Bai Tie-dyeing Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the dyeing and weaving craft of the Bai region around Erhai Lake had already reached a very high level, and dyeing guilds appeared; the Erhai Guard red cloth of the Ming dynasty and the Xizhou cloth and Dali cloth of the Qing dynasty were all best-selling products of their time.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Tie-dyeing, called 'jiaoxie' in antiquity, is one of China's ancient textile dyeing techniques. Zhoucheng Village in Dali City, Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, and the Dacang and Miaojie areas of Weishan Yi and Hui Autonomous County still preserve this traditional craft today; among them, the tie-dyeing industry of the Bai of Zhoucheng is the most famous, and the village was named a 'Hometown of Ethnic Tie-Dyeing' by the Ministry of Culture. According to historical records, dyeing and weaving methods already existed in the Dali region in the Eastern Han period. In the sixteenth year of the Zhenyuan era of the Tang dynasty, a Nanzhao dance troupe went to Chang'an to perform; the dance costumes they wore — 'skirts and jackets with birds, beasts, grass, and trees, patterned in eight mixed colors' — were made by tie-dyeing. In modern times, Dali's dyeing and weaving industry continued to develop, and Zhoucheng became a hand-weaving and dyeing village known far and wide. Tie-dyeing generally uses white cotton cloth, or a cotton-linen blended white cloth, as its raw material; the dye is mainly plant indigo (commonly called 'banlangen' by the people of Yunnan). The main steps of tie-dyeing are drawing and brushing the pattern, binding and tying (jiaozha), soaking, dyeing the cloth, steaming and boiling, sun-drying, removing the threads, and rolling the cloth; the technical crux lies in the binding technique and the dyeing craft. Dye vats, dye sticks, drying racks, and stone rollers are the main tools of tie-dyeing. Dali Bai tie-dyeing displays a strong folk-art character; its more than one thousand motifs are a microcosm of Bai history and culture over the centuries, reflecting the customs and aesthetic tastes of the Bai people; together with the various craft techniques, they constitute the richly appealing Dali Bai weaving and dyeing culture. However, the current trend toward industrialization has driven some traditional tie-dyeing techniques to extinction; the original folk character has begun to degenerate, pollution problems have become increasingly prominent, market operations have bred an excessive pursuit of economic profit, and plant indigo (banlangen) is in short supply. Only by earnestly solving the above problems can the inheritance and development of the traditional Bai weaving and dyeing technique of Dali be promoted.
Painting the resist pattern
The motif is drawn in white on cotton or cotton-hemp cloth, then bound along the outline; the painter and the binder must work as one for the pattern to hold.
Binding and twisting
Binding is the technical crux: needle, thread and tension create folds that resist the bath, so the same motif yields a different result each time it is tied.
The dye vat and dip stick
The dye is plant indigo, called banlangen locally; the dip stick sets the depth, the drying rack catches the drips and the stone roller presses the finish.
Steaming, untying and rolling
The sequence is painting, binding, soaking, dyeing, steaming, drying, untying and rolling; untying only after cooling, or the creases set hard and rigid.
Pick, hook and combined bindings
The bindings grew from five methods to twenty-six, adding pick, hook and combined ties, so each of the thousand-odd patterns has its own binding logic.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Bai tie-dyeing comes in a wide variety; its patterns are mostly small natural-form motifs, evenly distributed, with auspicious themes; it has important aesthetic value and practical function, and is highly regarded by consumers at home and abroad.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Tie-dyeing Craftsmanship.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Under these circumstances, the transmission of the Bai tie-dyeing technique has fallen into difficulty. Zhang Shishen (related inheritor, official archive record): male, Bai ethnicity, born in 1941, from Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan. Representative inheritor of the Bai tie-dyeing technique, a national-level intangible cultural heritage item of the first batch. Zhang Shishen began learning the tie-dyeing technique from his mother in 1956; the craft was interrupted for a time during the 'Cultural Revolution' period and resumed in the 1980s, and in 1987 he became director of the Zhoucheng Ethnic Tie-Dyeing Factory, formally engaging in and supervising tie-dyeing production. Relying on the tie-dyeing techniques and methods passed down in his family, he continuously experimented and innovated, combining modern dye-printing techniques and making full use of pure plant dyes such as indigo to create more than a thousand excellent works with ornamental, collectible, and practical value. The stitch methods of Bai tie-dyeing originally numbered only five; after his improvements they developed to twenty-six, adding pick-binding, hook-binding, and combination binding, among others; the range of colors and varieties was greatly enriched; and products made from tie-dyed cloth also continually expanded, extending to every aspect of life. During the twenty-plus years Zhang Shishen served as director of the Ethnic Tie-Dyeing Factory, he pushed its products to Japan, the United States, and more than ten other countries and regions, earning income for the state while also providing employment for more than four thousand village households. Duan Yinkai (related inheritor, official archive record): female, Bai ethnicity, born in April 1975, from Dali City, Yunnan. Representative inheritor of the Bai tie-dyeing technique, a national-level intangible cultural heritage item of the fifth batch. Born into a tie-dyeing family, she joined the Zhoucheng Ethnic Tie-Dyeing Factory in 1989. Over her thirty-plus years in the craft, she has mastered the Bai tie-dyeing technique, collected and systematized more than thirty traditional binding techniques, and enriched the colors and motifs of tie-dyeing. She regularly gives lectures at universities within the province each year. In 2014 she raised funds on her own to establish the Bai Tie-Dyeing Culture Museum. Her works are fresh and elegantly understated, with a distinctive charm. The wall hangings 'Guanyin with a Willow Branch' and 'Flying Apsaras' have been collected by the Yunnan Provincial Museum and the Dali Municipal Archives.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Zhang Shishen 01-0145
- Zhang Xiaoping 05-2738
- Duan Yinkai 05-2739
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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