Tujia Brocade Weaving Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
The history of Tujia brocade can be inferred retrospectively from the uses and names of its artifacts. The flower-picked coverlet (xilankapu in the Tujia language) is a large item indispensable to weddings; its weaving is time-consuming and laborious, and so it became the first thing that family members would put real effort into learning to weave. The flower sash has an even wider popular reach: for waist bands, sash ornaments and everyday tying, it can be woven at any time and requires almost no special tools. This division of labor between the two fabrics — one weighty, one light — meant that brocade weaving always had two stable bases of demand throughout its long history, and it also meant that the pattern-picking and warp-drafting method (tiaohua jieben) was used repeatedly across generations without being lost. The two techniques used for xilankapu and flower sashes — discontinuous-weft pattern-picking (tongjing duanwei wahua) and continuous-warp-and-weft warp-patterning (tongjing tongwei jinghua) — are precisely the two basic poles of the Tujia brocade system: one seeking refinement, the other seeking convenience. Their coexistence gives Tujia brocade both the complete pictorial compositions of the xilankapu type and the weave-anywhere convenience of the flower-sash type.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Tujia brocade is woven with cotton yarn and is commonly called 'dahua' (flower-picking); its two main varieties are the flower-picked coverlet (xilankapu in the Tujia language) and the flower sash. Xilankapu is woven on an ancient all-wood back-tensioned tilted loom; its process consists mainly of twelve steps — spinning and twisting yarn, dyeing, winding, warping, reed-setting, rolling, heddle selection, turning the reed, pattern-picking, binding and mounting on the loom, weaving and figured picking — with patterns and floral designs picked using the 'reverse-weaving method.' The flower sash is the more widely popular variety of Tujia brocade; it uses the ancient 'warp-patterning' (jinghua) technique of 'continuous warp and continuous weft' (tongjing tongwei), and can be completed between the weaver's knees with almost no special tools. The Tujia brocade weaving technique of western Hunan has a long history of more than fifteen hundred years since it took form, and embodies the basic characteristics of the brocade-weaving system of China's ethnic minorities. The more than four hundred traditional patterns of Tujia brocade are a distinctive expression of its national cultural psychology and of the cultural accumulation of different eras, fully demonstrating the creativity of the Tujia people, and bearing positive witness to the formation and development of the plural culture of the Chinese nation. The Tujia area of the Youshui River basin in western Hunan is the native land and last remaining stronghold of Tujia brocade handcraft, and the only region among the Tujia people nationwide that still preserves the folk custom of weaving today.
Archival Records of Process Steps
Xilankapu is woven on an ancient all-wood back-tensioned tilted loom; its process consists mainly of twelve steps — spinning and twisting yarn, dyeing, winding, warping, reed-setting, rolling, heddle selection, turning the reed, pattern-picking, binding and mounting on the loom, weaving and figured picking — with patterns and floral designs picked using the 'reverse-weaving method.'
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Tujia brocade weaving technique of the Youshui River basin in western Hunan is mainly distributed in the Tujia settlement areas of Yongshun, Longshan, Baojing and Guzhang counties. Among these, xilankapu is the most representative and typical; it uses the 'discontinuous weft' (tongjing duanwei) pattern-picking technique, and is divided into two main schools: the 'duixie' plain-weave solid-color series and the 'shangxiaxie' twill colored series.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
However, social transformation and changes in economic structure and cultural consciousness are gradually depriving the Tujia brocade weaving technique of the soil and environment on which it depends, bringing it into a state of comprehensive endangerment; strong measures are urgently needed to protect it. Ye Shuiyun (recorded in the official archive of the associated inheritor): Female, Tujia ethnicity, born in 1967, from Fenghuang, Hunan. Representative inheritor of the Tujia brocade weaving technique, a national-level intangible cultural heritage project in the first national-level batch; master of Chinese arts and crafts. Tujia brocade of western Hunan is a technique woven by reverse-side pattern-picking on a tilted wooden loom; textual research shows that it has a history of more than fifteen hundred years. At the age of twelve, Ye Shuiyun learned Tujia brocade and folk painting from her great-aunt Ye Yucui, and at fifteen formally took Ye Yucui as her teacher, systematically studying the basic skills of Tujia brocade and some special techniques. In 1983 she accompanied Ye Yucui into the Longshan County Brocade Factory as her assistant, participating in the rescue and organization of traditional Tujia brocade patterns. In 1988 she was admitted to the fine arts program of Fenghuang County Vocational Secondary School; after graduating with excellent results, she remained there as a teacher, and continues to teach there to this day. Representative works include Chair Flower, Great Rock-Wall Flower and Dragon and Phoenix Auspiciousness. To date, Ye Shuiyun has been engaged in the study, production, research and teaching of Tujia brocade for more than twenty years. Building on the legacy of her predecessors, she applied the 'half-cell' (bange) pattern-picking method to decorative figure painting and also pioneered the color-gradation method, teaching large numbers of students and apprentices. Liu Dai'e (recorded in the official archive of the associated inheritor): Female, Tujia ethnicity, born in 1955, from Longshan, Hunan. Representative inheritor of the Tujia brocade weaving technique, a national-level intangible cultural heritage project in the first national-level batch; master of Chinese brocade craftsmanship. Liu Dai'e's brocade technique has been transmitted within her family from generation to generation; at twelve she learned brocade weaving from her grandmother Pengmei, and after graduating from senior high school she professionally engaged in brocade weaving at home. In a brocade career of more than forty years, she has carried on the family craft while broadly collecting and accumulating; the traditional Tujia brocades she has gathered and collected alone number more than one hundred. The raw materials she uses are still carefully prepared according to the traditional requirements of silk warp with cotton weft, or all-silk warp and weft; her works are fine and meticulous, and very popular. In the 1980s and 1990s she was successively engaged by several ethnic brocade factories and taught more than a hundred apprentices; Hubei Institute for Nationalities and Jishou University, relying on her 'Laoche River Tujia Brocade Craft Workshop,' established field-culture research bases and achieved good research results. Representative works include Rock-Wall Flower and Boat-Boat Flower.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Ye Shuiyun 01-0137
- Liu Daie 01-0138
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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