The Mallet: Making a Maul in a Baiku Yao Community

Abstract

In 2017, folklorist Jon Kay traveled to Southwest China to join a team of researchers from the United States, the Anthropological Museum of Guangxi, and the Nandan Baiku Yao Eco-Museum who were documenting the basket and textile traditions of the Baiku Yao people in Nandan County, in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

The members of the research team visited a home in Manjiang village to inventory the baskets collected and used by a local family. As the fieldworkers worked photographing and measuring baskets, Mr. Lu Bingzhao came into the house and picked up a mallet, which he showed everyone and then went outside. Kay did not speak Mandarin or the local Baiku Yao dialect, but felt Mr. Bingzhao had something he wanted to show the team, so he followed the man outside and saw him lay the mallet on the trunk of a small felled tree for measurement; Kay realized he was going to make a mallet, so he grabbed a camera and began shooting. Mr. Bingzhao worked as the children played nearby. Neighbors and family members stopped by to visit as they returned home from picking greens. Mr. Bingzhao worked steadily as people came and went. With heavy chops, he used a billhook to quickly remove the excess wood. With the same tool, he then shaved the mallet’s handle smooth, using a pulling motion. Finally, at the end of the video, just as he completes the mallet, he gives it to his daughter-in-law.

Technical Note: The video was shot with a Canon 90D camera with a RØDE stereo microphone attached to the camera’s hot-shoe mount.