Embroidery in Hengshan County is the art of working women in the past dynasties. It is one of the most basic and oldest art forms in folk art. It is not the ultimate purpose of the study to clarify the history of embroidery of folk women in Hengshan County, Shaanxi Province, or the embroidery status and role of women in Hengshan County in a certain historical stage or event. The study of Hengshan folk embroidery art must first better understand the history and culture of the people in northern Shaanxi, and add a new perspective to the study of the history and culture of northern Shaanxi. In terms of research methods, iconography, formal analysis, research and interviews should be used to strive for a more comprehensive understanding of the folk embroidery art in Hengshan, Shaanxi. 1. The origin of Hengshan folk embroidery and Hengshan folk embroiderers Hengshan County is located in the north of Shaanxi Province, west of the central part of Yulin City, and the southern edge of the Maowusu Desert. It is adjacent to Yuyang (District) and Mizhi in the east; Zizhou and Zichang in the south, Jingbian in the west, and Wushen Banner in Inner Mongolia in the north. Hengshan County has 10 towns, 8 townships, 1 farm, 358 administrative villages, a total land area of 4,333 square kilometers, and a total population of 340,000. This county is an old revolutionary base with a long history, considerable cultural relics, simple folk customs, honest and generous people, steady and capable people. In the long history of Chinese embroidery, the earliest story can be traced back to the story of Huangdi's wife Leizu teaching people to raise silkworms. There is no record of the origin of Hengshan folk embroidery in the "Hengshan County Chronicles". Although there is no written record, generations of descendants know that embroidery has existed before their predecessors. In Hengshan, embroidery is a necessary and compulsory training for girls. They pick up needles and threads at the age of five or six. When they are eight or nine years old, they can sew toys such as shovels and sandbags for themselves. As they grow older, the girls' skills are becoming more mature, and being a skillful girl has become their conscious desire. Therefore, in farmers' homes, vivid scenes of "mother-daughter and neighbor-to-neighbor" art transmission can be seen everywhere. Gradually, the girls grew up and reached the age of marriage, and their clothes were different from before. On the day of marriage, the old custom is to pay attention to "needlework, tea and food" for the daughter-in-law. This needlework comes before eating, so most girls make their own dowries to show whether they are "competent". Most of these dowries are embroidery, and they are all handmade. For example, the needle-stitching in Dangcha and Wuzhen is not only a pendant on the lapel, but also an embroidery cloth bag where women usually hide their needles. Careful observation and appreciation will reveal that the contents of these embroidery have certain meanings. During this transformation stage from a girl to a young woman, although the patterns on the wedding embroidery are not exactly the same, the themes they express are basically "fish making trouble in lotus" and "pomegranate sitting on peony". In Hengshan, these patterns have their specific meanings. Fish, pomegranate, lotus and peony are symbols of male and female reproductive organs respectively. The intersection of fish and lotus is a metaphor for the intercourse of men and women, and its purpose is to reproduce offspring. The two major themes can be summarized into one theme: childbirth. The life of being a mother has begun. Before the child was born, all kinds of daily necessities, such as children's pillows, children's hats, children's shoes and baby bedding, were already available. The patterns and designs embroidered on these items also changed accordingly. The things that children wear, wear and play with are often accompanied by the image of "tiger", such as tiger-head hats, tiger-head shoes, tiger-shaped patterns, etc. These items and accessories with tiger as the theme. It expresses the adults' hope and sustenance for the next generation and contains new meanings. "Ten years of being a daughter-in-law become a mother-in-law." After an ordinary rural woman in Hengshan has gone through several stages of birth, girlhood, marriage and becoming a mother, under normal circumstances, her life journey has basically been determined. As a wife and mother, she will still work silently outside the house, endlessly, until she finishes her ordinary life. Of course, she will still work by hand, stitch by stitch, embroidering one warm picture after another that is unforgettable. They can cut flowers when they pick up scissors, and embroider flowers when they pick up needles and threads. The rural women in Hengshan are just like this. They have been learning to cut paper-cuts and embroider with their grandmothers since they were young. They have been cutting and embroidering for decades, and have developed a deep foundation in folk art modeling, maintaining the long history of embroidery art in a natural state. 2. Hengshan embroidery and local folk customs The style and characteristics of any kind of folk embroidery are mainly determined by the geographical environment and folk customs. Different natural ecological environments nurture different groups of people; different groups of people rely on different ways of labor to survive, creating different cultures. Hengshan folk embroidery is one of them. From the overall shape, composition to the subtle embroidery needlework, it is deeply marked by the ecological environment. The climate, landscape, and vegetation colors are the most primitive and basic cultural background of folk embroidery. The folk factors in folk embroidery are the result of repeated stacking and sedimentation on the background of the strong natural ecological environment, and re-perception, selection, combination, and conception by thousands of folk embroidery women. Hengshan folk embroidery is one of the carriers of Hengshan folk culture. "Different embroidery products formed by different folk customs contain specific cultural connotations and play a role of a bond to increase national cohesion." Therefore, embroidery plays an important role in folk activities such as weddings, funerals, temple fairs, etc. (I) Application in New Year's Customs Hengshan people attach great importance to the New Year's Festival. According to statistics, people celebrate as many as 39 festivals in a year. New Year's Festival and temple fair embroidery carry the common folk beliefs of regional groups and have a strong display. At that time, folk embroidery was fully displayed on the clothes of men, women, old and young to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new. Yangko is the most interesting activity for Hengshan people during festivals, and their festive costumes are naturally indispensable for embroidery decoration. At the same time, embroidery can be seen everywhere on door curtains, curtains, sheets, pillow tops, pipes, cloth toys and other home furnishings and daily necessities, which are beautiful. (II) Application in Wedding, Birthday and Funeral Customs The most closely integrated part of Shaanxi Hengshan folk embroidery with life is the embroidery used in life rituals such as birth, marriage, birthday and funeral. The marriage customs still retain the old customs of engagement, moving wine bottles, welcoming the bride, going to the bride's head, the ritual of establishing a bond, and making trouble in the bridal chamber. "Embroider a pair of mandarin ducks playing with lotus flowers, and they must be together in the day and night." This is the song that unmarried women in Hengshan used to sing when embroidering. Wedding customs are a great gift in life for the people. There are many patterns of wedding embroidery. In rural life, embroidery often becomes a token of love for young men and women. The real display of the bride's embroidery talent is during the "method of establishing a bond". At this time, the bride, accompanied by the groom, greets the groom's elders, relatives and friends, and greets them one by one in order from the oldest to the youngest, and presents her own meeting gift, which is the various embroidery embroidered by the bride before the wedding. For example, the gift for grandma is a "nipple-shaped" needle-tie, which expresses gratitude for the grandmother's upbringing; the gift for mother-in-law is a shun bag, which expresses the daughter-in-law's filial piety to her mother-in-law and indicates the harmonious relationship between the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law in the future; and the gifts for other aunts and sisters-in-law are different forms of needle-tie, such as "vase-shaped" needle-tie, "bell-shaped" needle-tie, "insert-shaped" needle-tie, etc. The gifts given to male elders are mostly hookahs and insoles; the most interesting ones are the "double-headed chicken" needle-tie, "rag doll" needle-tie, and "turning back deer" needle-tie given to the sister-in-law, which have peculiar shapes and are highly ornamental. According to the traditional concept of "five blessings", longevity ranks first, and the main customs and behaviors represent eternal youth and longevity. The main embroidery products include the lele worn by the old woman's head, the earmuffs worn on the ears, the "longevity peach-shaped" needle-tie hung on the clothes; the melon shell hat worn by the old man is embroidered with "mouse gnawing watermelon". There are many particularities in funeral customs, and the traditional atmosphere is quite strong. Regarding funeral embroidery, the main ones are the clothing and bedding used in birthday gifts. The "shroud" worn by people after death has no practical or ornamental significance at all, and even the ritual significance does not occupy a major position. It is just a continuation of the consumer life of the "dead soul", which is purely a need of faith. Although they are only used as burial objects, they are still full of imagination and have strong artistic quality. Among the folk embroidery works made for funeral customs, there are pillows embroidered with pomegranates and peonies on the heads of the deceased, representing many children and wealth, and "old shoes" embroidered with lotus flowers that represent the earth and water. There are also "soul-guiding chickens" and "soul-guiding lions" embroidered on the soles of shoes to guide the owner's soul to heaven. It is opposite to the "old pillow" like heaven and earth, and it is the soul of the deceased that connects heaven and earth, and the soul is immortal and life is eternal. 3. Classification of Hengshan embroidery in folk art with thousands of postures (I) Theme classification Themes can be divided into four types from the perspective of symbolic expression: the first type is "extending the natural attributes of the image used". The folk embroidery art of Hengshan in northern Shaanxi often uses rich images of animals and plants, such as fish, pomegranates, and peonies, to break the limitations of time and space, and to lay out scenes of different times, places, and seasons. Through careful matching, it forms a harmonious and beautiful picture, and cleverly expresses some rich themes such as "pomegranate sitting on peony", "snake coiling around rabbit", "fish playing with lotus", "mandarin ducks playing in water", and butterfly love flowers, which are rich in connotations and themes of protecting life and racial reproduction. Such patterns can often be seen in pillow tops and insoles. The second type is "using homophony to take meaning". The hardworking and simple people of Hengshan have also created many patterns with auspicious characteristics in their daily production and life practices. They often use the homophony of "cai" (pronounced "caicai" in Hengshan dialect) for daily use, which means talent, and the homophony of "suan" (garlic) means being able to calculate accounts, etc., which reflects the simple aesthetic taste of the working people. For example, during the New Year in Hengshan, mothers would use firewood, garlic, copper coins, red dates, firecrackers and a small piece of red cloth, string them together with thread and sew them on the shoulders of their children, hoping that their children would grow up to be talented, make money, and become famous overnight, which has a profound meaning. There are also "Deer and Crane in Spring" and "Happiness on the Plum Head". The third type is "shaped symbols". Common abstract symbols include "ten" which symbolizes yin and yang, the unity of heaven and earth, "卍" which symbolizes endless reproduction, "Ruyi Panchang", hexagonal diagram, cloud hook, etc. In Hengshan, most of these symbols are strictly passed on to women by the elders. These seemingly free handicrafts, when they touch life and love, the women who are good at embroidery are always meticulous. The themes of Hengshan folk embroidery patterns pay great attention to cultural connotations, making full use of the characteristics of the same origin, sameness and integration of the Han language, characters and images, and expressing the yearning for auspicious and happy life through symbolic pictorial language or pictorial characters. The composition method is not isolated. A picture is often a combination of several methods, making it richer and more vivid. Wang Dianmei's longevity shoes have two different applications. The upper is embroidered with peony branches, and the sole is embroidered with cloud hooks. (No pictures yet, welcome to provide.) (No pictures yet, welcome to provide.)