Wunijingshougong Cotton Textile Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
The history of cotton textiles in Wunijing, Songjiang, was rewritten by a returning exile. In the late Song and early Yuan, Huang Daopo of Wunijing had drifted to Yazhou for more than thirty years; during the Yuanzhen era she returned to her hometown, bringing back both cotton-growing and textile techniques. She then improved every step of the craft — ginning, fluffing, spinning, and weaving — and created new weaving methods of color matching and pattern picking (qihua), enabling cotton cloth for the first time to bear the rich patterns of silk fabrics. The name Wunijing thus became more than a place name: it marks the starting point of a chapter in craft history. Cotton spinning rose area by area in this region; the steps of weaving, dyeing, and spinning were finely divided in labor; villages exchanged goods with bolts of cloth; and the names of printed cloth and cotton cloths of various colors appeared one after another as production grew.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The transmission of the Wunijing hand cotton textile technique derives from the textile skills Huang Daopo brought back from Yazhou. In the late Song and early Yuan, Huang Daopo of Wunijing, Songjiang Prefecture, returned to her hometown during the Yuanzhen era after more than thirty years of exile in Yazhou, spreading cotton-growing and textile techniques. She improved the crafts of ginning, fluffing, spinning, and weaving, and created weaving processes for color matching and pattern picking (qihua) forming broken-branch and round-phoenix designs, developing numerous fine cotton textiles. Huang Daopo's cotton textile techniques changed the thousand-year-old tradition of relying on silk and hemp as the principal clothing materials, transformed the economic structure of Jiangnan, and gave birth to a new cotton textile industry; the life customs and traditional marriage practices of the Jiangnan region were also altered as a result. It can be said that the Wunijing hand cotton textile technique is one of the core elements of Chinese textile technology. Historically, the printing and dyeing techniques of Wunijing, Songjiang, were also famous. Kou cloth, xi cloth, biao cloth, Ding Niangzi cloth, Goryeo cloth, twill cloth, dou cloth, purple-flower cloth, guacheng cloth, and taguang cloth enjoyed equal fame with the printed and dyed varieties such as yunqing cloth, mao baolan, gray cloth, colored printed cloth, and blue printed cloth (yaoban cloth).
Six stages from cotton opening to weaving
Cotton cloth passes through opening, bowing, spinning and weaving — traditionally counted as six stages, each with its own tools that decide the evenness and strength of the cloth.
Colour matching and figure weaving
The key innovation: colours matched first, then the fabric figured into sprays and phoenix roundels, letting Songjiang cotton rival patterned silk.
Spinning at home
The spinning wheel stands in the courtyard, one hand turning and one drawing; spinning and weaving alternate in the same yard, the basic production pattern of Wunijing cotton.
Indigo dyeing and yaoban cloth
Home-woven white cloth is repeatedly dipped in indigo to give cloud-blue and lapis tones; a resist-pasted stencil then yields the spotted indigo cloth known as yaoban.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Wunijing hand cotton textile technique is concentrated in the Xuhui District area of Shanghai, with the villages around Huajing Town as its heartland of transmission. Weaving is mostly carried out in farm households, with spinning and weaving undertaken by women; one loom per household constitutes one workshop. Cotton-spinning households in this area mostly had a sideline in dyeing: woven white cloth was dipped in vats of indigo dye to become yunqing cloth, mao baolan, and blue printed cloth (yaoban cloth), sharing a common origin with the plain cloths such as kou cloth, xi cloth, biao cloth, Ding Niangzi cloth, and Goryeo cloth, so that printing and dyeing and weaving never separated. The family of Kang Xinqin is representative: she learned to spin from the age of seven and had mastered the six process steps of ginning, fluffing, spinning, and weaving by eleven.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The inheritors who still master the hand cotton textile and printing/dyeing techniques are now seventy or eighty years old; this ancient technique faces the danger of being lost, and effective protection is necessary. Kang Xinqin (record from the official file of the associated inheritor): Female, Han ethnicity, born in 1932, of Shanghai. Representative inheritor of the Wunijing hand cotton textile technique, a national-level intangible cultural heritage item of the first batch. Kang Xinqin's maternal grandmother and mother were both skilled weavers in the village; influenced by her family, she liked weaving from childhood and began learning to spin from her mother at the age of seven. By eleven she had basically mastered the six process steps of cotton cloth weaving — ginning, fluffing, spinning, and weaving. Afterward, she passed this traditional hand textile technique on to the villagers. As an important inheritor in the Wunijing area familiar with and in command of the complete set of hand cotton textile techniques, she is frequently invited to participate in all kinds of large-scale events and give demonstration performances on site; her skilled weaving and spinning techniques have drawn attention and praise from all quarters.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Kang Xinqin 01-0136
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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