Shui Autonomous County is the only Shui Autonomous County in China. It is located in the southeast of Qiannan Buyi and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, bordering Rongjiang County and Leishan County to the east, Libo County to the south, Dushan County and Duyun City to the west, and Danzhai County to the north. The total area of the county is 2,380 square kilometers. The county is located on the southeast slope of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau. The terrain slopes from northwest to southeast, with an average altitude of 500 to 1,000 meters. The area around Xuehuadong in the south is the watershed between Duliu River and Longjiang River. There are continuous mountains and crisscrossing streams in the territory, and forest resources are well protected. There are 14 ethnic groups living in the territory, including Shui, Buyi, Miao, Yao, Dong, Yi, Zhuang, Hui, and Tujia. The total population of the county is about 320,000, of which ethnic minorities account for 97% of the total population of the county, and Shui people account for 64.8%. There are more than 400,000 Shui people in the country, and about half of them live in Sandu Shui Autonomous County. The Shui nationality originated in the Suishui River Basin in the Central Plains and called themselves "Sui". In the Tang Dynasty, Fushui Prefecture was established to appease the ancestors of the Shui nationality, and the name of the tribe was changed to "Shui". The revised edition of "China's Ethnic Minorities" by the State Ethnic Affairs Commission states: "Around the Shang Dynasty, the ancestors of the Shui family migrated from the Central Plains to the south and gradually integrated into the Baiyue ethnic group, gradually forming a dual structure of the integration of the northern and southern ethnic groups with the Central Plains culture and the Baiyue culture as the mainstream. Therefore, the Shui nationality society retains the rich cultural relics of the Shang Dynasty cultural circle and the Baiyue ethnic group." After the Shui nationality migrated from the north to the south, it had developed greatly by the Song Dynasty. According to the history of the Song Dynasty, the Shui nationality in the Song Dynasty "lived by the Longjiang River and planted rice like the Hunan and Xiang Rivers", "the lords were dressed in gorgeous clothes, wearing gold and silver on their heads, and wearing clothes, and lived in the 'building war shed' guarded by the 'bamboo shed'". At this time, the Shui nationality already had legends about the "origin of cotton and grain seeds". In the Song and Yuan Dynasties, there were records of Nabu taxes in the Shui nationality area. By the Qing Dynasty, spinning and weaving had become an essential manual skill for Shui women, and the self-woven cloth had become one of the main wealth of social material life. Shui women grow cotton, weave cloth, dye, cut and sew their own clothes. The pure cotton cloth they weave and dye with pepper pattern, Hui pattern and fish bone pattern has beautiful patterns, fine yarn, deep dyeing, washable and long-lasting color, and is well-known far and wide. Before "foreign cloth" flooded the Shui area, these self-woven cloths were high-end and high-quality clothing materials on the market at that time. During the Republic of China period, machine-woven cloth began to appear in the Shui area. Since the founding of New China, the economy of ethnic regions has developed, and the processing, production and manufacturing technology of Shui clothing have undergone major changes, especially after the 1990s, most people no longer weave and sew their own clothes, but buy machine-woven cloth in the market and ask craftsmen to sew clothes for them, or directly buy finished clothes. More than a hundred years ago, the hairstyle of Shui elderly women was to tie their long hair on top of their heads, wrap it with a square scarf made of homemade cloth, wear a short jacket with a front opening, no collar, wide sleeves and silver buttons, wear long trousers, a black pleated apron around the waist or two black rectangular scarves tied in front and back, and wear pointed hook horsetail embroidered shoes. The hairstyle of young and middle-aged women is to comb their hair forward into a bundle, roll it up from left to right, and insert a wooden comb diagonally in the hair along the hairstyle, wrap it with a black homespun headscarf, wear pointed hook horsetail embroidered shoes or ingot-shaped embroidered cloth shoes. Now, the basic style of clothing for young and middle-aged Shui women is to wrap their headscarf, wear a right-fronted large-collared shirt with an embroidered waistcoat, long trousers, and wear embroidered shoes. In the long-term labor practice, the ancestors of the Shui nationality found that the blue color of the perennial grass plant Polygonum indigo was highly contagious, so they transplanted and cultivated it in the mountains and used it to soak and make indigo dye. Around June of the Water Calendar (March of the Gregorian Calendar) every year, fertile land is selected to plant indigo, and it can be harvested around November (August of the Gregorian Calendar). The harvested indigo is washed and soaked in a water tank. When the indigo rots and settles and decomposes the indigo pigment (generally, it is best when the indigo branches turn red), the indigo stems and leaves are taken out, and an appropriate amount of lime water is added to the water tank. Then the indigo water is stirred thoroughly, and the sediment is filtered to obtain the indigo dye condensed from the indigo pigment of the indigo grass. The indigo is placed in a wooden barrel or earthenware jar, covered with leaves, and placed in the house for use. In autumn, the indigo is stirred by hand and an appropriate amount of soju is added. Stir it with a wooden stick and mix it evenly. Dip your fingers into the dye water. When your fingers turn blue, you can start dyeing the cloth. When dyeing cloth, first soak the white cloth in clean water, wring it dry, and stretch it, then slowly put it into the indigo dye juice to soak the stains. After one or two hours, drain it and stack it on the wooden board at the mouth of the dye vat, and let the dye drip into the dye vat. Do this about three times a day. After two or three days, take out the cloth, wash it in clean water, and dry it. Then continue dyeing. Repeat this for five or six days or even eight or nine days, and the white cloth can be dyed blue. If you want to dye the cloth black, you need to go up the mountain to collect a plant called "Meifeng" in water language, put the skin and leaves of this plant into a large iron pot to boil juice, and when the juice concentration increases (it is better to drip the juice on the fingernails without flowing), take out the plant skin and leaves, put the blue cloth into the iron pot and boil it. After it is boiled thoroughly, take out the cloth and dry it (in order to make the color of the cloth uniform, be sure to put the cloth flat on the ground to dry naturally). Put it in the dye vat and soak it for five to six days or even eight or nine days, and the cloth can be dyed black. In the past, the colors of clothing in the Shui ethnic group were mainly white, blue, cyan, green, black, etc. If a pattern needs to be printed, soymilk dyeing or batik is used. In the soymilk dyeing process, first draw a variety of beautiful patterns on thick cardboard, apply a layer of tung oil, and then carve a pattern model. The pattern model is pressed on white cloth and brushed with special soybean milk. After drying, it is put into the dye vat for soaking. After dyeing, washing and drying, scrape off the soybean milk, and the plain pattern of blue background and white flowers will appear. This kind of colorful fabric is mostly used to make quilts, sheets, tent edges, etc. Batik is mostly hand-painted and soaked in dye juice to reach the color, and then the wax can be removed. Thread dyeing is to use a needle to sew the required pattern on the white cloth, or use a thread to tie the required pattern part, and then put it into the dye vat for soaking. After dyeing, washing and drying, untie the stitches, and you can dye the cloth with blue background and white flowers. This kind of cloth is also mostly used to make quilts, bed sheets, tent edges or children's clothes, shoes, hats, straps, etc. It is said that the female ancestor of the Shui people, the fairy "Ya Wu", was an expert in planting cotton, spinning, making indigo, and dyeing cloth. It was she who passed on the skills of clothing making to future generations. Folk inheritance is mostly passed down from mother to daughter, father to son, and mother-in-law to daughter-in-law within the family, and oral and hand-to-hand teaching between companions and sisters-in-law within the village. Guyin Village in Zhonghe Town and Bangao Village in Sandong Township are the hometowns of horsetail embroidery and silver jewelry production, and Shuige Village in Jiuqian Town is the hometown of dyeing and weaving homespun cloth, which has been passed down from generation to generation. Shui clothing can be divided into many types according to regional differences. Sandong, Tingpai, Zhonghe, Hengfeng, Tangzhou, Yang'an and Dushan are the main gathering areas of the Shui people. Women's clothing in this area can be specifically divided into children's clothing, girls' clothing, young women's clothing and elderly clothing. Children's clothing: focuses on the decoration of shoes and hats. The shoes are generally tiger-head shoes or embroidered shoes; there are many kinds of children's hats, the most common ones are the nine-cornered cloth hats imitating the roof of a wooden building, the flat-topped horsetail embroidered hats, the gourd-shaped green cloth hats, etc., with silver Buddha statues, butterfly-shaped silver pieces and silver bells sewn on the hats; Girls' clothing: generally a blue or green collared long gown, indigo or blue trousers, an embroidered apron on the chest, a silver necklace and pendant hung from the upper end of the apron to the neck, jacquard ribbons on both sides of the middle of the apron trailing behind the body, ingot-shaped embroidered shoes on the feet, bangs, and a six-foot-long white home-woven cloth scarf wrapped around the outside; Young women's clothing: the clothes are collarless, and the waistcoat, lapels, cuffs, trouser legs, etc. are embroidered with large beveled green cloth edging, and the outer edge is also inlaid with two edgings, the edging edgings are all protruding from the surface of the clothes, and the outer edge of the edging is also inlaid with colorful lace from the railings, four deformed butterflies are embroidered on the four corners of the front and back lapels, and clouds are embroidered on the slits on both sides of the waist. The hair is combed to the forehead and rolled up from left to right, and a wooden comb is inserted diagonally in the right hair. The hair is wrapped with a black (white) homespun cloth scarf. An embroidered apron is worn, and embroidered shoes with ingot-shaped covers are worn on the feet. Older women no longer wear embroidered aprons, but prefer to wear a plain blue square scarf around their waists and wear pointed horsetail embroidered shoes. Older women wear: the top is a collarless, lace-free right-fronted long gown, and the outer coat is a collarless, collarless, wide-sleeved short coat with silver buttons, long trousers, pointed horsetail embroidered shoes, a knot on the top of the head, and a black square scarf. In addition, Shui women wear other costumes during festivals or wedding ceremonies. The styles of formal attire are the same regardless of region. The tops are all classical black short coats with front opening and wide sleeves. The bottoms are black pleated skirts or long pants. The feet are embroidered shoes with golden ponytails tied with hooks. The hairstyle is to comb the hair to the top of the head and tie it into a knot. In order to facilitate the wearing of silver jewelry, there is no need to wrap the headscarf. When wearing formal attire, the silver ornaments worn on the body include: silver flowers, silver hairpins, silver collars, silver collars, silver bracelets, silver elegant collars, etc. Among them, pleated skirts, silver flowers, and silver hairpins are only worn by brides when they leave their homes. The costumes of the Shui nationality are a concrete reflection of the common culture and common psychological qualities of the Shui people. The main colors of the Shui nationality costumes are mainly blue, green, green, purple, black and other plain colors. Its simple, dignified, generous and practical characteristics are in contrast with the simple, humble, indifferent and reserved temperament of the Shui people. Similarly, the Shui nationality clothing has the style of ancient Chinese costumes, with a large right-side lapel, an embroidered waistband on the chest, and jacquard ribbons, which look beautiful, elegant, and light, especially the elegant and unique horsetail embroidery accessories, which have high artistic research and aesthetic value. In the process of modernization, the distinctive national cultural representation of the Shui nationality clothing skills is disappearing. With the increasing acceleration of economic globalization and modernization, the Shui nationality clothing skills are on the verge of extinction. The reasons are: the current Shui nationality youth have left their ancestors' homes to work outside, and their aesthetics and values have changed greatly; the workmanship of Shui nationality clothing is relatively complicated, labor-intensive and material-intensive, and young people buy Han-style ready-made clothes directly for convenience; children basically wear Han nationality clothing from school to entering society; the death of old artists who can make Shui nationality clothing and no one to pass on the clothing making skills have also caused the Shui nationality clothing to gradually disappear. (No pictures yet, welcome to provide.) (No pictures yet, welcome to provide.)