The Weaving Ancestors to Make New Contributions

Li people have a long glorious history of the family handicraft industry. As early as is in the Tang and Song dynasties, their technique of cotton spinning and weaving already keep ahead of that of Central Plains. In the early years of the Yuan Dynasty, Huang Daopo, a renowned Chinese female scientist, went to Yazhou to study the spinning and weaving craft of Li people. Later she disseminated it to the Yangtze River reach, and also led to the development of the cotton spinning and weaving techniques in Central Plain. Her name went down in history for that. Though the textile tools of Li people are not complex, the handicraft produces is actually renowned at home and abroad. The “two-sided embroidery” is particularly outstanding, and it is mainly used as the coat decoration, such as the clothes side embroidery and the clothes back embroidery. Sometimes, to give prominance to the patterns of the embroidery, emboider the colored lines along the rim. The designs are all embroidered melodiously. Li people select their clothing designs from human being, animals, plant and geometric figures that can be seen in their ordinary life. As for the color, red, yellow, and white collors are generally applied. On the kerchief, coat, and skirt of Li women there often insert gold and silver foil, mica flake, and feather. They can also be decorated with the shells, stringed beads, copper coins, copper bells or tassels. A dramatical sound and color effect is produced.

After China adopted the reform and open policy, in order to inherit and develop the traditional Li techniques, the Li brocade research institute has been set up in Wuzhishan (Formerly the city of Tongshi).