Miaoxiu
01 · Historical Records
It has a long history, already recorded in Han-dynasty texts, and is now centered on Songtao County, Guizhou Province, radiating outward to neighboring Miao villages.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Songtao Miao embroidery is a traditional Miao embroidery art handed down in the area of Songtao County, Guizhou Province. Songtao Miao embroidery uses hand-woven cloth made by the Miao themselves as its ground and combines silk-thread colors freely through many different stitches to embroider a variety of patterns and floral textures, achieving a visual effect of multidimensional space. Its subjects are rich and flexibly chosen: historical stories, myths and legends, episodes of daily life, as well as flowers, birds, insects, fish, the sun and moon, and mountains and rivers — all can be embroidered, reflecting the simple life, ideals, and aesthetic taste of the Miao people. Songtao Miao embroidery is beautifully and strikingly composed — exaggerated and romantic, at once realistic and freehand. It emphasizes the conveyance of spirit and meaning, brings out the characteristics of things, and makes full use of exaggeration, distortion, and partial emphasis to deepen and broaden its artistic expression. Its coloring is free and bold, its hues bright and fresh, giving it strong visual impact. It has about a hundred or more stitches, the most common being flat satin stitch, counted-thread stitch, seed stitch, grid stitch, and braid stitch. Songtao Miao embroidery has an extremely wide range of uses; its works are rich in content and varied in design and can be classified by purpose into religious articles, women's dress, children's ornaments, and home decorations. The embroiderers of Songtao Miao embroidery emphasize the transmission of 'inner method' and the unity of hand and eye; when stitching they use no underdrawing or sketch, completing their works entirely through innate understanding, practiced skill, extraordinary memory, and rich imagination. Songtao Miao embroidery is an art form built up through the long exploration and accumulation of the Miao people. It has always been closely bound to the social life and development of the ethnic group; it is a historical record and cultural vehicle of the Miao people's everyday life and precious material for understanding and studying Miao history and culture. Its embroidered pieces have lively forms, flowing lines, gorgeous colors, and a great variety of types, achieving an organic fusion of craft form and cultural content; they have high practical value and artistic-appreciation value. As it has gradually become known to the outside world, it has provided an impetus to the development of the local economy.
Flat, counted, seed, grid and braid stitches
Songtao Miao embroidery has around a hundred stitches, commonly flat, counted-thread, seed, grid and braid work, built on hand-woven cloth for a multidimensional colour effect.
The 'heart method' and working without a draft
Songtao embroiderers keep a 'heart method', hand and eye as one, working without any draft or sketch through intuition, skill, memory and imagination.
Ritual, women's dress, children's ornaments and home decoration
Its uses range from ritual articles and women's dress to children's ornaments and home decoration, with subjects from history and myth to flowers, birds and landscapes.
Exaggeration and multidimensional space
Its composition is striking and romantic, realistic yet expressive, using exaggeration, distortion and selective emphasis to deepen its artistic reach.
A lineage traced to the seventh generation
Passed from mistress to apprentice and mother to daughter among Miao village women, Songtao embroidery has a documented lineage reaching the seventh generation.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Songtao Miao embroidery is centered on the Songtao Miao Autonomous County, Tongren City, Guizhou Province, and radiates to neighboring Miao villages at the junction of Hunan, Guizhou, and Chongqing. Songtao lies in the heart of the Wuling Mountains; Miao settlement villages are mostly distributed along the eastern foothills of Mount Fanjing and the Jin River basin. Embroidered pieces are used for women's festive dress, children's ornaments, home decoration, and religious articles, and the craft is transmitted through a pattern centered on family workshops and groups of embroiderers.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Miaoxiu · Miaoxiu · Miaoxiu · Miaoxiu · Miaoxiu · Miaoxiu.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Songtao Miao embroidery is transmitted among women in Miao villages through master–apprentice and mother–daughter lines, and the documented lineage of transmission has already reached the seventh generation.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Wu Tongying 04-1773
- Zhang Guiying 05-2600
- Wang Qiping 05-2601
- Yang Meiyan 05-2602
- Longnvsanjiu 05-2603
- Wu Yingji
- Liu Zhongchang
- Wang Jinhua
- Shi Liping
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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