Mongolian Costume
01 · Historical Records
The form of Mongolian costume in the Haixi area of Qinghai is directly continuous with Mongolian costume as a whole: both are the basic combination of long robe, waistcoat, boots and headdress. Haixi lies in the northwest of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, around the margins of the Qaidam Basin, with pastoralism and farming interwoven; its costume has therefore taken in Tibetan methods while retaining the old conventions of the grasslands. By type, styles such as the wuqi, chedeke, labuxige and ogeqier are not entirely identical to Mongolian robes in the heartland of the central plains; they mostly differ in the collar, the opening of the front and the front and back slits, and can be seen as traces left by costume being adjusted repeatedly between migration and settlement.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Mongolian costume is a kind of ethnic costume culture created by the Mongolian people through common labour and life over a thousand years; its history stretches far back, and it contains rich content including the Mongolian people's costume-making skills, aesthetic tastes and cultural concepts. Mongolian costume is expressed mainly in the embroidery of various garments, the decoration of everyday dress and the beautifying of articles of daily use. Among these, men's ornaments include the fire-steel, eating knife, snuff bottle, satchel, silver bowl, habuteg (bowl bag), tobacco pipe, tobacco-pipe case, bracelet and rings. In women's ornaments, married women wear plaited-style headdresses, needlework pouches, bracelets and rings, while unmarried women wear a single-plait bound hairstyle, coral forehead band, earrings, needlework cases, bracelets and rings. Haixi Mongolian costume has a strong grassland style: the costume is centred on robes, which are convenient for riding on horseback, and it has a pronounced character of a grassland people. The robe is roomy in the body, with long sleeves, and comes mostly in blue, red, yellow and green. Besides the original Mongolian styles, there are now new styles such as the wuqi, chedeke, labuxige and ogeqier. Men's costume has a round collar and an open front, with an oblique collar and right-lapel closure and coloured rolled edging; the lower hem of the robe is inlaid and embroidered with various coloured rolled borders, the robe is pieced together from satins of various colours, patterns and flowers are embroidered along the edges, and silk-thread patterns are embroidered on the collar, cuffs and front edges. The hems of both men's and women's robes are slitless, while the chedeke and ogeqier have slits at both front and back. Its robes are of roomy cut and splendid colours, noted for their bordering craft; the headdresses are simple and antique yet magnificent. Yellow, red and green satins are used for the belts. Haixi Mongolian costume both preserves the original appearance of Mongolian costume and has absorbed some features of Tibetan costume. Haixi Mongolian costume is an inseparable component of Mongolian costume culture; through its categories of dress, styles, fabric colours and sewing techniques it has created a distinctive costume culture. It is the crystallisation of the Mongolian people's long experience of production and life, and has added a brilliant lustre to the costume culture of the Chinese nation.
Front and back slits of the Chedeke and Ougqier robes
Some Haixi robes slit front and back for mounting and sitting by the fire, while other styles keep a closed hem.
Coloured piping and collar embroidery
Robes are assembled from silks, edged with embroidery and finished with silk piping worked around every corner.
Headdresses for married and unmarried women
Married women wear braided headdresses with sewing pouches, while unmarried women wear a sealed single braid with coral bands.
Wedding dress against working dress
The same wardrobe is sorted into seasonal, ceremonial and working sets, with the densest trimming reserved for weddings.
Firesteels and table knives at the waist
Firesteels, table knives, snuff flasks and saddlebags hang at fixed points on the sash, doubling as tools of camp life.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Haixi Mongolian costume is distributed mainly in Delingha City, Golmud, Ulan County, Dulan County, Mangya City and the Da Qaidam industrial and mining administrative committee area, in the cities, counties, townships, pastoral villages and Mongolian-inhabited areas of Haixi Prefecture, Qinghai Province. Owing to differences in region and custom, the costume traditions of the various areas also differ to some extent. Haixi Mongolian costume can be divided by cut and body part into caps, robes, trousers, boots, socks and so on, and by use into winter, summer, and spring-and-autumn clothing, and into ceremonial dress, everyday dress, casual wear, work wear and wedding dress. From the practical value and aesthetic ideas embodied in the costume, one can also trace the history of the local people's production and life and of ethnic intermingling and development.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Mongolian Costume · Mongolian Costume · Mongolian Costume · Mongolian Costume.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The merit of Haixi Mongolian costume lies in its keeping a complete costume genealogy in the high-altitude pastoral region: one can see both the traditional skeleton centred on robes and the incorporation of Tibetan costume in colour scheme and bordering, the two not competing for precedence but simply used in combination. The bordering craft on the costume and the meticulous treatment of silk and rolled edging show that this set of skills has not remained fixed on the old patterns but relies on a pair of hands continually adding novelty to the trimmings; the form of the headdress likewise retains the Mongolian orientation towards the antique and magnificent, and has nothing to do with contemporary trends in jewellery. Nowadays ready-made clothes and machine-woven cloth are readily available in the settlements, and hand-sewn robes appear more at festivals, gift-giving and performance occasions, with everyday wear gradually diminishing; the significance of preserving this set of skills has therefore shifted more towards transmitting the form and aesthetic intact.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Siqingbalamu 04-1981
- Mideke 04-1982
- Balagarima 05-3042
- Qimuge 05-3043
- Narenqiqige 05-3044
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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