Last year, Legu Shari was named by the government as a national inheritor of the craft. The silver breastplates and headdresses created by him have been collected by the Beijing Museum of Nationalities, the Sichuan Museum of Nationalities and the Liangshan Museum of Nationalities.

"My father told me lots of stories about my family's tradition of making silver products. He told me that the family had no last name in the beginning, but we were good at making silver products, which won our family the name Legu, meaning craftsmen in the Yi language," Legu Chenglong says.

The Yi group's silver-making technique involves a complex process, with silver being melted and turned into flakes or delicate filigree wires to form intricate patterns.