Kyauk Myaung: One of largest Southeast Asian Pottery Communities
In 2010, with the help of NCECA’s Graduate Fellowship Grant (National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts), Alix Knipe investigated three traditional Southeast Asian pottery townships in Burma (also known as Myanmar). The following story is about Kyauk Myaung’s pottery techniques and its rich ceramic art tradition. Kyauk Myaung (Kyaukmyaung) is located at the remote junction of two dirt roads to the north of Mandalay and is one of the largest SE Asian pottery communities. Ceramic artists make large, four foot tall, 105 gallon water containers called Martaban jars. The pottery techniques that these ceramic artists use are a combination of coil building and wheel work. While the Burmese generally refer to these jars as Martaban Jars, the locals call them “50 viss” (1 viss=3.6 lbs) in Burmese, referring to how much clay is needed to make a jar. That is 288 lbs. of clay. While Martaban jars are the staple of ceramic production, many jars of various sizes, “10 viss” for fish paste, “3 viss” for sugar or salt, small and large bowls, and flowerpots, are made to fill in the space around the Martaban jars in their 60 foot long wood kilns.
Traveling to the Burmese Pottery Community of Kyauk Myaung
Burma is a country with strict travel regulations and I must stay over an hour away from Kyauk Myaung. Early each morning I pile into the local pickup truck to make my way from Shwe Bo to the pottery community of Kyauk Myaung. In the covered pickup truck, adults line both side benches while children and the elderly sit on bags of rice and cabbage in the middle. I struggle to glimpse out of the truck’s narrow side opening to see the passing countryside; flat arid land that is mostly cultivated seasonally with rice. It is the dry season now and there are few people in the fields. The Burmese are warm and gracious people and laughter commonly bridges our language barrier. The women in the truck laugh and smile at me. I tell them my age (a common question when first meeting people) and everyone laughs. Within an hour there are several kids asleep on my feet and I am struggling against the heat and motion sickness.
Martaban Jar buried half underground to collect water
There are a few homes that begin to line the dusty street. I can sense we are getting close because yards are scattered with pottery. Buried half way in the dry earth, in the back of the houses, are large Martaban jars used for water collection. Soon the truck arrives at the dirt road junction called Kyauk Myaung. Everyone piles out of the truck, climbing awkwardly over the bamboo that has been tied to the back en route.
From this junction, and stretching four miles to the south, there are four small villages in the Shwe Bo Township; Shwe Khun, Shwe Tike, Nwe Nyein and Malar. Together these small communities run together and are referred to, by visitors, as Kyauk Myaung, consisting of 3,000 inhabitants, 100 wood kilns, and 50 potteries.
As I begin walking down the dirt road, the Irrawaddy (Ayeyarwaddy) River on my left, I see fields of finished pots, their swollen bellies glittering in the hot sun. I pass tall walls of drift wood, teak monasteries with maroon monks robes drying on the clothes line, gold lobed pagodas pointing at the sky, and small paths that lead back to pottery studios.
Rhythms of a Potter’s Life
It is still early morning, but the sun is already burning with intensity. The average high this week has been 45 degrees Celsius (112 Fahrenheit). Soon pottery production will nearly stop with the beginning of the rainy season and rice cultivation will begin. The day begins early this time of year, well before sunrise.
Like many potters, a Kyauk Myaung potter’s life is marked by a rhythmic routine. Not only is there the seasonal rhythm of production, but also a weekly and daily rhythm. There are usually about 30 to 100 people that work in each pottery collective and depending on it’s size, each pottery develops it’s own rhythm of production and firing. Daily, the majority of the morning is spent squatting on the cool dirt floor in dark, low ceiling potteries. Everyone breaks for a lunch of Burmese curries followed by a nap during the hottest part of the day, usually taken on the dirt floor of the pottery studio and then its back to work turning pots. In the cool season, studio work usually starts at 8 and goes until 4, but during the hot season, potters will start as early as 4 am and take a long afternoon break during the hottest part of the day. In the wet season, pottery making stops because the pots do not dry quick enough in the humidity. The community turns to rice farming.
Organization in Pottery Collectives
A road leading back to a pottery collective
I turn off the main road that follows the river and walk up one of the dirt paths that leads to a pottery studio. Typically each collective consists of several buildings designated for different activities; a couple of production studios, a small glaze processing building, a clay processing building, a clay drying field and a glazing field in front of the kilns. There is one factory in town that operates with bosses and pay per production, but for the most part collectives consist of extended families and friends that work together.
I pass 3 massive wood kilns. There is an open outdoor area for glazing and then a series of low roofed bamboo buildings. I walk into one. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dimly lit space. A girl around 9 years old, who is in training to be a potter, stands holding a rope that hangs from the rafters for stability as she gently kicks her mother’s pottery wheel. A couple other younger children play in the dirt to pass the time. Pots line the floor. In the corner, two women mix water into powdered clay with their hands. They work the clay until it is malleable and then wedge it with their feet. In most collectives, there is a separate studio where mostly women work. The large Martaban jars are not produced here, but rather smaller jars, still over two feet tall, hump thrown bowls, and smaller containers. In the women’s studios laughter always fills the air and there are usually many children playing or napping.
In the next building, music crackles through an old radio while several men partake in making large Martaban jars. The studio is filled with mostly men, but it is not uncommon to see a women helping turn the wheels or babies asleep on the dirt floor.
Pottery Techniques
When the pots are small, a potter kicks the wheel himself, but as it gets taller a young assistant comes over and turns the wheel by hand. The wheel spinner begins to sing a song as he rhythmically pushes the small wheel head set directly into the ground. The potter continues layering large coil after large coil onto the pot. The pots are coil built in pieces, and are carried in and out of the building to dry in the sun. Once the bottom halves are in their final stages of having coils added to them, a small plate is suspended inside and wood is burned on it to dry out the inside. Because of the girth of the outward curve, bamboo twine is periodically wrapped around different parts of the outside of the pot to lend strength to the form as it is built. The bottom is carved with a pointed stick to remove excess clay and the upper walls are trimmed with hand-sized curved trimming tools.
After the last coil is added to the finished form, it is allowed to dry slightly, and then the potter works meticulously to lift the shoulder of the pot, creating the beautiful high apex of the outward curve. At this point, if a woman has been turning the wheel, a man usually takes over spinning the wheel. A series of ribs are used pushing from the inside and compressing the outside, bringing the shoulder up and out, filling the form with breath.
Bamboo string is used at various parts of the building to provide structure to the bulging form.
In a studio with one potter and a wheel assistant, five of these bottoms are made in one day and five bottoms from the day before are finished by doubling its height with coils of clay.
A field of drying clay in the background
Trimming the bottom with a pointed stick
Clay Processing
Through the other side of this ceramic studio there is another open courtyard surrounded by several more buildings. In a field in front, there are two different colors of clay that are left out to dry. The tan clay and brown clay are dug from two different places, one from the river bank and the other from the hills. The clays have different properties, one is very plastic, but shrinks a lot, while the other is not as plastic and does not shrink very much.
A woman, her cheeks caked with thick marks of “thinakka” (ground sandlewood) and printed fabric wrapped around her head, uses a hoe to break up the drying clay and mix the tan clay with the brown clay. A low roar of machinery comes from one of the small buildings as billows of dust easily pillow out of the loose bamboo walls. Moments later a woman emerges, without a mask, covered in clay powder. She has been hand feeding the clay that was dried in the sun into the generator-powered grinder that crushes the clay into a fine powder. Potters do not dig the clay themselves. Rather, they buy it from clay sellers that bring the clay there on bullock carts and trucks. There is one more ingredient that is added to the clay before it is mixed with water, ash to lower the maturing temperature.
Clay drying in the field
Clay grinding mill
Glaze Processing
Next to the clay processing building is a smaller open air building with ground glaze materials laid out on a cloth tarp. Several men work to shovel raw materials into two different types of grinders. One is similar to the clay grinder, two wheels that crush the materials between them, and the second, to further refine the size of the glaze particles, is a pneumatic pounder with multiple pistons that move up and down, pulverizing the glaze material into a fine powder. I saw two styles of this 2nd type of pounder; the other was a large lever that see sawed back and forth, hitting the glaze materials with a large hammer.
Most raw glaze materials are either mined in Burma or imported from Bangledesh or India. They are processed on site, although there is a factory, a large pottery, that processes larger quantities of some materials, including lead, that potters can purchase. Borax and soda ash are the two fluxes used in addition to lead. Borax was the most common glaze used, other than lead, producing a slightly dull brown-black glaze. Lithium is also available but is very expensive and I did not see it used. Some materials are used as coloring agents, but not many, copper sulfate is the most common used, creating a rich green glaze. Several potters that I spoke with are becoming more interested in different kinds of glazes, experimenting with different colors, in an attempt to increase marketability outside of Burma.
Lead Processing and Lead Use
Lead, is one of the most commonly used glazed ingredients. The mining slag, which is about 90% lead, comes from the Baw Saing mines near Heho in the Southern Shan State. It is first pounded into a fine powder, then mixed with water and sieved several times by hand. The final glaze is a mixture of lead, clay, and rice water. Lead has been used as the predominant glaze in Burma for over 1000 years.
When I had traveled to Burma two years before, a man told me that lead was being obtained from old batteries in Kyauk Myaung. Batteries were placed in a smelter and the lead was melted, then ground into a powder. I asked many people about this practice, but, thankfully, was unable to find any potters that were still procuring lead in this way. Battery lead makes a beautiful yellow-red color that is difficult to get with the slag lead they get from the mine. This is an extremely dangerous process and I was relieved to find that it was not prevalent.
In looking to the future of this community it is absolutely critical that there is an increase in education about the dangers of lead processing. In addition, safety equipment is needed; thick rubber gloves and proper respirators. Raw lead is nonchalantly held by bare hands and sieved without the use of gloves. In a lead processing room you can see barefoot prints in the powdered lead.
Sieving lead by hand
Ceramic Glazing
Later that afternoon it is kiln loading time and pots are spread across the central open field for a quick glaze. Several women sit on the ground under the shade of a bamboo roof dipping smaller forms into a large vat of lead glaze. A man quickly and effortlessly uses a large soft brush to glaze the large Martarban jars. A handful of raw lead is put in the bottom of each large jar to make sure the ceramic glaze at the bottom fully melts. Another group of people re-glaze some small flower pots that have a glaze on it that clearly did not make it to temperature in the previous firing. About 20% of each firing does not fire to the desired temperature. The kilns have many cool and hot pockets. Glaze commonly only covers half of the outside of the pot for this reason. A majority of the under fired pieces are re-fired, although many are glazed again to assure the glaze does not bubble.
White slip decoration
Pots glazed and waiting to get loaded into the kiln
Wood Kiln Loading
After glazing is complete, I watch as pots are carried into the large mouth of the kiln. Big Martaban jars are carried one after another inside the kiln. They are placed in slings supported by a large piece of bamboo that two potters carry. Woman laugh together as they carry pots on their heads, their heavy load softened by colorful fabric wrapped around their crown. There are no shelves used to load the work, nor are most of the pots tumble stacked. There are cylinder supports, used time after time in multiple firings, that are used to elevate the Martaban jars, leaving room around their base to fit more pieces. Sixty large jars fit into one kiln. Small forms are sometimes only glazed on their rim and filled with wood ash to allow work to be stacked inside one another. The wood ash does not melt and is easily removed after the firing. There are also doughnut shaped stilts that are occasionally incorporated in the loading process.
Wood Kiln Firing
After the kiln is loaded, Nats, or spirit gods, are worshiped with flower offerings placed at the front door of the kiln. It will take two days and two nights to reach the final firing temperature of less than 1100 degrees Celsius, cone 05, and an equal amount of time to cool. The final temperature is calculated by visual color inside the kiln.
Two different types of wood are used, a hardwood drift wood that is collected from the banks of the Irrawaddy (Ayeyarwaddy) River and a bamboo that is from a nearby hill. The large pieces of hardwood start off the firing, and then smaller pieces of bamboo are employed to reach final temperature. One kiln firing will swallow a tremendous amount of wood, 50 bullock loads. The potters are facing a problem of growing urgency; the bamboo is not growing fast enough to support demand, is currently becoming more and more expensive, and the future sustainability of the forest is uncertain.
After the kiln has been unloaded and cooled a straw door is placed over the opening to keep animals out
Wood Kiln Design
This kiln is one of three kilns that this pottery collective uses. Three long ovoid Jar Kilns, 65 feet long and 13 feet high line the short hillside next to the building complex. Inside, the dirt floor, with no separation between the firebox and the firing chamber, gently slopes upward toward the large round chimney. Bricks for the arch are made with kaolin, rocks, and feldspar and are not fired before they are put in place. An arch form is made of bent bamboo to support the structure as its being built or repaired. Mud is then plastered over top of the bricks. The side walls are buttressed with earth and old pots.
It takes two months to build a kiln and not many people are kiln builders. One potter told me he only knows of 3 kiln builders in the community. Kilns usually have to be repaired every 3-4 years.
Some Mon built kilns in Thailand are nearly identical to these kilns. It is believed that most of this kiln technology was transfered to the Mons from China over a thousand years ago.
Rebuilding the arch of the wood kiln
Pottery Distribution
I need to leave for the day to catch the last truck back to Shwe Bo. After saying goodbye I make my way back down to the main river road. The Irrawaddy (Ayeyarwaddy) River forms the main distribution line for pottery. Martaban Jars can be seen buried half way beneath the soil outside of many homes all over Burma, but the practice is most common along the Irrawaddy River downstream of Kyauk Myaung. Boats are loaded in the early morning with pottery. Now I pass empty waters, not a boat in sight, but the shore is full of pots in preparation for tomorrows shipment. Not too long ago pots used to be tied to rafts and floated down the river, but this practice has been abandoned in favor of motor boats.
The majority of these pots are shipped to the Irrawaddy delta region or make their way to Mandalay and then are transferred to other transport to the Shan State in the east. Most pottery is sold within the country, but some are packed in containers further south to go on ocean liners to Malaysia, China, and Thailand.
There are several trucks loading large jars in hay to be transported to the Chin State, where they are transferred to trains heading to the Kachin State or Upper Sagaing Division.
History of Ceramics: Burma’s Long Tradition
It is clear that this tradition has deep roots. A visitor can’t help but feel grateful for an opportunity to see a tradition so rich with itself, tied so directly to its own past. It is believed that many of the current ceramic traditions in Burma can be traced back to the Mons, a people that lived in Laos and Thailand, and entered into Burma due to political reasons around 1000 A.C.E.
If one follows the Irrawaddy River down to the Bay of Bengal, there is a small inlet called the Bay of Martaban (now called Moattama). It was this port, one of the most thriving eastern ports from the 14th century, that shipped Martaban jars to the Middle East, India, and China. Literature refers to these “Ali Baba” jars being filled with salted mango and fermented fish. Archaeological evidence is very limited in Myanmar, but it is believed that most Martaban jars were made close to that port. Archaeological evidence indicates that Martaban jars were made in Twante, a city close to the Bay of Martaban, on the Irrawaddy River, that still produces pottery today. It is likely, however, that there were other production sites up river.
As far as the history of Kyauk Myaung, we believe its ceramic tradition started in 1750, but it could reach further back than that. What we do know is that in the 1750’s the king captured 5,000 Mon potters and sent them to Ma Au Village, six miles away from Kyauk Myaung to make pottery there. Three years later, upon the potters request, they moved their potteries to Kyauk Myaung to be closer to the natural clay reserves. They have been making pots there ever since.
Looking to the Future
Walking back up the main dirt street that is just wide enough for a bullock ox cart, I pass women caring pots on their heads, children climbing on the hot jars laying in the sun, and I begin thinking about the future for this rich historical tradition. Within the last few hundred years, change has happened in this community, but it has has happened slowly. Myanmar, due to its closed borders, has slowed down its rate of cultural change, its evolution of traditions, and a richness has grown that is unique. In an evolutionary millisecond, Myanmar’s ports are flooding wide open, not only for highly functioning and cheap plastic products, but for expensive blue jeans, commodification, and capitalism. It is a different world than the Burmese 14th century ports saw. As I left the riverside junction, the truck pointed back towards Shwe Bo, I wished Kyauk Myaung’s pottery community flexibility, endurance, and happiness in the face of the challenges that are sure to come.
Recent News about Kyauk Myaung
In November of 2012, the Shwebo Township was devastated by a large earthquake. 11 people were killed, 36 injured, 40 kilns were destroyed, 800 potters were effected and could not make pots. Burma continues to have struggles with political unrest as the people via for democracy.
The Burmese People
The Burmese people continually surprise a visitor with an outpouring of unconditional generosity. Buddhism is the predominant religion and Burma boasts the largest proportion of monks to lay people in the world. Most males will spend time as a monk before they are 19 years of age. Merit-making is a fundamental idea of Burma’s Theravada Buddhism. Accumulation of good merit comes through charity and good deeds (dana) in order to obtain a favorable rebirth. In addition to generosity being a central principle of the Burmese religion, the people seem set on ensuring a positive impression, one which is distinctively separate from what they view as their nations political impression. The Burmese people hold hope in their hearts; hope of change in their government, hope of change for their country. They whisper it to you at every opportunity, test your thoughts by seeing if you refer to their country as Burma or Myanmar (the name that was given to their country by the current regime). They are a people that laugh with you, join you at your table for every meal, follow you to the bus and wave you goodbye with a huge smile. The Burmese people are truly a unique and gracious people. If anyone loses faith in the goodness of humanity, go to Burma, you’ll find it there.
Alx Knipe also wrote two other stories about Burmese pottery traditions: Sagaing’s Southeast Asian ceramics tradition and Twante’s changing craft traditions.
Filed Under: Asia, Burma/ Myanmar, Ceramics Around the World