苗族服饰刺绣

Dress Embroidery of the Miao Nationality

苗族刺绣被誉为"苗家三绝"之一,到过黔东南苗寨的人,都会惊异于苗家女子那绣满花样的美仑美奂的服装和满身披挂的银饰.从十几岁的少女到六七十岁的老妪,皆绣服锦带,其色彩或艳丽或柔暗,无不和谐,令人赞叹!苗族刺绣以其精湛的工艺、悠久的历史和极为丰厚的文化内涵,被公认为"世界第一".世界上很难找出像苗绣服饰这样承载了如此厚重的文化信息的民间艺术形式.苗族的创世纪古歌、苗族的信仰和历史、习俗、社会心理和审美观念,都写在这些"穿在身上的史书"之中.

Embroidery of the Miao nationality is renowned as one ofthe 'three Miao unique skills', whose exquisiteworkmanship, long history and rich cultural connotation areuniversally acknowledged as the 'No.one in the world'. Itis almost impossible to find another folk art in the worldwhich contains so much and so deep cultural information asMiao embroidery dresses.Miao nationality has no written language, therefore, thepreservation of their culture depends on oral instructionsand inheritance of technological processes. Quite naturally,the embroidery Miao dresses become the carrier of the Miaoculture.The representative Miao embroidery is that along theQingshuijiang River in the southeast Guizhou Province.The plain and peculiar designs of human-beast compound,human-plant compound and human-animal compound areprimitive and mysterious, representing an ancient culture ofthe Miao nationality and the humanity as well.The most obvious and valuable technology of the Miao embroidery dress lies in the embroidery technique itself.There are thirty to forty common technical processes today.Here is the comment on the Miao embroidery dress by theUNESCO: The dresses which are full of rich cultural valuesand symbolic meanings not only represent a cognition of thenational culture but also are of great significance in thelegacy preservation of the related country as well as thewhole humanity.