(HBĐT) - In daily life and production, the Muong people in Hoa Binh have created, preserved and developed their own unique cultural values. One of the factors that makes Muong culture unique is traditional costumes and the art of decorating patterns on the waistband of skirts.
Women in Muong Vo region (Lac Son) guide and teach their children how to wear costumes that show off the Muong ethnic skirt waistband patterns.
When describing the traditional costumes of Muong ethnic women, Professor Nguyen Tu Chi (1925-1995), a leading ethnologist of Vietnam in the 20th century, an expert on Muong people and Vietnamese villages, once wrote: "They do not carve on wood, stone, pottery, metal, do not carve wooden statues, stone statues, do not mold clay statues, do not cast bronze statues, but they weave their aesthetic concepts into the waistbands of women's skirts. The waistbands here are like statues, like paintings!". In previous generations, from a very young age, Muong girls were taught by their grandmothers and mothers how to spin and weave. A little older, they learned to create patterns on the waistbands of their skirts. Almost all Muong girls know how to make their own most beautiful traditional costumes to wear on their wedding day and to attend festivals.
Comrade Bui Kim Phuc, Head of the Department of Cultural Management, Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism said: The art of decorative patterns on traditional costumes of the Muong people in Hoa Binh has existed for a long time, on the one hand reflecting the human values of the ancient Vietnamese people, at the same time expressing the aesthetic sense, creativity and skillful hands of those who weaved it. The group that created the decorative art on the waistband of traditional skirts are women, who are also the subjects who preserve and pass on the quintessence to the next generations.
In fact, the art of decorating traditional patterns on the waistband of the Muong people in Hoa Binh is facing the risk of fading away. The Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism has conducted a survey in some localities and found that the demand for traditional costumes in the community is decreasing. The number of people who know how to pick patterns and decorate costumes is not much, mainly the elderly. Young people rarely practice and are not interested in the art of decorating traditional costumes. In communes and hamlets where Muong people live in concentration, very few children know how to pick patterns and weave traditional patterns. The profession of growing cotton, weaving fabric, and dyeing colored threads is increasingly fading away. Instead, people buy industrial black fabric, colored fabric, and ready-made colored threads, which are convenient for the industrialization and modernization period. Muong costumes are also gradually stylized, changing from the waistband to the color used to dye the waistband.
According to Ms. Bui Thi Niem, Director of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the technique of creating patterns on the waistband of the Muong ethnic group in Hoa Binh is a traditional craft. Some Muong ethnic communities in the districts of Tan Lac, Lac Son, and Yen Thuy are holding the heritage as the main owners. In recent years, the province has always paid attention to the work of protecting and promoting the value of cultural heritage, including the costumes of ethnic minorities. In order to effectively carry out the task of preserving and promoting the artistic heritage of creating patterns on the waistband of the Muong ethnic group in Hoa Binh, in addition to the solution of state management of cultural heritage from the provincial, district to grassroots levels, the province needs to strengthen propaganda, introduction, and promotion of the beauty, cultural values, and history of traditional costumes to all classes of people, the young generation, and children of the Muong ethnic group. Thereby raising awareness of the unique cultural value of traditional costumes, national pride to have more awareness and responsibility in preserving and promoting the value of traditional costumes. Research, collect and record images of traditional costumes used in specific conditions and circumstances such as festivals, spiritual rituals... to have documents for restoration, preservation and promotion; bring the art of decorating patterns on the waistband of Muong people's skirts into schools, especially boarding schools with many Muong ethnic students so that they can learn how to decorate patterns, create costumes and voluntarily wear traditional costumes. On the other hand, conducting research, restoring ancient patterns and preserving pattern-making techniques is considered a treasure trove of unique folk knowledge, reflecting the thinking, understanding of nature, society, philosophy of life, creativity, and artistic level of Muong people. Implement conservation activities associated with tourism development, turning Muong costumes into unique and attractive tourism products.
Bui Minh
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