The Year of the Horse is approaching!

For people of the Bai ethnic group living in Dali City of southwest China's Yunnan Province, the upcoming celebrations cannot take place without one traditional element: the Jiama woodcut print.

Zhang Renhua is a representative inheritor of this thousand-year-old heritage in Dali.

In his wooden studio, he uses chisels to carefully carve horse patterns, a prominent element in Jiama, onto wooden boards. He then brushes black pigment onto the surface of the carved wood and covers it with a piece of paper, printing the pattern onto the paper.

Bai people burn the paper, which usually depicts deities, nature, totems, and other motifs, during ceremonial rituals.

"Jiama serves as a messenger between human beings and the deities. By burning Jiama, we hope our prayers can reach the deities as soon as possible," Zhang said.

The process may not sound particularly difficult, but it requires attention to every small detail, from the selection of lumber and pigments to knife techniques and the design of patterns based on Bai mythology.

"Dali has 500 villages, and each has a fairy tale to tell," Zhang said.

Unfortunately, according to Zhang, the Bai people have lost their traditional script, so the stories can only be passed down through word of mouth.

That is why Zhang spent three years collecting stories and traditional Jiama prints from villages across Dali.

"Jiama originated from ancient Chinese movable-type printing," the carver told CGTN. "It was first introduced to Dali from central China and later took root here."

Ancient Chinese people used movable wooden blocks carved with individual characters to form texts. Bai people adopted the technique, but for a different purpose: to reproduce the myths of their history.

Today, many cultural heritages in China struggle to find young practitioners and audiences, but Zhang believes people in Dali will not forget Jiama, as it has become inseparable from their lives.

(All images by CGTN's Qin Weigang and Wang Yanjun)