Minority Ethnic Clothing

Miao

Population: 7.4 million

Distribution: The Miao people have spread out among the Southern Chinese provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan, and Yunnan with concentrations in Guizhou. Three of the six Miao autonomous prefectures are located in Guizhou.³³

Economy: Guizhou is a poor, underdeveloped area that yields the lowest per-capita income in all of China. Despite this, the area is rich is natural resources and culture. The Miaoling and Wiling Mountains are home to many Miao people. Benefitting from the green hills and river valleys, they cultivate many crops such as canola, corn, cotton, millet, rice, tobacco, wheat, and tung trees that are used to make lamp oil.²² Mining of the area’s natural resources is a growing industry, and there are many festivals held that provide a customer base for local merchants. 

Language: Many variations of the Miao language exist. As many dialects do not have a written language, Chinese characters or the Roman alphabet is used.³⁴

Traditions: The Miao people are well known for their silver ornaments, wax paintings, and woven brocades.²³ Women have no reserves when it comes to silver decorations. Elaborate headpieces, necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and plates worn around the neck are all made from handcrafted silver. All of these pieces are decorated with charms, coils, medallions, and tassels to enhance their grace and elegance. A Miao women’s headdress is considered a valuable heirloom. When a girl is born, her parents start saving money to make the extravagant silver ornaments for the daughter’s headdress. The most striking part of this piece is the set of silver horns attached to the top. These horns protrude upward up to half of the height of the woman.

Wax paintings and woven brocades are just as artistic as the silver designs and take just as much skill to create. For a painting, the painter brushes melted wax onto a piece of plain, white cloth following not a specific design but the imagination of the artist. When the decoration is complete, homemade dye is applied to the whole cloth. When the wax is removed, the finished product reflects beautiful, vibrant colors that accentuate the design from the wax. This technique is called batik. Woven brocades, another specialty of the Miao, are just as prized as the wax paintings. They are fashioned by people experienced with a loom. These pieces may represent animals, designs, plants, or tell an ancient story. The final product is intricately decorated and eye catching. These pieces are often selected as a base for apron or skirt making.

The traditional clothing of the Miao are handmade by women who have spent their lives practicing and mastering artistic techniques.³⁵ Due to the different locations of the Miao people, different styles of dress have emerged. The Qian-zhong-nan style is characterized by simple garments with meticulous detail and ornamentation. Men’s clothing consists of trousers and decorated jackets or vests. While the garments of both sexes is meticulously decorated with traditional Miao silver designs and woven brocades, women’s clothing stands out much more than men’s clothing with a greater amount of ornamentation and design. Women generally wear a top garment with an open collar and a pleated knee length skirt. Miao women in the south of Guizhuo are partial to the colors green and blue.³⁶ Women in this area wear either beautifully decorated knee length skirts or trousers. Cotton and linen are commonly used fabrics due to their strength, durability, and ease of enhancement with dye or decor.

This work by China Learning Library @ George Mason University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.