THE CRAFT OF GOD CARVING IN SINGAPORE
KEITH G. STEVENS*
In my research into Chinese iconography I made a considerable nuisance of myself in three particular two-storey shophouses in the middle of Singapore's Hokkien (Fukienese) area (see plate 1), by questioning the god carvers' every action during the process of carving and repairing images of Chinese gods.
In Singapore three families are in partial competition, yet from their full order books business would appear to be thriving. Two of the families are Hokkien originating from near Foochow and Amoy respectively and the third is Teochew (Ch'ao chou) from Swatow, all being second or third generation Singaporeans who have never visited their homeland. Into these shophouses are crowded the unmarried longterm employees in addition to the families themselves, notably the apprentices who sleep on campbeds in the shop and eat en famille. One master carver bewailed the shortage of apprentices who in this age of affluence were unwilling to undertake a long and poorly paid apprenticeship.
I have always referred to these craftsmen as god carvers and their shops as godshops. My article "Three Deities" in this Journal in 1972 provoked the editorial comment that the term was colourful and as such would be left unedited. My terminology is a far cry from the jargon of the anthropologist and it is my intention to describe, in my own terms, the production of gods in one of these godshops.
These godshops are ten foot square or ten by twenty foot work-spaces on the ground floor of the shophouses. Here new gods are carved and painted and the old repaired, not only for the island of Singapore but also for places as far north as Thailand and Cambodia, as far east as Borneo and Brunei and as far south as Java. This group of godcarvers is unique in being the only Fukienese and Ch'ao chou specialist carvers still plying their trade save for a few
* Major Stevens' other contributions on the interesting subject of Chinese gods in South-east Asia and Taiwan appeared in Vols. 12-13 of this Journal.