How is the Manchu cloth pillow made?

The winter in the Northeast is cold, and the Manchus all sleep on the kang, cover with quilts, pillows, and pillows, which can also play a role in protecting against the cold. The long pillow sewn from cotton resembles a pocket filled with candies and can be tightly protected for your shoulders while sleeping.

In order to decorate the pillow, the Manchu people sewed the top of the pillow embroidered with Naduo on the two plugs of the pillow, so the Manchu girl began to learn embroidery from an early age. The top of the embroidered pillow has different shapes, including square, rectangular, diamond, round, etc. The square one is used as a double pillow for adults, and the rectangular one is used as a flat pillow for children.

The color style of the embroidery on the top of the pillow is similar to the New Year's painting, which is very folk-like, with bright tones and strong contrasts, hot, gorgeous and festive. Pillow embroidery covers a wide range of subjects, including all areas of painting. There are flowers, melons and fruits, birds, beasts, fish and insects, landscapes, pavilions and pavilions.

Among them, the embroidered characters are mostly Manchu legends and opera characters that the masses like, such as:"Ginseng girl"、"The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl"."Cui Yingying and Zhang Sheng"Wait. The shapes of these figures are simple and vivid, the composition is decorative, and the embroidery stitches are rich and varied, which is the best of the pillow top embroidery works.

When a girl gets married and gives a dowry, she puts the top of her pillow on a large tarpaulin, commonly known as it"Pillow with a curtain on the top"。Red men and green women went to watch, and they did not boast that the embroidery was good, and they were called highly skilled. The embroidery on the top of the pillow was not only popularized among the Manchus, but also spread among women of other ethnic groups.

Embroidered pillow tops were not only found among the people, but were also widely used in the imperial court. The Forbidden City in Beijing, the Forbidden City in Shenyang, and the Summer Resort in Chengde all have pillows sewn on top of embroidered pillows.

The Manchu cloth pillow is a rectangular hexahedron, so it is called a square pillow. However, there are many differences in the length, width and height of square pillows, including single square pillows, square pillows, flat pillows, ear pillows, empty pillows, opposite pillows, etc. The pillow should be filled with plant filling, and the pillow should be warm and soft.

These fillers are the leaves, flowers or fruits of wild plants, which are economical and practical, and have medicinal properties. Such as buckwheat husk, iron leaf, chrysanthemum, cattail, etc.

To decorate this cloth pillow, Nado had to embroider patterns on two plugs, that is, embroider patterns on all the colorful pillows. Pillow embroidery originated from the influence of Chinese culture. However, due to the unique marriage customs of the Manchus, the pillow embroidery of the Manchus has a wide variety, exquisite and exquisite, rich in content, which is not inferior to the similar embroidery of the Han nationality in China.

Small, winding embroidery, cloth embroidery and other categories are in a leading position. At that time, girls from Manchu families had to embroider from elementary school, embroidering dowries by hand, including embroidered shoes, flower clothes, curtain nails, quilts, etc. Embroidered pillows are the most important.

Neighbors and sisters often embroider together, learn from each other, and often sing folk songs while embroidering: small needles are pricked, wrapped in green linen, what is hidden in green linen? Green linen, green linen, new linen, flower arrangement needle in green linen.

Before a girl gets married, she has to embroider dozens, dozens or even hundreds of pillowcases and cover them on a large canvas called "pillowcase". The upper end of the pillow hangs from a wooden pole. The two of them took it from their mother's house to their mother-in-law's house with other dowries, and they even played drums.

It is called "hanging dowry", which is placed in the village for a week to attract people to watch along the street, and there are colorful pillows.

These dowries are sent to the man's house, and they are placed in the new house one by one, especially the pillowcase, which should be hung in the most conspicuous place. To the day, "red men and green women come to pay respects, do not boast of good embroidery, and call it high". The cave house became a solo exhibition of folk art, and after the wedding, Kangqin was neatly inspected, red, green and green, with four pillows piled on both sides, the pillows facing outward, colorful and radiant.

My sister-in-law and sister-in-law should hand over pillow embroidery, learn embroidery skills, treat relatives well, and take pillow embroidery as a thought. The rest of the embroidered pillow is even more treasured and will accompany it for life, which shows its important role in women's sexual life.

Because of the unique marriage customs of the Manchus, pillow embroidery came into being. Its subjects include: landscapes, flowers and birds, grass and insects, animals, people, people, etc.

Its forms include satin embroidery, cloth embroidery, dot embroidery, knitted yarn, cut embroidery, cross stitch, bag embroidery and patchwork embroidery. The stitches include flat, inverted, long, and lock stitches.

Among them, some pillow top embroidery works show totem worship or shaman sacrifice, which is full of shamanic culture.