and leach out the crimson liquid-→ Put the juice in a bucket for later use.

4. bonfire barbecue

(1), preparation work

Put four stone heads in the middle of the vast field, and put 300 kilograms of firewood with a diameter of about 6 cm and a length of about 160 cm on them, forming a square-→ put the dried pottery blank upside down on the firewood pile, and then cover it with a thick layer of dry straw-→ put a burnt pottery as a primer, hoping that this batch of pottery can be intact in the burning process like this one.

(2), prayer and exorcism ceremony

Before the barbecue, according to the traditional way of Li nationality, we sang and danced around the woodpile devoutly, and let the gods bless the pottery making.

(3), drill wood for fire.

Drill a hollow on a very dry and flammable wooden board, and put some flammable collodion around the hollow-→ insert a small wooden stick vertically in the hollow, rub the wooden stick by hand, and rotate it for dozens of times-→ Because friction generates heat, once the wood is drilled and smoked, it produces a little spark, which can ignite the collodion and get a fire.

(4) Burning pottery

The fire ignited straw and firewood and burned the whole firewood bonfire. At this time, the heat can reach about 800℃, and a series of physical and chemical changes will take place in the ceramic blank, so that loose clay will gather into relatively dense pottery with certain strength and hardness-→ When the firewood pile where the ceramic blank is placed burns to two thirds and the firewood is gradually burnt into charcoal, the whole vehicle straw will continue to join the fire to help the fire-→ After the straw is burned, a thick layer of fire ash will be formed on the pottery.

⑤ Quenching and oiling

After more than two hours of firing, the pottery that burned red in the fire was picked out one by one with a wooden stick-→ the prepared Saizi bark water was sprinkled on the pottery for quenching and cooling to increase the hardness-→ the pottery was immediately slagged, showing black-red spots or flaky oil stains, and the pottery was successfully made.

In practice, it is found that when some substances such as lime or plant ash are added to the thick mud used for hanging pottery clothes, the surface of the fired pottery will present a smooth and bright layer, which is the glaze layer. Because basic substances such as CaO converted from CaCO3 and Na2CO3 contained in lime and plant ash are fluxes of SiO2 _ 2, this ceramic coating is completely melted at high temperature of 1200℃, forming a smooth and bright glass layer, which adheres to the green body, thus coating a layer of glaze on the surface of pottery. However, the original bonfire baking of Li nationality is easy to lose heat, and the temperature can't reach 1200℃, so naturally glazed pottery will not be fired. It was not until the development of stove type and pottery kiln type that the texture and aesthetic feeling of pottery were improved, and even porcelain appeared. In recent years, Hainan archaeologists have discovered five ancient kiln sites in Chengmai, such as Wanzaodun Kiln, Gangzaodun Kiln, Hongniling Kiln, Shentian Mountain Kiln and Jinshengshan Kiln (now Fuan Kiln Site), which proves the development history of Hainan pottery. According to the custom of Li nationality, making pottery is a woman's job, which is only passed on to women, not to men, so that women can make a living by this craft when they are poor at home or have an accident. Therefore, there is a custom that women should let men approach when making pottery to prevent outsiders or men from peeking when making pottery.