Yunnan handmade paper-making craftsmanship of Dai Burmese paper

The Dai people live in Xishuangbanna and Dehong Prefecture in Yunnan. Ancient books from the Yuan Dynasty record that the Dai people still carved wood to record events. However, in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, there was a papermaking industry in the Dai areas. The Dai people called the paper Burmese paper.

Myanmar paper is made from the bark of the paper mulberry tree with better fiber and finer texture. The paper is thin, soft and tough. It is mainly used for making Gaosheng, Kongming lanterns and writing Buddhist scriptures. Burmese paper is also used to make oil-paper umbrellas, which use paper as an umbrella surface and coat it with sesame oil. It is a must-have for the funeral of the elderly, which means that the elderly can use the umbrella to fly to heaven after death. In addition to being used to shelter from wind and rain, oil-paper umbrellas also have ornamental value. Nowadays, Manzhao Village no longer makes oil umbrellas, but they can be purchased in Mengzhe Town. Burmese paper is a must-have paper for temple monks and living Buddhas to copy scriptures and learn Dai script. It was also a must-have paper for copying medicine in the past. Nowadays, monks in Buddhist temples still use Burmese paper to study Buddhist scriptures.

The bark of paper mulberry with thicker fibers and more lignification and the pulp containing more impurities are used to make paper blankets. The paper blankets are blue-black in color and about 5 mm thick. They are made after the funeral of the elderly. Mats are also the mats that Dai boys must sit on when they are promoted to monks. In the past, they were also an important material for making beds.

Handmade paper has shrunk due to several reasons such as the application of mechanisms, reduction of raw material resources, high papermaking costs, and large consumption of fuel materials. It is mainly used for sacrifices, toilet paper, funerals, etc. However, handmade paper is a landscape of ethnic minority culture. With the development of tourism today, how to combine handmade paper with the market is a question that needs to be explored.