Chinese cloth treasure-Xilankapu

Tujia is a nationality good at embroidery and textile. Early in the Qin-Han Period, Tujia ancestors had been able to weave an exquisite cloth "Zong cloth". In Country History of Huayang, this kind of cloth was called "thin and blue cloth", "just like the damask silk." It was later called "Xitong cloth" in the Tang Dynasty, which had already developed very consummate craft. Light Stories of Small Stream describes: The cloth is made from threads of five colors, and look bright and beautiful. It can be used for quilts, dresses or towels. After the Song Dynasty, the textile technology of Tujia was developed further. Besides the common nankeen, woven with cotton and silk, "Xilankapu", is kind of brocade with luxuriant design and exquisite craft, and gradually enjoyed great prestige worldwide.

"Xilankapu" is a traditional handcraft of Tujia. On the weaving machines with narrow lathe, it is woven by hand, with blue, black, red, and white threads as the longitude, silk, cotton, and wool of many kinds of colors as the latitude. It is boorish and clear, with energetic structure, bright and beautiful color, and unique patterns, showing significant artistic effects. It is the quintessence of the folk art of Tujia. The pattern of Xilankapu usually adopts the techniques of symbolizing and abstraction, straight-line modeling, symmetrical in succession.

Its traditional patterns can reach two to three hundred kinds, which can be roughly classified as the following three categories: First, the pattern of natural images; Second, various types of geometric patterns; Third, characters of the language. Most of the traditional kinds of patterns are taken from the life of Tujia, such as the stripes of tiger, leopard and deer, colorful feather of golden pheasant, clouds, water wave and arched bridge.