As a senior reporter of the Simao Television, a local TV broadcaster in southwestern part of Yunnan, Zheng Xianwen has also developed a longstanding interest in the life and culture of Kucong tribe, an ethnic minority neighboring his region in the province. According to Zheng, Kucong people were so poor in the past and their clothes were mostly made of cobwebs and banana trees leaves. However, such techniques are on the brink of extinction nowadays as making cobweb clothes is barely seen around anymore. Even younger Kucong people don’t even know about the existence of the once popular special clothes among their ancestor.
Zheng once worked in the region in the 1960′s and bore a strong sense of keeping the rare techniques of cobweb clothing making handed down. According to the amateur collector, his only collection of spiderweb clothing made of 300 cobwebs took him two days to finish during his designed trip to the Kucong tribe last November. In addition to the cobweb clothes, Zheng has also collected many living tools once used by the ethnic tribe. Zheng has not let anyone in on the ancient clothing-making secrets.
How fascinating, I would have thought that to make something that substantial would have taken a lot more than 300 webs...unless they were really big webs made by really big spiders which in case I would have gone naked instead.
ReplyDeleteI have my doubts too. If he's so concerned about preserving these ancient cultural practices, why isn't he telling the technique to anyone? Hmmmmm.
ReplyDeleteWhen I lived in Louisiana, I saw spiders as big as my hand. And they created HUGE webs! AGH!!!!
ReplyDeleteHe may not have passed on the way to make the clothing because no one wanted to work with cobwebs! Would you????
I can only imagine how it would be if flies got attached to this shawl, ugh!
ReplyDeleteI am all for cultural traditions and keeping the old ways going. A spider web coat is definitely Weird. Don't go anywhere with a fella wearing one, especially if he asks you to step into his parlor.
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