Manchu Embroidery
01 · Historical Records
It originated in the time of Nurhaci, founding emperor (Taizu) of the Qing dynasty, a period when the Manchu people were beginning a life of farming and settlement and were first mastering the techniques of growing cotton and weaving cloth.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Embroidery is the most distinctive traditional art of the Manchu people, transmitted among the Manchu folk from ancient times to the present, enduring without decline. Manchu embroidery is strongly practical: it is found everywhere on everyday articles and dress, and is most exquisite in pillow-end embroidery. Manchu embroidery absorbs the strong points of famous Han embroideries such as Su embroidery, Shu embroidery, and Guang embroidery, skillfully blending them with the aesthetic concepts and living customs of its own people to form its own character and charm, revealing the plain folkways of Manchu forebears and the clever hands and ingenious minds of the women of the Eight Banners. Manchu embroidery uses gauze or satin fabric as its principal material, with homespun cloth and blue-and-white cloth as supplements. In composition the works stress left-right symmetry — either answering each other in balance, or with the green dragon on the left and the white tiger on the right — or the cut-embroidery (gexiu) method is used to make the two sides exactly identical. Manchu embroidery has a great variety of designs, bringing into the frame birds and beasts, flowers and plants, fish and insects, and human figures and stories, all expressing the wish for good fortune. The composition of the embroidery carries on the traditional technical rules of Chinese art, peeling back layer after layer and alternating density with sparseness, achieving a state in which 'the sparse is open enough for a horse to gallop and the dense admits not a breath of wind', and displaying a very high artistic standard. Changbai Mountain Manchu pillow-end embroidery is an important component of Manchu folk embroidery art; it is popular in the Changbai Mountain area around Tonghua, Jilin Province, where Manchu people live in concentrated communities. The Changbai Mountain region has a cold climate, and people are accustomed to sleeping on cloth pillows. Among the local Manchu there is a distinctive marriage custom: before her wedding a girl must herself embroider dozens, even a hundred or more pairs of pillow ends, which are displayed in the bridal chamber at the wedding. For this very reason pillow-end embroidery is held in the highest esteem in the Changbai Mountain region. Local Manchu women embroider flowers and stitch sprays of ornament at both ends of their pillows; over time this became established custom, giving rise to the distinctive craft of pillow-end embroidery. This category of embroidery, unique to the Manchu, is rich in types and exquisite in workmanship, with extremely high artistic value, and is of great help in understanding and studying Changbai Mountain Manchu culture and social life.
Two pillow tops joined into one
A pair of pillow tops is designed as a single picture split down the middle, and the pair formed part of a girl's dowry and later the marital bed display.
Cotton growing under Nurhaci
It began in Nurhaci's time, when the Manchus took up farming and learned to grow cotton and weave locally, making decorated pillows an everyday object.
Open enough to ride, closed enough to shelter
Its layered, alternating densities follow the classic rule, and Tonghua Normal University has codified the patterns into a teaching manual.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Manchu pillow-end embroidery is the most exquisite branch of Manchu embroidery, centered on the Manchu villages of the Changbai Mountains around Tonghua City, Jilin Province. Local Manchu pillow ends are usually joined in pairs to form a whole panel, so the embroidered designs stress left-right symmetry, with the green dragon on the left and the white tiger on the right; the composition carries on the traditional technical rules of Chinese art, peeling back layer after layer and alternating density with sparseness, achieving 'the sparse open enough for a horse to gallop and the dense admitting not a breath of wind'. Manchu women still regard it as an essential part of their needlework at home on the kang and before festivals and weddings.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Manchu Embroidery · Manchu Embroidery · Manchu Embroidery · Manchu Embroidery · Manchu Embroidery.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Changbai Mountain Manchu pillow-end embroidery originated in the time of Nurhaci, founding emperor (Taizu) of the Qing dynasty, a period when the Manchu people were beginning a life of farming and settlement and were first mastering the techniques of growing cotton and weaving cloth. Tonghua Normal University and other institutions have incorporated pillow-end embroidery into teaching and study, compiling a genealogy of patterns and training inheritors; its materials are principally gauze or satin fabric, with homespun cloth and blue-and-white cloth as supplements, and the works are seen both in everyday living spaces and as gifts and festive displays.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Xia Liyun 05-2693
- Sun Yanling 05-2694
- Liu Yamei 05-2695
- Zhang Lixin
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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