Page 335 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

Miscellaneous Potteries 189

the Lung-ch'iian celadons reached this port for shipment, and

doubtless the other wares, including coarse white porcelain, stone-

wares and pottery, which are found in the Philippines and Borneo

(to name only two of many localities) were largely supplied from
the Fukien potteries. Many of these wares are of undoubted
antiquity, and some of the types are unknown in China to-day.
They may have been made solely for export, but in any case their

disappearance in China is quite intelligible. For even in the eighth
century the merchants were forbidden^ to export " precious and

rare articles," and most of these trade goods are of coarse make
and unlikely to be preserved by the Chinese at home.

On the other hand, the natives of the Philippines and the Dyaks

of Borneo have preserved these old potteries with scrupulous care.
The various types of jars have been christened with special names "^
alluding to their form or decoration ; they have been credited
with supernatural powers ; and numerous legends have grown
endowing them with life and movement, power of speech, and in-

fluences malevolent or benign.

A good collection of these pots would be of considerable interest,

but the value attached to them by their native owners is out of
all proportion to their intrinsic worth, and makes them difficult

to procure. An important series, however, of the Philippine jars
has been formed by the Field Museum at Chicago, and they are

described with full illustration in one of the excellent publications

of that institution. 2 Among other things we are told that " every

wild tribe encountered by the ^vriter in the interior of Luzon, Pala-
wan, and Mindanao possesses these jars, which enter intimately into

the life of the people. Among many the price paid by the bride-
groom for his bride is wholly or in part in jars. When a Tinguian

youth is to take his bride, he goes to her house at night, carrying
with him a Chinese jar which he presents to his father-in-law.
The liquor served at ceremonies and festivals is sometimes con-
tained in these jars, while small porcelain dishes contain the food

offered to the spirits." ^

A general similarity in form is noticeable in the Philippine

^ See Chau Ju-kua, Introduction, p. 9.
- e.g. gusi, rusa, naga, tempajan, blanga.
3 Chinese Pottery in the Philippines, by Fay-Cooper Cole, with a postscript by

Berthold Laufer, Field Museum of Natural History, Publication No. 162, Chicago

U.S.A., 1912.
* Ibidem, p. 14.