Costumes of Lhoba Ethnic Minority

珞巴族服饰Costumes of Lhoba Ethnic Minority

One characteristic of Lhoba clothing is that the fiber of wild plants and animal skins are widely used. In the past, skirts made of straw found in the Jizhua canyon were very popular. Now, although women have homespun skirts and dresses, they still like to wear a straw skirt outside to protect the cloth skirt inside. Lhoba of both sexes were waistbands, which can be made of bones, leather, or wool, and are tied into various colorful patterns. The waistbands serve as belts, not only to bundle clothes, but also to hang knives, fire-makers, and ornaments made of bronze or shellfish. Ornamentation of the Apatani has included earrings, nose plugs and tattoos. Even stillborn children are decorated before they are buried. Children have woolen black threads tied on their waist and wrists after birth. Earrings are worn both by males and females. [Source: Encyclopaedia of Scheduled Tribes in India: Five Volume by P. K. Mohanty, 2006, webindia123.com \+/; Liu Jun, Museum of Nationalities, Central University for Nationalities, kepu.net.cn ~]

 Lhoba women usually wear collar-less, narrow-sleeved coats, which are made from flax, with a small piece of calf skin outside. In addition, they like wearing tight barrel-shaped skirts and wrap their legs into leggings, bundled tight by plant strips. Women pay a lot of attention to their ornaments. They wear silver and copper bracelets, rings, and dozens of blue-and-white-pearl necklaces, which may weigh up to several kilograms. These items are often accumulated from the many years of exchanges between families. They represent the wealth of a family. Whenever there is a celebration, Lhoba women like to dress up and compete with each other. To carry stuff they use bamboo back-baskets.”

 Men’s clothing has traditionally reflected their hunting life in the forest. Most of them wear woolen sleeveless, belly-length black jackets with a piece of wild bull skin on the back tied with a leather strip. When it is cold they wear Tibetan Pulu (Tibetan woven cloth) robes and blankets. Men of the Bogar tribe wear helmet-like hats made from bearskin. The hat is laced with a ring of bearskin, whose hair spreads out. There is usually a square piece of bearskin on the back of the hat. The hat is hard and can be used for concealment in hunting. When outside, they carry bows and arrows and wear swords at their side. ~

 Apatani males wear cane knitted rings which are locally called Tarin and are beautifully knitted from a particular cane known as Taer yasso. Their priests must put on the ring when they attend certain ceremonial occasions like Murung, Myoko and Subu. Many males have long hair and make a knot on the forehead known as piiding after carefully combing their hair a bamboo comb. On the knot is decoration horizontally tied with Dinchu (a metal chain). Apatani women wear necklaces of blue beads. Men wear ornaments made with a particular white bead called Milosampo during special occasions and children put on rings of white beads known as Rite. Adult males wear a loin cloth with cane matting hanging from the waist like a tail which is called Ahu-Yari. They also put on a number of cane matted rings known as huring around their waist. Women wear knitted Western-style skirts and thick white and black blouses. 

http://www.ihchina.cn/project_details/15257/