Song Shuixian

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Song Shuixian, Female, Sui, from Sandoushuizuzizhi, Guizhou, is a fourth-batch national representative bearer of Sui Mayixiu (Ⅶ-23). The tradition is documented in Sandoushuizuzizhi, Guizhou. Within the regional tradition and school record of Sui Mayixiu in Sandoushuizuzizhi, Guizhou: Shui horse-tail embroidery is concentrated in Shui villages in the townships of Sandong, Zhonghe, Tingpai, Tangzhou, and Shuilong within Sandu County, and extends with Shui settlement to the neighboring counties of Libo, Dushan, and Rongjiang. The origins of Shui horse-tail embroidery cannot be verified; its emergence is related to the Shui people's history of raising and using horses. Sandu is the only Shui autonomous county in China. After the Yin-Shang period, Shui ancestors migrated south from the Central Plains in stages, settling by the Tang and Song periods in the upper reaches of the Longjiang and Duliu rivers. The Shui use horsehair as a core wrapped with white silk thread to make pre-prepared embroidery thread; the main products are horse-tail-embroidered baby carriers and horse-tail-embroidered pointed shoes. In the Shui language the baby carrier is called 'daijie' and the upturned-toe embroidered shoe 'zhejie'.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Female, Sui ethnic group, born in June 1966, a native of Sandu Sui Autonomous County, Guizhou Province. Growing up in a Sui village, she was immersed in the craft from childhood and later learned the traditional techniques of Sui horsehair embroidery from her grandmother Pan Shuiying and her mother-in-law. Her embroidered works are distinguished by fine stitching and exquisite patterns. Her principal works include "Ninuo and the Double Dragons" and "Horsehair Embroidery Baby-Carrier Panel", among others. Her works have been exhibited at the National Museum of China. She opened the first horsehair embroidery handicraft shop and family museum in the county. She later joined the Sandu Sui Autonomous County Shuixian Horsehair Embroidery Co., Ltd., where she was responsible for production, technical guidance and vocational training, actively promoting the transmission and development of the traditional craft. Within the documented technical tradition of Sui Mayixiu in Sandoushuizuzizhi, Guizhou: Sandu in Guizhou Province is the only Shui autonomous county in China, located in the southeast of the Qiannan Buyei and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Guizhou Province. Shui horse-tail embroidery is a special embroidery technique handed down from generation to generation by Shui women, using horsehair as an important raw material. This folk craft unique to the Shui people is distributed in Shui villages in the townships of Sandong, Zhonghe, Tingpai, Tangzhou, and Shuilong within Sandu County. The origins of Shui horse-tail embroidery cannot be verified; its main product forms include horse-tail-embroidered baby carriers and horse-tail-embroidered shoes. The embroidery of Chengdu, Sichuan, and the embroidery techniques of other ethnic groups also use horsehair as a raw material, but only the Shui use it so intensively in carriers and other embroidered pieces. Shui horse-tail embroidery has its own distinctive methods and techniques of production. The first step is to take three or four horsehairs as a core and wrap white silk thread tightly around them by hand, turning them into pre-prepared embroidery thread resembling the strings of a bass instrument. The second step is to coil-stitch this white-silk-wrapped horsehair thread along the outlines of traditional embroidery or paper-cut patterns. The third step is to braid seven colored silk threads into a flat colored cord and fill-stitch it into the central area within the outlines of the coiled pattern. The fourth step is to stitch the remaining parts using ordinary flat satin stitch, cross-stitch picking-work, random stitch, and skipping stitch. The horse-tail embroidery technique is very complex; works made with it have a shallow-relief quality, with forms that are abstract, generalized, and exaggerated. Horse-tail embroidery is used mainly to make baby carriers (called 'daijie' in the Shui language), upturned-toe embroidered shoes ('zhejie' in Shui), women's waist aprons and breast plates, children's hats, purses, and scabbard covers. Although times and surroundings have changed, its formative concepts and formulaic symbols have remained essentially unchanged. A horse-tail-embroidered baby carrier consists mainly of three parts. The upper half carries the main design, made up of more than twenty horse-tail-embroidered panels of different sizes; the surrounding border is flat-stitched in geometric patterns with bright-red or dark-green silk on a colored satin ground, while the two upper sides form the carrier's shoulder straps. The lower half is the carrier's tail, with exquisite horse-tail patterns echoing the main body, so that the 'daijie' becomes a complete artwork embroidered over its entire surface. Making one such 'daijie' takes about a year. When middle-aged and older Shui women make the tail flowers of a 'daijie', they generally do without paper-cut templates, instead coiling the pre-prepared horsehair thread directly on red or blue satin and flexibly combining knot stitch, flat stitch, and random stitch to produce patterns that are handsome and pleasing to the eye. Regrettably, for reasons including social change, the transmission of the horse-tail embroidery technique has suffered a serious break; the quality of modern horse-tail-embroidery products has declined, and people are now seldom willing to use them. This special craft, Shui horse-tail embroidery, should be rescued and protected. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Horsetail core wound with white silk": The first step takes three or four horsetail hairs as a core and winds white silk tightly around them to make a prepared thread like a bass string. "Outlining, colour filling and finishing": The prepared thread then outlines the motif, seven-colour flat braid fills the interior, and the rest is finished in flat, count, random and skip stitching. "The horsetail-embroidered baby carrier, 'daijie'": The carrier has three parts: a main panel of over twenty horsetail-embroidered pieces, geometric borders in crimson or dark green silk, side straps and a tail; one takes about a year to make. "The upturned shoe 'zhejie', aprons and chest panels": Horsetail embroidery makes baby carriers, upturned embroidered shoes, women's aprons and chest panels, children's hats, purses and knife-sheath covers, often without a paper pattern.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

National representative bearer of Sui horsehair embroidery, a fourth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage

National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. Song Shuixian · National Representative Bearer Archive