Baima Tibetan Hemp Weaving Craft

Pingwu County, located in China’s Tibet-Qiang-Yi Corridor, has been a settlement area for the Baima Tibetans since ancient times. Baima people have been wearing linen clothes on their bodies for generations, which is the traditional dress of Baima Tibetans. Since ancient times, Baima Tibetans have been wearing clothes and using linen cloth, and hemp weaving is a tradition preserved by Baima Tibetans from generation to generation. Baima cottage has the traditional custom of planting and weaving fire hemp. The fire hemp is the main raw material for weaving linen and making linen clothes of Baima people. Baima people weaving hemp cloth from planting fire hemp, has to go through harvesting, drying, cooking hemp, twisting hemp line, weaving hemp cloth and other processes. Weaving hemp cloth by hand, the weaving tools used, winding frame, twisting rod and so on are all traditional tools. The whole process of weaving a hemp cloth (about 6 meters) from the kind of fire hemp takes half a year. However, hemp cloth has good dyeing performance, not easy to damp and moldy, good moisture absorption, rapid heat dissipation, resistance to washing, heat resistance, etc., is the first choice of Baima Tibetan people who used to make clothes. Nowadays, there are still some Baima Tibetans like to wear handmade hemp cloth clothes.