Sui Mayixiu
01 · Historical Records
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 · Core Techniques & Process
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.
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.
Low relief and codified symbols
The complex technique gives pieces a low-relief quality with abstract, condensed and exaggerated forms whose codified symbols have remained essentially unchanged.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
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.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Song Shuixian (from the official archive of the associated inheritor): Female, Shui ethnicity, born in June 1966, from Sandu Shui Autonomous County, Guizhou Province. She grew up in a Shui village, immersed in the craft from childhood, and later learned the techniques of Shui horse-tail embroidery from her grandmother Pan Shuiying and her mother-in-law. The works she embroiders have fine stitchwork and exquisite patterns. Her main works include 'Twin Dragons of Ninuo' and 'Tail of a Horse-tail-embroidered Baby Carrier'. Her works have been exhibited at the National Museum of China. She opened the county's first shop for horse-tail-embroidery crafts and a family museum. She later joined the Shuixian Horse-tail Embroidery Co., Ltd. of Sandu Shui Autonomous County, where she is responsible for production, technical guidance, and staff training, actively promoting the transmission and development of the traditional handicraft. Representative inheritor of Shui horse-tail embroidery, a fourth-batch national-level intangible cultural heritage item. Wei Taohua (from the official archive of the associated inheritor): Female, Shui ethnicity, born in May 1964, from Sandu Shui Autonomous County, Guizhou Province. She learned horse-tail embroidery from her mother from childhood and had mastered the traditional techniques by her teens. On the basis of studying fine old examples of horse-tail embroidery and inheriting traditional methods, she added her own design ideas and boldly broke new ground in pattern design, embroidery, and other techniques, gradually forming a style of her own. She has produced a body of tourist souvenirs — horse-tail-embroidered garments, shoes and hats, embroidered belts, and backpacks — that integrate design and embroidery and are both exquisite and distinctive. Her works are finely crafted, handsome and dignified, and durable, and are deeply popular with customers. Zealous in transmitting the craft, she has taught horse-tail embroidery techniques free of charge to more than three hundred people. Representative inheritor of Shui horse-tail embroidery, a fourth-batch national-level intangible cultural heritage item.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Song Shuixian 04-1774
- Wei Taohua 04-1775
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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