Tu Costume
01 · Historical Records
The origins of Tu costume are directly related to the geographical position of the Tu settlements. The Huzhu area lies on the eastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, on the boundary between farming and nomadism, so this branch of costume has borne traces of both pastoral and farming cultures from the start: the thick, substantial work with hide and fur comes from the pastoral regions, while the fine, dense techniques of embroidery, plaited embroidery (panxiu), and rolled edging are closer to the ways of the Han regions and the Qinghai-Tibet area. The oldest local costume names, such as Tuohuan, Niuda, Pusier, Xiusu, and Qiarang, are not later additions but old designations given by Tu ancestors in the course of their long agro-pastoral life; some of the specific forms these names refer to are now lost.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Tu costume is rich in variety and has a distinctive style; its oldest garments include Tuohuan, Niuda, Pusier, Xiusu, Qiarang, and others.
Old cut pieces of tuohuan and niuda
These oldest Tujia garment names each had their own cut and fittings; some now survive only as names to be reconstructed.
Pan embroidery beside fine embroidery
Coarse pan embroidery covers borders and laps, fine embroidery marks the visible places, and the pair makes the local look.
Wedding and festival dress
Weddings call for complete new sets whose pattern and colours are fixed, with the embroidery shared among several women.
Skill handed down through family workshops
Family workshops train from embroidery at eight through factory cutting, so a maker is independent in their twenties.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Huzhu Tu Autonomous County in Qinghai Province is the most concentrated center of transmission for Tu costume. Among the Tu villages within the county, practices are not uniform: dress around the county seat, where cloth is plentiful, tends to be bright and new, while that of the mountain villages is still dominated by dark colors that resist dirt. The same Tu garment is put to different uses on different occasions: for going out to market it is worn neatly and completely, while for household labor its sturdy side is taken advantage of. Plaited embroidery and embroidery were originally the everyday handiwork of the women; today they are mostly produced in batches by garment workshops according to the traditional patterns.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Huzhu Tu costume bears the blended character of pastoral and farming cultures; it condenses the national spirit of the Tu people and contains rich historical, religious, and folk-cultural connotations, showing great value for research into the history and culture of the people. With changing times and the continuing strengthening of exchange and integration among the various ethnic groups, some ancient Tu garments of Huzhu have already been lost, and many surviving Tu costumes have gradually lost their original characteristics. Vigorously excavating and systematizing traditional Tu costume is a matter of urgent necessity. Xi Xiuzhong (recorded in the official archives of the associated inheritor): Female, Tu ethnicity, born in April 1956, from Huzhu Tu Autonomous County, Qinghai Province. From the age of eight she began studying Tu plaited embroidery, embroidery, and the cutting and sewing of Tu costume. She later entered the Huzhu County Tu Garment Factory for systematic study of Tu costume cutting and production techniques. By her twenties she had mastered all the techniques of Tu costume. In 1981 she founded her own Tu costume processing workshop at home, producing and processing Tu costume, and trained large numbers of apprentices, bringing up a group of excellent Tu costume craftsmen. She is a representative inheritor of Tu costume, a national-level intangible cultural heritage item in the fifth national-level batch. She comes from a family of Tu costume makers; both her grandmother and her mother were local inheritors of Tu costume.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Xi Xiuzhong 05-3051
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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