Embroidery Miao: history and mythology in one

cloth piece

Liu Zhongchang, 2005

Liu Zhongchang is a woman Miao. Together with his husband it has a shop to the shore of the lake Cuifu, in Kunming, where it commercializes textiles of the Miao and of other minorities of China. For them the culture of the minorities is not a business but a passión. In this section it provides a brief explanation to us on the inherent symbolism in a jacket of the Miao. It is not a common jacket, but between his cloths they are still different similar. (Chang E Embroidery. Cuihu South Rd. Tel: 86 871 5145279. Fax: 86 871 519 4568)

This is a jacket of the Miao. Guizhou province comes from the region where the Miao concentrate on the bank of the river Dongdenei, on the municipality of Taijiang.

The embroidery that is used to do these drawings is the method called "Posha". In that a silk thread splits into several fragments, later it is dyed and cooked in warm water with Chinese carob. The Chinese carob does that the cloth does not fray, and makes her turn out to be softer and brilliant. Two days later, when it is already cold, it is embroidered on the surface of this cloth.

The later part of this jacket has nine circles, Each one alludes to an episode related to the history and the mythology of the Miao.

We see here in a more detailed way the narrative organization of the histories included in this cloth. In the center of the same one we are one of the most popular heroines Miaos, who according to our legends was born of a clam of a river.

This another figure of the later part of the clothes alludes to a person Miao who lived in the ancient times. His name is Zhang Xiumei. That we see him on a big dragon, with a sword in the hand, doing the war.

Here we see a matter of our mythology, in which a cow transforms in dragon. His body has already transformed, but we see that his head and his horns are still of cow. The artist represents one of the last stages of this transformation.

Here we see a Chinese unicorn. It is an animal auspicioso. He says the legend that does a lot of, a lot of time, when there were still no people does not even water down. A hero on this unicorn, with a knife opens the mountain leaving that the water flows.

These clothes survive integrate because the proprietor thinks that if his children forget the way of embroidering or the ancient histories, observing this pledge they will be able to remember them. The sleeves also have embroideries related to the history and mythology of the Miao.

This bird is called "Ñong Jibong" in language Miao. According to the legends in the ancient times the Miao they hid in a cave of the mountain a treasure of gold and silver. According to the tradition only mounting in this bird it will be possible to obtain the treasure.

This personage calls "Xong gong" in the language Miao. The legends count that long ago in the sky there were twelve suns and twelve moons. The people could not work with so much heat, and many were on the point of dying. This person, without losing the hope, ate nine cakes and flew it was doing the sky. With his arch it shot an arrow at eleven suns and eleven moons, knocking down them. In such a way that now only there is the sun and a moon. His history survives in the songs of the Miao. Long ago nothing existed, everything was black. The day did not exist. Everything was a night. They decide to use the gold to be sunny, and silver to do the moon.

The matter of the bird Jiwei Niao. In the ancient times, when there were no people yet, the Miao call to the butterfly "breast". The butterfly went out of the maple. The butterfly is the ancestor of the Miao. The butterfly puts 12 eggs, but it cannot incubate them. This bird Jiwei Niao broods to 12 eggs for twelve years. Of these eggs there are born twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac. But on having incubated so much time, him all his pens fall down and it remains very ugly. After finishing his twelve years of incubation there him are born very beautiful new pens, like a magnificent brocade, with the figure of the butterfly and the bird. Everywhere the people Miao produce cult to the butterfly and to the bird Jiwei. Go donate go, there happens the time that happens, they keep on supporting this cult to both animals, for the reasons that this drawing shows.

Here we see also a hero mounted on a unicorn to do the war.

The "shushaxiu", the embroidery called to count the thread. Since with a very simple loom it does a cloth of home-made manufacture counting three threads. Then they realize the "embroidery of accumulating" or "duixiu" and it bathes in warm water with Chinese carob so that it does not fray, and I gained sheen and gentleness. Then it does a triangle and a square, doubles it and accumulates it on the cloth.

In this figure we see a swastika. It is a sign auspicioso, since it means "ten thousand".

In this figure we see to a fish that it is on the point of transforming into a dragon.

This drawing in which it is on a Chinese unicorn, the person who is on him with a knife is going to do the war against the Chinese. Since it is an animal auspiciosos, one waits that him of the victory.

In the ancient times, he narrates the history of a new war. The clothes of the people Miao, in any case, always produce cult to the butterfly, to the bird Jiwei and to his heroine Wen Maoxi. And they are always in his clothes. He says the legend that a star fell down in the roof of his house. After three days, she was born of his mother. She grew very rapidly and married a boy.

In this time, the Miao were in war with the Han that they were invading. His husband enrola to the war, and she is going with him to fight. The dragon and other animals protect him. She takes an umbrella with which she defeats many enemies. Spent a few years she has a baby, who later also will do the war. Always helped by the Dragon of the Mountain and the Dragon of the Water. She can be of feet in his umbrella and to do the war to his enemies. She is fighting heroically, defeating the powerful enemies, when his husband dies heroically. Then she leaves the struggle.