4.1
House Construction Among the Dong
Figure 4.1.1 Dong dwellings at Ji Tang village, in Lingping County, Gouzhou province, China Source: Photograph by Derong Kong
The Dong people are a minority group living in South West China, in a mountainous area shared between the provinces of Guizhou, Hunan and Guangxi. Until about 50 years ago, contact with the outside world was severely limited, and they were mainly left to their own devices. As they had no script, it was an oral culture, with much transmission by song. Their building followed a local carpentry tradition that is still prevalent, involving community participation and a series of rituals to mark the progress of a house.
Construction of a new house usually happens after October, because then the harvest is finished, people have free time, and there is enough money and food available. The host’s relatives and friends should offer their help freely to the host, and refusal to cooperate is resented, for it is an accepted custom to help each other in daily life, and a mutual obligation is always implied. The building process involves the following roles: host, relative, friend, geomantic master, hand ink master, carpenter, mason. The core man is the host, and the construction process locates everyone’s position in the system, assigning a particular job, responsibility and obligation. The host is the subject who will dwell, physical space is constructed by the hand ink master and carpenter, and spirit connections are imported by the geomantic master. From beginning to end, the host is constantly involved, and so he has a close connection with his house and deep experience of its evolution.
The construction process that people join in is impressive, rational and complete: it is easy to remember. Through the ritual process, the meaning and significance of the house are shared and understood, and group participation holds together the small community. Each time the members build a new house, they repeat what the last generation has done, and their memory records events that have happened before. The constructed object helps maintain rules and principles, and construction events are compared, each event becoming a reference for following generations.
The general sequence of construction
In our conversations, hand ink master Lu Wenli listed the general procedure of building a house.2 This is also the live project in a Dong carpenter’s education. Carpenters and apprentices at different levels of skill are involved, being assigned jobs at different stages of construction.
Choosing the site
First, the site must be chosen. It could be the host’s old site or one bought for the purpose, but, if a fire has occurred there in the last 3 years, a special rite has to be performed before it can be used for building. The host invites a geomantic master to check the orientation and local topography. Taking into account the host’s date of birth, the geomantic master can calculate whether it will bring good or bad luck to the host, and what the best days are for starting the construction and, later, for erecting the structure.
Cleaning up the site
Next comes the cleaning up of the site, making it flat. If the site has a difficult topography, its treatment can be arranged by mutual discussion. The host has to hire masons to sort out the site, and there can be a ritual for laying the stone bank.
Design of house
The host must invite the geomantic master again to decide the direction of the house. Using a compass, he checks the form of the mountain that the house will be facing. Different hills imply different fortunes. This also involves reference to the hand ink master’s design. Now the design process can begin.
Taking into account the particular site conditions, the hand ink master discusses with the host the function, arrangement, size and structure of the house, and whether the site is big enough to allow three bays, and what size each bay could be. They also decide the depth of the house, the distance between columns, the structure of the roof and how many floors the host wants. Then, the plan of the ground floor is settled. The hand ink master has a coordinating system to help him remember the structure. The columns at ground floor are the starting point for the coordinate system. The whole structural system is based on personal construction experience, and so direct experience is the principle to organise and edit the code system. The important thing is that the system be convenient to remember and manage. He can use components as references to mark further components that fit with them. Figure 4.1.3 is an example of a carpenter’s code.
The hand ink master next thinks about the vertical assembly and roof structure. At this point, he can figure out the order of a flat frame, called Shan, ?, or fan, which embodies the key section (Figure 4.1.4). Then he can design tie-beams to connect these frames together and so complete the house structure. A model, or one simple drawing, may be used to explain the design. The hand ink master will also draw the dimensions of components on a Zhang pole, a kind of large ruler, to record the whole design (Figure 4.1.5).
Figure 4.1.4 (facing page, top) Typical section of southern Dong house, showing so-called fan of structure. Pan Jiliang’s house built in 1950s at Xiao Huang village, in Congjiang county, Guizhou province
Source: Drawing by Derong Kong
Figure 4.1.5 (facing page, bottom) Master Lu Wenli’s Zhang pole set against a beam to mark it, 2010
Source: Photograph by Derong Kong
The hand ink master counts the exact number of components and then makes a list of timber and tiles for the project. The host must prepare the material: depending on what property he has, he can take the wood from his own hills or buy it from others. When the site is ready, the hand ink master goes to the site and uses thread, wooden sticks and the Zhang pole to establish the positions of the columns.