How to make a sheepskin raft

Sheepskin raft is made of sheepskin and cowhide two kinds of leather made of rafts, is the Yellow River Basin folk preserved an ancient ferry tool. 2006, Gansu Provincial Department of Culture formally identified sheepskin raft for the first batch of intangible cultural heritage list of Gansu Province.

The raft has two kinds of cowhide and sheepskin, its composition, is the cowhide from the neck opening, completely off, remove the hair and leave the outline, with a rope tightly zha three feet and the neck, from a foot space, the drum to the gas, so that into the airbag (after drumming the gas and then tightly zha this foot), coated with tung oil, in order to prevent corrosion.

Another branch or plank, made of cross-shaped square, will be seven or eight sheepskin, or dozens of them, compactly arranged, flat decorated under it, the raft into, put in the middle of the current, a person holding the plank to dial the water, the direction of its direction, and then drift away.

Expanded Information:

The Yellow River, which originated in Qinghai, was the only waterway in Lanzhou in the olden days. The water from high and down, the upper reaches of the water flow and the shallow depth of the riverbed relationship, not conducive to oars, and the surrounding areas of water traffic and transportation, the only means of transportation, for the raft, commonly known as "hunde".

With the transportation industry has developed and convenient, sheepskin rafts in the last century in the eighties and nineties the transportation of goods and carriers Jidu function has been basically lost. But with the rise of tourism later, sheepskin raft rafting by the folk spontaneous organization, as a characteristic tourism project, and back to people's vision. The protection of the heritage of this amazing folk culture has just begun.

Baidu Encyclopedia - Sheepskin Rafting