In Ning County, during festivals, weddings, and full-moon birthday celebrations, women clean the courtyard and paper the walls, and cut paper and make window flowers. They paste various red and green paper-cut flowers on window frames, kang surrounds, walls, doors and windows to make their rooms colorful and prosperous. These paper-cut flowers have different names depending on where they are pasted. Those pasted on the door are called door flowers, those pasted on the window are called window flowers, those pasted on the kang wall are called kang surround flowers, and those pasted on the ceiling are called ceiling flowers. There are also cabinet flowers, paper tank flowers, grain storage flowers, and lantern flowers; "wedding flowers" are pasted in the newlyweds' kilns, fireworks are pasted on gifts, birthday flowers are pasted on birthday gifts, and sets of flowers are placed on offerings. Mr. Jin Zhilin, a famous folklorist, said: "Qingyang paper-cutting provides us with extremely rich new topics in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, history, ethnology, folklore, aesthetics, and art. A traditional Longdong folk paper-cut is not only a paper-cut, but also a crystallization of thousands of years of Chinese cultural traditions." Ningxian paper-cutting has a long history. As early as the Han Dynasty, with the popularization of papermaking, the art of paper-cutting using paper to cut human figures to replace living people began. In the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the use of paper-cutting was further expanded. People cut out the images of Qin Qiong and Jingde from paper and pasted them on the door as door gods to ward off evil spirits and ghosts. Since then, the art of paper-cutting has continued to develop and evolve, the subject matter has continued to expand, and the use has continued to increase, from the palace to the folk life. Ningxian paper-cutting is based on a wide range of materials. The sun, moon, stars, mountains, rivers, flowers, trees, people, birds, beasts, and legends are all materials for paper-cutting. Especially the male and female dolls, cattle, sheep, mules, horses, pigs, dogs, cats, rabbits, fruits and vegetables in the family courtyard, because they are seen every day and observed deeply, so they have become permanent themes under the scissors of women. They decorate and beautify the family environment by randomly choosing and cutting these themes, expressing their understanding and feelings of life. Ning County paper-cutting is rich and colorful. There are "Two Dragons Playing with Pearls", "Camels Bringing Treasures", "Auspicious Beasts", "Magu Offering Longevity" that express auspiciousness and reflect traditional folk customs; there are "Peacock Playing with Peony", "Butterfly Loves Flowers", "Magpie Stepping on Plums", "Fish Drilling Lotus" that reflect reproduction and beautiful love; there are "Tiger Going Down the Mountain", "Lion Rolling Embroidered Ball", "Chubby Doll", "Sending Blessing Doll" that bless peace and happiness and pray for blessings from divine beasts; there are folk stories "Liu Hai Playing with Golden Toad", "Wu Song Fighting the Tiger", "Wang Xiang Lying on Ice"; there are wheat ears, grain ears, fruits, peaches and apricots that express love for the fruits of labor, etc. These works have a strong local flavor, reflecting the living customs of people on the Loess Plateau, and are full of their understanding, feelings, love and pursuit of life. Ningxian paper-cutting has flexible expression techniques and skilled paper-cutting skills. The colors are mainly red and green, with single color, overprinting, dyeing, etc.; there are positive cutting in cutting methods, that is, leaving lines to outline the image. Yin cutting, that is, cutting off the lines to leave a flat surface. There are Yin-Yang cutting that combines the two, symmetrical cutting by folding paper, and pattern cutting. In order to make the lines rich and varied, the artists also creatively used plum blossom patterns, hook patterns, serrated patterns, field patterns, and crescent patterns, which are lively, interesting and poetic. Ningxian paper-cutting has many types. The content varies according to different uses. Generally, there are festive paper-cutting, etiquette paper-cutting, disease-removing paper-cutting, life paper-cutting, longevity paper-cutting, wedding paper-cutting, reproductive paper-cutting, interesting paper-cutting, funeral paper-cutting, pattern paper-cutting, bottom pattern paper-cutting, and modern production and labor paper-cutting, etc. Most of these paper-cuts have patterns, which are passed down from generation to generation from their ancestors. Careful women put the patterns in magazines and books and regard them as heirlooms. Most of the paper-cutting authors in Ning County are illiterate rural women. Even some of the "paper-cutting masters" named by the Chinese Folklore Society are not very literate, and some are completely illiterate. They learned their skills from their elders. Rural girls have been learning paper-cutting from their grandmothers and mothers since they were five or six years old, and they can hold scissors when they are fifteen or sixteen years old. "Girls in their twenties learn needlework and skillfully cut patterns that are passed down from generation to generation." Ning County's paper-cutting is simple and unsophisticated, rough and unrestrained, simple and bright, and has refined lines. Compared with similar folk paper-cutting in the country, it has unique characteristics. One is the remnant of primitive totem culture. The dragon culture with the dragon as the totem as a symbol of life and the deer culture with the deer as the totem are almost extinct in other parts of the country, but they have been continued and preserved in Ning County's paper-cutting. For example, "Human-headed fish", "divine fish bottle" and "baby fish" are all the inheritance of primitive culture with fish, dragon and snake as totems. The paper-cut "Shouhua" has both the primitive totem form of deer head pattern and the plant form of tree of life. The axisymmetric paper-cut "Tree of Life" (Fusang tree) with two birds on it is a widely circulated pattern in the Han Dynasty. What is shocking is that the folk customs and patterns of the ancestors in the Han Dynasty have been hidden in Ningxian paper-cutting and passed down. This is unique in the national folk paper-cutting. Second, it is the carrier of the ancient Yin-Yang philosophy. Western philosophy understands the world from the perspective of natural science, while Chinese classical philosophy understands the world from the perspective of Yin-Yang, forming the Yin-Yang and Five Elements theory. Ningxian paper-cutting reveals the mystery of the Yin-Yang philosophy deeply rooted in the Chinese nation. Third, it is a "paper fossil" of ancient cultural relics. Ningxian is a huge treasure house of ancient culture and the cradle of the Chinese nation, which contains unique ancient culture. Ning County paper-cutting not only reveals the secrets of ancient culture, but also inherits the information of ancient culture. It is a rare "paper fossil" of ancient cultural relics. Ning County paper-cutting "Eight Diagrams Doll" was originally a witchcraft paper-cutting for praying for a good harvest during the Spring Festival. The "Eight Diagrams Doll" holds wheat in both hands and has a sun bead net with eight diagrams on its head, symbolizing that the sun shines on all things and grows. It carries the ancient culture of life worship and sun worship. It is a relic of the sun worship of the Yan Emperor tribe in primitive society and a "paper fossil" of ancient cultural relics. Fourth, it has a unique aesthetic consciousness. The aesthetic consciousness of Ning County folk paper-cutting does not seek truth, but is good at exaggeration; it is not in line with the original, but distorts and mutates; it does not seek to make the shape of the object look like, but only to be concise and vivid; it does not seek to have all four limbs, but pays attention to expressing the meaning at will. The donkey in the paper-cutting "Returning to My Mother's Home" has only three legs, and the other leg was deleted at will. In the eyes of artists, donkeys walk on three legs, and the other leg is redundant. Ning County folk paper-cutting is gaining more and more attention and love from the society. Ning County folk paper-cutting has gone from being a small gadget in the hands of rural women to entering the national art palace, the China Folk Art Museum, and has been exhibited in countries such as Japan, Italy, and Australia. In June 2002, at the first China Qingyang Sachet Folk Culture Festival, Ning County paper-cutting received unanimous praise from experts at home and abroad, making a significant contribution to Qingyang City being named the "Hometown of Folk Paper-cutting" by the Chinese Folklore Society.