Qiang Embroidery
01 · Historical Records
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, Qiang cross-stitch embroidery was already very prevalent in the Qiang regions.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Qiang embroidery is a traditional embroidery art practiced in the Qiang settlement areas of Sichuan and elsewhere, and it has a long history. After their labor, Qiang women take up needle and thread and embroider freely, creating in practice a Qiang embroidery rich in ethnic characteristics. Qiang embroidery stitching centers on the delicate jiahua technique (cross-stitch picking), and includes many others besides, such as zhizi (figured weaving), nahua (bunched stitch), piehua (flat satin stitch), and gouhua (chain stitch). Each of these techniques has its own character: nahua produces a uniquely bright and delicate effect, while gouhua appears bold and uninhibited. Qiang embroidery most often takes flowers, plants, vegetables and fruits, and birds and beasts as its subjects, and can also depict human figures. Its embroidered content is invariably fine and beautiful, lifelike, and full of auspicious meaning, reflecting the Qiang people’s longing for a better life. Qiang embroidered articles are most famous for their floral aprons and yunyun shoes; their embroidered patterns are mostly geometric, with rigorous composition, even organization, and extremely strong decorative quality. Their colors are bright and clear, mostly black and white, while the coloring applied in the cross-stitch and nahua work is dazzlingly brilliant, like a five-colored rainbow. Qiang embroidery is both beautiful and practical: the parts decorated with embroidery are precisely those places on garments and worn articles that are liable to wear and tear, and the dense stitches increase the clothing’s resistance to abrasion, revealing the ingenuity and craftsmanship of the Qiang people in design.
Five stitches of Qiang embroidery
Raised cross-stitch leads, with pattern-weaving, looped flower, flat flower and chain-loop; the loop is bright and clear, the chain bold and rough.
Aprons and cloud shoes
Its best-known products are the flower apron and the cloud shoe, geometrically patterned, strictly composed and set with silver plaques and roe-teeth.
Wang Guofang and her motifs
Wang Guofang learned from her mother and was threading needles at twelve; her seal-flower, ram's-horn and wan motifs are strongly Qiang in character.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Qiang embroidery is practiced in the Qiang settlement areas of Wenchuan, Li County, Mao County, Songpan in Sichuan, and Ningqiang in Shaanxi. The cross-stitch patterns on aprons, yunyun shoes, and baby carriers differ from family to family, each serving as a household emblem; the jiahua (cross-stitch picking) of the Wenchuan area is the most renowned, and traditional motifs such as yinzihua (seal-flower patterns), yangjiaohua (goat-horn flowers), and the swastika (wan) symbol are believed to be connected with the totems and blessing beliefs of the ancient Qiang people, and also serve as important markers by which different villages recognize their kin.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Wang Guofang (as recorded in the official archive of the associated inheritor): female, of the Qiang nationality, born in February 1935, a native of Wenchuan County, Sichuan Province. From childhood she studied Qiang embroidery under her mother Wang Yuhua, and by the age of twelve she could already embroider with a flying needle. She has mastered many Qiang embroidery stitch techniques, including gouhua, jiahua, and piehua. The patterns of her embroidered works draw largely on traditional Qiang elements, such as yinzihua, yangjiaohua, and the swastika (wan) symbol; they are strongly decorative and distinctly national and regional in character, and the human figures, animals, flowers, plants, vegetables, and fruits she embroiders are delicate, exquisite, and lifelike. She is devoted to transmitting Qiang embroidery technique: she has carefully taught her own daughter, is glad to pass the art on to enthusiasts at large, and has served as a teacher of Qiang embroidery courses in schools. She is a representative inheritor of Qiang embroidery, a national-level intangible cultural heritage item in the third national-level batch. Li Xingxiu (as recorded in the official archive of the associated inheritor): female, of the Qiang nationality, born in April 1961, a native of Mao County, Sichuan Province. Influenced from childhood by her maternal grandmother and mother, she began learning embroidery at the age of eight through constant exposure. She has practiced Qiang embroidery for more than forty years, comprehensively mastering all of its techniques as well as its most difficult and most central skills, and her embroidery is highly accomplished. She has excavated and systematized Qiang embroidery techniques and Qiang costume, and, on the basis of inheriting tradition, has pursued innovation and exploration, introducing many new types of Qiang embroidery and many new styles of Qiang dress with novel design concepts. In addition, she has trained large numbers of embroiderers for many embroidery enterprises and training classes. She is a representative inheritor of Qiang embroidery, a national-level intangible cultural heritage item in the fifth national-level batch. She actively transmits the technique and has taken on thirty-three apprentices, among them Ren Kangqin, Li Hui, and Zhang Heqiong, who have become autonomous-prefecture-level inheritors, and Pan Yunlan and others, who have become county-level inheritors.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Wang Guofang 03-1293
- Li Xingxiu 05-2686
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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