Myanma ten Traditional Arts and Crafts need to be cherished and preserved

MYANMAR is awesomely beautiful in the eyes of the foreigners for having possession of Myanma traditional values and motley assortment of rituals in conjunction with cultural heritage, matchless arts and crafts in addition to abundant natural resources.

Among the traditional cultural heritages, the Myanma ten traditional arts and crafts are the most valuable and talented work handed down from the times of Myanma ancient kings up to the modern times.

There are ten traditional arts, called pan sè myo (ပန္းဆယ္မ်ဳိး), listed as follows:
1. Blacksmith (ပန္းပဲ ba-bè)
2. Woodcarving (ပန္းပု ba-bu)
3. Goldsmith (ပန္းထိမ္ ba-dein)
4. Stucco relief (ပန္းေတာ့ pandaw)
5. Masonry (ပန္းရန္ pa-yan)
6. Stone carving (ပန္းတေမာ့ pantamaw)
7. Turnery (ပန္းပြတ္ panbut)
8. Painting (ပန္းခ်ီ bagyi)
9. Lacquerware (ပနး္ယြန္း panyun)
10.Bronze casting (ပန္းတဥ္း badin)

The most popular, distinctive and visible presentation of Myanma 10 traditional arts and crafts have been put up in artistic phraseology by the ancient classical scholars with 10 short terms such as “din”; “dein”; “bè”; “daw”; “bu”; “yan”; “maw”; “but”; “gyi” and “yun”.

As the beautiful pieces are crafted out of natural materials of the country, most of the tourists across the globe purchase with pure passion while they visit many places in Myanmar, forging craft making business as foreign income source creating job opportunities for the locals.

Over the years, some grey shadows hover over the Myanma 10 traditional arts and crafts hinting the possible extinction in the foreseeable future. Therefore, responsible institutions such as that of the government, the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Culture, the traditional handicraft experts teams, the Myanmar Painting and Sculpturing Council, the Myanmar Traditional Flower Experts Association, Myanma Painting and Sculpting Association have come together and work in various ways for the sustainable development of Myanma ten traditional arts and crafts.

In Gyo Bin Gauk Township of Tharrawaddy District, some crafts of six categories such as ba-dein; ba-bè; pa-yan; ba-bu; panbut; and bagyi have been in continued production, and that the remaining arts and crafts are still flourishing elsewhere in the country side.

Ba-dein industry is making objects of gold or silver. Silver smith’s art produces bowl container, price cup, plate and belt. Generally speaking, gold entrepreneurs established personal ba-dein shops for making gold ornaments. Meanwhile, silversmith industry is declining.

Lovely pieces of gold jewellery are the items that people wear as decoration, and it is therefore, remained a successful business in all townships across the country. However, the silver pieces happened to be merely household items, and the silversmith industry is not flourishing.

Goldsmith Ko Zaw Min Htaik remarked “Based on the fluctuation of prices on the gold, the dollar, the crops, the business of local people; the tempo of the jewellery business changes. When the prices of paddy and bean are good, the goldsmith business is fine”.

Ba-bè is a kind of blacksmith relied by the farmers. It is tempering of the iron in the oven to make the necessary elements. The craftsmen make oxcart axle, oxcarts iron, scissors, hammer, ax, pick ax, knife, and dig hoe. As the time is transforming from manual agriculture farming to mechanization, the items being produced by the blacksmith are not selling well.

Blacksmith U Myint Htoo said, “The whole business is slowing own. Some few items for the use in the farm and in the kitchen are still under sales. In summer time, the iron items for bullock carts and horse carts are being ordered. In modern time, the wrought ironwork and iron grilled items are being attached to blacksmith industry. In Gyo Bin Gauk Township, there are only about ten people engaged in the blacksmith industry”.

Pa-yan is flourishing across the country. It constructs the building with brick, stone and concrete. Our residential buildings and houses are built in beautiful designs by the construction engineers and the pa-yan skill workers.

To become a skillful pa-yan worker, one has to start from the lowest stage of task such as mixing cement and sand, carrying bricks. When the worker becomes a skillful person in handling the tools for filling and feeding cement to necessary places, then he could be considered as a skillful pa-yan worker.

Ba-bu professionals are shrinking in number. It is the art of sculpture and its means one that produced figures and floral motifs made of wood. Artisans make the figure of man and animals and floral motifs. In Gyo Bin Gauk Township, there are only a few number of ba-bu professionals. In fact, the ba-bu professionals are the most artistic people who created Buddha images and lovely home decoration items with amazing beauty that are genuine handicrafts of Myanmar in distinct attraction in the eyes of the foreigners.

Panbut is the art of making wooden utensils such as umbrella, table legs, and the legs of the bed and rotary seats and railings of stairways

Bagyi means the art of painting and that shows live animals and inanimate objects using different colors. Artists paint the figures of beings, animals, objects, drawings and caricatures human scene. These professionals are pursuing the arts due to their inborn hobby. The arts is still flourishing in the Bagan archeological areas. While inheriting the design and old drawing of Bagan era pictures, the modern artists modified paintings made of inflated sands.

According to the Office of Township Education Officer, the education authorities have included time slot for learning paintings in the school curriculum. In township public libraries, competitions on paintings and coloring are being conducted from time to time to attract the children in the creation of arts, and it is therefore, the arts of painting would develop in line with the time forward.

As time flies away, there are many ups and downs in the Myanma ten traditional arts and crafts status as some could maintained and moved ahead the traditional ways, and some gradually faded out from the eyes of the public.

The Myanma ten traditional arts and crafts could be mostly seen today at the religious structure. At this juncture, the writer of this article would like to urge all the citizens of the nation to come together in unison for the sustainable development and preservation of traditional arts and crafts to be cherished and preserved in elevating the dignity of the nation and its people.

(Translated by UMT {Ahlone})
By Zeyar Tun (Gyobingauk)
Ref; The Global New Light of Myanmar