A Research On Xixia Textile

The history of textile in Xi Xia dynasty is one of the greatest subjects of the study of Xi Xia civilization. Based on the analysis of the ever cited recording of Xi Xia history, the textile development during Xi Xia dynasty, including the production and processing of textile raw materials, organization forms, spinning instruments, printing and dying technics have been discussed and verified in this study. This study mainly focuses on the following statements:1.Though the overall textile level of Xi Xia dynasty is incomparable to that of Song dynasty, it still has a complete textile category, such as the typical textile products involved in cotton, hemp, wool, and silk. With the special geographic location in the Silk Road, Xi Xia dynasty has developed a comprehensive cotton manufacturing system, ranging from the cultivation of cotton plants to weaving, which help produce high-quality cotton products at that time. In addition, wool handicraft is a traditional textile form in Xi Xia, and with no doubt wool products stand for the most competing textile form in Xi Xia dynasty with various good products. Though Xi Xia started silk production lately, it has developed its own silk manufacturing system rapidly. Even incomparable to that of adept Chinese, Xi Xia still develops an overall silk production techniques with its own characteristics.2.Similar with Song dynasty, the textile workshops in Xi Xia also have two kinds of affiliations, namely official and folk textile production. Official textile production has its independent textile administrative and manufacturing facilities. Differing from Song dynasty, the state-owned "warehouses" has the function of textile production arrangement, which is absent in Song dynasty. Similar with the "Zhi Zao Hu"in Tang dynasty and "Ji Hu"in Song dynasty, the official manufacturer also employed folk manufacturer to produce wool fabrics with the prescript process and time limit as regulated by the official administration. Silk is the main product of official manufacturer, which is provided for the nobles, military merits and merchandise and currency. On the contrary, bulk textile, such as hemp and wool are mainly produced by the folk manufacturers. Moreover, the citizenship in Xi Xia society is mainly consisting of the ethnic minorities named Tanguts which are derived from the nomads, The Tanguts seldom contact with other advanced civilization, thus, their social organization is simple and unenlightened. So Xi Xia is short of silk manufacturers. To solve this problem, Xi Xia always capture Song people or order prisoners to fill textile mills, which further worsen their social standings.3.Though located remotely, Xi Xia has same spinning instruments, printing, and dying skills with Song dynasty with their own characteristics. However, Xi Xia has fewer silk spinning machine as its silk production is infant.Tanguts lived long nomad lives,thus their chief textile products are mainly hemp and wool,so portable instruments such as spinning wheel and breast loom should been widely used. Xi Xia has advanced cotton spinning,so vertical loom,which is used to weave cotton, should hold more than Song does.Xi Xia is on the front of western-oriental exchange,its textile instruments should have some character of Western Region,such as wooden beat-up fork that were used to weave tapestry in Western Region.The printing&dying skill of Xi Xia has reached a certain level.Xi Xia is located in the northwest of China,belongs to Western Region of the dying regions.The kinds of dye stuff are different from those of China,but the color spectrum of Xi Xia is complete.Xi Xia knows different dying method such as boil dye liquor or not,and have comprehension and control methods of the damage to fabric whether boil liquor or not.They know warp ikat dying,gold-weft,gold-paint and chromaticity painting.They developed their own dying methods,and combine their own dying methods with mature Chinese ones.4.The language and scripts of a nation reflect its social life deeply,and can also be seen in textile industry.Only with a survey on Xi Xia scripts, one can see that wool fabrication is the mainstream of Xi Xia textile,and bulk fabrics are in low level.And silk production is new in Xi Xia, so Tanguts just completely copy Chinese methods to create characters that of silk.For these reasons, we can reach a conclusion that although Xi Xia has a overall backward textile technology than Song dynasty, it has a complete textile category, with good learning ability,with own competitive products and with own national characteristics.