Non Nước Traditional Stone Carving Village

In its early days, the village mainly produced household stone items. By the early 19th century, when the Nguyễn Dynasty commissioned the construction of many palaces and royal mausoleums, the stone carving craft here had favorable conditions to flourish. The reputation of the village rose, with several skilled craftsmen being conferred the court rank of Cửu phẩm, and many artisans from the village were invited to practice their craft in various places across the country.

The production tools of Non Nước Traditional Stone Carving Village today include both traditional hand tools and mechanized equipment. As for traditional hand tools, artisans of Non Nước Traditional Stone Carving Village still use:

• Sledgehammers and crowbars: for quarrying stone.
• Chisels (con vọt, con chạm): for peeling and separating stone layers.
• Point chisels (mũi xó): used for splitting stone and for rough sketch carving.
• Flat chisels (mũi bạt): for cutting straight lines or right-angled edges.
• Detail chisels (mũi ve): for creating fine details such as lettering and decorative motifs.
• Round chisels (mũi ngô): for carving circular curves in decorative details.
• Measuring rulers.
• Stone saws and circular saws: for cutting stone blocks and curved shapes.
• Drills: for making small or narrow holes.
• Grinding tables: for polishing and highlighting the natural colors of the finished products.

As for mechanized production tools, since the early 1980s, artisans of Non Nước Traditional Stone Carving Village have begun using modern mechanical equipment in certain stages of production. Today, machinery increasingly replaces manual labor. The application of science and technology has played an important role in improving productivity, quality, and product diversity.

Most of the modern equipment used in Non Nước stone carving is imported from Japan, Taiwan, and Germany, including: automatic winches, cutting machines for winches, hoists, stone-cutting machines, lathes, and handheld drills.

In the past, raw stone materials were often quarried locally from the Marble Mountains (Ngũ Hành Sơn), primarily marble in a variety of colors and patterns such as red, black, and white, with fine and soft textures that were easy to carve. Stone quarrying was extremely strenuous, requiring strength as well as experience to select the right stone suitable for crafting products.

The specialists in quarrying stone were called “ông Võ”. They were usually elderly men with extensive experience and trade secrets, who led groups of strong young men into the mountains to extract stone. The first task was to locate the stone veins and determine the direction of excavation based on those veins. The ông Võ used a tool called cây tựa (an iron rod about 60–70 cm long, flat on one end and curved on the other) to find the stone grain. Then, quarry workers used tools to separate the stone and split it into smaller blocks suitable for use.

With their professional experience, skilled workers could even determine whether the stone was soft or hard, and predict what kinds of products it could yield, simply by listening to the sound it made when struck.

In recent times, as local stone resources have become increasingly depleted, the People’s Committee of Quảng Nam – Da Nang Province issued a decision in 1990 prohibiting further quarrying in the Marble Mountains. Since then, artisans of Non Nước Traditional Stone Carving Village have had to source stone from other regions.

Although they no longer quarry stone directly from the Marble Mountains, the valuable experience in selecting, splitting, and extracting stone continues to be applied and preserved in their craft.

Once the raw material is obtained, the stone carver begins shaping the product in its rough form — a stage known as ra phôi (initial shaping), traditionally carried out by the “ông Văn.”

For complex pieces of high artistic value, the craftsman first prepares detailed sketches and creates a clay model. Only when the model meets the desired standards do they proceed with the actual stone carving. Guided by the sketch, the artisan then chisels the stone to produce the rough shape of the product.

Once the rough form is completed, the artisan proceeds to add details to finish the product, such as carving lines and shapes, decorating with patterns, grinding, and polishing. For the craftsman, the most important stage in this process is carving and ornamentation, as it demonstrates both the technical mastery of stone carving and the artisan’s skilled craftsmanship.

To enhance the color of the finished product, artisans sometimes dye the stone using pigments combined with green tea residue, brown shoe polish, indigo, and other natural materials. The secret to achieving beautiful coloration lies in the blending of colors, the application of heat, and the careful adjustment of shading and intensity.

A completed piece must undergo many stages of work, each requiring the talent, experience, and skilled hands of the artisan to bring out its finest artistic qualities.

The artisans of Non Nước Traditional Stone Carving Village are classified into the following levels:

Apprentices (first-level workers): carve stone according to sketches.

Polishing assistants: typically women, who handle the tasks of grinding, washing, and hand-polishing the products.

Second-level workers: work alongside the master craftsman in shaping the rough form (ra phôi).

Master craftsmen (chief artisans): responsible for shaping, creating the form according to specified dimensions, and completing the detailed features of the product.

Non Nước Traditional Stone Carving Village has a long-standing history. Each year, the stone carvers hold a ceremony to commemorate the founding of the craft on the 6th day of the first lunar month, offering prayers to the craft’s ancestors for blessings in the new year. The death anniversary of the craft’s patriarchs is observed on the 16th day of the third lunar month, which also serves as a communal festival for all the villagers.

Non Nước Traditional Stone Carving Village embodies layers of history and culture in every stage of its craft and in each product, serving as a living museum of the cultural practices and spiritual life of the local people. Today, the craft also plays a vital role in the socio-economic life of the community. It has contributed significantly to rural economic transformation, shifting from simple, low-productivity labor to skilled, high-productivity work. The craft has effectively utilized idle labor, created employment opportunities, and improved both the material and spiritual well-being of the people.