In the nineties of the last century, with the popularity of plastic products, the traditional pottery industry of the Li nationality began to decline and was in danger of being lost. The old man Yang Bailiang insisted on passing on this craft. According to the traditional customs of the Li nationality, pottery is a type of work for women, and women are not passed on to men, and there is a saying that "women make pottery and men are not close".

Therefore, the inheritors are all women. Now, the old man Yang Bailiang has also passed it on to his daughter Huang Yueying and granddaughter-in-law Wen Yuesi. Under the leadership of Liu Meizhen, a woman from Baotu Village in Changjiang, the village established the Li Tao Cooperative.

Subsequently, with the strong support of the local government, the cooperative also set up a Li pottery workshop, which led more than 200 women in Baotu Village to learn this craft in their spare time, and at the same time rescued the endangered skills, but also allowed them to increase their income through this skill.

Today, the cooperative, from the potter to the person in charge, is all a "women's army". With the development of tourism in Changjiang, Li Tao Cooperative can welcome a large number of tourists every day, and Li Tao is very popular with tourists as a tourist souvenir.

According to Liu Meizhen, there are now eight permanent pottery workers in the cooperative, all of whom are local rural women, who can earn about 2,000 yuan a month just by firing pottery in the farm. The pottery industry of the cooperative has not only spread the traditional culture of the Li nationality, but also driven the local Li villagers to get rid of poverty and become rich to a certain extent.

A young painter who was born by the Yellow River, grew up in the northwest, and was assigned to the Central Plains after graduation, was reluctant to leave Hainan because of a sketch.

Pang Ke said that the folk art treasures scattered here made him fascinated and difficult to give up. In the past 20 years, he has traveled all over the Li Village in Hainan, and the original Li pottery has injected an inexhaustible source of passion into his art and life.

The young Pang Kegang works as an art designer in a Henan opera troupe, and his beloved paintbrush is outlining a promising future. Pang Ke, who had long thought of going to the end of the world, had an exciting opportunity, and after being introduced by a friend, he could finally visit the mountains and rivers in Hainan.

Pang Ke still remembers that scene many years ago. He said that the moment he stepped on the island, the novelty and excitement were indescribable. However, at this time, what made Pang Ke more concerned was the mysterious Li culture hidden in the mountains.

Over the next week, Pang Ke said, he made the most important decision of his life. In Li Village, Baisha, Ledong and other counties and cities, he can no longer control the brush in his hand, and try to grasp every second to paint everything he sees in front of him.

Later, Pang Ke simply became an art teacher in Tongshi City at that time, and continued to lead students to go deep into Li Village to sketch. One day in 1986, Pang Ke found Li Tao in a Li village in Tongshi City, which had excited him for more than 20 years.

Pang Ke's vision is no longer inseparable from this ancient and original ecological skill. With a military backpack, a drawing board, and a beloved paintbrush, Pang Ke has traveled to almost every village and town of the five major branches of the Li nationality in 20 years. He learned to drink Shanlan wine with his nose and fell in love with the Li dishes that he was not used to eating at first. He tried his best to communicate with the villagers, and used sketches to draw Li Tao and his production skills on nearly 10,000 pieces of drawing paper, and took more than 20,000 precious photos.

After getting married and having children, Pang Ke still spends two-thirds of his time running around Li villages every year. Once, because he had not returned home for a long time, Pang Ke was in rags, his beard was unkempt, and his face was dark and thin. When he came to the door of his house, the son who missed him every day opened the door for himself, but he couldn't recognize him, which made Pang Ke sad. His wife and friends couldn't understand why he was so obsessed with these seemingly mundane pottery. Pang Ke said that on the road of exploring the art of Li Tao, he could no longer control the pace of his migration.

Li Tao is not only an important daily necessities of the Li people, but also an important decorative object and sacrificial items. However, the outside world has doubts that Li Tao's art comes from other provinces. In order to prove that the art of Li Tao is a series of its own, he carried a Li pottery product on his back, and spent half a year at his own expense to go to Guangdong, Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and other regions to compare with the local pottery, and found the unique characteristics of Li Tao.

The original ecological production tools such as shells, bamboo sticks, and cotton threads, the dreamy Li pottery colors like ink paintings, and the unique pottery raw materials in Hainan such as coconut shells make Pang Ke firmly believe that this is a representative Li folk art.

After 2000, Pang Ke began to explore the birthplace of Li Tao art. After several years of visits and research, he will gather his expectant eyes on Buqu Village, Tianya Town, Sanya City.

This Li village, home to more than 1,000 people, is backed by a mountain, which contains two unique clay raw materials. Nearly 100 women in the village can make dozens of Li pottery, which is the largest number of pottery makers in all Li villages in Hainan.

What's even more surprising is that the Li pottery fired in Buqu Village is not only of good quality, but also has different dreamy colors similar to ink paintings, which are also not found in other Li Village pottery. After research, Pang Ke believes that this is due to the use of coconut shell in the fuel, and this color has become the most prominent feature of Li Tao.

With the rich research results, Pang Ke immediately began to prepare for the declaration of Li Tao as a national intangible cultural heritage. In 2003, a documentary of the whole process of Li Tao's production was sent to the Sanya cultural authorities. However, due to various reasons, the application process has not progressed for a long time. In 2006, the art of Li pottery, which was declared by Changjiang County, was finally approved as an intangible cultural heritage by the state.

Although Li Tao's application for the World Heritage Site left some regrets, he soon stumbled upon the "Li Tao Dance" that accompanied the whole process of Li Tao production in Buqu Village. This ancient dance of praying for the smooth firing of pottery and blessings for the villagers of the same ethnic group is also completely reproduced in Pang Ke's excavation and creation. Pang Ke said that he is ready to work hard to declare the "Li Tao Dance" as a national intangible cultural heritage.

In order to excavate the Li culture, Pang Ke traveled for more than 20 years and created more than 300 Li Tao paintings. However, a sense of crisis grew stronger and stronger in his heart. Many Li folk skills are on the verge of being lost, he hopes to set up a Li folk art excavation and display research center, not only to show the Li pottery art to the world completely, but also to dig out the bone carving skills, Li Jin skills, single wood carving skills as soon as possible, so that the rich Li culture can be better inherited.

The pottery technology of the Li nationality has a long history, about the beginning of the Neolithic Age, has important academic value and ornamental value, and its production skills have been included in the list of China's intangible cultural heritage.

As one of the birthplaces of Li Tao, Buqu Village, Heitu Village Committee, Tianya District, Sanya City, after thousands of years of changes, there are very few people who have mastered Li Tao technology. The 75-year-old Fu Rilan has been learning pottery since she was six or seven years old, and is now the inheritor of the intangible heritage of Li pottery skills.

She guards the mud garden at the foot of the mountain day and night, passing on the skills of Li pottery, and inheriting the thousand-year-old culture in the vast land and verdant mountains and forests.

On January 16, along the crooked cement road, listening to the leaves on both sides of the road beating the winter melody in the breeze, turning a corner, the reporter arrived at the "pottery base" of Fu Rilan.

In the "base" with only the roof, Fu Rilan is sitting on a small bench kneading mud balls, "There are medicine pots, teapots, wine tanks, water tanks, steamers, ......" The side against the wall behind Fu Rilan is full of large and small pottery.

The area around Buqu Village, Heitu Village Committee, Tianya District, Sanya, is dry and rainless, and a large area of land is barren, so growing crops is a luxury. Fortunately, the soil in the village is very suitable for making pottery, and it has become a special "food" for the survival of the ancestors of Buqu Village.

"When I was six or seven years old, I started learning pottery with my grandmother." Fu Rilan said that at that time, the village was the driest area in Sanya, and the whole village was very poor, with no food to eat, so they had to make pottery in exchange for some food. With seven children waiting to eat, she was the eldest in the second grade of primary school and had to drop out of school to help her parents with farm work and take care of her younger siblings. Watching her grandmother and mother make pottery, she has formed an indissoluble bond with clay since she was a child.

The ingenious Fu Rilan was often appreciated for making pottery that was more delicate than others, so she could also exchange it for more food. "The pottery we make is generally pots and pans that are commonly used in daily life," she says.

When I was young, I often followed my grandmother to pick up the pottery to a long distance to exchange for food, sometimes to Lin Wang, Yucai, and even to Fujiqiao and Baoting, walking barefoot, sometimes walking for two days and two nights, and sleeping on the side of the road at night. ”

Now judging a woman's ability is often described as "being able to go up to the hall and down to the kitchen". In the era of underdeveloped industry, rural women could weave tube skirts and make pottery, which became synonymous with "virtuous". When he was young, because of his exquisite pottery and brocade skills, the people who came to propose his relatives stepped through the threshold of Fu Rilan's family.

The deceased is like a husband, reluctant to give up day and night. The years have taken away her green silk and beautiful face, but it cannot dilute her love and persistence for Li Tao, and it has also trained her more exquisite pottery skills. Fu Rilan couldn't remember how many Li Tao she had pinched, and in her memory, there was no container that she couldn't pinch.

When she was young, Fu Rilan liked to carve all kinds of patterns on containers, flying in the sky and running on the ground, as long as they passed through her hands, they could be imprinted on Li Tao, and carving these patterns, Fu Rilan could complete it with only a piece of bamboo. "Now I'm old, my eyes are spent, and I can't carve patterns." Fu Rilan's tone was a little helpless and reluctant.

When it comes to how to make Li Tao, Fu Rilan becomes excited, and she walks to a bucket covered with a plastic bag in the corner, and when she lifts the plastic bag, a bucket full of mud is presented in front of Lan Eucalyptus.

Fu Rilan said that this is mud that has been "pickled" for a few days, and the longer it is "pickled", the better the stickiness of the soil will be, and the better it can be made into good pottery. Before that, it had to go through seven processes: soil mining, soil drying, mashing, screening, water, mud kneading and malletting, each of which was very exquisite.

Fu Rilan is particularly "picky" about the soil used for pottery, and also specially went to the foot of Qinglong Mountain to dig back the pure loess, dry it for a few days, and then use a sieve to screen about 3 times before putting the soil into a barrel to "pickle".

"We have to crush the soil more and sift it a little more finely." Fu Rilan is always very strict with pottery, not only for herself, but also for the "students" who come to study. "Making pottery seems simple, but it's not so simple to really do it well, and I still have a lot to learn compared to the master's craft."

Fu Qiulian, who has been learning pottery skills from Fu Rilan for 7 years, said that when she first watched the master make pottery, she thought it was very simple, but when she really got started, she found that it was not as easy as she imagined.

In the corner of the "base", there are some small pottery bowls, teacups and other pottery with different shapes and crooked shapes, and even Li pottery that is not formed and has cracks. "This is a few days ago, elementary school students came to do it, although it is not very good, but it is good that they are interested." Fu Rilan smiled with satisfaction.

Although she has passed her prime, Fu Rilan's hands are still very flexible, kneading, kneading, and patting...... A pair of wrinkled hands are at ease in pottery.

First of all, knead the dough like a dough, knead the dough repeatedly, and pat it repeatedly with the palm of your hand so that the dough looks uniform and smooth, and the appearance of the pottery is better.

Shells, bamboo chips, and small wooden boards are essential for making Furilan pottery, which is not only used for carving, but also used to polish the surface of the pottery. As for the steps of making pottery, Fu Rilan has long been familiar with it, kneading dough, pinching strips, coiling, pinching, scraping, and smoothing the outer wall...... Every step is rigorous and careful, and there is no room for flaws.

After repeating about four times of coiling, pinching, and smoothing, a rudimentary form of a clay billet is displayed in front of the blue eucalyptus. Fu Rilan told Lan Eucalyptus that it takes at least 14 processes to make a Li pottery, but this is not over, and it will take 5-6 days to dry before it can be fired.

In Buqu Village, there is a custom of passing on pottery skills to women but not men. Survival gave people a different division of labor, with men going out to do menial work, while women did fine work at home – making pottery and weaving brocade. "When firing pottery, a man can only be a bystander, and he is not allowed to approach." Fu Rilan said.

Before the pottery is burned, Fu Rilan has to hold a special ceremony. Set up a firewood rack in the open field, spread it with firewood, cover it with finely chopped coconut shells, and place the clay billet upside down on the pyre. At the same time, a fired, intact pottery is placed on it as an introduction. After lighting the fire, Fu Rilan held a clay bowl filled with water in her left hand and leaves in her right hand, walked around the fire three times, and sprinkled water with leaves. "This is an inherent ritual that has been our pottery making for thousands of years, and we ask the gods to bless us with smooth pottery making and firing perfectly shaped ceramics," she says. ”

Thousands of degrees into pottery, too hot is old, old is not beautiful, lack of fire is childish, childish and less rustic. "The most important part of firing pottery is to control the heat." Fu Rilan said that in the early stage of piling and burning, it is necessary to continuously add wood fire, which can reach more than 800 degrees Celsius.