Chapter 6 Chapter 2 Ancient kudzu and hemp weaving

There are many varieties of kudzu and hemp fibers in my country. In ancient times, kudzu, hemp, ramie, and velvet [qingqing] hemp were used in daily clothing.Among them, the origin of hemp and ramie is my country, and they enjoy the reputation of "hemp" and "Chinese grass" respectively abroad. Gege, also known as kudzu and kudzu, is a vine belonging to the leguminous family, which can be up to eight meters long, and mostly grows on slopes or sparse forests in hilly areas.The processed and separated kudzu fiber is one of the earliest bulk raw materials used for textiles in ancient my country.In ancient times, the finely woven Gebu was called 絺 [chi Chi], the rough Gebu was called 绤 [xi Xi], and the finely woven Gebu was called crepe.Pueraria fiber has good moisture absorption and heat dissipation, and is especially suitable as a material for summer clothes. In the ancient times of ancient books, there is a record of Yao "winter deer [mi fans] fur, summer kudzu clothes", and Du Fu's poem also has "Yanzhi Neighbors to the south, September is still in the sky" sentence.

During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, it was the golden age of kudzu production. At that time, the artificial cultivation of kudzu was very popular in our country. High-quality kudzu fabrics were not only produced everywhere, but the output was also amazing.According to records, after King Goujian of Yue was defeated by the State of Wu, 100,000 horses of Gebu were dedicated to the King of Wu at one time.After the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the textile technology and production capacity of silk and hemp have been significantly improved, but kudzu vine is gradually replaced by hemp because of its short single fiber, which is not suitable for finishing. Its production is limited to some remote mountainous areas.

Hemp, commonly known as marijuana, also known as hemp and thread hemp, is an annual herb belonging to the family Moraceae, about 1-3 meters high, dioecious.The male plant has a long and slender hemp stem, a large output of bast fiber, good quality and early maturity.The female plant has thick stems, low bast fiber yield, and late maturity.Both fibers can be used for weaving, and the pockmarks are edible.The artificial cultivation of hemp and weaving with its fiber in my country began in the Neolithic Age, and became popular in the Shang and Zhou dynasties.As early as more than 2,000 years ago, the people of our country had a deep understanding of the phenomenon of dioecious cannabis plants and the textile properties of male and female fibers. They called the male plants "枲" or "Mume" and the female plants "苗". [juju] or "Zima".It is often used to weave finer cloth with hemp, and to weave thicker cloth with hemp.

Ramie Ramie, because it can be used for weaving, can also be written as 躻. It is a perennial herb unique to my country and belongs to the family Urticaceae. It is mostly produced in warm and abundant southern provinces.Ramie fiber is slender and tough, smooth and mercerized, with good moisture absorption and heat dissipation, and good dyeing fastness. It has been the main textile raw material in the Central Plains since the Shang and Zhou dynasties except silk.Because ramie's excellent performance of fast moisture absorption and heat dissipation is beyond the reach of cotton, ramie is still widely planted in the south even after cotton is popularized.The cloth made of ramie fiber has the characteristics of light weight, coolness, crispness, non-stickiness, and good air permeability. It is a popular summer clothing material.

Abutilon Abutilon belongs to the Malvaceae annual herbaceous plant. It is widely distributed and can grow in most parts of my country. Its fibers are short and thick, and its spinning performance is far inferior to that of hemp and ramie.Before the Spring and Autumn Period, it was often used as a material for mourning clothes or clothing for lower-class workers.After the Qin and Han Dynasties, the use of it to make clothes gradually decreased, but it was still widely used to make ropes and rain capes.According to Yuan Wangzhen's "Nongshu": "(abutilon hemp) can be woven into blankets and quilts, jigsou [geng Geng], ox ropes, or used as cow clothes, raincoats, straw shoes and other tools. Farmers can't live without them every year. "It shows that the demand for Abutilon in later generations is still very large.

Abaca includes plantain and glycoside [gan Gan] plantain.Banana is an edible banana. It and plantain belong to the perennial herbaceous plant of Musaceae, but they are of different species in the same family.In some areas in ancient times, the stem bark fibers of these two plants were often used as textile materials, and the woven cloth was called banana cloth.This cloth is very light, and Bai Juyi has a poem: "Inscription poems on banana leaves, and banana shreds are light to wear".Song Yingxing praised: "Taking plantain skin and analyzing it, it's so delicate".During the Tang and Song Dynasties, the banana cloth produced in Guangdong, Guangxi, and Fujian was very famous, and it was often presented to the imperial court as a tribute.

There was no cotton in our country in ancient times, and what was called "cloth" in ancient times mainly referred to the hemp fabric mentioned above, so "Xiaoerya" has: "Ma, 纻, Ge yue cloth".Because cloth is the cloth that the common people wear daily and has a close relationship with the lives of the majority of people, the common people are also called "common clothes".