the Dai people have loved to use pottery since ancient times. According to the ancient adage "Biography of Hundred Yi" in the Ming and Qian Dynasties, Dai vessels "used a lot of pottery". Up to now, the Dai villages in Jinghong City, Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, such as Mandou Village, Menghan Manluan Village, Mengzha Village and Menglong Village, still retain ancient pottery-making techniques.

Dai earthenware is widely used in daily production, life and Buddhist activities.

Pottery tools are generally composed of wooden pottery bats, pebbles, bamboo chips, wooden boards, wooden hammers, small dustpans, etc., and the raw materials are clay rich in various places. Generally, it goes through several working procedures, such as taking soil, drying soil, sieving soil, mixing Gaza and mud, installing turntable, making blank, cooling and drying, and firing. The main varieties are pots, cans, retort, pots, etc., among which earthen pots are the most famous. The food cooked in the earthenware pot made by the traditional pottery making method is easy to cook and delicious, and the water is cool and refreshing. The decoction can maintain the best medicinal properties and is deeply loved by the local people. Dai earthenware is made by women. In order to keep the skills secret, some places still follow the custom that pottery-making skills are not passed on to their children, but only to their daughters-in-law.

pottery, called "plate mill" in Dai language, commonly known as "earthen pot", is mainly used to make all kinds of household appliances, building materials and Buddha-carving supplies. The craft is characterized by hand-made slow wheels, and the surfaces of the utensils are all printed with engraved wood, which is very similar to the Neolithic pottery unearthed in the south. The materials are all made of clay and sand, and there are many methods such as open-air roasting and closed semi-roasting, and the embryo forming methods are diversified, such as whether there is a wheel to make embryos, whether the toes turn the slow wheel, and manually turning the wheel. These technical processes fully prove that the pottery making technology of the Dai nationality has completely preserved the ancient pottery making technology.

Since the late 195s, archaeologists and ethnologists at home and abroad have investigated this technology. It is generally believed that the traditional pottery-making of the Dai nationality has become a breakthrough in understanding the pottery-making technology in China in the Neolithic period and is the representative of the oldest pottery in China. With the development of modern society and economy, and the low economic benefit of earthenware making, fewer and fewer people make pottery. At present, only a few elderly women master the making technology and lack of descendants.

According to archaeological data, there were pottery products fired by clay bar plate method in Jianshui County, Honghe Hani and Yi Autonomous Prefecture in the late Neolithic period. During the light year of Qing Dynasty, after the improvement of Jianshui artists, purple pottery gradually developed into arts and crafts pottery, with more cultural connotations and richer varieties, including tea sets, stationery, wine sets and so on. The ancient kiln sites in Jianshui Wanyao Village are scattered all over the place, which fully proves the long tradition of pottery making in this area.

the most remarkable technological characteristics of Jianshui purple pottery are grinding and polishing. Jianshui unglazed polished pottery can be divided into red pottery and white pottery according to the quality of the products. Red pottery is generally called "Jianshui Zitao". Its unique technology, the main features are: sound like a parallel, bright as a mirror, feel greasy, lead-free and non-toxic. Purple pottery has a unique decorative style, all of which are carved and filled with white mud or multi-colored mud with calligraphy and painting patterns, integrating epigraphy, calligraphy and painting, and engraving. Among them, the most unique decorative technique, "mending the picture", is extremely bookish, showing superb craftsmanship and decorative level, which is unique to the whole country and has produced people like Wang Dingyi, Xiang Fengchun, Xiang Fuguong, Chen Shaokang, Yuan Yingshun and Pan Jin. In recent years, the iron hollow knife has been invented to directly carve, and the efficiency has been improved. However, the thin strokes still need the foot knife, which can not completely replace the traditional process of using the brush strokes and then using the foot knife double hook engraving method.

In Wanyao Village, Jianshui County, purple pottery is mostly produced in small workshops, and there are many artists with deep qualifications and fine skills. Zitao's works have been participating in various activities and exhibitions since 1914, which have been exported at home and abroad and become national and local special gifts. When Premier Zhou Enlai visited Albania in 1963, he chose Jianshui unglazed polished purple sand pottery as a gift.

Jianshui Zitao has a good development prospect, and it is a special tourism product determined by the local government. In 24, the County Zitao Research Association was established, which provided an effective carrier and platform for the research, inheritance, innovation and further development of Zitao. The county party committee and government also gave strong support to it, and listed Zitao as one of the five leading industries in the development of Jianshui cultural industry in the development plan of cultural industry.