How is Tujia brocade known as the flower of folk art?

Tujia nationality is the most important minority in Xiangxi, China. Tujia people have accumulated rich knowledge and experience in long-term production activities and life practice, and created many folk art works with national characteristics.

Tujia area is located in the deep mountains, and has been in a primitive closed state for a long time. Most folk customs maintain their inherent simplicity and strong local flavor, and Tujia brocade is a wonderful flower of folk art.

As early as 4000 years ago, Tujia ancestors mastered simple textile technology. During the Qin and Han dynasties, Tujia brocade was called "cloth" and was once a tribute of the royal family.

The main techniques of Tujia brocade are embroidery, embroidery and color weaving, and its content is generally based on folk stories and myths and legends. The embroidery created by more professional women is designed and produced according to their own hobbies and wishes, relying on the observation and feelings of life.

They embroider some auspicious patterns on clothes, headscarves, shoes and hats, pillows and sheets to beautify and decorate their lives and express their yearning for a better life.

"Xilankapu" is a kind of Tujia brocade. In Tujia language, "Xilan" means bedding, "Karp" means flowers, and "Xilan Karp" means Tujia flower bedding. People often put the word "earth" before "flower quilt", especially referring to the Tujia national characteristics contained in this folk craft.

Tuhua is cherished by Tujia people since ancient times, and is regarded as the crystallization of wisdom and skill, and is called "Tujia flower".

There are sporadic records about the origin of "Xilankapu" in historical records. The "Gan Lan Fine Cloth" in Ai Lao Yi's Weaving Silk Brocade of the Cultural Revolution mentioned in the Biography of Southwest Iman in the Later Han Dynasty is the predecessor of earthenware bedding. It is said that "Wu Lingren" has the habit of "weaving veneer, dyeing and fixing grass, and wearing colorful clothes", and "Wu Lingren" is the ancient name of Tujia people.

The roots of Xilankapu are recorded in ancient history books, and there is a beautiful legend in Tujia shanzhai:

Legend has it that a long time ago, in an ancient Tujia village near Youxi River, one of the five ancient rivers, there was a Tujia girl named Xilan. She is smart, hardworking and beautiful, and she is one in a hundred in eight nearby towns and villages. From a few years old, she began to learn embroidery from her mother "Ani".

Lance is very clever, and the cloth she weaves is different from others. She weaves threads of various colors on the cloth to form various flowers, including chrysanthemum, rose, peony, peach blossom, Uncaria and so on. She weaves as many kinds of flowers as there are on the mountain.

She weaves flying butterflies, birds and golden pheasants in some flowers, accompanied by mountain castles, clouds, water, the sun and the moon. In the hands of Miss Lance, the beautiful natural scenery has formed colorful flowers and tapestries.

One day, Lance asked the centenarian in the village, "Grandpa Pappu, I have woven one flower after another. I have woven all the flowers. Are there any beautiful flowers? "

Papp said, "There are ginkgo flowers!"

Lance said, "Then why haven't I seen ginkgo flowers?"

Papp said, "Ginkgo blossoms only bloom in mid-April. How can you see them during the day? "

Lance waited, expecting. She gets up in the middle of the night and goes up the hill every day. She stood under the ginkgo tree again and again, sat there again and again, staring at the ginkgo tree all the time.

Finally, one day, just after midnight, a bright moon appeared through a gap in the clouds. Moonlight shines on the branches and leaves of ginkgo trees, and the leaves shine under the breeze. In an instant, the ginkgo tree is full of ginkgo flowers, and the white ginkgo flowers are very cute in the moonlight.

Lance immediately picked one, read it over and over again, smelled it over and over again, and couldn't put it down. I don't know. Lance got up in the middle of the night and was found by her sister-in-law. She gossiped in front of lance's father Aba, saying that lance didn't study hard, went up the mountain in the middle of the night, and "Rolba" under the ginkgo tree was stealing a man.

Aba of Reims was drunk. After listening to his daughter-in-law, he was so angry that he picked up a kitchen knife and ran under the ginkgo tree. He raised a kitchen knife and hacked Lance to death.

After Aba hacked Lance to death, the wine woke up, and it was too late to regret seeing the ginkgo flowers in Lance's hand. The men, women and children in the stockade were very sad to see this scene, and tears welled up in their eyes. ...

Later, Tujia girls kept all kinds of flower patterns woven by Lance and knitted them according to the patterns. In memory of Lance girl, people call this hand-woven fabric with flowers "Xilankapu".

Ginkgo Flower, a Tujia brocade produced in Tujia Brocade Village, laifeng county, depicts the beautiful stories and legends of Xilankapu.

Tujia people's long tradition of being good at weaving has been preserved. Until the reform, both men and women still maintained the custom of "liking colorful clothes".

In the general literature, there have been various names for bedding with local flowers: in the "Longshan County Records" during the Tongzhi period in the Qing Dynasty, it was said that "local brocade" was colorful and attractive. Commonly used is to make quilts, or clothes, or towels, so it is also called back towels. "

"Yongshun County Records" records:

The patchwork is local brocade. The natives weave weft with one hand and pick flowers with fine horns with the other, with five colors. "The so-called" tapestry ","local brocade ","local silk "and" tapestry ".

All refer to the bedding of soil flowers.

The most striking artistic feature of Xilankapu is its rich and full patterns and bright and warm colors. The patterns and patterns of earthenware carpets include natural image patterns, geometric patterns and text patterns, and their * * * characteristics are the same:

First, geometric patterns account for a large proportion. Even those patterns with strong descriptive nature images have become geometric patterns cut by squares, triangles and straight lines to adapt to color weaving. For example, "rock wall flower" is realized by villagers using large and small stones as walls, and "cauliflower" is derived from finely chopped cauliflower; "Zeroli" is experienced in the ups and downs of water waves.

Second, the patterns are rich and varied. As far as a single quilt cover is concerned, there are large patterns, such as "Forty-eight Hooks" and "Girl Langku", and there are also small patterns, such as "Baba Frame". There are rectangular patterns, such as "chair flowers"; There are hexagonal patterns, such as "crochet" and "24 crochet"; There are octagonal as the main pattern, such as "table flowers"; Others arrange the main patterns in the rhombic diagonal lattice in four directions, such as "small white plum", "real flower" and "garment cover".

The "stalls" at the two ends of the quilt cover are also called "railings", and there are many patterns, such as the commonly used "moon", "monkey's paw", "longevity" and "vine flower", which have the function of setting off the whole quilt cover pattern.

Thirdly, I like to use auspicious and festive meanings and patterns of flowers, birds and animals in mountainous areas: "phoenix wearing peony" symbolizes wealth, "wild deer holding flowers" symbolizes longevity for thousands of years, "ten thousand" symbolizes longevity, and "dragon" symbolizes nobility and splendor. The meanings of words and patterns such as "Fulu", "Long life" and "both wealth and wealth" are more obvious.

From Xi Lankapu, we can see the industrious and intelligent Tujia people's love for life, deep feelings for the natural environment they live in and strong yearning for a better life.

The colors of Tujia embroidery patterns are bright and warm. First of all, pay great attention to color matching, Tujia people have:

Black with white, where did you get it?

Red with green, can't choose;

Blue with yellow, sparkling.

The three-character Song formula shows that Tujia embroidery has a strong color contrast and likes to use black and white to set off the hook.

Various hook-shaped, sawtooth-shaped, comb teeth, stitches, chains and other side ornaments, plus various polygonal flowers as embellishments, with black background and white edges. As a result, the primary and secondary patterns are clearly defined and integrated due to the black and white background.

Fourth, I like to use warm colors, big oranges and the like as the keynote and use them in the main parts, and the specific color schemes emerge one after another.

"Xilankapu" is hand-woven with red, blue, black, white, yellow and purple threads as warp and weft. Mainly used as quilt cover, bedspread, curtain, tablecloth, chair cushion, bag, art wall hanging, kits and so on. Strong color contrast, simple and exaggerated patterns, combination of realism and abstraction, full of life breath.

Its patterns are based on the history of Tujia nationality, such as Sifeng Ju Yin and Wu Xingyin, the king of land. There are such life customs as the morning sun with two peaks, the sound of dragons and phoenixes, the pine nuts of Kirin, Xi Shou of Fulu, yue longmen of carp, Deng Ke of Wuzi, playing with ducks, matching wild deer with plums, and marrying mice.

There are natural scenery as the theme, such as Zhangjiajie scenery, Tujia diaojiao building and so on. There are also animals and plants, such as monkey flowers, tiger flowers, cat footprints, dog teeth flowers, roses, chrysanthemums, moon red and so on.

The main raw materials of Tujia brocade are silk thread, cotton thread and plush thread. The weaving method of Tujia brocade is to follow the waist weaving method of ancient oblique loom, tie all the warps around the waist, watch the back and weave the front. The products woven by this knitting method are beautiful, neat, durable and always shiny.

The pictures of Tujia brocade are colorful, and the colors are often borrowed from gorgeous flowers, mandarin duck feathers, sunset clouds on the horizon and rainbows after rain; Some are influenced by religious paintings and have the characteristics of elegance, simplicity and calmness. In terms of pattern structure, Tujia brocade is dominated by diamond structure and diagonal lines, paying attention to geometric symmetry and repetition and continuity. There are hundreds of traditional patterns.

Tujia brocade is a unique craft, beautiful shape and rich content, which can be the same as Xiang embroidery. Tujia cottage regards flower picking and embroidery as a sign to measure whether a Tujia girl is clever or not. Tujia love songs say:

White handkerchief with four corners and four corners embroidered with geese;

The veil is rotten, the goose is there, but the talent is not.

When Tujia girls prepare to get married, they should not only embroider all kinds of embroidery by hand, but also weave a beautiful "Xilankapu" with a wooden loom.

Tujia embroidery is the main dowry in Tujia marriage customs, which is objectively a sign of the woman's family economic status and a proof of her daughter's upbringing. It is particularly striking in the dowry ranks and the new house furnishings that people can comment on.

Therefore, when the Tujia sister got married, the bride's parents were proud of the exquisite Tujia embroidery, and the groom's family also guessed that the bride's needlework was clever and stupid. "Whose daughter is good, the embroidery worker will know." Since ancient times, people have judged whether a girl is smart by the quality of embroidery.

The main styles of Tujia costumes are big sleeves, coats with full lapels, trousers with big waist and short legs. Most of the materials are self-spun, self-woven and self-dyed homespun, commonly known as "home machine cloth". Clothing patterns are made of cotton yarn as warp, thick silk and various colors of plush thread as weft, and are hand-woven and embroidered according to the clever matching colors of the patterns. Clothing likes to be loose, simple and relaxed. It is thick, durable, colorful, generous and beautiful.

Tujia embroidery attracts people to appreciate it because it breeds primitive and vital beauty and reproduces the simple feelings of human beings.