Yeche Ethnic Lady of Hani Ethnic Group
The dress of the Hani People varies among different places due to different branches. Generally they prefer dark blue Hani local cloth to make clothes. Men usually wear trousers and coat open on the front, wrapping head with black or white cloth. Women mostly wear coat without collar and with buttons on the right side, and trousers or skirts of varied length. Some places such as the front of the garment and the sleeves are embroidered with colorful laces. They wear embroidered cloth around the waist and silver ornaments of various designs on the chest.
The dress of the Yeche women in some areas of Honghe County has a unique style. Women there wear a kind of soft hat with a pinnacle made with white cloth, at the back of which there is a length of swallow-tailed fringe embroidered with elegant patterns. In the upper part, they wear collarless indigo-blue short-sleeve coats made of local cloth, opening on the front with no buttons, and wrap the waist with colored belts, which are over ten centimeters wide. In the lower part of the body, they wear tight super shorts, deeming the manifestation of the original shape of buttocks tightened by shorts as beauty, and the parts below the shorts are uncovered. Until not long before had they kept this dress while farming in the field and chopping in the mountain. This type of shorts, named “Laba”, is greatly favored among young girls, who make the shorts themselves. They roll the pants edges tightly against the legs up to the buttocks, and stick them towards inside. At last, the pleats of the pants would appear as seven lines in the shape of V.
Yeche women take pride in wearing many clothes, as it represents a wealthy family and good looking. The upper garments can be divided into three types: coats, shirts and underclothes, and they usually add several dark blue artificial hems on the lower hem of the underclothes, row upon row and thus dazzling. However, when the New Year or any festival comes, girls are really heavy dressed: seven coats, seven shirts and one piece of underclothes. Meanwhile, they wear silver bracelets on the wrists and a pair of silver necklaces before the chest. On either side of their waist hang many silver slices and silver bubbles, clattering and jingling when they are walking, which is quite vigorous and graceful.
Such a kind of unsophisticated and particular dress stems from its historical legend. It is said that a long time ago, when the Yeche people were migrating from around Kunming to south, they were besieged by a powerful group. In order to survive, men blackened their faces with pan soot and women changed into shorts. They hit out along several different routes, broke the encirclement successfully, and finally inhabited in today’s southern Yunnan. To commemorate this success, the Yeche women went on wearing the set of dress thereafter.
