History of Paper of Ethnic Groups in Southwest China and Mainland Southeast Asia (in Zomia)
2019–2025
RFA06
No comprehensive attempt has yet been made to understand the complexity of the history of handmade paper in Asia. The cultural background of paper diffusion, its existence and use in cultures other than Chinese, has hardly been explored. Most of the information we have is retrieved for large and known centres of paper production, usually from Chinese, Korean or Japanese sources. Almost nothing is known about papermaking of the borderland areas of southwestern China and upper mainland Southeast Asia (Thailand, Burma, Laos and Vietnam) where minority ethnic groups still keep tradition of papermaking, while in larger centres old technologies have already been replaced by modern paper production industries.
Important evidence can be provided by examining paper support of manuscripts manufactured by ethnic or religious minorities such as Naxi, Bai, Tibetan, Yao, Lanten, Hmong and various Tai peoples, and preserved in museums and libraries in the West. The information collected then can be compared to still existing practices of making paper in local areas. Thus, this project intends to examine the available collections of manuscripts from the key papermaking regions with interconnected aims. It aims to 1) identify preserved (dated and localized) books on various kinds of paper and in various formats; 2) record the technological and material features of their paper support; 3) study and compare recorded papers organized according to time and location (cultural affiliation) of production; 4) develop and refine nondestructive methods to study paper in manuscripts; 5) investigate the relationship between paper support and book format; and 6) pull together existing data on papermaking plants and technology to understand similarities and differences in between particular papermaking traditions.
The project helps to understand the techniques of making paper as recorded in existing manuscripts, and how these were transferred and adapted. Furthermore, it explores to what extent particular technologies were invented in particular circumstances and places, how they were assimilated by those who learned them and at the same time adapted to their own needs and available resources.
People
Project lead: Agnieszka Helman-Ważny