Origins of Miao Embroidery
1 min readThe exact origin of the Miao Embroidery is extremely difficult to trace today. And the consensus the people have now is that four or five thousand years ago during the Chieftain Chiyou times the people wore military clothing and their embroidery was still in infant period and the current Miao embroidery costumes were non-existent then .
Historical literature does have a description of the Miao clothing as “bird and flower patterns” and that is pinpointed to Sanmiao Kingdom times about 3000 year ago when the Miao tribes established tribal alliance. Later on in Chu Kingdom time at Spring and Autumn period(bc770-476), Miao embroidery skills had developed significantly.
The Miao embroidery we see today is at most 200 years old as the quality of the materials utilized determined its life span From what can been seen today, we can conclude that 100 to 150 years ago at later Qing and early Republic times, Miao embroidery was at its apex, and the most collectable pieces today mostly date back to this period. We can determine the time, place of origin and value by their styles, shapes and forms, themes, material quality, skills and background decorations.
Butterfly dress in Rongjiang County. Embroidery and embroidering are the things through their whole lifetime. However embroidering is something of a seasonal feature and the times for sitting down for embroidering are not many in a year.
