Introduction to Mongolian folk paper-cutting
Mongolian paper-cutting is an artistic technique used by northern nomads to use images as image marks and to carve and hollow out various materials. In the traditional nomadic life of the Mongolian people, from belief culture, clothing culture, festival culture to folk activities such as weddings and funerals, folk paper-cutting plays an important role as a symbol of cultural space and as a memory of the ethnic groups life. Mongolian leather-cutting art is most often used to decorate saddles and saddle pads. The leather is often cut into patterns such as birds, intestines, loops, and cross patterns, and is embroidered and sewn on the saddle, which is both eye-catching and decorative. Cut-skin appliques are also often used on popular folk leather bags and other daily necessities, or on clothing such as wrestling uniforms.
Among the colorful Mongolian folk embroideries, there are different types of paper-cut patterns such as boot flowers, pillow flowers, shoe flowers, bellyband flowers, and purse flowers. There are also felt embroideries and clothing appliques, which are cut first and then embroidered. Embroidery combined. The style of Mongolian paper-cutting is simple and unsophisticated, rich in the local appeal of the grassland. It often uses coiled intestines, curly grass, flowers and birds, cirrus clouds, pomegranates, watermelons, gourds, etc. as embroidery patterns. Some lace and corner patterns adopt regular symmetry or repeated two-dimensional continuous patterns. pattern. In the skin-cutting and paper-cutting in the grassland and pastoral areas, strange-looking images are often used, which are thick, enthusiastic, unrestrained, plump and concise. Most of the works appear in semi-sideways images, expressing various structures of objects in a stylized way. , full of vitality. For example, the midpoint of paper-cutting can represent pearls in headdresses, animal legs, and tree leaves; zigzag patterns can represent the feathers of birds and animals, and the wrinkles of clothes. The paper-cut layout also uses a transparent perspective method, that is, large and small superpositions. For example, small animals are carved on large animals. Large animals are generally regarded as the mothers of small lives. Small animals can be fetuses in the belly, which has a strong decorative effect. , this decorative style can also be seen in primitive rock paintings in the north.
In the vast Mongolian agricultural areas, the traditional flavor of paper-cutting still exists, and it has formed a colorful and colorful scene, but different regions have different characteristics. For example, in the Chifeng area of ??Inner Mongolia, people like to cut and carve hanging paper, which they decorate on their doors or at home during the New Year. They often use red, yellow, green, blue and other different colors of paper to carve out full patterns, and sometimes combine them with Chinese auspicious characters to make clever decorations. connection, which is obviously influenced by the paper-cutting in the Northeast. Blue Banner of Xilingol League near Hebei, Ulan near ShaanxiQabu League, Ordos adjacent to Shaanxi, Alxa League bordering Gansu and Ningxia, etc. are all influenced by the paper-cutting of fraternal ethnic groups in neighboring areas. They are combined with the "surface and line, or line and surface" of the northern window grilles, which are rough, vigorous, and deep. Simple, highly decorative, yet vivid and attractive" style is integrated into one. Because the Mongolian people live in a vast territory, they live together with different ethnic groups in different areas, and they integrate and change with other ethnic cultures during mutual interactions, forming folk paper-cutting with different local styles, which are also updated and transformed with the continuous development of society. , emerge in endlessly.
The national folk culture of the Mongolian people is far-reaching and mysterious. Mongolian totem legends call the wolf the ancestor of the paternal line and the deer the ancestor of the matriline. The famous "deer stone" remains widely distributed in the Mongolian Plateau, Tuva, Russia, Southern Siberia and the Altay region of Xinjiang, dating back at least 3,000 years, are considered to be totem poles, ancestor sacrificial poles and other purposes. There are also pottery statues unearthed at the Zhaobaogou Cultural Site in Chifeng, Inner Mongolia, about 6,000 years ago, and records in some Chinese historical records. It can be found that most of the early hunting people worshiped deer, offering deer to the gods to pray for blessings, or Integrating the concept of shamanic belief into it, starting from the deer that is closely related to the heaven and the specific phenomena related to it, the deer god of the heaven has become the spirit messenger that communicates between the light world and the netherworld and the symbol that communicates between the underground world and the heaven world.
The rock paintings of Yinshan Mountain in Inner Mongolia are also carved with scenes such as worshiping the sun and dancing toward the stars. Like folk paper-cut window grilles, they are the memory of ancient national culture passed down through images, systematically and vividly bringing the life scenes of early humans to life. record it. Before Lamaism was introduced to Inner Mongolia, the Mongolian people generally believed in shamanism. The Mongolian male shaman was called "Bo'e" and specialized in inviting gods (sacrifice animals), seducing gods (removing souls), leading gods (relying on spirits), and sending gods to others. Shamanic rituals are used to communicate between humans and gods to achieve people’s prayer wishes. This kind of shamanic witchcraft is usually performed in the form of singing and dancing to comfort womens morbid spirits, thereby calming ghosts and spirits. Todays Andai dance is derived from this shamanic culture and art.
