Ancient rooftop guardian cat in SW China's Yunnan steps into everyday life

Photo shows wamao made by Zhang Hang. (Photo courtesy of Zhang Hang)

The Wamao Museum, located in Panlong district of Kunming, southwest China's Yunnan Province, houses a collection of wamao, a cat-shaped pottery artifact, gathered from across Yunnan.

"In rural Yunnan, placing wamao at the very center of a roof ridge is a long-standing folk custom," said Hong Haibo, curator of the museum. Wamao expresses people's hope for household protection and good fortune, Hong explained.

In Yunnan, wamao are widely found in Kunming, Lijiang, Dali, Yuxi, Qujing, Wenshan and other places. Typically made of clay or stone, they have no fixed form or strict production standard.

The museum holds nearly 400 pieces of wamao, each strikingly different. Some have square, neatly arranged teeth instead of sharp fangs, making them appear gentle and even endearing. Others are decorated with fish-scale patterns, horns, or wings. Some are so abstract that their original inspiration is impossible to identify, inviting viewers to imagine their own interpretations.

In 2022, wamao was listed as one of Yunnan's provincial intangible cultural heritage items. Today, the province has more than 20 officially recognized inheritors of various wamao making techniques.

Su Longxiang makes wamao. (Photo courtesy of Yunnan Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism)

Su Longxiang, 51, has worked in clay sculpture for more than three decades. Over the years, he has created hundreds of wamao, ranging from just 2 to 3 centimeters tall to nearly 4 meters in height.

He has independently produced close to 23,000 works, developed more than 200 wamao-themed creative cultural products, such as jewelry, refrigerator magnets, and tea sets, and trained over 200 apprentices.

In a sunlit studio in Kunming, Zhang Hang, an inheritor of intangible cultural heritage born in the 1990s, studies a miniature wamao on his worktable. With just a few deft strokes, he brings its eyes to life.

Zhang studied design as an undergraduate, and Yunnan wamao was the subject of his graduation thesis. After college, he chose to turn that academic interest into a career, apprenticing under Luo Aijun, a provincial-level inheritor of intangible cultural heritage in Yunnan.

A primary school student learns to make wamao at the Wamao Museum in Panlong district of Kunming, southwest China's Yunnan Province. (Photo courtesy of the Wamao Museum)

To fully understand wamao, Zhang visited Kunming's old neighborhoods and demolition sites and traveled to ancient villages across Yunnan. By studying wamao pictures firsthand, he came to understand how materials, techniques, and form shape their distinctive spirit.

He also noticed a troubling trend: as urbanization accelerates, traditional houses are vanishing, along with the wamao that once called them home. In 2021, Zhang founded the Heart Chamber Wamao Museum, bringing together wamao he had collected and using their diverse forms as inspiration for creation.

Zhang Hang arranges wamao at the Heart Chamber Wamao Museum in Kunming, southwest China's Yunnan Province. (Xinhua/Wang Guansen)

As protection efforts expand and more inheritors are officially recognized, wamao are also finding new life through cultural tourism and creative design.

Xiong Yuanyuan, who studied fine arts and sculpture in college, taught herself wamao craftsmanship after graduation and launched her own creative brand. To stand out, she combined painting with wamao, producing a series inspired by Yunnan's wild mushrooms. The designs quickly gained popularity at creative markets and on social media.

Sales of wamao-inspired creative cultural products at the Wamao Museum have risen sharply—from just over 1,000 items in 2023 to more than 10,000 in 2024, and surpassing 20,000 so far this year. Over the same period, the museum has expanded its product lineup from around 20 items to more than 160, Hong said.