The costumes of the "Ga Nao" branch of the Miao ethnic group are mainly distributed in Liuzhi Special District, Guizhou. Liuzhi Special District, Guizhou is located in the central part of Guizhou Province. It is the eastern gate of Liupanshui City and is located on the watershed of the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and the Pearl River. There are Han, Yi, Miao, Buyi, Gelao, Hui, Mongolian and other ethnic groups. In the mountains at the junction of Liuzhi Special District and Zhijin County, there lives a branch of the Miao ethnic group with a unique culture. They are concentrated in the territory of Suojia Miao, Yi and Hui Township in Liuzhi Special District, usually called Suojia "Qing Miao" community. The colorful costume art of the Suoga "Qing Miao" is distributed in 12 villages in the Suoga "Qing Miao" community, namely Anzhu Village, Anzhu Village, Longga Village, Xiaobatian Village, Gaoxing Village, and Bukong Village in Suoga Miao, Yi, and Hui Ethnic Township, Liuzhi Special District; Dawan New Village, Xinfa Village, Xinzhai Village, Xinhua Township; Houzhai, Guanzhai Village, Miao Village, Xiaoxin Village, Huadong Village, and Yizhongdi Village in Agong Town, Zhijin County. The population is about 5,000 people, concentrated in the Suoga Miao, Yi, and Hui Ethnic Township, Liuzhi Special District, covering an area of more than 120 square kilometers, with an altitude of 1,400-2,200 meters. It belongs to karst landforms and has a mid-subtropical humid climate. The Miao people have a long history. More than 5,000 years ago, their ancestors had formed the "Jiuli" tribal alliance in the lower reaches of the Yellow River and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Later, they gradually evolved into "Sanmiao", "Nanman (also known as 'Jingchu'), and "Jingman". At the same time, the Miao people withdrew from their original place of residence and moved south, and gradually migrated to the northwest and southwest mountainous areas, covering 10 provinces and cities including Guizhou, Hunan, Yunnan, Sichuan, Guangxi, Hubei, Chongqing, Hainan, Shaanxi, and Beijing. Some of them, especially the Miao compatriots who speak the first dialect of the Sichuan-Guizhou-Yunnan sub-dialect, have crossed the border to various Southeast Asian countries and even to America and Europe. For a long time, people have made farming their profession, migrated for survival, and migrated for development. They always stay in one place for a period of time and then go to another place to rebuild their homes. People went farther and farther, and became more and more scattered, forming several branches, but the cultural traditions remained unchanged. Over the long years, a mother tongue culture has evolved into a variety of sub-cultures with dialects and vernaculars. Due to the different cultural and ecological environments, it has evolved into a variety of different clothing cultures, resulting in different festival customs and religious beliefs, etc., forming a huge and complex Miao cultural system. The Miao people in Suojia community also went through a long and difficult migration process. They moved to the mountains of Suojia and settled there in the early Qing Dynasty. Most of them live together in families, and the villages are located on the hillside or the top of the mountain. The wooden crescent-shaped long comb and the unique headdress and clothing are the symbols, which were roughly formed during the settlement period of the "Qing Miao" village in Suojia. At the same time, this headdress and clothing have become the symbols of ethnic identity and distinguished from other branches of the ethnic group. The colorful clothing of the "Qing Miao" in Suojia is mainly women's clothing. The women's tops are cross-collared, narrow-sleeved, flat-hemmed swallowtail style. The front is at the belly level, and the back is long to the knee and the skirt level. The colorful clothing of the "Qing Miao" in Suojia is mainly divided into two types: batik painted clothing and embroidered clothing. Most batik-painted tops have batik-painted fronts (front-buttoned), sleeves and backs, with black, red, yellow and orange as the main colors. The fronts are batik-painted and embroidered, with bright red, yellow and orange as the main colors. A few have black and white batik on the front and sleeves, and batik-painted backs, with the same colors as the front. Embroidered tops are mainly divided into fully embroidered tops and batik-and-embroidered tops. The front, sleeves and backs of fully embroidered tops are embroidered, with black, red, bright red, yellow, orange and blue as the main colors. Batik-painted and embroidered tops are based on blue and white batik with a small amount of embroidered embroidery, with red, black and white as the main colors. The skirt is pleated, with batik on the upper part of five to seven inches, and eight continuous horizontal patterns of embroidered embroidery on the lower part, less than one inch wide, with a black bottom made of linen (now mostly blue cotton cloth), and the skirt is calf-length. When wearing clothes, they wear a black round wool felt waistband with hanging pockets (children's clothes use embroidered waistbands instead), which can hold things and warm hands. The chest strap of the waistband with hanging pockets is matched with several white cloth embroidered hand towels; the neck belt is made of copper collar; the leggings are made of wool felt, and the feet wear high-waisted leather-soled embroidered sandals with upturned toes and boat-shaped shoes. The headdress is a wooden horn about 1.5 feet long on the head. Usually, the hair is not tied up. When dressed up, long hair (or wool, or long hair and wool mixed) is tied on the long horn to form a huge bun (weighing about 2 kilograms). The colorful costumes of the "Qing Miao" in Suoga (mainly women's clothing) preserve many ancient cultural information. Its core and soul are the women's spinning and weaving, batik, and embroidery art, especially the simple colorful batik art, which has been preserved to this day and has become a treasure in the cultural art of the "Qing Miao" in Suoga. The extremely rich patterns, lines and various ideographic and symbolic symbols on these costumes constitute an important part of the Qing Miao culture. The elders of this ethnic group can interpret the meaning of each pattern and the symbolic content of each line from the batik embroidery patterns and the varied patterns of clothing, and read out the wars and production, worship and taboos in the history of the ethnic group, as well as the process of ethnic migration, major events, myths and legends, etc. It can be said that the batik embroidery on the colorful clothing of the Suoga "Qing Miao" is a metaphorical ethnic language and ethnic history book. The main way of inheritance of the colorful clothing art of the Suoga "Qing Miao" is to pass it down from generation to generation in the family. It has a history of thousands of years. Because there is no own writing, it is mainly passed down by oral transmission. For example, Wang Kaifen, a Miao woman, has passed it down for four generations from her grandmother Li Xiong, to her mother Xiong Wang, and then to her daughter Xiong Huayan. Representative inheritors include: Wang Daxiu, Yang Kaifen, Wang Guozhen, Xiong Guangzhen, etc. The clothing of the Suoga "Qing Miao" is mainly characterized by simplicity, uniqueness and uniqueness. Bold colors are also a notable feature of the clothing of the "Qing Miao" in Suojia. Its colors are mainly bright red, black red, yellow, orange, blue, black and white, and it wins with batik painting and embroidery. A complete set of clothing includes headdresses, collars, tops, bibs, flower handkerchiefs, pleated skirts, embroidered shoes and other sets. Today, the colorful clothing of the "Qing Miao" is the cultural heritage that best represents the characteristics of this ethnic group. The "Qing Miao" do not have their own writing, and their historical culture is expressed through oral literature and clothing art. They not only pour their historical traditions into oral literature, but also into clothing art, which is mainly reflected in batik and embroidery patterns. The clothing reproduces history and becomes the "wordless history book" handed down by the "Qing Miao". The colorful clothing art of the "Qing Miao" has created many unique cultural elements and has a high aesthetic value. The "Qing Miao" culture is facing unprecedented rapid changes in history. The mountain farming civilization, an important foundation for the survival and development of the "Qing Miao" culture, is gradually weakening, and the lifestyle and values of the Suojia community are undergoing tremendous changes. The impact of foreign culture has greatly affected the colorful clothing art tradition of the "Qing Miao" people, which has always been passed down through oral transmission and personal teaching, and has gradually lost the soil for survival and prosperity. Many clothing cultural heritages with historical value have been damaged to varying degrees, and are even on the verge of extinction due to the death of the inheritors. At the same time, with the passage of time, in the market economy mechanism, the economy of the Suojia community is very backward, and people do not recognize the value and significance of their own culture to society. Under the stimulation of short-term economic interests and the impact of strong culture, some people have lost their self-confidence and pride in their own nation. These Miao costumes with long cultural connotations and high artistic value have been impacted and affected. Information source: Provincial Intangible Cultural Heritage Center (No pictures yet, welcome to provide.) Information source: Provincial Intangible Cultural Heritage Center (No pictures yet, welcome to provide.)