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Library>Culture ABC>Folk Way>Shoes & Hats

Colorful Cap

Colorful cap is part of the Uygur ethnic minority’s habiliment, and also one of the symbols of the minority. As early as the Tang Dynasty (618-907), most males of the Western Regions wore a pointed-topped felt hat with a turnup edge, quite similar to the present-day “Sipianwa”. By the Ming Dynasty
(1368-1644), owing to the influence of Arabian and Central Asian culture, men of the Uygur ethnic minority had begun to shave their heads and wear small embroidered caps. In the beginning period of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), the colorful cap of the minority developed further in material and
design. Leather was used in winter and damask silk in summer, with fowl feather inserted at the front. All caps for female were decorated with purl embroidery.

Through the constant innovation by the Uygur people of all places, the colorful cap has become increasingly delicate in workmanship and progressively various in styles. But the chief types are “Qiyiman” and “Badanmu”, generally called “Gaba” (four-sided tiny colorful cap).

“Qinyiman” cap is flowery in color, and its needle work is fine and smooth. It is embroidered with chromatic threads made of silver and gold, and set with some small plastic beads of various colors. Boys and girls wearing them dance and sing under the shady grape trellis.

“Badanmu” was derived fromBadanxing(prunus amygdalus), which is a tree originating from Persia, characterized by its ability to blossom and bear fruit even in an arid desert. According to the character of prunus amygdalus and its meniscoid core, the highly imaginative Uygur use white silk thread,
and the technique of combination of curve, straight, dots and lines, to embroider a pattern of apricots crowded around by ripples and beads, symbolizing that trickling springs are nourishing fruitful trees. Such a simple and elegant “Badanmu” colorful cap is especially favored by middle-aged and
old people.

There are many ways to embroider the colorful cap: silk thread plane embroidering, cross-shaped embroidering, silk thread knot embroidering, bead string embroidering, lattice embroidering, gold and silver embroidering, crochet embroidering, enlaced cloth with soft nap embroidering and integrated
embroidering combined with brede, enlacing, cluster and entwing. Uygur women first embroider chromatic patterns on the four pieces of cap cover, then sew them together, fixing the lining on it and putting it on the wooden mold, and finally add the black velveteen margin. So, the dainty little
colorful cap has come out.

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Library>Culture ABC>Folk Way>Ethnic Food

Baoan

The Bao’an ethnic minority group was originally a branch of Muslim Mongolians living and farming in the Tongren area ofQinghaiProvincein the 12thcentury, and later was merged with the ethnic groups nearby. The Bao’an people in the Bao’an Autonomous County of Gansu Province in northwestChinaare
mainly engaged in agriculture, with stock raising and gathering as their supplementary ways of living. They are excellent in handicraft techniques. The thin-hull walnut and the winter peach they plant, and the decorated copper waist knife they make, have long been well known in Gansu Province,
Qinghai Province and Tibet as Three Treasures of the Bao’an.

The Bao’an people embrace Islam. Their living customs are greatly influenced by Islam and have certain habits of the Mongolians, thus constituting their unique ethnic characteristics. Their daily foods include wheat, barley, beans, maize, potato, buckwheat, highland barley, beef, mutton, milk,
chicken, eggs and fishes, etc.; vegetables only include flax and leek. They love sourness and piquancy so much that they cannot live without vinegar and fried chili.

Their staple foods are mainly wheaten food, such as steamed bread, steamed twisted roll, pancake, steamed stuffed bun, noodles in soup, noodles with minced meat, fried wheaten food, cool noodles, vinegar noodles, noodles with fried meat, gluten, etc.

The meat that the Bao’ans eat is mainly beef and mutton. They abstain from eating pork, horsemeat, donkey meat, mule meat, and the meat of raptors and predators, as well as the meat and blood of all animals that die naturally. The whole-sheep feast is most well known. Fat sheep at the age of two
are grained and boiled, and cut into several parts by rib, back, legs, hip, neck and tail. The parts are then sliced into finger-thick, palm-size pieces with bones, served on plates in order, and eaten with seasonings.

There are several dietetic customs in the wedding ceremonies. On engagement, the husband’s side must present betrothal gifts to the wife’s side, which include theNashoucha(favorite tea). When leaving her home on the wedding day, the bride shall scatterWuseliang(i.e., wheat, beans, maize or tea) on
the road after her, which stands for leaving happiness to her kind parents in return for their nursing.

Four Kinds of Special Food:

A.KangPot Baked Bun

KangPot Baked Bun is made by adding dry flour, soda water, vegetable oil, salt or sugar to fermentative dough, kneading it repeatedly, forming figures like peony and rose, then baked in theKangpot. The weight ranges from 250g to 5,000g, and the thickness ranges from 5cm to 15cm.

B. Unripe Wheat Stuffed Bun

Unripe Wheat Stuffed Bun is made by tying the wheat heads into small bundles, boiling, crunching, drying them and soaking them in mutton soup, mixing the soup with minced mutton and seasonings, and using it as the stuffing to make buns.

C.HezhouStuffed Bun

HezhouStuffed Bun is stuffed by carrot, mutton and shallot in autumn and winter, or leek, leek flowers and mutton in spring and summer. It can be steamed or baked, with two types of cool-heart and water-soaked yellow surfaces stuffed bun, and eaten with chili, sauce and vinegar.

D. Pigeon Meat Porridge

The pigeon meat porridge is prepared by the following method: cleaning and chopping wild pigeons into pieces, mixing with rice (or millet) and fern seeds, and stewing them on slow fire. It is beneficial to the internal organs and the brain, and is often used as an invigorant for those who just
recover from serious diseases.

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Library>Culture ABC>Folk Way>Ethnic Costumes

Pumi

Pumi children, no matter girls or boys, all wear long linen gowns buttoned on the right with silver buttons on the collar, and cloth waistbands woven with various patterns and thread fringes on both ends. Girls keep long hair and arrange it into plaits decorated with red and green beads. They wear
a cloth cap in the shape of a cat’s head with two erect ears and sometimes decorated with a pair of roe teeth or five silver Bodhisattvas. Boys’ front hair is arranged into three plaits, one more than that of girls.

Young women all wear short jackets, which are mainly white, black, and red, buttoned on the right, narrow-sleeved and high-collared. Adult women wear further shawls and aprons with plaited laces. In some areas, women wear close-fitting plaited skirts reaching the insteps. Women wear very long
waistbands, both ends of which are embroidered with patterns of flowers. When seeking a spouse, waistbands often serve as keepsakes. Adult women love to wear wigs that usually made of the tail hair of yak and decorated with purple and blue threads or beads on the hairline. They wear earbobs,
silver earrings, and necklaces stringed with corals, agates and beads.

Young men of the Pumi ethnic minority wear short jackets with silver buttons on the right side, and loose trousers generally in black. Over the jackets, they sometimes wear long gowns with waistbands. They wear linen leggings. Adult men keep long hair, and also coil wigs around the head with silk
threads. Some men shave their head bald, only leaving a small bunch of hair arranged into a plait on the top of the head. Old men and women don’t wear adornments or wigs.

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