March 12, 2025
KCNA Naenara (En)

National Intangible Cultural Heritage Item: Grasswork

Date: 10/03/2025 | Source: Naenara (En) | Read original version at source

The Korean people have long made and used different kinds of necessities and ornaments with various grasses and stems, leaves and bark of trees.

They called those handicrafts grasswork.

In Korea grasswork has the longest history among other folk crafts, and it has been developed and enriched in close relation to the people’s economic and cultural life.

It spread among broad sections of people because there were abundant raw material resources for it and it could be easily made without special equipment or tools and with comparatively less labour.

Unlike ceramics and metalwork, materials for grasswork are so prone to rot away that it is difficult to preserve it for a long time. However, a piece from a reed mat unearthed in the Namgyong Site in Honam-ri, Samsok District, Pyongyang, is preserved as a very old historical relic.

Originated in the ancient times (30th century BC-3rd century BC), the earliest period of human society, grasswork developed in the period of the Koryo dynasty (918-1392) thanks to the creative labour of the people.

During this period, such materials as sedge, bush clover, reed, osier, rice straw, hemp and arrowroot were used to make basket, mesh bag, winnow, straw sandal, rope, string, kat (a kind of hat), net and other products.

In the period of the feudal Joson dynasty (1392-1910), grasswork made further progress due to the creative labour of the resourceful and talented working masses, with the main emphasis put on sedge crafts.

The Korean people strive to develop the handicraft.

Pak Chol

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