traditional chinese handicraft, ink making 制墨 by 彭传明pcm
He’s making ink the traditional way, I think. He splits the bamboo to hold a bowl upside down.
He uses oil and I think some form of wick to light a small flame, and centers the bowl with the bamboo frame over the flame to maximise the soot yield. He refills it a few times per burn session and shifts the wick from time to time so that part of it stays exposed in the air.
The soot is brushed off from the bowl into a pot with some kind of lining, and he has to wash it. (Video states that impurities like soil sink, while the clean soot stays floating.) After the soot is washed, he lets it dry for 1 year in the shade.
When it comes almost season to actually make the ink stick, he makes a wooden mould and press. He steeps some herbs for medicinal scents, and some pig lye, cow bone collagen and hide glue for the binding agent. He mixes these two with the soot (now with various other powders like pearl powder to help preservation) and mixes/cooks them together.
He oils his work surface and places lumps of the ink paste on it, folding and smashing it with the flat of an axe to further combine the binder and the soot. He measures out the appropriate amount using a balance scale, and presses it into a long strip approximately the size of his mould cavity, and uses the pressing block to apply pressure, and also uses a log to really compress it down.
He removes the inkstick by disassembling the mould box and trims it while it is still malleable. After this, the stick is left to dry for 1 year. It is then completed and can be used for calligraphy by simply grinding it with some water.
Just wanted to expand on this wonderful description of the process with more details bc I’ve loved traditional ink making for a few years now:
He’s using tung oil in this video (made from the nuts of the Vernicia Fordii tree), but other lacquers can be burned for exceptional quality inks. Pine soot is highly prized for it’s glossy finish as an ink, but deforestation largely replaced it with tung oil which is more sustainable.
You could use soot from any burning plant, but you’ll get the best yields from a natural lacquer (aka, fatwood or pitch, or non-edible oils previously used to caulk boats). You can also just use charcoal, but it’s recommended to grind it between stones many times to get it as fine as soot is, some ancient sources recommending grinding the ingredients a hundred thousand times 😬
Animal glue is the most common binder/ glue used in ink making, because it’s very strong! You can make glue from cartilage, hooves, even blood, but the most commonly-used is animal hide, which is rubbed with quicklime to remove the fur/ hair (sometimes it’s left to cure for a month or so), then washed and acidified to being it back to a neutral pH. Making the glue is super easy, you legit just simmer the hide in water for several hours. (Fun fact, this glue is edible! Nivkh and Sakhalin Ainu make a traditional dish, called mos and mushi in their respective languages, from fish skin, berries, nuts, and starchy bulbs! This dish keeps well for MONTHS, preserving food much like aspic.)
Some sources say you can use a vegetable starch glue instead, but I haven’t found too much info to back up that claim. Regardless, you can make an ink stone only with soot and natural glue, with the option of adding in fragrant and anti-microbial ingredients like the guy in the video does. A binder is always needed for ink making (even the liquid kinds!) because it prevents bleeding on the paper (though Europeans typically used pounce to counter this, blotting the paper with cuttlebone powder, chalk, or powdered clay before writing). This problem is practically non-existent with industrial-produced paper, but jysk if you make your your own paper from scratch!
The inky-dough needs to be weighed because the drying time is dependent on weight! I think it’s something like for every gram, it’s a month of dry time? It’s better to make a thin, light stick of ink because it dries better, which minimizes the chances of mold developing in and on the stick.
The traditional Chinese method of drying is done like in the video above, laying it in a dry dark location and flipping it over once a month. However I like the Japanese method of hanging the sticks up on straw ropes like this
A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Do I look like a fool?” said the frog. “You’d sting me if I let you on my back!”
“Be logical,” said the scorpion. “If I stung you I’d certainly drown myself.”
“That’s true,” the frog acknowledged. “Climb aboard, then!” But no sooner than they were halfway across the river, the scorpion stung the frog, and they both began to thrash and drown. “Why on earth did you do that?” the frog said morosely. “Now we’re both going to die.”
“I can’t help it,” said the scorpion. “It’s my nature.”
___
…But no sooner than they were halfway across the river, the frog felt a subtle motion on its back, and in a panic dived deep beneath the rushing waters, leaving the scorpion to drown.
“It was going to sting me anyway,” muttered the frog, emerging on the other side of the river. “It was inevitable. You all knew it. Everyone knows what those scorpions are like. It was self-defense.”
___
…But no sooner had they cast off from the bank, the frog felt
the tip of a stinger pressed lightly against the back of its neck. “What do you think you’re doing?” said the frog.
“Just a precaution,” said the scorpion. “I cannot sting you without drowning. And now, you cannot drown me without being stung. Fair’s fair, isn’t it?”
They swam in silence to the other end of the river, where the scorpion climbed off, leaving the frog fuming.
“After the kindness I showed you!” said the frog. “And you threatened to kill me in return?”
“Kindness?” said the scorpion. “To only invite me on your back after you knew I was defenseless, unable to use my tail without killing myself? My dear frog, I only treated you as I was treated. Your kindness was as poisoned as a scorpion’s sting.”
___
…“Just a precaution,” said the scorpion. “I cannot sting you without
drowning. And now, you cannot drown me without being stung. Fair’s fair,
isn’t it?”
“You have a point,” the frog acknowledged.
“But once we get to dry land, couldn’t you sting me then without
repercussion?”
“All I want is to cross the river safely,” said the scorpion. “Once I’m on the other side I would gladly let you be.”
“But I would have to trust you on that,” said the frog. “While you’re pressing a stinger to my neck. By ferrying you to land I’d be be giving up the one deterrent I hold over you.”
“But by the same logic, I can’t possibly withdraw my stinger while we’re still over water,” the scorpion protested.
The frog paused in the middle of the river, treading water. “So, I suppose we’re at an impasse.”
The river rushed around them. The scorpion’s stinger twitched against the frog’s unbroken skin. “I suppose so,” the scorpion said.
___
A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the
river. “Absolutely not!” said the frog, and dived beneath the waters, and so none of them learned anything.
___
A scorpion, being unable to swim, asked a turtle (as in the original Persian version of the fable) to carry it across the river. The turtle readily agreed, and allowed the scorpion aboard its shell. Halfway across, the scorpion gave in to its nature and stung, but failed to penetrate the turtle’s thick shell. The turtle, swimming placidly, failed to notice.
They reached the other side of the river, and parted ways as friends.
___
…Halfway across, the scorpion gave in to its nature and stung,
but failed to penetrate the turtle’s thick shell.
The turtle, hearing the tap of the scorpion’s sting, was offended at the scorpion’s ungratefulness. Thankfully, having been granted the powers to both defend itself and to punish evil, the turtle sank beneath the waters and drowned the scorpion out of principle.
___
A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it
across the river. “Do I look like a fool?” sneered the frog. “You’d
sting me if I let you on my back.”
The scorpion pleaded
earnestly. “Do you think so little of me? Please, I must cross the
river. What would I gain from stinging you? I would only end up drowning
myself!”
“That’s true,” the frog acknowledged. “Even a
scorpion knows to look out for its own skin. Climb aboard, then!”
But as
they forged through the rushing waters, the scorpion grew worried. This frog thinks me a ruthless killer, it thought. Would it not be justified in throwing me off now and ridding the world of me? Why else would it agree to this?
Every jostle made the scorpion more and more anxious, until the frog surged forward with a particularly large splash, and in panic the
scorpion lashed out with its stinger.
“I knew it,” snarled the frog, as they both thrashed and drowned. “A scorpion cannot change its nature.”
___
A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river.
The frog agreed, but no sooner than they were halfway across the scorpion stung the frog, and they both began to thrash and drown.
“I’ve only myself to blame,” sighed the frog, as they both sank beneath the
waters. “You, you’re a scorpion, I couldn’t have expected anything better. But I knew better, and yet I went against my judgement! And now I’ve doomed us both!”
“You couldn’t help it,” said the scorpion mildly. “It’s your nature.”
___
…“Why on earth did you do that?” the frog said morosely. “Now we’re both going to die.”
“Alas, I was of two natures,” said the scorpion. “One said to gratefully ride your back across the river, and the other said to sting you where you stood. And so both fought, and neither won.” It smiled wistfully. “Ah, it would be nice to be just one thing, wouldn’t it? Unadulterated in nature.
Without the capacity for conflict or regret.”
___
“By the way,” said the frog, as they swam, “I’ve been meaning to ask: What’s on the other side of the river?”
“It’s the journey,” said the scorpion. “Not the destination.”
___
…“What’s on the other side of anything?” said the scorpion. “A new beginning.”
___
…”Another scorpion to mate with,” said the scorpion. “And more prey to kill, and more living bodies to poison, and a forthcoming lineage of cruelties that you will be culpable in.”
___
…”Nothing we will live to see, I fear,” said the scorpion. “Already the currents are growing stronger, and the river seems like it shall swallow us both. We surge forward, and the shoreline recedes. But does that mean our striving was in vain?”
___
“I love you,” said the scorpion.
The frog glanced upward. “Do you?”
“Absolutely.
Can you imagine the fear of drowning? Of course not. You’re a frog. Might as well be scared of
breathing air.
And yet here I am, clinging to your back, as the waters rage around us. Isn’t that love? Isn’t that trust? Isn’t that necessity? I could not kill you without killing myself. Are we not inseparable in this?”
The frog swam on, the both of them silent.
___
“I’m so tired,” murmured the frog eventually. “How much further to the other side? I don’t know how long we’ve been swimming. I’ve been treading water. And it’s getting so very dark.”
“Shh,” the scorpion said. “Don’t be afraid.”
The frog’s legs kicked out weakly. “How long has it been? We’re lost. We’re lost! We’re doomed to be cast about the waters forever. There is no land. There’s nothing on the other side, don’t you see!”
“Shh, shh,” said the scorpion. “My venom is a hallucinogenic. Beneath its surface, the river is endlessly deep, its currents carrying many things.”
“You - You’ve killed us both,” said the frog, and began to laugh deliriously. “Is this - is this what it’s like to drown?”
“We’ve killed each other,” said the scorpion soothingly. “My venom in my glands now pulsing through your veins, the waters of your birthing pool suffusing my lungs. We are engulfing each other now, drowning in each other. I am breathless. Do you feel it? Do you feel my sting pierced through your heart?”
“What a foolish thing to do,” murmured the frog. “No logic. No logic to it at all.”
“We couldn’t help it,” whispered the scorpion. “It’s our natures. Why else does anything in the world happen? Because we were made for this from birth, darling, every moment inexplicable and inevitable. What a crazy thing it is to fall in love, and yet - It’s all our fault! We are both blameless. We’re together now, darling. It couldn’t have happened any other way.”
___
“It’s funny,” said the frog. “I can’t say that I trust you, really. Or that I even think very much of you and that nasty little stinger of yours to begin with. But I’m doing this for you regardless. It’s strange, isn’t it? It’s strange. Why would I do this? I want to help you, want to go out of my way to help you. I let you climb right onto my back! Now, whyever would I go and do a foolish thing like that?”
___
A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across
the river. “Do I look like a fool?” said the frog. “You’d sting me if I
let you on my back!”
“Be logical,” said the scorpion. “If I stung you I’d certainly drown myself.”
“That’s
true,” the frog acknowledged. “Come aboard, then!” But no sooner had
the scorpion mounted the frog’s back than it began to sting, repeatedly,
while still safely on the river’s bank.
The frog groaned, thrashing weakly as the venom coursed through its veins, beginning to liquefy its flesh. “Ah,” it muttered. “For some reason I never considered this possibility.”
“Because you were never scared of me,” the scorpion whispered in its ear. “You were never scared of dying. In a past life you wore a shell and sat in judgement. And then you were reborn: soft-skinned, swift, unburdened, as new and vulnerable as a child, moving anew through a world of children. How could anyone ever be cruel, you thought, seeing the precariousness of it all?” The scorpion bowed its head and drank. “How could anyone kill you without killing themselves?”
“What I know of scorpions in general makes me not trust you,” said the Frog, “but I have learned that each is responsible for their own actions in this life. Thus I have decided I will carry you across, and if you sting me, either out of fear, or impulse, or maliciousness, that will be your karma to bear in the next life, and you will die with your last thought being that you betrayed someone who was kind to you.
“If you sting me and I die as well, I at least will depart this life in peace, knowing that when someone called for aid, I was ready and willing to render it, and this will be my karma.”
The Scorpion thought long and hard about what the frog had said.
“Although my nature is to sting, your willingness to help me has made me want to try to overcome it, even if just this once, for the sake of your generosity. I wish I could promise you that I will not sting you, but in good faith, I cannot. I will try though.”
The Frog pondered the scorpions words.
“All any of us can ever do is to try to become better than we were yesterday. That you are willing to try to hold back your instinct to sting is enough for me. I will trust in you making an effort to become better, as I trust in my own willingness to overcome my learned prejudices. Shall we both try to become better together?”
The Scorpion nodded and climbed on the Frog’s back.
“Whatever may come after this, know that you have helped me become better, even if just for a moment. Know that you have made a friend, and we are both better for it. And this will be our karma, in this life, and the next.”
The chronicle of the monk Herbert of Reichenau for the year 1021 ends “My brother Werner was born on November 1.“
1021 was not an uneventful year. The emperor began a campaign into Italy. Illustrious abbots died. There was an earthquake. But Herbert took the time to note, at the end of the year, that his brother was born.
Of such acts of tenderness is history made.
This post broke through the shell of crustiness on my medievalist heart and made me go ‘aww’.
There was a medieval parenting manual that recommended parents smack pieces of furniture their toddlers bumped into and scold the furniture for being so naughty as to get in the way, so that the kids would laugh and forget about their bumps and bruises
I read that and my heart melted
(source: Medieval Women by Deirdre Jackson. She cited the primary source but I cannot for the life of me find the book to check what it was called)
We should hold a thousandth birthday party for Werner in a couple of years.
In 11th century Constantinople, the historian, philosopher, monk, and general insufferable know-it-all Michael Psellos once wrote a letter to his infant grandson. He begins like this:
“Perhaps I will not live to see you, dearest newborn and offspring of my soul, when you reach adolescence, if God so wishes it, or when you mature; for the days of my life are failing and the time approaches when its thread will be cut short. I have therefore decided to address this speech to you in advance of that day and reciprocate your innate charm with the graces of speech. I should be ungrateful and entirely thoughtless if at a time when your perceptions and thoughts are undeveloped (though as far as I alone am concerned you are perfect in these respects, insofar as you hear my voice and feel my affection, cling to my neck, slip into my embrace, and put up with my annoying kisses), I should be ungrateful, I say, if I myself failed to render to you a fitting return.”
He then goes on to praise his grandson, who is the most HANDSOME and INTELLIGENT and RATIONAL child ever born. (No seriously, he calls a four-month-old baby “rational” – rationality and moderation were considered important virtues so OBVIOUSLY his grandson was full of them.)
He observes every little thing the baby does
–
breastfeeding, taking baths, fussing, babytalking
– with unrestrained marvel and delight, complete with flowery descriptions:
“[Your eyes] moved cheerfully, whenever a smile was about to come upon you. It sufficed for me to take note of this only once—I needed no Delphic tripod or bacchic ecstasy—to prophesy without hesitation from the kindly look in your eyes that you were about to laugh. And, true enough, you moved your lip slightly, blushed, and, behold! you laughed.”
He takes special pride that the baby likes him, and puts himself in the picture too:
“And when I would see you becoming perplexed, I immediately snatched you away from your toys, took you up in my hands, and lifted you up in the air until you were full of joy.”
He wishes him to lead a happy life. He calls him “my living pearl, the ornament of my soul”. And he ends the letter like this:
“May you obtain all that you love, but especially education and good sense, which alone can elevate the soul to its proper beauty and which constitute understanding of the more profound things. I wrote all this for you while holding you in my arms and kissing you insatiably.”
Isn’t it incredible? Translation by Anthony Kaldellis, from Mothers and Sons, Fathers and Daughters: The Byzantine Family of Michael Psellos (University of Notre Dame Press, 2006).
San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance Conservation Scientists Report First Confirmed Hatchings of Two California Condor Chicks from Unfertilized Eggs – San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance Stories
Additionally, the two dams were continuously housed with fertile male partners. So, this parthenogenesis discovery is not only the first to be documented in condors, but is also the first discovered through the use of molecular genetic testing, and the first in any avian species where the female bird had access to a mate.
