Kyrgyz Embroidery
01 · Historical Records
The ancestors of the Kirgiz people long roamed the upper reaches of the Yenisei River and the Tianshan Mountains and the Pamir Plateau, migrating with their herds and making saddlery, felt tents, and everyday articles from livestock hides and wool. Embroidery was at first a means of strengthening and decorating these articles; it was brought into Xinjiang as the tribe migrated westward and southward, and has been passed down from generation to generation in Kirgiz villages on the southern slopes of the Tianshan Mountains.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Kirgiz embroidery is a distinctive ethnic folk embroidery art, popular mainly in the Kirgiz settlement areas of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Having experienced a long nomadic life, the Kirgiz are skilled at making everyday articles from livestock hides and wool, and their embroidery art accordingly bears the character of grassland nomadic culture. Kirgiz embroidery mostly takes the sun, moon, and stars, flowers and trees, and birds and beasts as its subjects, and also includes rich and varied geometric patterns; it is used mainly to decorate everyday articles such as clothing, shoes and hats, belts, pillows, cloth coverings, felt rugs, tent curtains, and door curtains. These embroidered pieces are finely crafted, brilliantly colored, and beautiful in pattern, with a certain symbolic character; they especially favor the use of red, a color beloved of the Kirgiz people.
Sun, moon, stars, plants and beasts
Motifs run from sun, moon and stars to plants, birds and beasts, with abundant geometric patterns, all bearing symbolic meaning.
A palette led by red
The embroidery is striking in colour and favours red, interweaving floral and geometric figures on a red ground.
Hide and wool materials
Long pastoral life taught the Kyrgyz to work hide and wool, and the embroidery carries the stamp of steppe culture.
A vocational class of twenty-six inheritors
The inheritor Buruli Sikaike, born in Wensu in 1964, leads twenty-six inheritors in a vocational class for the craft.
Felt rugs, tent hangings and door curtains
The largest embroidered objects are the felt rugs, hangings and door curtains whose panels answer the structure of the yurt frame.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Within Xinjiang, Kirgiz embroidery is distributed across the Kirgiz settlement areas on the southern slopes of the Tianshan Mountains and the eastern edge of the Pamir Plateau, with the technique best preserved in the area around Wensu County; the protecting institution is the Wensu County Cultural Center (Wensu County Art Troupe). Local embroidery is mostly practiced on a family basis—mothers bringing along daughters and mothers-in-law teaching daughters-in-law—and the embroidered pieces serve both for family daily use and as gifts to relatives and friends.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Buruli Sikaike (according to the official file of the associated inheritor): female, Kirgiz, born September 1964, from Wensu County, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. From childhood she learned traditional embroidery from her mother. She has inherited the key techniques of Kirgiz embroidery and its various stitches, and has developed her own technical characteristics and stylistic features in pattern design and color matching. Her embroidered pieces have exquisite patterns, bright colors, an unpretentious and honest simplicity, and sturdiness and durability, and have been widely recognized by fellow practitioners and society. She is a representative inheritor of Kirgiz Embroidery, a national-level intangible cultural heritage project from the fifth national-level batch. She has actively participated in display and promotion activities for Kirgiz embroidery and has won awards many times. Devoted to the cultivation of successors, she has not only led her own children into embroidery work but also organized 26 inheritors into a vocational class in Kirgiz embroidery technique, so that the technique has been effectively transmitted and protected.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Buruli Sikaike 05-2697
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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