Burnayan is a place were earthen pots and other clay products are made. It is a place where cottage industry of burnayan (pottery making) is thriving.
Burnay made of rich red Ilocos clay. These jars are hand molded on a potter’s wheel and mixed with sand and baked at a high temperature in a huge brick-and-clay ground kiln. Burnay is known to be stronger than ordinary terra cotta.
“The “Burnay” industry preseded the arrival of the Spanish colonizers in the Philippines. Introduced by early Chinese settlers, the “Burnay” served as an all weather container of loca products for shipment to China and other Asian kingdoms in pre-colonial times. “Burnay” is also used in the fermentation of fish sauce, vinegar and “Basi”, the Ilocano wine from sugarcane juice.”
They still do it the old-fashioned way in the burnayan and it’s impressive that they took pains in maintaining it. A carabao goes round and round a shallow hole full of red clay and god-knows what else (the horse peeing flashed in my mind). It’s supposed to produce a clay with a fine consistency, perfect for shaping into works of art.
Once the right consistency is reached, one man takes a lump of clay and smacks it into the turntable, which runs on human power. A worker kicks the bottom of the circular stone contraption sideways, spinning the entire thing. Another worker shapes the clay to the desired configuration.
The hand-molded figures are dried, then transported to the brick-and-clay kiln, where the pieces are “cooked” for some time. The kiln stretches to around ten meters, with its back resembling the scales of a crocodile baking under the sun.
-visitpinas
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