Tujia brocade weaving is one of China's traditional handicrafts. Tujia brocade weaving in the Youshui River Basin in western Hunan is mainly distributed in the Tujia settlements of Yongshun, Longshan, Baojing and Guzhang counties. Tujia brocade is a handmade artwork woven entirely by hand by Tujia girls using an ancient wooden waist loom, with cotton yarn as the warp and colorful silk or cotton thread (wool is also used today) as the weft. "Xilan Kapu" in Tujia language is a kind of Tujia brocade. In Tujia language, "Xilan" means blanket, and "Kapu" means flower. "Xilan Kapu" is the flower blanket of Tujia people. People often put the word "Tu" before "flower blanket" to indicate the Tujia ethnic characteristics contained in this folk craft. Tujia flower blanket is cherished by the Tujia people and is regarded as the crystallization of wisdom and skills. It is called "Tujia Flower". According to Tujia customs, in the past, when Tujia girls got married, they would make beautiful "Xilan Kapu", or earth flower blanket, on the loom. Xilan Kapu is characterized by its generous composition, exquisite weaving, rich patterns, bright colors, warm and simple. Xilan Kapu has three meanings in the lives of Tujia people: practical, ritual and aesthetic. It is not only famous for its durability, but also the main dowry in Tujia wedding customs. Objectively, it is a symbol of the economic status of the girl's family and a proof of whether the daughter is well-educated. It is particularly eye-catching in the dowry that is admired and the furnishings of the new house that are evaluated by people. Therefore, when Tujia girls get married, they have their own earth flower quilts woven by hand. The bride's parents are proud of the exquisite earth flower blanket as a dowry, and the bride's family also uses it to speculate on the bride's needlework skills. It can be seen that most of the weavers of Xilankapu are young women from about 10 to 20 years old. They are in the age of budding love and full of hope and fantasy for the future. They specially bring back wild plants such as safflower, gardenia, turmeric, dongdong tree, and gallnut from the mountains to make dyes, dye the self-spun cotton yarn in various colors, and sit beside the wooden loom to embroider when they have some free time. They fill the weft on the wooden loom with colored yarn or silk thread to weave unique patterns. The most striking artistic feature of Xilankapu is the rich and full patterns and bright and warm colors. Patterns Xilankapu has a wide range of patterns, and the content almost involves all aspects of Tujia people's life. There are more than 200 basic traditional patterns, including flowers, birds, fish, insects, mountains and rivers, and auspicious words. They can also weave folk stories, fables and other pictures. The selection of themes is closely related to the life and customs of the Tujia people, and is a vivid portrayal of the relationship between the Tujia people and nature. Its patterns include natural image patterns, geometric patterns, and text patterns. Their common characteristics are as follows: First, geometric patterns account for a large proportion. Even those patterns with strong descriptiveness drawn from natural images have been transformed into geometric patterns composed of squares, triangles, straight lines, and other graphics and lines to adapt to color weaving. For example, "rock wall flowers" are inspired by the mountain people's use of large and small stones to build walls, "rice seeds flowers" are derived from the fineness of cauliflowers, and "Zeroli" is experienced from the ups and downs of water waves, etc. As an important part of Tujia ethnic culture, Xilankapu not only embodies the character of inheriting the traditional culture and craftsmanship of the ethnic group, but also embodies the social and contemporary characteristics of integrating the advanced cultural factors of various ethnic groups. While spreading excellent culture, it is also constantly absorbing foreign advanced cultural factors to enrich and develop itself. For example, the brocade patterns with Chinese characters such as "Fu Lu Shou Xi" and "Fu Gui Shuang Quan" of Tujia Xilankapu are brocade crafts that reflect the cultural exchanges between Han and Tujia, making Xilankapu constantly step into a higher artistic level. The more than 400 traditional patterns of Tujia brocade are a unique way of expressing the national cultural psychology and cultural accumulation of different times. They fully demonstrate the creativity of the Tujia people and have a positive witness significance for the formation and development of the multicultural culture of the Chinese nation. The brocade craftsmanship of the Tujia people in western Hunan has a long history of more than 1,500 years since its formation, reflecting the basic characteristics of the brocade craftsmanship system of China's ethnic minorities. There are only fragmentary records in historical books about the origin and development of Tujia brocade in western Hunan and Xilankapu. The "Langan fine cloth" that the Ailao Yi people "weave Wenge silk and brocade" mentioned in the "Book of the Later Han Dynasty" is the predecessor of Xilankapu. The "Wuling barbarians" have the custom of "weaving wood skins and dyeing them with grass seeds", "liking five-colored clothes" and "colorful clothes". "Wuling barbarians" is a name used for the Tujia people in history. The Tujia people's long tradition of being good at weaving has been preserved until before and after the Tujia people were converted to Han people. Both men and women still maintained the custom of "liking colorful clothes". General documents have given Xilankapu various different names: The "Longshan County Chronicles" compiled during the Tongzhi period said: Tujin "is made of five-color threads, colorful and lovely. It is commonly used as a quilt, or as a dress, or as a towel, so it is also called Gangjin. "The "Yongshun Prefecture Chronicles" said: "The spotted cloth is Tujin." "The natives weave the weft with one hand and use a thin ox horn to embroider the flowers with the other hand, thus making five colors. "The so-called "Gangjin, Tujin, Tujuan, Gangjin" and other similar terms all refer to Xilankapu. With the increase in economic exchanges between the Tujia and Han areas during the Tang and Song dynasties, the textile industry in the Tujia areas developed further, and the social atmosphere of "women working hard at weaving and many households with looms" emerged. At that time, the Tujia "cloth" was called "Xibu", "Dongbu" or "Dongjin" by the Han people. During the rule of Tusi in Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, the Tujia ancestors in Hunan and Hubei used silk and cotton to weave Dongjin, Dongquilts and Dong towels in colorful colors, "in the shapes of cranes, phoenixes, flowers and birds". Xiushan, Youyang and Qianjiang in Sichuan use linen to weave "spotted cloth" as clothes. "The Great Ming Unified Records" records: "The local people like to wear colorful spotted clothes. Xilankapu is the best brocade of "Xibu", which is a tribute to the imperial court and has more than 200 patterns. It is made of silk, cotton, linen, wool and other raw materials. Generally, red, blue, cyan (black) cotton threads are used as warp threads, and various colored cotton threads, silk threads or wool threads are freely selected as weft threads. It is hand-woven using an ancient wooden loom and a flower-picking knife (made of bamboo or ox bones) by weaving the warp and weft on the reverse side. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Xilankapu craft was further developed. Xilankapu was called "Tujin" and "Huabu", and was widely used in clothing, gradually forming a unique brocade process. Tujia girls have been practicing the weaving technique with their mothers and sisters since childhood. When the girls grow up and get married, they must have Xilankapu woven by themselves as dowry, as well as quilts and skirts for children in the cradle after marriage. , backpacks and other items have to be woven by the girls themselves. As a result, this craft has been carried forward. Since then, this brocade weaving technique has been passed down from generation to generation. Tujia girls put "home loom cloth" on the wooden waist loom, using cotton yarn as the warp and colorful silk threads and cotton threads as the weft. They use a cow horn or a metal knife (one end is required to be sharp and slightly upturned) to beat and rust the weaving. The craft of Tujia brocade is primitive and complicated. In weaving, Tujia brocade follows the waist loom style of the oblique loom (the warp is tied to the waist), looking at the back and weaving the front by hand, which requires a skilled memory and expression of patterns and colors. The traditional weaving method makes the warp and weft threads float and sink evenly, strong and durable, and the luster lasts forever. The Tujia area in the Youshui River Basin in western Hunan is the birthplace and the last hotbed of Tujia brocade handicrafts, and it is also the Tujia area in the country that has been in existence so far. Tujia brocade is the only region that still retains the folk weaving customs. However, social changes, changes in economic structure and cultural consciousness are causing the Tujia brocade craft to gradually lose the soil and environment on which it depends for survival, and it has fallen into a situation of total endangerment. Strong measures are urgently needed to protect it. The Tujia brocade weaving skills mainly include two varieties: flowered blankets and flower belts. Among them, Xilankapu is the most representative and typical. It adopts the "warp-through and weft-breaking" flower-carving technology and is divided into two schools: "opposite oblique" plain weave solid color series and "up and down oblique" twill color series. Xilankapu is woven on an ancient pure wooden waist-type oblique loom. Its technical process mainly consists of 12 processes including spinning and twisting, dyeing, reversing, pulling, installing reeds, rolling, picking up healds, turning poles, picking flowers, tying poles to the machine, weaving, and picking weaving. Another process is "reverse weaving" to pick. Woven into patterns. The flower belt uses the ancient "warp flower" technique of "passing the warp and weft", which can be completed between the knees of the weaver with almost no special tools. In 2006, Tujia brocade was selected into the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list. The Cultural Bureau of Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture is the main body of protection. Liu Dai'e Liu Dai'e, female, born on December 14, 1955. From 1981 to 1985, Liu Dai'e was employed by the Huayuan County National Brocade Factory in Xiangxi Prefecture to teach apprentices and taught more than 20 apprentices. In March 1987, she was employed as a technical instructor in Zhangjiajie City and taught more than 10 apprentices. From April 1987 to 1990, she returned to the village to establish the "Longshan County Laochehe Tujia Brocade Factory", with more than 1,600 employees, including 32 apprentices of brocade art taught by her. From 1990 to 1995, she co-founded a trial production workshop with the Arts and Crafts Research Institute of the Light Industry Bureau of Xiangxi Autonomous Prefecture. Since 1995, she has set up a "......Details>>>Liu Dai'eLiu Dai'e, female, born on December 14, 1955. From 1981 to 1985, Liu Dai'e was employed by the Huayuan County National Brocade Factory in Xiangxi Prefecture to teach apprentices and taught more than 20 apprentices. In March 1987, she was employed in Zhangjiajie City as a technical instructor and taught more than 10 apprentices. From April 1987 to 1990, she returned to the village to establish the "Longshan County Laochehe Tujia Brocade Factory", with more than 1,600 employees, including 32 brocade apprentices who were taught by her. From 1990 to 1995, she co-founded a trial production workshop with the Arts and Crafts Research Institute of the Light Industry Bureau of Xiangxi Autonomous Prefecture. Since 1995, she has set up a "......Details>>>Liu Dai'e, female, born on December 14, 1955. From 1981 to 1985, Liu Dai'e was employed by the Huayuan County National Brocade Factory in Xiangxi Prefecture to teach apprentices, and taught more than 20 apprentices. In March 1987, she was employed by Zhangjiajie City as a technical instructor, and taught more than 10 apprentices. From April 1987 to 1990, she returned to the village to establish the "Longshan County Laochehe Tujia Brocade Factory", with more than 1,600 employees, including 32 apprentices who were taught by her. From 1990 to 1995, she co-founded a trial production workshop with the Arts and Crafts Research Institute of the Light Industry Bureau of Xiangxi Autonomous Prefecture. Since 1995, she has established the "......more>>>