Li skirt

Some historical books tell us that as early as the 1st century BC, Li women had begun weaving cloth called guangfubu, a product of their own spinning and dyeing as well as weaving. Later the Li people’s woven goods such as gubibu, panbanbu and shidan (tablecloth) came to be offered to the court as tribute. Especially in the period from the 10th to the 13th century witnessed their weaving techniques highly reputed in the southern part of China. The high reputation continued even in the Qing Dynasty as indicated by a line reading “Li brocade is as fascinating as clouds” which is found in a poem composed in that period.

As might be expected, Li women are skillful at dyeing and handloom-weaving. They not only utilize raw cotton and hemp fibers as their main materials for tailoring clothes but also have an excellent knowledge of the collection of wild plants to be used as dyestuffs. Experienced in the art of spinning yarn and weaving cloth from the age of seven or eight, they are able to combine their own original ideas with traditional techniques including those of colour arrangement and “tie-dyeing”. They weave exquisite products with splendid multi-coloured designs out of cotton and hemp fibers and embroidery thread of five colours (blue, yellow, red, white and black) by using simple and humble handloom. Such products are typified by skirts for women more than any other.

Li Skirt

Cylindrical skirts Li women wear differ in length according to their tribes. The women of the Bendi Li tribe, who reside in the centre of the Li people’s dwelling area, wear the shortest ones. The farther a tribe reside away from the central tribe, the longer skirts its female members wear. The costumes and accessories Li women wear are varied in colour, design and shape and this helps to make their life in the mountainous area tasteful.

As a whole, Li women’s costumes consist of a jacket and a tubular skirt. However, in different areas, patterns on their jackets and the ratio of length and width of their skirts are quite different. In the Wuzhi Mountain area of Qiongzhong County, the Li women wear round collared jackets open in the middle front with geometric patterns in the front and motifs of birds and flowers on the back. In Bait County, they wear pullover jackets with decorated patterns on both sides along the bottoms of the front and the back and around the sleeve cuffs. Pleatless and short (about 30 centimetres long and 40 centimetres wide), their tubular skirts are chiefly decorated with patterns of figures and animals. The tubular skirts of the Li women of the Detou branch are rather long and loose with the bottoms decorated with wide embroidered borders. In Ledong County, the patterns of figures and animals on the Sanxing women’s skirts are straightforward, simple and unsophisticated in style.

Li Skirt

The clothing decorative art of the Li nationality is emphatically characterized by exquisite patterns. Rich in imagination, the Li women can capture accurately the essence of birds, insects, animals, flowers, grass, stars and the moon as well as figures in very beautiful patterns. Ingeniously shaped and harmonious in colours, these patterns not only embody the simple and plain artistic taste of the Li people, but also have recorded the most popular fashion of the past. Hence, they are an important part of the Li people’s cultural traditions.

Baixing Jacket

Chinese historical records show that the Miao ethnic group used to live along the Yellow river, much earlier than any other ethnic group in China. Because of wars, and changes in the living environment, the Miao gradually established many tribes when they moved further south. These tribes have different lifestyles and different types of costume developed during cultural exchanges with other nationalities, while maintaining their own traditions.

Knowledge of traditional Miao embroidery has been handed down from generation to generation. Girls as young as six or seven years old begin to learn their craft at their mothers’ sides.  For the Miao women, their embroidery works represent their wisdom, hard work, and artistry. Bright colored patterns and designs are embroidered on their costumes which are worn at festivals where boys and girls meet to find their marriage partners. It is customary for a Miao girl to embroider her wedding dress, an effort that usually takes three to five years to complete.

Jianhe Child's vest

Miao women often wear a hair bun tied with a red silk ribbon or batik or embroidered, angular kerchief. The collarless gowns are buttoned down the front or on the right and are embroidered with floral patterns. They often use homespun flax to make clothes. They embroider various patterns on the flax and attach much importance to symmetry and layout. Generally, shirts made of flax reach the insteps. In some places, shirts are short and only reach the knees.

Girls and unmarried women usually wear blue clothes, while middle- and old-aged women usually wear black clothes with white and blue waistbands.

The Miaos wear leggings, adorn their chests with a silver badge, wear silver earrings and earbobs, and a wooden floray cap in the shape of a round plate and inlaid with silver flowers.

Most Miao men wear a short gown buttoned down the front and a large bamboo hat, or wrap their heads with black cloth. In some places, men wear a long, high-collared linen gown buttoned down the right side or a collarless long gown buttoned down the front and embroidered with colorful designs on the cuffs. In some places, men wear a collarless long gown buttoned down the front without colorful patterns around the cuffs, white waistcloth and white or blue trousers.

Anshun Jacket

The artwork of the Miao ethnic group has been sought after by art collectors and museums worldwide. In Southern California, the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana has an on-going exhibit of Miao costumes.

More info from the British Museum, click here

Miao Hat

Miao people are from one of the largest ethnic minorities in southwest China. They live across many provinces including Guizhou, Yunnan, Hunan and Sichuan. The Miao are known for their elaborate embroidery and exquisite work with silver. They have a very colorful history, much like their stunning embroidery.

The Miao people actually had no written form of history up until recently. They used characters and symbols embroidered on their clothes to tell stories, legends and parts of their history. That is why their embroidery is so stunning and detailed.

The tradition of wearing silver is preserved by a great number of craftsmen, scattered through the Miao villages. Most of the silver accessories are made by hands in a traditional way. A silver head-piece takes a couple of months to finish. In some villages, every male is trained in silver-work. Each ornament is an exquisite work of art and sparkles with the wisdom of the Miao people. The fancy Miao silver accessories include silver hat, silver horns, silver comb, silver ear-rings, neckband, necklace, bracelet, etc.

Miao Hat

When a girl was born in a Miao family, her parents make it a point to save on food and expenses for a complete set of silver jewellery for her. The set, 15kg in total weight, includes crown, horns, earrings, neckband, chest plaque, clothing ornament, waistband, and bracelets.

It takes more than one hour for a young woman to put the entire kit on and finish her makeup. The Miao people’s penchant for silver jewellery stems from their love of beauty, wealth and dignity.

The color of silver symbolizes the Miao people’s character of fearing no tyranny and being impervious to temptation of wealth and position. It is also said that wearing silver jewellery helps keep evil at bay. Silver jewellery can also be used as a symbol of a person’s marital status or as a betrothal gift.

Basket from Northern Thailand

Depending on the individual artist, the culture, and the baskets’ purpose, baskets may be plain and practical, woven of a single color and strip-width, or complex and decorative, woven with patterns of dyed strip colors, varying widths and materials, and unusual design lines. Pieces of wood are often woven onto the frame to lift the basket off the floor and create greater strength of form.

In Thailand, the women have a reputation as skilled weavers of cloth, while men and women alike produce the baskets. The men also craft crossbows, musical instruments and other items made of wood, bamboo and rattan and take pride in their skills in hunting and trapping. In the dry season, the men would often stay in the forests for several days for that purpose.

Basket from Northern Thailand

Once woven, many bamboo and rattan carrying baskets are hung on the homes’ rafters for up to a year where the daily hearth’s smoke seasons them. The smoke not only strengthens the rattan, granting it flexibility when dry, but also gives the baskets, once the accumulated creosote has been rubbed off, a warm and beautiful patina. The smoked baskets are considered to be of greater beauty and value.

Though they work equally on the farm, the wife will be left alone to do all the cooking and household chores aside from carrying the heavy basket on her back. This basket is usually full of firewood, vegetables and farming tools which she carries back and forth.

Basket from Northern Thailand

The Tribes villages are established with houses built on high stilts, with bamboo walls, wooden plank floors and grass-thatched roofs, leaving the ground level corral for their domestic animals like chickens, pigs and buffalos.

Chin Skirt

The Chins are found mainly in western part of Burma (the Chin State). They also live in nearby Indian states of Nagaland, Mizoram and Manipur and Assam.

The Chin people are of Tibeto-Burman groups and they most likely came to Burma, especially the Chindwin valley, in the late 9-10 century AD. Most Chin people moved westward and they probably settled in the present Chin State around 1300-1400 AD.

For a newlywed Chin woman it is customary to weave a large blanket in which she and her husband will be wrapped upon their deaths. When one partner dies, the blanket is cut in two, with one half used to cover the body and the other half stored away until the second partner passes.

Despite commonalities of language and culture, the various Chin groups are broadly dispersed over adjacent hills of three countries, speak languages many of which are mutually unintelligible, and have textile traditions that vary widely.

Chin Skirt

Textiles signal the status of the wearer in several ways, playing their most dramatic role in the core Chin effort to achieve merit in this life and the next. Chin peoples have traditionally strived to distinguish themselves from their peers through accomplishments in hunting, war, wealth accumulation and feast giving. The textiles made and worn by the Chin announce those accomplishments through specific patterns reserved for the meritorious.

Many Chin textiles also denote local subgroups and serve as emblems of community membership. Most are sex-specific and some are appropriate only for people of a certain age, marital status, high-status clan or religious function.

Chin oral history records waves of subsequent migration, many of them out of the northern Chin Hills, with migrating groups pressuring earlier migrants to move once more. As groups moved, they took weaving styles with them or acquired new styles from their new neighbours. One can trace some of these migrations by comparing textiles from the departure point and destination. Such comparison can also reveal the effect of imported materials, particularly silk, from non-Chin, lowland cultures. Chin weavers use a simple backstrap loom in which the warp is circular and continuous.

Chin Loincloth

The earliest descriptions of Chin textiles date from 1800, whereas the oldest known Chin textiles were acquired in 1855. Since then, many changes have occurred in material and design. Two broad trends can be discerned. Over time, the structure of Chin textiles has become simplified, apparently as weavers chose easier ways to achieve the intended result. Simultaneously, the decoration of Chin textiles has tended to become more elaborate, covering a greater portion of the surface area and employing novel yarns and colours.

Textiles passed down the family — memories of weddings and other important events — are considered treasured possessions but may be sold by families during difficult financial times.

Yi Jacket

The people known in Chinese as the Yi 彝, and in English as the Lolo, live mainly in the hillside and basin areas in Yunnan, Sichuan, Guizhou Provinces together with the northwestern part of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Prefecture. The Yi ethnic minority is reputed to be a nation with a long history and splendid culture within South Western China.

Some scholars believe that the Yi are descended from the ancient Qiang people of today’s western China, who are also said to be the ancestors of the Tibetan, Naxi and Qiang peoples. They migrated from southeastern Tibet through Sichuan and into Yunnan Province, where their largest populations can be found today.

Yi Jacket

They practice a form of animism, led by a shaman priest known as the Bimaw. They still retain a few ancient religious texts written in their unique pictographic script. Their religion also contains many elements of Daoism and Buddhism.

Mainly six types of clothes are scattered in six different regions of Yi ethnic minority. However, women usually wear clothes with beautiful flowers embroidered on them and long trousers with exquisite lace or skirts with numerous pleats. Men like to wear black narrow sleeved clothes, and loose pants.

Yi Woman's hat

Both men and women wear head-handkerchiefs on their heads, while the women’s are made with beautiful pictures embroidered on them. The Shaman sometimes wears huge black hats that look like a cross between a sombrero and a turban.

Yi women are skilled at weaving clothing, making garments and decorating them with embroidery. The upper three parts of their long skirts are made of cloth of different colors. The forth part is pleated.

Akha Village Guardian

The Akha are a hill tribe of subsistence farmers. If we try to trace back their history based on their oral traditions their native place is Mongolia like many other Asiatic peoples. Later due to various situations such as war, they migrated down with possible influence from Tibet and later ended up in Yunan province of southwestern China. As of today, most of the remaining Akha people are now distributed in small villages among the mountains of China, Laos, Burma, and northern Thailand.

According to the oral traditions, the first 11 ancestors or generations belonged to the spirit world when in the old days the spirits and human beings stayed under the same roof, born from the same parents. Later due to some disagreement between spirits and human beings they parted company and the spirits agreed that they would stay in the forest and the humans would live in villages. The humans would work in the day time and the spirits would work at night. Although the spirits could see the human beings the humans could not see the spirits any more except certain individuals with the power to do so.

The Akha Way combines animism, ancestor worship and their deep relationship with the land. For an Akha, the Akha Way is a way of life which extends beyond simple religious practice and infuses every aspect of their existence. The Akha Way emphasizes rituals in everyday life and stresses strong family ties; every Akha male can recount his genealogy back over fifty generations to the first Akha, Sm Mi O.

Akha Village Guardian

The practice of their mythology includes ornately carved village gates made of wood where the guardian spirit is said to dwell. The guardian statue is placed by the Akha at their village gate and represents the ancestor who has made an agreement a long time ago with the spirits concerning the partitioning of the ground, the delineation between the forest and village.

More information:
Ethnographic Notes on the Akhas Vol 1 pdf
Ethnographic Notes on the Akhas Vol 2 pdf
Ethnographic Notes on the Akhas Vol 3 pdf
Ethnographic Notes on the Akhas Vol 4 pdf

Li Jacket

The Li, comprised of five tribes, are the indigenous inhabitants of Hainan Island, China.

According to historical records, the term “Li” first appeared in the Tang Dynasty (618-907). The Lis are believed to be descendants of the ancient Yue ethnic group, who migrated from Guangdong and Guangxi on the mainland to Hainan Island long before the Qin Dynasty (221-206 B.C.). Archaeological finds on the island show that Li ancestors settled there some 3,000 years ago during the late Shang Dynasty or early Zhou Dynasty when they led a primitive matriarchal communal life.

The Li nationality lives mainly on agriculture. Situated in a subtropical zone with fertile land and abundant rainfall, the Li area is a tropical paradise for agriculture. People in some places reap three crops of rice a year and grow maize and sweet potatoes all the year round. The area is also the country’s major producer of tropical crops.

Li Jacket

Most Li practice traditional ethnic religions, including ancestor worship, worshiping earth gods and spirits. They believe the spirits of their ancestors have the ability to protect them.

The Li people have the earliest weaving technology in Chinese history. Li women are skilled in spinning and weaving and are especially adept at weaving silk cotton. The brocade they make has a long reputation for its magnificence and exquisite workmanship. In the very early days, the Li people knew how to use silk cotton as weaving material. In the 5th century, Li textile technology reached a considerably high level.

The cloth of the Li ethnic group has a unique style. As experts of spinning, weaving, dying and sewing, they often make their clothes entirely by themselves. The men wear collarless jackets, buttoned down on the front. The women wear open-front blouses and close-fitting skirts. The women’s skirts are close-fitting and reach the knee, showing off their beautiful figures. Women like to do their hair in a coil at the back and pin it with bone hairpins and wear embroidered kerchiefs. They wear earrings, necklaces, and bracelets. Some still tattoo their body, usually on the face, the back of the hand, and ankle.

Shipwreck Jar

Ceramics from the production centres in Si Satchanalai and Sukhothai (the two most important cities of the Sukhothai kingdom) made up the bulk of the Thai trade ceramics of the 15th century.

Production at the Sukhothai sites began in the 13th century AD, possibly with the decline of Khmer ceramics. During the 15th century China was faced with an important crisis, opening the opportunity for Sukhothai ceramics to conquer export markets. Sukhothai traded these precious ceramics with its neighbors. The transport was often by ship across the oceans. Sukhothai wares have been found in Indonesia, the Philippines and China among other countries.

In the middle of the 16th century, production at Sukhothai was discontinued, possibly related to the wars between the kingdom of Ayudhaya and the Burmese, and the resurgence of Chinese ceramics.

These ceramics and Ring-handled bottles have been found in sunken vessels around the gulf of Thailand, still in good condition after centuries in the water enduring the mini-ecosystems teeming with fish, corals and other life attracted to the hulls as they would to a natural reef.

Sukhothai Jar

Large jars are ideal vessels for water storage. Strong and sturdy, they are not likely to overturn and spill the contents. The density also helps to keep liquids cool, and the thick round mouth rim enables the jar to be sealed with a cover (made of wood) for protection from insects and dust.

Wayang Topeng Mask

Javanese or Balinese Masks are known as wayang topeng or wayang gedog. The word “gedog” comes from “kedok”, which, like “topeng” means “mask”; “Wayang” means theater.

The repertoire allocates priority to the story of prince Panji, an incarnation of Kamajaya (god of love), from the kingdom of Jenggala and his search for the princess Sekar Taji, also know as Jandra Kirana or Candra Kirana. an incarnation of Dewi Ratih (goddess of love), from the kingdom of Kederi.

As well as providing entertainment, wayang teaches the meaning and purpose, as well as the contradictions and anomalies, of life.

Although classical Javanese language (kawi) is most often used, it is spoken in a less stylised form than in wayang orang. Troupes on Java consist of male dancers; female roles are taken by boys aged between eight and 14, before their voice changes. Each region of Java and Bali features a different style of topeng masks, costumes and dance.

Originally, wayang wong was performed only as an aristocratic entertainment in four palaces of Yogyakarta and Surakarta.

The makers of wayang topeng remain anonymous as they do not have any intention to bring about any act of personal creativity, but to serve the community.