Yao girls are often proud of being good at embroidery and wearing silk-decorated clothes. According to folklore, this kind of clothes comes from a proud story.
According to legend, the mother-in-law of Notre Dame de Tian Kai saw that King Pangu carved the sky uneven, so she took off her apron and showed it to the sky, paving the sky. The bright pattern on the skirt turns into colorful clouds in the sky, emitting colorful light and beautifying the world in the light. The girls in the Yao family are celebrating the epoch-making achievements for the Virgin Mary, showing the role played by women in creating the world, and inheriting the skills of embroidering colored skirts and weaving colored ribbons. The girls of Yao family skillfully mastered the unique national crafts of Yao family from generation to generation, and skillfully made their own unique costumes.
Yao embroidery mainly includes headscarves, belts, aprons, curtains, children's hats, brocade belts and kits.
The cloth of the headscarf is mostly green cloth, sky blue cloth and dark blue cloth. The length is five feet two inches, and the width is about one foot five inches. At both ends of the headscarf, colorful patterns should be embroidered with silk thread, mostly embroidered locks, rattan flowers and swastikas. The man wore a scarf embroidered with lace in front of his head, which looked like an antenna and was extremely powerful. The woman hangs the patterns at both ends of the headscarf behind her head, just like wearing a colorful bun, which is soft and beautiful.
Belt is an important part of Yao costume. Like a headscarf, the cloth is about eight feet long and embroidered with lace patterns at both ends. The splendid patterns of men's belts are about two to three inches long, mostly symmetrical plaid chain patterns, and there are also pictographic flowers and plants tied at the waist, and the patterns are exposed at both ends of the waist, showing the strong style of men. The splendid pattern of the female belt must be embroidered at least five inches, with plum blossoms and kingfishers in the middle. Tie it around the waist, hang splendid patterns from the waist to the ends of the hips, and swing with the pace when walking, which makes it look light and fluttering.
The apron on the chest is a unique clothing accessory of Dongshan Yao, and the fabric is mostly navy blue or dark blue. It is about two feet four inches to one meter long. The skirt is connected by a ribbon about three to five inches wide. The lower corner of the skirt is embroidered with flowers, Cai Feng or floating clouds, and hung with red tassels, just like the summer glow. The woman is tied in front, which is dignified and elegant and has practical value. If you need to pull something at work, pile up the apron and tie it around your waist, which can hold five to ten kilograms of items.
Hanging handkerchiefs is used by women not to wipe sweat and dust on the left breast of clothes. Use bright cloth, square in shape, about one foot and two inches wide, embroidered with lace all around, embroidered with delicate patterns obliquely as the handkerchief head, embroidered with a square in the middle of the hanging handkerchief, folded obliquely, and hung down from the collar button. At the same time, the mosaic patterns on the skirt body and skirt set each other off, so that the patterns and colors are moderately and elegantly embellished, which perfectly shows the chic and heroic spirit of Yao girls.
Weaving is also a unique handicraft of Yao family. Its types are lace, brocade, homespun, linen textiles and so on.
Weaving tools, woven with wooden looms, refined weaving tools are very simple, just use a bamboo, about eight inches to a foot long, and both ends can be sharpened and leveled.
The weaving of lace and brocade is to dye cotton yarn into colored threads, then match them with brocade threads and wrap them around the bench. After the width is appropriate, the woven flowers are carved out of the tied warp yarns, and then they can be woven. The length of lace is long or short, wide or narrow, depending on the purpose. Generally, the length is two to three meters and the width is one to four inches. Some are as narrow as two points, and some are as wide as six inches. Weaving patterns include phoenix, husband and wife singing together, Yuanyang playing in the water, triumphant, jumping fish in the dragon gate, frog diving, eight-legged crab, dragonfly carrying water, exotic flowers and herbs, etc. This knitted fabric is mostly used for sewing clothes, headscarves, belts and aprons, and some of it is also used for connecting quilts or sewing tips. No matter which use, it will add a touch of bright color to the article.
Brocade is one of the most important costumes for Yao women, and its craftsmanship is the most exquisite. According to legend, in ancient times, a woman in the Yao family went up the mountain to cut firewood. When she saw a poisonous snake blocking her way, she grabbed it without fear, strangled it, skinned it and tied it to her leg. The poisonous snake in the mountain saw it and ran away, so it woven a ribbon with brocade, which looked like snakeskin. It was used to tie skirts, leggings and sandals, and no poisonous snake was seen blocking the road again. Since then, brocade has become the custom of the Yao family.
In addition to weaving headscarves and large cloth belts embroidered with patterns at both ends, Yao women also have the custom of weaving colorful brocade belts with brocade and tulle with fine craftsmanship. As long as a girl is eleven or twelve years old, her mother will first dye the yarn in color and teach her to learn brocade ribbon. When the girl is fifteen or sixteen, she will be able to weave high-quality brocade skillfully.
Yao's ribbon is as small as three points wide and about three feet long. Mostly used as "straw sandals", tobacco bags and kits. The medium size is about five minutes wide and five feet long. It is often given to children as a gift to tie a waist skirt. The big ones are two inches wide and six feet long, and most of them are used as aprons for young women. Some young women's brocade belts are excellent and kept as gifts for lovers. Brocade is an indispensable dress and gift in the bride's dowry.
Brocade is widely used in Yao family life. Therefore, every year in the slack season and cold winter, Yao girls will weave brocade belts together in groups. They bought colorful silk thread, tied the warp of the belt on a long wooden bench, raised the thread end of the pattern they wanted to knit, and then arranged the shuttle, thus knitting it carefully. There should be two red lines with similar colors on both sides of the belt as edges, and patterns such as lotus, plum blossom, starry sky and rose should be woven in the middle. The color is mostly rich red, which means passionate mood, red as fire. There are also deformed bird patterns woven on both sides, decorated with silver beads and blisters. There are three strands of brocade whiskers at the ends of the belt, covered with crystal beads and tied around the waist. The front is like a dragon wrapped around the waist, and the back is like a phoenix with its tail wagging. The two ends of the belt form a slipknot at the back, and the brocade must fall to the hips, just like Bloom's juxtaposition, and the knot will always be concentric. Therefore, the flower ribbon is the perennial labor of Yao girls, which is hard to taste and contains endless happiness and youthful happiness.
Gemma Textile is the linen used by the Yao family. The cold weather in Yaoshan is not suitable for growing cotton. Yao Jia's ancestors picked kudzu hemp in the mountains, and the family craft of spinning flax has been passed down from generation to generation, which has become a living habit. Therefore, every summer after planting the fields, the descendants and women of the Yao family go up the mountain to collect kudzu vine, soak it in water after returning home, remove its skin and bones, wash off the epidermis, rub the white kudzu vine into thin threads, then weave it into hemp with a wood machine, and then sew it into clothes or make mosquito nets and sacks. Linen is hard and wear-resistant, mosquito nets can be hung for 20 to 20 years, and can also be made into sacks, baskets for rice or other crops. It is safe and reliable, not easy to splash, and is more suitable for loading in mountainous areas. In the history of shoulder transport in Yaoshan, sacks played an unforgettable role.