Regional Differences in Hmong Costumes

The dress of the Miao people is divided into gender, age, and dress and regular dress, and there are regional differences. According to the Qing Dynasty's "Hundred Miao Map", there are eighty-three kinds of costumes. There are more than a hundred kinds of costumes, according to other sources.

The complicated Miao costumes are divided into five categories and several styles, such as western Hunan, eastern Guizhou, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, southern Guizhou and Hainan. The colorful costumes of the Miao people in Leishan are one of the most beautiful and beautiful costumes in the world today. These colorful costumes carry the historical changes of this ethnic group through trials and tribulations, the longing for a better life and the concentration of the living environment in the past and present. Historians call them "history books worn on the body."

Dress

The Leishan long-skirted Miao women's dress is developed and evolved from the Xiongyi and the stone obeisance blouse. The upper garment has two layers, the inner layer is home machine-dyed green cloth, and the outer layer is purple and blue satin. Sleeves, edges and back are embroidered with pick, crepe and other embroidery into dragons, tigers, sheep and fish, butterflies, bugs and other animal designs, color red, blue, green, yellow and other colors, along the shoulder set with rectangular floral patterns, wide cuffs for the unbuttoned cross-over collar coat. When worn, the sleeves and shoulders are decorated with silver flower pieces of various patterns.

With a long crepe skirt of green house cloth, covered with twenty-four flower ribbons embroidered with flowers, birds, insects, fish, mussels, frogs, dragons and phoenixes on a red background, wearing a silver horn on the head, a sub-collar and collar around the neck, and then adorned with a silver head flower, a silver comb and a silver bubble, a silver hairpin, a silver bracelet, a silver lock, an earring, and a ring, and so on. The feet wear embroidered boat-shaped shoes. The same long skirt, Fangxiang women like to wear phoenix goose big waist, step to the skirt, less flower belt. The various patterns of the dress concentrated Miao living environment of the scenery, showing the elegant aesthetic interests of Miao women.

Particularly striking is the Leishan Miao costume embroidery, its composition, color, embroidery techniques for the "three best". Miao excellent embroidery hand with a big painter's thinking, composition pay attention to rigorous, symmetrical, coordinated, each embroidery map are the main and secondary patterns; composition of a wide range of materials, the sky, the earth, people, God, plants, animals ......

Nothing strange, and the ancient and modern styles, often in a pattern can be integrated with each other! The content of up to five categories: (1) ancient legends of deification such as the creation of the butterfly mother, etc.; (2) totem worship, such as the dragon and phoenix, buffalo, birds, maple trees, etc.; (3) visions of nature, such as people and landscapes, houses, fields and valleys, living in harmony; (4) historical reminiscence into the Hmong Great Migration across the Yellow River, the Yangtze River, the Dongting Lake and the migratory routes; (5) worship of ancestors, such as JiangYang (also said to be Fuxi), ChiYu and so on! Sacred image.

Excellent female embroiderers designed the rich content of the pattern, from the ancestors of the Miao people's view of humanity, nature, history, life from generation to generation, reflecting a unique, deep aesthetic concept. These embroideries are mostly used for Miao women's dresses, casual clothes and backpacks.

Casual wear

Leshan Miao clothing, traditionally, is to use self-spinning and weaving and dyeing of hemp and cotton cloth and silk cloth fabric. Men's casual wear is more simple. Men's tops are generally left-over-lapel tops, lapel tops and left-over-lapel long shirts of three types, to the lapel tops are the most common. Women's casual tops are generally right-over-oblong blouse and round-necked chest cross tops two types, underwear for all kinds of pleated skirts and pants, the color is mostly green, navy blue, blue, black.

Middle-aged and young Miao women with long skirts generally wear light-colored right-over-oblong blouse, along the shoulders, cuffs and right lapel edge in a band about 4 cm wide out of the fine embroidered flowers and birds, flowers and grasses, butterflies, various objects pattern lace, around the embroidered flowers and birds around the waist, tie silver waist practice, pulling the "S"-type bun at the top, with the ear pillars; middle-aged women more than white bag The middle-aged women mostly wear white towels, and the young women mostly wear silver combs or silver hairpins and other ornaments. Elderly women's tops mostly wear right-over-obeating blouses or collarless cross-over blouses, wearing ankle-length green veil pleated skirts underneath, surrounded by a long girdle with the skirt. Elderly women's upper decorations. Color mostly green and blue.

Gongtong Hmong women wear lapel-lapel long coat, jacket collar-lapel large embroidered chest-crossed blouse, cuffs inlaid with pick flower flower block, silver chain hanging embroidered flowers around the waist, set of pick flower wrist guards; under the knee-inch pleated skirt, tie pick flower inlaid legs, jacket woven cotton type red stockings.

Leishan Dadi small witch Miao women casual tops more wear right over lapel blouse, the front of the long and small abdomen, under the knee-length pants, silver girdle practice hanging and pants long girdle, wrapped feet, head with batik square handkerchiefs or embroidered headscarves.

Taogang, Qiaogang upper garment for the waist tight-fitting Qing Su right obeisance blouse, under the five to nine inches long pleated skirt, tight pants, skirt before and after the tie a two-foot square geometric pattern of picking the flower apron piece, shoulder picking the flower shawl. The color is green and vegetal, and the embroidery process is heavy on red, yellow and white. Embroidery patterns are mostly geometric patterns, resulting in rich changes.

Da Di also Mongolia and other places of the Hmong top wear large open-necked lapel blouse, no buttons, within the bundle of pick flowers chest pocket, pre-wedding with knee-length vegetal pleated skirt or pants, after the wedding with knee-length waxed flower pleated skirt, outside the girdle of the waist, the blouse and girdle and the edge of the chest pocket are set with pick flowers lace, the skirt and the big arm set with prismatic armband-style flower block.

Strong clothes

Strong clothes, called (ub bad) "Wengbei" in the Miao language, translated into Chinese as "male clothes", that is, the meaning of the clothes worn by men. Characterized by no collar, no buttons, open to the lapel, with a cloth belt, girdle. Oversize decorated with lace, embroidered sleeves, its pattern of warriors fighting, double bull butt horn, and a variety of birds, beasts, some also embroidered with people, animals, dragons, birds, flowers and plants and geometric patterns, the same in a picture, in order to keep in mind that the ancestors of the Miao people and birds and beasts of prey living with the history of the blood and the history of the war.

The Xiongyi is a decorative garment for a man's marriage in matrilineal clan society, and later on, because a woman can't open up the land and defend herself against the enemy, it was changed to a woman's marriage through the consultation of the clan elders. Men and women changed the marriage, and the male clothes also changed from men to women.

Childhood daughter dress

Girls are still in the early years, their mothers are carefully dressed, but more focus on the hat. Hat with tail dog head cap, flat top cap two types. Tailed dog head cap along the front of the nine silver Buddha sitting on both ears for two round silver flowers, symbolizing the sun and the moon. After the nine with practice ringing bells, the top embroidered with flowers and birds. To the age of ten years old, it changed to pull the hair bun, wearing plain clothes. The dresses are usually knee-length, right-over-right, and some are completely plain, either green or blue, and some are decorated with embroidered lace, which is very dashing.

Marriage dress

The marriage dress is a long and elaborate embroidered dress with flowers when the girl is 17 or 18 years old. The chest and back are bordered with floral cloth paste, the cuffs are multi-colored horizontal bars, open lapel, not wearing a flowery hat, but wrapped in blue or black cloth pieces, and the head is inserted with a silver flower. Clothing short waist, under the perimeter piece, calves wrapped in flowers wrapped feet, feet wearing watermarked boat shoes. This set of attire, non-marriage to wear, until the girl to find in-laws, when the marriage is taken out of the cupboard by the ama, by the sisters-in-law or sister-in-law to be carefully dressed to be able to get married.

Since then, the girl's dress changed from plain clothes to a short coat, waist, and a green handkerchief wrapped around the head. Marking the girl into the marriage stage. Gongtong in skirt Miao so far preserved "girls busy embroidery" custom, that is, the girl grows to eight or nine years old to get married before, are to use their free time to make their own embroidery of their own wedding clothes, but also to do their own children's shoes, hats, clothing, to be married and brought to the home of the Lang family, and by their mothers or sisters-in-law with the "horse grass wicker" carried to the home of the Lang. "

These are the most important things that you can do for your child's wedding.

Pleated skirts

The Miao people, in addition to a wide variety of styles and colors of tops, pleated skirts are also the most varied. As far as length is concerned, there are ankle-length skirts, knee-length semi-length skirts, leg-length semi-short skirts, and leg-length super-short skirts, and some of them have developed into a group of strips with a hoop instead of a skirt. The length of the skirt is closely related to geographical conditions. Most Hmong women living in the tightly packed, flat, spacious areas wear long skirts. Semi-long skirts generally live in half-slope or inclined dams, short skirts and ultra-short skirts, generally live in the environment of high mountains and forests with deep and steep slopes. Miao women wear skirts, regardless of long, medium and short skirts, are pleated, the symbolism is to show that the ancestors of the Miao originally in the Central Plains, is trekking thousands of mountains and rivers to come here to establish a home.

Costumes

The colorful costumes of the Miao people in Leishan are one of the most beautiful and beautiful costumes in the world today. These colorful costumes carry the historical changes of this nation through trials and tribulations, the longing for a better life and the concentration of the living environment throughout the ages. Historians call them "history books worn on the body."

Paulownia skirt

It is evolved on the basis of the colorful belt skirt, its belt is four to five centimeters wide half a single embroidered, narrow on the bottom wide, the lower end is shaped like the head of the sword, each flower belt is divided into five segments, segments to beads connected to the beads, are uniformly embroidered with flowers, birds, fish and insects drawings, the segments of the pattern varies, especially eye-catching, because of the dance step or walk, by the wind and the fluttering, showy and incomparable, a full-fledged dress, as if the sky is fairyland. Cage skirt tied with 25 colored bands, *** five sections, the first section embroidered with a variety of snakes, insects and birds, the upper end of the flame flower or bird feathers. Connecting each band is a cage of brocade apron, when the girls fly on the dance floor and rotate, as if the white flowers compete with each other, the colors are very bright.

White Jade Hair Skirt

It is made of white feathers tied to the corner of the skirt, and from a distance, it looks like white flowers blooming under the colorful skirt. This is the ancient dress, in the Duyue River Basin, every festival, are worn by the men who play the sheng, usually visiting friends and relatives is a woman to wear. It is the end of matrilineal clan society, women instead of men to get married, but the men still can not forget the first people to get married in the dress, so the legacy of the heritage. The white feather dress used to be decorated with bird feathers, so it is also called "white bird dress".

Batik Costumes

The Leishan Miao batik has geometric patterns or more flowers, trees, birds, animals, bugs and fish as the base plate, and is painted with wax on the cloth. They are either inherited from the ancestors who lived in caves and wild places, or rich in romantic imagination, on the fins and tails of the fish, there are beautiful flowers blooming, on the feathers of the birds there are big fruits hanging, bees and butterflies fluttering among the flowers, and wild beasts infesting the forests. Among them, the customary inheritance pattern, called "gob wob" (gob wob) or "wutuo" in Hmong, is dyed into fabrics with white flowers on a black background, and is used as a dowry for girls getting married, as well as a headband for middle-aged and old-aged women, and as a regular dress for going to the relatives and rushing to the market. There are also used as bed sheets, tent curtains and bag sheets, tablecloths. This pattern is meant to honor the "whirlpool" mark left by our ancestors when they moved westward along the river through countless dangerous shoals and waves.

Boat shoes

The Leishan Miao's cloth shoes are made of linen thread with a cloth base, and the upper of the shoe is made in the shape of a foot with a large opening close to the toes, and the joint of the ankle is embellished with a finger-width strap. From the shape, the tip of the bottom of the shoe slightly upward, like a small boat, so called boat shoes.

Wave Shoes

Before the Leishan Miao girls got married, their grandmothers made several pairs of boat shoes for them, which are also called "Yuanbao Shoes" or "Cloud Shoes" and "Wave Shoes". The shoes are also called "Yuanbao Shoes" or "Cloud Shoes" or "Wave Shoes". These shoes are like a small cruise ship, high in the front and flat in the back, more green as the bottom, less red, the heel and the toe of the wave pattern, such as an extraordinary decorative miniature colorful boat, like swimming in the turquoise waves.

Cockspur boat shoes

Cockspur boat shoes are on the basis of linen thread tie cloth bottom boat shoes, in front of the toe of the shoes above the cloth top of the woven cockspur and the name, some are also known as the nose shoes or old man shoes. Elderly shoes, because more than the crone usually wear, after death is also used as birthday shoes and burial and named. There is no heel protection state, the mouth of the shoe decorated with geometric lace, crown or nose on both sides of the embroidered plain white flowers, some sets of silver jewelry. According to legend, once upon a time, the ancestors lived in the East Department of the river, lake and sea area, to and from the boat. Therefore, the old man wearing shoes, after death, the soul returns home to reunite with the ancestors. Popular in Hunan Xiangxi Prefecture and Hunan, Qian (mainly Songtao County), Yu (Xiushan County, Pengshui County area), E (Enshi Prefecture) four provinces border area. The ancient custom of storing men's and women's hair in buns has disappeared. Nowadays, women wear round-necked, large-breasted short clothes with little embroidery on the shoulders and cuffs; wide-legged pants with lace on the edges of the pants; and tall, large green or flowery cloth headkerchiefs with silver ornaments.

Men's clothing of the Miao people in western Hunan mainly consists of lapel and full-breasted, while women's clothing is divided into three types, namely, Song (Tao) Feng (Phoenix) type, Huaguan (Huaqian) Bao (Jing) type, and Lu (Xi) Gu (Zhang) type. The specific differences can be seen in the atlas.

Aprons are an important part of the clothing of the Miao people in western Hunan, divided into high-waisted aprons and low-waisted aprons, the Miao women around the Phoenix area love high-waisted aprons, and the Miao women around the Jishou and Huayuan areas love low-waisted aprons, and the two kinds of aprons are all attire for married women. Usually wear is to protect the clothes behind the apron not to be dirty when working; festivals or visit friends and relatives to wear, mainly for dress costumes or show the embroidery level of women's red skills.

Silver jewelry is a traditional ornament loved by Miao women in western Hunan, and is still worn with great care. It is roughly divided into headdresses, collars, hand ornaments, pendants and so on. There are two kinds of headdresses, one is silver hat (also known as dragon hat), on the hat flower, dragon and phoenix, guan knife, comb, hairpin, bun flowers and other decorations.

One kind is in front of and behind the headgear with silver brim decoration, on the silver wire hanging leaves, bells, fruits, silver flowers and other kinds of silver ornaments. Collar has a wheel, flat circle, disk circle, etc., of which, the wheel like the green vine entangled trees, symbolizing love, mostly for young men and women in love.

Hand jewelry is mostly silver or copper bracelets, fingers with silver rings. Hanging decorations, such as clothes on the wear corsage, syringe, toothpick, dig ear, long life locks, peaches and so on. Xiangxi Miao clothing in the color has the characteristics of still green and decorated with colorful and so on. Miao men and women in western Hunan are mainly dressed in green, and commonly use indigo-dyed home weaving cloth as the fabric.

Miao women's clothing in addition to blue, but also ultramarine blue, lake blue and other dark-colored fabric as the background color, in the neckline, cuffs, trouser leg opening, etc. with a wide black border, and then inlaid with a variety of flower braid and embroidery patterns, looks rich, beautiful and not lose the solemnity and elegance.

In the decorative color scheme of the Miao costumes, red, orange, yellow, white, green and purple are used by the dai pa (Miao language: girls) in large numbers, with red being the main color. The embroidery of Miao clothing is on the collar, cuffs, trouser hems and other parts of the clothes, mostly in black or lake blue, green cloth as the background, bold colors, strong contrast, so people can not help but think of lacquer ware and lacquer paintings. Perhaps because of its origins in the Chu culture, Miao embroidery is like a colorful rainbow embedded in the night sky, that is full of mysterious meaning of the black background, coupled with the halo change of the needle processing to make the plane of the color becomes more hierarchical.

In the long-term practice of life, Miao women have created unique decorative styles by means of weaving, embroidery, flower picking, flower panning and other means of expression. Miao clothing patterns are rich and colorful.

It serves as a display of women's red skill, and is the concentration and inheritance of the aesthetic concept of Miao women's culture. From the styling characteristics of Xiangxi Miao dress pattern, it can be roughly divided into two styles: mimetic pattern and abstract geometric pattern. The mimetic pattern makes it clear at a glance the image characteristics of the object depicted, and it is expressed in a generalized, concise, exaggerated and deformed way, which is hand-embroidered, resulting in a kind of ancient and colorful effect.

Abstract geometric patterns use points, lines, surfaces and other geometric factors to abstract, generalize and distort the natural image, forming a regular geometric lace pattern, and then hand-woven, cross-stitched, simple and elegant, simple and natural. From the viewpoint of the motifs of dress patterns, they can be roughly divided into the following two categories: one is the motifs taken from nature, with the sun, the moon, the stars, the stars, and the animals and plants as the main subjects; the other is the motifs of the dragon and the phoenix and other divine animals, and the motifs reveal the thinking characteristic of "everything has a spirit".

The Miao women in western Hunan decorate these natural objects in a more interesting and idealized way according to their appreciation habits and ways. Miao costumes in western Hunan maintain the strong ethnic cultural traditions and characteristics, and reflect the unique aesthetic psychology and aesthetic ideals of the Miao people. As a kind of communication of the historical consciousness and local sentiment of the Miao people, the Miao dress is known as a "history book" worn on the body, and it is a valuable treasure in our traditional ethnic culture.

Popular in the Miao areas of Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan and Gui provinces and districts where the western dialect is spoken. The women's clothes are made of burlap on top and batik burlap flower skirt underneath. The color is light, with few flowers and silver ornaments. In northwestern Guizhou and northeastern Yunnan, both men and women are adorned with woven flower shawls, the larger of which are shaped like bucket hats. The Dahua Miao in Yunnan and Guizhou are mainly located in Zhaotong, Chuxiong and Yiliang in Yunnan, and Liupanshui, Weining, Zijin, Puting, Zhenning and Ziyun in Guizhou. The Dahua Miao mainly use hemp cloth to make clothes, and they grow their own hemp, weave their own cloth and make their own clothes in ancient times. Dahua Miao clothing main

The main obvious trapezoidal square pattern, the distribution of more in Yiliang County, Yunnan, Guizhou Weining and other places. There are two Dahua Miao villages in Shuicheng County, Liupanshui, Guizhou, namely Shibangou Dahua Miao Natural Village and Ranjiamawo Dahua Miao Village.

Both of them have well-preserved Miao costumes, which are more traditional. What's more special is that the Dahua Miao are all Christian. It was Christianity that changed the fate of the Dahua Miao. So they all believe in Christianity.