Specialty of Silver Beauty of the Yi Nationality

Distributed mainly over provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan in China, the Yi ethnic minority is one of the fascinating group that imbue their specialty with profound culture, for instance, lacquerware, featured costumes and silverware of the group, the yi people painted the long history of the group with their skilled hands.People of the group are in favor of dressing themselves up, wearing silver and gold is the main fashion. Bearing thousands of years of traditional crafts, silver jewelry of female of the ethnic group which is the crystallization of the people are full of art artistic and aesthetic beauty. By combining the exquisite heritage from the ancestors and modern technology,   the profound yi silver jewelry culture takes on colorful and prosperous appearances. Jewelry of the group can be divided into the vintage jewelry group, which is one of the most beautiful categories among the superior jewelry culture.Touching silver legendIt was said that a long time ago, a young men and women were saved by a roster and then fell in love with each other and became couple. Later the unmarried yi girls would wear a “cockscomb” which is cutting into the shape of comb inlaid with silver to symbolize the peace and happiness, to imply good luck and blessing as well. There is another legend which is full of unique charm about another hair accessory “Lotus cap”. It was said that the mythology hero of the nationality met a couple plowing when he was riding a horse and asked the husband about the size they had finished, while the wife answered by question the hero on how long the journey the hose had achieved. Both of the two men were rendered speechless to give the reply when facing the two similar questions. Thus an order was given to married female to use sewed lotus cap covering their ability and cleverness. However, the cap had been the proud headdress of the married woman then, which would let them full of more inspirational wisdom. Nowadays, the two legends have been the important source of films to manifest the important cultural background of the story. A wide variety of the Yi silverwareSilverware is applied widely in daily life of the yi, such as tools, tableware, harness and religious utensils and so on are all full of silver elements. It was said that inspirations of the group on most jewelry and hardware made with the metal were from nature, which is both come from life while higher than it. Take the wine utensil for instance, shapes of bird, claw, fish, horn and so on are all filled with elements of nature; the tableware can be divided into silver bowl, plate, basin and so on, which are of crafting categories of thick, light, refined, simple, clumsy or plain etc..However, the stunning metal is applied to the custom of the female yi people in a large degree. Carved collar, collar button and collar decoration made with different patterns such as animals. Plants and so on are all chicly created. Rings, bracelets, earrings and buttons carved with the sun, moon and star, birds, fishes and plants, mountains and rivers land, clevis and heart-shaped patterns and so on all gradually enrich the connotation of the jewelry culture. Application of the straight and arc line, point and line, dynamic and static, density and loosens, shades and plain etc. would always bring the jewelry a sense of harmony.Complicated crafts processesIncised decoration, hollow and mosaic are the main methods to create patterns of the yi silverware. In the producing process, silver needed should be firstly prepared by a balance, and then being melted into liquid in a furnace the following steps are to pouring the liquid into a mold to cool off into strip, and then make them into plate various shapes, the plate would become prototype after being extruded, the last steps would through dozens of procedures such as to gluing, carving, hollowing, welding, grinding, polishing and so on, a yi accessory can only be finished then.