Sha Jiao village

(Sha Jiao village is in Wan Teng township, Xingyi metropolitan area - 40km to the east of Xingyi itself - in Guizhou province, south west China.  The village was originally a white Miao village but now seems to be more Red Hat and Clean Water Miao, in dress, at least.)

Sha Jiao village is beautifully tucked into the landscape with attractive stone houses.  As it was the rice harvest time most of the village was out at work.  However, we were welcomed by 6 girls singing and 3 men playing lushen pipes and a drum.  As we made our way up to the village and into the school yard we were offered alcohol by the girls who then danced for us whilst the men played.  We were able to buy textiles from some of the older women.  We saw two types of indigo wax resist skirts in the village - one with the main skirt all waxed and then with cross-stitch in red and yellow around the bottom (Red Hat Miao style) and the other a wax resist skirt with broken lines of red embroidery dotted around it but with no bottom border (the 'original' Clean Water Miao style).  From a 60 year old woman and a 70 year old man we learnt that the village had originally been a White Miao village with the women wearing white skirts.  The woman was herself a Clean Water Miao and had married into the village.  Various other Miao had also come into the village and intermarried - Flower Miao and Red Hat Miao and also Han.  The old man said that his wife originally made 16 skirts as they had four sons and she planned to give four skirts to each wife.  However, one son married a Bouyei so there were spare skirts - although she would be expected to wear the village skirt when she came to visit.  

all text & images © Pamela A Cross 

top
top
top
top
top