If an artifact is not useful, its life will be very short; If a craft is separated from life, its development will not be long-term.

The combination of clay and fire gives birth to something completely new. Pottery met the needs of people for cooking, drinking, and storage, and was regarded as one of the most important inventions of ancient ancestors. Since then, pottery has accompanied humanity along the way.

There is an ethnic group in Hainan, and they are the most primitive inhabitants of this island. Thousands of years ago, it has been following the ancient tradition of men ploughing and women weaving, brocade and pottery. Self-sufficient with rustic craftsmanship, living a quiet and ordinary life in this land.

"Open-air pottery" is the oldest way of firing pottery, and with the development of the times, the production skills of pottery have been significantly improved and transformed. In the Li area of Hainan Island, the traditional pottery method of "open-air pottery" is still used, which can be said to be the "living fossil" of ancient Chinese primitive pottery. The original Li pottery may not be remarkable compared with modern ceramics, but it is the purest understanding of Li people on pottery.

Since ancient times, the Li people have followed the principle of making the best use of things, and almost all the tools used in pottery are made from local materials. People cherish the creations of nature and accept everything that God has given them. Hainan is a hot and humid place, and the gray-white or russet sand and clay formed by the weathering of granite, with a high quartz content, are very suitable for pottery.

Retrieve the suitable clay in sunny weather, dry it and set it aside;

The sun-dried clay is placed in a wooden mortar and pounded repeatedly with a pestle made of a single wood;

The crushed clay is repeatedly sieved to obtain a relatively uniform and fine powder;

Reconciled mud, left for a few days, will be more sticky and tough;

To make clay blanks, you must first make the bottom of the vessel. Pat the mud cake and cut it into circles, depending on the feel. It is necessary to ensure that the thickness of the bottom of the device is uniform and the shape is round.

After that, it is the most important part of pottery making - open-air pottery.

The Li pottery people have inherited the craft from ancient times to the present, and the open-air pottery is the oldest way to burn pottery. The firewood burned for a while, and the potters began to throw straw at the fire. After the straw is burned, a thick layer of straw ash will be formed on the clay blank, so that the temperature inside the clay will be uniform, and the clay will be strong and durable after firing.

After the open flame is burned out, the traditional Li potters will use the red liquid soaked in the bark of the Chinese tree to cool and quench the surface of the pottery blank. This can play a role in the rapid cooling and reinforcement, and when the plant juice is heated, it forms the unique spot decoration of Li Tao.

There is no definite date on when Li pottery originated, but archaeological excavations have shown that people here knew how to make and use pottery thousands of years ago. Simple shape, mottled texture, this is a gift from the ancestors.

From clay to clay, Li women use their rough hands and the most simple and simple tools to make the most commonly used utensils in daily life. For the Li people, as long as life continues, the dance of fire and earth will never stop.

In recent years, the retro style has become popular. Wide-legged pants, flatform shoes, things that used to be popular, after a period of silence, are back in favor of people. And those works of art, which are full of rugged and quaint style, are now also attracting people's attention.

In Hainan, Li Tao, which is full of regional customs, has been "disliked" because the color is not bright enough, the texture is not delicate enough, and it looks too bulky, and now, it has also reappeared in people's field of vision with the rise of the retro trend. However, today's Li Tao is more likely to appear in hotels, scenic tourist areas and other places, and it is no longer the "appearance" of the past.

Li Tao was once an important life "skill" on Hainan Island, and this skill, for thousands of years, has always followed the principle of "passing on women not men", in the folk, there is even a proverb that "women make pottery, men are not close" spread.

In the pottery class, women are the main students, but there are also men who participate in the pottery classes and learn the art of pottery in earnest. Liu Meizhen, a potter in Changjiang, said frankly that the barrier of passing on pottery skills to women and not to men has now been broken.

In the past, people lived according to the principle of "male dominance, female dominance", so handicrafts such as pottery were mainly passed on to women, so that they could have a craft and be able to run their families in the future.

Nowadays, however, men and women are equal, and men who are interested in pottery are also beginning to have access to the craft of pottery. However, the craft of pottery is still dominated by women. Because in the past, women had to rely on the craft of pottery to support their families.

Lan Yu asked, "Li Tao, in the past, it was also a means of livelihood?" Liu Meizhen explained that in Hainan, Li Tao used to exist as an exchange utensil. In the past, life was materially poor, and in addition to holding water and grain, Li Tao was also a kind of "currency".

The people who can make Li Tao will pick the Li Tao they have made at home and exchange it for food elsewhere. Liu Meizhen is a post-70s generation and a Li Tao production artist. Talking about Li Tao, she said with a smile that she has watched her mother make Li Tao since she was a child, and then picked the finished Li Tao in a bamboo basket to other places to exchange for food.

"I didn't have much to eat back then." Liu Meizhen recalled that in her village, every household would make Li Tao. In the 80s of the last century, Hainan's living materials were still relatively scarce, some areas had food, but there were no utensils, and some places were relatively poor, but there was the craft of making Li pottery. "At that time, whoever could be Li Tao would be able to take care of the life of the family."

In the past, Li Tao was mainly used in people's daily lives.

"In the past, Li Tao was used for eating, rice, and water." Liu Meizhen said that in the past, almost all the utensils used by every household were Li pottery products. However, with the development of the times, many people rarely see Li pottery products in their homes. "Li Tao is now mostly an ornament."

Liu Meizhen said that Li Tao is now also present in many farmers' markets, but few people buy it. One is because Li Tao itself is relatively simple and simple, which is incompatible with the contemporary people's pursuit of exquisite and beautiful life concept, and the other is because with the economic development, people's material living conditions have been greatly improved, and the way of life has changed greatly, Li Tao products can no longer meet the needs of contemporary people's life. Nowadays, Li pottery products are mainly used for decorative furnishings such as homes and hotels. "The hotel is used for art decorations a lot."

Liu Meizhen said that the soil used in Li Tao is mainly kaolin, the texture of the clay is delicate and viscous, and it is mostly seen in the fields and mountains, and the clay needs to be dug 3 meters to 5 meters deep. During the pottery making process, salt should not be sprinkled in the water, otherwise it will easily burst.

With water and mud, through filming, kneading, drawing, after the pottery is done, it should be dried in the sun for 7 to 10 days, and after the pottery is dried, then pile up firewood, and put the pottery on the fire for firing.

Nowadays, there is also a new firing method in Li Tao - steam kiln firing. Compared with the traditional pottery firing method, what are the characteristics of steam kiln firing? Liu Meizhen said seriously that the traditional way of firing pottery, because it is fired with firewood, the firing temperature is low, generally between 700 degrees Celsius and 800 degrees Celsius.

The firing of Li pottery products, the color is relatively lighter, and, after the Li pottery is fired, taking advantage of the high temperature, the potter will use auspicious water to sprinkle on the pottery, and after the pottery cools, it will present natural black spots, that is, natural patterns. Liu Meizhen admits that until now, ordinary small pottery still uses the traditional way of firing pottery. Because large pottery is fired with firewood, it is not easy to burn through.

Liu Meizhen explained that the firing of Li pottery nowadays, in addition to some household utensils, is mainly based on large-scale handicrafts. The temperature at which the kiln is fired is about 1200 degrees Celsius. "Because it is fired at high temperatures, such pottery crafts are relatively hard and darker in color." Although they are all Li pottery products, they are fired in different ways, and the effects they present are also different.

Is there a qualitative change between the Li pottery fired by the steam kiln and the traditional Li pottery? This also leads to a new question: what kind of Li Tao is the traditional Li Tao? "Li pottery in the traditional sense is made with firewood." Liu Meizhen also seemed a little confused when faced with this problem. In her opinion, the traditional Li pottery is the open-air firing of Li pottery, with a steam kiln fired Li pottery, although the firing method is different, but its essence is the same, belongs to the innovative Li pottery.

Although Li Tao has innovated, it still has its own uniqueness - it cannot be glazed, but can only maintain its traditional color. "For glazing, you must use fine soil, which is easy to melt at high temperatures. But Li Tao uses coarse soil. Liu Meizhen said that they had tried to glaze Li Tao, but once glazed, it needed a high temperature of 1,300 degrees Celsius, and it could only succeed after a chemical reaction. If you use low-temperature glaze, it is harmful to the body. Therefore, one of the major characteristics of Li Tao is its original earthy color.

As a national intangible cultural heritage project, the firing of Li Tao has been innovative. So, between innovation and the inheritance of tradition, what choice will pottery artists make? In Changjiang, Liu Meizhen led the villagers to open the Changjiang Baotuli Pottery Products Professional Cooperative. "We do pottery in two ways." Liu Meizhen said with a smile that they use the traditional way to make small pottery, such as dishes, and use a steam kiln to make large pottery crafts.

She hopes that through the two ways of pottery, people can remember the traditional pottery process and also transform the pottery process into an economy. In Buqu Village, Sanya, Dong Yafeng and other villagers have always adhered to the traditional pottery process. "Because we are in a scenic tourism area, we cooperate with Tianya Tourism Area to make Li Tao tourism handicrafts."

Li Tao has an ethnic group in Hainan, they are the most primitive inhabitants of this island, thousands of years ago, here has been following the simple tradition, men and women weave, brocade pottery, self-sufficiency with this simple craft, living a quiet and plain life in this land.

In the past, Li pottery was an indispensable necessity in the Li family, and almost every household would burn it, and these utensils made of clay could not only be used to hold rice, store grain, but also pickle food.

Whenever the firing of the clay belongs, the children of the village sit around and watch as they sing and dance around the fire stand and hold a short prayer ceremony to ask for the blessings of the gods. This ritual carries a strong primitive culture, with a sense of reverence for the gods.

With the advent of the industrial age, these old crafts that take time and hard work are slowly being screened by people, and the machines gradually replace the traditional manual work, and the traditional Li pottery making skills are gradually lost in the long river of time.

In the clay, the mysterious rituals that preserve the past are gradually transformed into the picture of memory.

If pottery can make the soil stable, and the longevity can tell the past, then the Li pottery with a rough aesthetic may be the best container for the dusty Li people's flowing years.

Tian Chengtai: "Three hundred pieces in one kiln, you can bet until you burn the fifth time and have about thirty pieces left." But I'm asking for the thirty or so, I'm not asking for the three hundred. "You think he's gambling on his tea bowl, but he's actually gambling on his life." I feel that every piece of porcelain in his hand is alive and spiritual. I was also fascinated for a while, after all, I didn't have such a rich life experience and experience as a master.

Any kind of folk art is struggling to break through the ground in the desire to live. Historically, the Li people in Changjiang area could not be self-sufficient due to food, salt and other living materials, and for thousands of years they relied on women to make pottery and exchange goods with other ethnic groups. Just like Grandma Sheep, pottery is only made to fulfill her wishes. And this desire now seems to be only the most basic requirement for survival.

Grandma Yang said: "Because this era is very poor, if you don't know how to make pottery, there is nothing to exchange for rice, and there is really nothing at that time...... When my daughter was fifteen or sixteen years old, I also began to teach her how to make pottery, and after I had this skill, I was not afraid of starvation. ”

In this way, Grandma Yang has continued from her teens to her current ninety years old.

Although a small Li Tao is not as delicate as Master Tian's work, it also has to go through eleven production processes, which seems ordinary but is actually extraordinary!

Walking into the Li Traditional Pottery Cooperative in Baotu Village, Changjiang, Hainan, I saw that there were various characteristic Li pottery made by the Li villagers, in addition to bowls, bowls, basins, pots, wine steamers and other living utensils, as well as a variety of decorative pottery with different animal images.

Yang Bailiang, a 91-year-old Li elder who has been a pottery burner all her life, is the national inheritor of the intangible heritage Li pottery project, and she has now passed on the title to her daughter and granddaughter-in-law. The "mantra" that is hummed before each pottery is to ask the idle people not to disturb the pottery, implying respect for the pottery. This is a culture that has been passed down from generation to generation, and Yang Bailiang took over the torch of pottery and passed it on to the next generation.

The traditional pottery-making skills of the Li nationality retain the pottery-making techniques of the early Neolithic period in China, and are the "living fossils" in the pottery-making handicraft. In 2006, the "primitive pottery skills of the Li nationality" was included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage.