Through the ups and downs of history, up to now, the Nung An people in Phuc Sen commune, Quang Hoa district, Cao Bang province still preserve and promote the cultural beauty imbued with national identity, expressed through many aspects of material and spiritual cultural life to the traditional occupations of their ancestors. Craft villages in Phuc Sen commune are one of the attractions for tourists to visit and experience.
Phuc Sen is one of the typical communes with traditional craft villages such as: Forging knives and hammers, making incense, weaving indigo fabric..., Nung An people are considered to be hard-working, diligent and industrious. In 2020, after merging from Quoc Dan commune (old), Phuc Sen commune currently has 11 administrative hamlets, with over 420 households, 99% of whom are Nung An ethnic group.
Along with cuisine, language..., traditional costumes also show the cultural identity of that ethnic group. With indigo fabric, the clothes of both men and women of the Nung An people are mostly used for daily use, new clothes are worn in traditional festivals, cultural exchanges or weddings. Accordingly, the indigo dyeing profession of the Nung An people is still preserved. It not only has the meaning of creating material products but also the pride and love for the homeland of the indigenous people.
Indigo fabric has been preserved by the Nung An ethnic group for many generations.
In the past, almost every household wove and dyed their own fabric, but now, in the whole Phuc Sen commune, there are still 35 households preserving and producing indigo fabric scattered in the hamlets: Khao A, Khao B, Lung Vai, Phja Chang. Dyeing indigo fabric goes through many complicated stages, requiring the skill and sophistication of women to make the fabric have a deep purple-blue color. A beautiful fabric also shows the skill, morality, and qualities of a woman who is patient and hardworking, and that is also one of the criteria for evaluating talent.
Making an indigo cloth takes a lot of time and steps. After the harvest, the Nung An people plant indigo and safflower plants to dye the cloth. Usually, from the end of August to October of the lunar calendar, the Nung An people will dye indigo cloth, because this is the idle farming time, with little rain and lots of sunshine.
The time from germination, planting to harvesting indigo and mangrove plants lasts about 10-11 months. After the plants have matured, the Nung An people cut the plants and soak them in a stone water trough in front of the house floor. When visiting villages in Phuc Sen commune, visitors will often see water troughs made of stone with different sizes and shapes. After soaking for two days and two nights, the plant stems will rot and dissolve in water, creating sediment at the bottom of the trough. The color of the water at this time will change from ivory yellow to reddish brown, which is the standard. People will scoop up the sediment of the plant, put it in a jar and mix it with lime water, becoming a thick mixture, called manure.
The white cloth is woven from cotton or synthetic fibers (no nylon) and soaked in a mixture of indigo and mangrove water. For a month (not counting rainy days), the cloth is soaked in the mixture of water, each day a small bowl of mangrove is mixed into the soaking water, stirring well so that the color penetrates the cloth. The cloth meets the standards, then is dried until it changes from white to a deep purple-blue color, with the characteristic pungent aroma of mangrove.
Indigo fabric is sold by people at the festival.
Indigo dyeing of the Nung An people in Phuc Sen is a traditional craft. Nung An women are taught to weave and dye indigo from a young age. Elderly people in the commune often tell their children and grandchildren about the traditions of the Nung people and remind them to preserve the traditions of the nation. Currently, the indigo dyeing of the Nung An people is still preserved and taught to the next generations. Currently, indigo dyed fabric is sold on the market at a price of 100-150 thousand VND/m. To sew a complete costume of the Nung An people, about 10m of indigo fabric is needed.
Each traditional craft of the Nung An people in Quang Hoa is associated with the formation, existence and development of the community, is also the quintessence of the Nung An people and has become a unique traditional cultural feature. To preserve, maintain and promote, in the coming time, there needs to be a reasonable support mechanism and policy. In particular, it is necessary to associate with propaganda and promotion of products and brands, linking craft villages with places, cultural and tourist addresses...
Luong Thi Kim Ngan (Cao Bang Newspaper)
Source: https://baophutho.vn/net-dep-truyen-thong-tu-vai-cham-cua-dan-toc-nung-an-220441.htm
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