Chopper Cloth and Sharp-topped Hat of Jino Ethnic Group

The Jino women are experts in spinning and weaving. When you walk into a Jino village, in front of it, near the border or on the path in the field, you will see that all the Jino women are twisting threads with spindles. Under their skillful hands, sometimes open, sometimes closed, up and down, the snowy white cotton is instantly transformed into well-distributed silver threads. 

Jino’s cotton materials, named “Chopper Cloth”, are hand-weaved with a spinning machine. While spinning, women sit on the ground, with one end of the warps tied to their waists and the other end to two sticks opposite, and the wefts winding around the bamboo shuttles. During the operation, they use hands to handle the shuttles back and forth, and push the wefts taut with chopper-shaped board after each round. Moving in cycles like this, one piece of exquisite “Chopper Cloth” is finished.

The Jinos’ dress has quite distinctive features. Men are fond of wearing collarless, black-and-white-squared coats, open on the front with no buttons. On the front and before the chest there are several red and blue stripes, while on the back is usually sewed a 20-centimeter-squared pattern of the sun. In the lower part, men commonly wear broad trousers or shorts. Women wear inside a piece of heart-shaped embroidered cloth before the chest, and outside a collarless latticed coat in colors of blue, red, yellow and white, open on the front. In the lower part they wear skirts edged with red cloth and wrap blue or black puttees. They wear sharp-topped hats, reaching the shoulders like a cloak. This kind of hat has a distinctive style, similar in form to the hat of the raincoat in modern cities, which is one outstanding feature of Jino women’s dress. This hat is made with a piece of 60cm-long-and-23cm-wide vertical-lined chopper cloth, which is folded in the middle and is sewed on one side. When put them up, women usually fold up the brim a finger width. Those slender Jino women appear tasteful and vivacious in such a suit of harmonious-colored, appropriate-cut dress.