Ethnic Costumes

Distinctive costumes, often quite colourful, are the most immediately appreciated aspect of minority nationality cultures. Each of the 25 nationalities has its own traditional clothing and within each minority the various sub-groups all have separate styles, in many cases a totally different look than that of their ethnic cousins. Furthermore, each sub-group prescribes the clothing components by sex as well as age, and sometimes by rank, role or status. The diversity of ethnic costumes in Yunnan surpasses even that of languages.

Ethnic style has changed over the centuries, for it has always depended upon the type and availability of materials as much as their use. With modern communications in place throughout the province, more and different materials can be purchased in markets now, while the end of isolation means exposure to new influences and the almost inevitable change in aesthetic taste. The most obvious example of new influences has been the increased use of colour. Aniline dyes have produced a greater range of colours for both cloth and thread than the limited natural dyes procurable in any one minority-inhabited area. Textile mills produce cotton and woolen cloth cheaply and women who would have had to weave it at home a generation or two ago can now buy it at the store.

The markets also stock huge amounts of inexpensive, modern-style clothing and many minority people have come to prefer this to their own traditional costumes. Or mix it with their own. In general the men have abandoned their traditional costumes and dress like the Han men in the towns, or wear surplus military clothing. But around the world men are the first to give up their ethnic costumes. They are outside the village more, more likely to know the majority community's language and understand the comments about them in the towns, more apt to conceal their ethnic identity in social or commercial encounters so as to become part of the anonymous mainstream. In Yunnan the only minority men who may still dress in their ethnic style are the Tibetans, the Dulong, the Lisu, some northern Yi groups and the Yao. But among the rest many men will carry their ethnic group's shoulder bag or keep a set of traditional garments for special occasions like the biggest annual festival, weddings or funerals.

Some ethnic groups are more fashion-conservative than others. In Zhaotong Prefecture on the walls of a 3rd century Han prince's tomb is a mural that depicts the sundry peoples of the vicinity who attended the funeral.The Yi are easy to recognise, for the male figures wear wide-legged trousers and big turbans. The women wear ankle-length skirts and wide-brimmed hats, while both sexes wear long capes. This is basically the same costume worn by the Yi today in the same prefecture, plus across the border in Daliangshan, Sichuan, and in Xiaoliangshan, Ninglang County. Not quite so ancient, evidence in the form of illustrations made by the official artist Louis Delaporte on the French Mekong Expedition in the 1860's show that the basic components of Miao, Aini and Red Lahu have not changed since then..

In other cases the changes are within the cultural aesthetic milieu. The availability of so many colours of thread has led to an explosion in colour. Among those groups where the tradition has remained strong-various Yi, Hani and Miao in particular the younger generation of female embroiderers does more outstanding work than their mothers. Occasionally the youth add to the costume. The Huayao Yi girls, when fully dressed in heavily embroidered vest, hat, and a belt with big wide ends that drape over the buttocks, add one item their mothers never wore-a narrow, tasseled sash, also fully embroidered, which is tucked into the belt at the sides.

Not all cloth production has been left to the mills. For reasons of economics or just personal preference, women in various parts of the province still weave their own cloth. Some spin the thread and dye it, too. Thread can be cotton, wool or hemp, the latter the most labourious to produce, requiring a long series of washings in various solutions before the hemp stalks are finally transformed into something which can be spun.

Wool thread comes from sheep and is used by the northern Yi to weave the more expensive types of capes. The cheaper variety uses felt wool. Tibetans also use wool thread for knitted mufflers and sweaters, like all people in the colder parts of Yunnan, but also for weaving wide woolen belts and for carpets.

Two basic loom types exist in the province: the simple backstrap loom and the wooden-framed, bigger loom with bench. The first type consists of a set of bamboo sticks, the backstrap and a wooden beating sword. Fully portable, it can be set up anywhere. Those used in Yunnan produce cloth up to 50 cm wide and make anything from belts to sarongs. The woman winds the thread around the end stick, then around the stick nearest her. Thinner sticks go at spots in between the weaver and the end stick, which is mounted on a post, wall or tree up to two metres away. One stick is employed as a continuous string heddle, which separates every other thread and enables the weaver to open a shed in the warp, through which she slips the weft thread on a shuttle. The beating sword she uses to bunch the weft threads firmly against each other. Tension is maintained by the weaver herself, as she leans against the strap that connects to the warp stick nearest her. The Wa, Nu, Jingpo, Jinuo and some of the Yi use this loom.

Other weavers of the Dai, Yi, Miao, Buyi, Hani and Zhuang use a larger, wooden-frame loom which usually sits on the front porch or just inside the house, beside one of its few windows. A much longer bolt of cloth is possible on one of these looms, 50 metres or more, for the warp threads are wrapped around a cylinder at the far end. They are first passed through a reed to keep them separate and in order. Then they are inserted through two or four sets of loop heddles, one by one, which are connected to foot-operated treadles. By depressing one or one pair of treadles the weaver opens the shed, shoots the weft shuttle through and pulls the reed towards her to knock it into place. The use of four shafts, which can create more complex textures, is less widespread.

Besides embroidered patterns and pictures, minorities embellish their costumes with silver studs, coins,badges and ornaments, cowry shells, Job's tear seeds,beads, animal fur, feathers and shiny green beetle wings.Silver is the preferred metal of ornamentation for most minorities. Gold is popular among the Dai. Most minority women wear fancy head-dresses. Sometimes the style indicates marital status. With some of the most assimilated groups this is the last component of the traditional costume retained, as a kind of ethnic badge for those women unwilling to Sinicise or modernise completely.In other places it's the shoulder hag. But in a surprisingly large percentage of communities the traditional costume,among the women anyway,is still the norm for everyday wear.In such areas ethnic pride is at its strongest.

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