Fire Grass Textile Skills

It was approved in 2009. According to reports, as early as the early Ming Dynasty in Qiubei, Zhuang people made fire grass. Yunnan does not produce cotton, and the industrious and intelligent women of the Zhuang family in Qiubei use "fire grass", a licorice plant called "full tail" in Zhuang language, as cotton.

Every August, the fire grass leaves are picked on the mountain. The collected fire grass leaves are rinsed with water and then put in a dustpan. Then, while the water is not completely dry, they are removed from the root and foot of the leaves, and the parts like cotton are intact. One by one, they are rubbed into uniform fire grass lines on the thighs, and after drying, they are wrapped into thread balls. When weaving the fire grass quilt, the twine is used as the warp thread, and the fire grass thread is used to shuttle back and forth on the twine. The twine used for weaving the fire grass quilt is also the local hemp storage, and the process of making the hemp storage twine is even more complicated, generally, it takes more than a dozen processes such as cutting hemp → peeling → peeling → twisting → twisting → twisting → cooking → cooking (with plant ash) → washing → drying before it can be put on shelves. To weave a bed of fire grass quilt, it takes about two to three months and more than ten baskets of fire grass leaves.

In the past, fire grass was used as dowry and necessities of life, but now it has been replaced by quilts. The most complete weaving technique of the current fire grass belongs to Xiaoxilong Village, Jinping Town, Qiubei County. In August 2009, the fire grass of the Zhuang nationality in Qiubei County was rated as the second batch of intangible cultural heritage of Yunnan Province by the Yunnan Provincial People's Government and the Provincial Department of Culture. He Meifen, who was born in June 1951 in Xiaoxilang Village, Mubai Village Committee, Pingzhai Township, Qiubei County, is the inheritor of the fire grass quilt of the Zhuang nationality in Qiubei County. She is a locally recognized "fire grass quilt" weaving master, with exquisite weaving skills and bold innovation on the basis of the traditional fire grass quilt weaving, the fire grass thread is dyed with colored (red, blue, purple, yellow, green, etc.) with the plant dye of Zhuang nationality's "March 3" flower rice, and arranged in a certain order to weave various continuous patterns, which are simple, elegant and full of changes. Fire grass is made of pure natural plants and worsted by traditional techniques. It has continued the integrity and authenticity of history. It is an example of the origin and evolution of early human daily necessities (quilts). It is not only a practical handicraft, but also a carrier of the traditional culture of the Zhuang nationality, which embodies the wisdom of the ancestors of the Zhuang nationality.