Quick Answer: How Did Cotton Cloth Spread in China?
Archaeological finds show cotton in parts of China centuries before cotton spinning and weaving became major household industries. By the Ming dynasty, cotton making had become an important source of cloth and work in many communities.[1][7]
- Early finds: Cotton and seeds survive from a late Tang layer in Xinjiang.[1]
- Technical transmission: Huang Daopo (黄道婆, Huáng Dàopó) is remembered for bringing cotton-working knowledge from Hainan to the lower Yangtze region.[3][4]
- Production: Household spinning and weaving supplied cloth that could be finished in urban workshops.[6]
Read a cotton find, a weaving tool and a traded cloth as evidence for different parts of the story.
Silk robes are often what survives in collections of historical Chinese dress. Cotton tells another part of the story through plant remains, yarn, tools and lengths of cloth that people made for daily use and sale.
What Cotton Finds Can Tell Us
An archaeological layer in Xinjiang from around the ninth century preserved cotton along with seeds. These are evidence of cultivation in that area during the late Tang dynasty. A blue cloth from the Mogao Caves near Dunhuang, sample B63:5, also tested as cotton. Identifying the fiber in the cloth does not establish where its cotton grew.[1][2]
Before cotton gained a larger place in ordinary dress, people also made cloth from bast fibers taken from plant stems. Cotton comes from fibers surrounding the seed. Chinese hemp textiles and Chinese ramie clothing trace separate plant fibers that continued to have uses as cotton cloth spread.[7]
What Huang Daopo Passed On
The tradition of Wunijing (乌泥泾, Wūníjīng), in the Songjiang area of present-day Shanghai, connects Huang Daopo with cotton-working skills learned from Li people on Hainan. She is remembered as returning around the early Yuan dynasty and improving seed removal, fiber preparation, spinning and weaving. The local tradition credits her with sharing those methods in Wunijing, where households took up cotton work.[3][4]
Wunijing also preserves names for patterned products. The local account associates color and motif selection with woven designs such as flowering branches and round phoenix motifs. Its hand cotton textile craft entered the national intangible cultural heritage list in 2006.[3]
Follow the Work From Fiber to Cloth
Cotton first had to be cleaned of seeds and loosened before spinning. Yarn could then be set up on a loom and woven. A nineteenth-century collection made near Shanghai included a picking basket, roving ready to spin, a spinning wheel and a loom with unfinished cloth. The roving shows fibers prepared for spinning, while the unfinished cloth shows the next stage at the loom.[6]
In the Nantong area, early Qing migrants from Chongming and nearby parts of Jiangnan brought spinning and weaving skills. Local households produced cloth, including fabrics made from yarn colored before weaving.[5] In Chinese cotton printing and stencil-resist blue calico, the design is added to fabric after the loom.
Read the Cotton That Survived
The nineteenth-century Shanghai collection includes printed cotton lengths as well as records of plain and dyed cloth. Household weaving supported a trade in yarn and fabric, and specialists in urban workshops dyed, printed or finished cloth. A surviving length can therefore contain work done at several places.[6]
European buyers imported plain, closely woven Chinese cotton known as nankeen. The trade name reflects its historical association with Nanjing. Cloth marketed under that name was also made elsewhere. Read an export name as a trade description until a record establishes a place of manufacture.[6]
FAQs About Chinese Cotton Textile History
Did Huang Daopo introduce cotton to China?
Cotton was present in Xinjiang by the late Tang. The tradition around Huang Daopo concerns improvements and teaching in cotton processing and weaving centuries later.[1][3]
How did cotton differ from hemp and ramie?
Cotton is a seed fiber. Hemp and ramie are bast fibers from stems. Historical households used these materials in different combinations over time.[7]
Does nankeen always come from Nanjing?
The name reflects its association with Nanjing. It was also applied to undyed plain-woven cotton made elsewhere.[6]
Sumber
[1] National Museum of China. Cotton From a Late Tang Archaeological Layer
[2] China National Silk Museum. Scientific Study of Textiles From the Mogao Caves
[3] China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network. Wunijing Hand Cotton Spinning and Weaving
[4] Shanghai Municipal Government. Huang Daopo Memorial Park
[5] Nantong Municipal Government. Flourishing Cotton and Textile Industries
[6] National Museums Scotland. The Material Lives of Ordinary People: Rare 19th-Century Chinese Cotton
[7] University of Washington. Making Cloth in China