The Research Of Li’s Traditional Dyeing Technique

Li’s traditional dyeing technique is a living fossil of China’s history of dyeing process. It is the treasure of intangible cultural heritage in China and even in the world. Plant dyestuff processing technique has a long history. Humans have long learned how to use plants for dyeing. With the passage of time, many old techniques have been gradually disappeared. In civil of China, Li is one of the few nationalities still using a variety of plants for dyeing. However, the wonderful and unique Li’s traditional dyeing craft is little known. Due to various reasons, the traditional plant dyeing technique is endangered at present. Under the current background of vigorously protecting cultural heritage and promoting a great development and prosperity of socialist culture, through field investigation, this article does research on Li’s traditional dyeing technique using the existing literature and kind information. Through sorting and summarizing, restoring its overview initially, and then to explore related fields is one of this article’s main research significances. The research of this technique can reveal the origin of the traditional printing and dyeing technique, and also can reveal the scientific process of traditional dyeing technique developed into chemical dyeing technique. Li’s traditional dyeing technique contains a wealth of scientific information. It has a great significance in the research of traditional material culture, ethnology, botany, aesthetics, and chemistry and so on. This article will take the plant dyeing of cotton and twine thread and its related contents mastered by Li women in Ha, Qi, Sai, Run and Meifu five dialect areas and will make every effort to reveal the overview of Li’s traditional dyeing technique. Through discussion and analysis, the overall law and different of Li’s traditional dyeing technique can be found in this five dialect areas. Induction is adopted in this paper and it summarizes the feature of Li’s traditional dyeing technique by comparing. Using historical study, and through the analysis of the literature, it will comb the origin and the process of historical development of Li’s traditional dyeing technique on the whole. Li women use more natural plant dyestuff, but fewer animal and mineral one. Through on-the-spot investigation, this paper sums up that there are about a dozen of dye plants still often used by Li currently. This paper uses interdisciplinary study of dyeing of raw materials for the overall classification, description and analysis. Through database and literature retrieval, this article does research in the fields of botany, medicine, chemistry, etc on the mainly used dye by Li women, including indigo, turmeric, logwood and some other natural plant dyestuff. And from the perspective of history, this article uses literature, combined with the archaeological discoveries, to comb the application history of each dye. This article mainly uses a combination of interview method, observation method, and scientific measurement method, to classify and record tools used in the dyeing technique. According to the process of Li’s traditional dyeing technique, Li’s dyeing tools can be divided into four categories:one is the tools used in finishing and formulation of dye; second is mordant making tools; three is the tools used in the process of dyeing; four is tools used for dry and oxidation. At the same time, it will comb the type, distribution, scale, usage, production methods and so on of every tool. In addition, this paper adopts the combination of literature research and field investigation, quantitative method and comparative research to state the process of dyeing specifically, including the finishing and formulation of plant dye, mordant use, dyeing, drying and oxidation. Through induction and summary, the main finishing and formulation method of plant dye is divided into: building indigo method, pounding with pestle method and boiling method. This article will comb the species, production methods and documentary records of the mordant, and to find regional characteristics of all kinds of mordant in use. It divides dyeing method into vat dyeing, direct dyeing, mordant dyeing, Beng dyeing and resist dyeing, and states them one by one according to the different areas.