Woman's cotton waistband with applied cotton panels and silk embroidery, Shan, ca. 1885-1910

Woman's cotton waistband decorated with applied cotton panels and silk embroidery.

The waistband consists of a long dark-blue strip between two black pieces. To the latter are applied red, green and blue panels. A few of the applied panels have no decoration, but the rest carry patterns of Chinese stems and geometrical figures formed of silk embroidery and applied pieces of white cotton. Black silk fringes at the ends.

Acquired from Lady Scott - wife of Sir James George Scott - the great late 19th early 20th century English explorer, administrator and writer on Burma.

Cotton waistband worn by a woman of the Lisu ethnic group of north east Burma. Decorated with applied cotton pieces and silk embroidery. This waistband would have been worn over baggy Chinese style trousers or a wrap skirt together with a kaftan type coat, see Woman's Lisu costume IM.38-1934.

The Lisu are a Tibeto-Burman people who live throughout northeast Burma, along the China border. Preferring inaccessible spots, which can be easily defended they build their villages on high ridges and mountain tops. Although they keep animals, the Lisus are mainly farmers cultivating rice, buckwheat and vegetables. Little touched by either Christian or Buddhist influences, their religion involves ancestor worship and propitiation of spirits of the jungle, wind, earth, sky, village and crops.

IM.151-1929